Monday, December 7, 2015

Journal 11 : Morgan Kiehl

     For Journal 11, I chose the profile of a wildly artistic women by the name of Evangeline "Van" Calvin.  Calvin withheld the title of a Mannequin restorer.  When I began to read Calvin's profile, I was greeted by a rather different photo on the front page of her profile in David Isay's and Harvey Wang's novel.  The photo is that of Calvin surrounded by the carefully painted faces of her  Mannequins, while Calvin's mannequins wear expressive faces, Calvin's face wears a blank stare into the camera.  I thought of this photo as rather ironic, due to the fact that Calvin painted such emotion onto the faces of her mannequins, but her herself wears a blank stare.  I believe the emotion displayed in the photo of Calvin is important because it shows how much she is possibly drained from the dedication to painting the faces on her mannequins.  A second observation I made while reading Calvin's profile was the uniqueness of her art form.  I myself have never heard or seen of people that take ahold of the art form of painting mannequins.  My final observation rather humored me while reading this profile.  One of the very first quotes from Calvin is " My name is Evangeline Maude Calvin. I am ninety. No I'm not ninety yet. I'm eighty."  I think this quote showed another important personality trait from Calvin, I sensed a lot of humor and wit coming from Calvin when I read this quote.

     More often that not, young people with aspirations to pursue dreams within less that reliable fields of work, tend to be shot down and told that they should find work with better job security or better benefits. Often, Leaving behind unfinished dreams in search for a job that will bring in a reliable paycheck.  I connected Calvin's profile to a lot of young people today with those big dreams.  I believe Calvin shows us that no matter how eccentric your passion may be, if you work hard, the key being you have to work really hard, that your dreams can become your career.

     Some questions that I had while reading this profile would be, how does Calvin work with such a steady hand while in her eighty's or ninety's? . Another questions I thought of while reading the profile was, how did you sell your first mannequin ? Was it easy to sell ? Did you always have a plan to eventually make this talent pay your bills?

Theme-  Generational Talent

     Calvin's mother was also a very talented artist
   
     

4 comments:

  1. I like your observation and prediction on why you think Calvin wears a blank stare, I agree with you. I want to add to your prediction and say that maybe with her strokes she cannot express emotion the same as when she was younger and healthier, so she paints her emotions on to the mannequins to express them for her.

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  2. I enjoyed your connections to the real world about how we leave behind dreams to purse better paying jobs or paying attention to people saying " no you cant do that".

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  3. If you do something so many times you get good at something. Consistently good at something. I believe sense she has been working for decades upon decades, that that is why she is able to write so steadily even through she is old.

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  4. I liked your topic. I did the same lady, she is very interesting lady

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