Digital Stories: My Abstract Expressionism

Convergence 1952, Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock's style of painting, as exemplified by Convergence, is one of the most important, innovative developments in the history of painting. When Pollock created the painting, the United States was at the induction of the 'cold war' with Russia. Convergence was the embodiment of free speech, and freedom of expression. It was everything that America stood for all wrapped up in a messy, but emotionally deep package.

The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. ”
-Jackson Pollock

Digital Stories: My Abstract Expressionism

I am exhausted and my mind remains a jumbled mess of information, new ideas, and anxiety about the coming weeks. I see my work this week and am reminded of the great Jackson Pollock in many different ways. 

In first, I saw digital storytelling much like an amateur see's the work of Jackson Pollock, having no reference, I questioned the technicality of the craft. When most people look at Pollock’s work, they see only splatters of paint, with no skill or talent to lay them on the giant canvases, I saw digital story telling as processing IMovie’s and creating posts, simple writing, who couldn't do that? I now realize the brevity and scope of what we call 'digital story telling'. Like Pollock, I am learning to use the tools that I have used forever in a new ways, hoping to master the techniques enough to make them mine own, and display a successful body of work that both incorporates my new understanding of digital literacy and my passion for art and change. 

The week started off with much anxiety and fear of failing, but now I can see that I just need to utilize what I do know and think of using the tools in a new way. I love the daily 'creates', and hope to modify them in my classroom in the coming year, giving students a way to be creative in an outside the box, again using the tools we have with a new way of thinking about their purpose. 

As Pollock battled his own demons, the digital era continues to be mine, there is so much that I like about being connected, but also abhor. Through Twitter, the network of like minded change agents is amazing, but I still feel that I am missing the world around me as I surf through the countless posts. I am amazed with the amount of people that have followed me, are it weird to want to know why? I am not sure about annotating and the hypothesis site, I still have a lot to learn about finding the comments, it was kind of fun... (Oh dear, does that mean I am becoming a digital nerd?)

Pollock spent a short eleven years working with his now famous technique before his death, I feel like 8 weeks is not nearly enough time to become even a budding digital story teller, to learn the tools and truly understand the spectrum of information that is being presented. However I do love a challenge, and true to the principle, I do my best work under stress. Like Pollock learning to fling paint fuelled by emotion, I have learned to use so many of these tools that we all are surrounded with; Twitter, Flicker, Sound wave, and I even encountered a new arena " Notey in my digital travels. I still wonder if I am writing too much or too little, there are so many rule to the grammar, syntax and construction of digital language that I don't yet understand. 

Completing all the assignments on time, and though I know that I will improve, I think I was quite successful. I hate the ideas of grades, but since we are constructed in the way that they are the end all be all- I would say that I met expectations. I hope to grow as a blogger and build the amount of resources that I use for daily creates and the assignments (which I also found to be very intriguing). 

Jackson Pollock' Biography

http://www.jackson-pollock.org/biography.jsp

Jackson Pollock's style of painting, as exemplified by Convergence, is one of the most important, innovative developments in the history of painting. When Pollock created the painting, the United States was at the induction of the 'cold war' with Russia. Convergence was the embodiment of free speech, and freedom of expression. It was everything that America stood for all wrapped up in a messy, but emotionally deep package.