Many people look at my scar and think to themselves, “poor girl, what could have possibly happened to her?” The first thoughts that pass through there minds are, she must have fallen and hurt herself badly, or maybe she got into a terrible car accident, but in my situation, this is not at all the case. This was an unexpected and unforgettable scar. The scar’s background is definitely unimaginable. On that note, I will get into greater detail of how I got my scar.
On the date of September 13th, 2006, something horrible happened at Dawson College. Dawson is the school I attend. On the morning of the 13th, I went my first class. It was like every other normal school day, or at least I thought it was. When my first class ended, I took a walk to Dawson’s atrium, where everyone was playing cards, eating lunch and just having a good time. I sat down with one of my friends and started having a conversation with her. Everything was going well, when all of a sudden I heard shots being fired, my first impression was that it was firecrackers, but when I turned around, I realized it was something much more serious. A man holding a gun, dressed in black, with a look of anger in his eyes was standing in front of us all. He felt the need to let us all know that he was angry and not joking. He began firing shots all over the atrium, he didn’t care which one of us he shot, as long as he got to hurt some of us, because that was his mission, to kill. As I was lying on the floor with my hands over my head, I felt something throw my entire body to the side, when I looked down at my arm, it was gushing blood and that’s how I realized I was shot. This boy gave me his hand and started pulling me away from the danger scene. I thought that since I was getting help I’d be fine, once again I was wrong. I looked up for two seconds, only to notice that the gunman’s eyes were fixed on me, even though it was only two seconds, it felt like a million years. He shot once more at me, this time he hit me in my right kneecap. The bullet was so strong that it damaged my entire kneecap. So now, here I was, left bleeding on the floor, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. When the horrible ordeal ended, and the gunman took his own life, the ambulance rushed inside to get me and brought me to a nearby hospital. I was immediately operated on, and this is how the scar on my knee came about. In a way, I can say that this scar has a lot of meaning to me. It symbolizes my courage, my strength and my survival. The process of doing this project/assignment was quite simple. I went on the website called, www.learningtoloveyoumore.com. This is where I read all of Miranda July’s assignments. As I scrolled through the assignments, I was looking for one that I could relate to and write the most about. When I came across the assignment, “photograph a scar and write about it,” I chose it right away. I, then followed Miranda’s directions. I took a digital camera and photographed my scar, on a good angle of course. At such an angle, that my whole scar was visible. I, then collected my thoughts and feelings about the way I was going to describe and talk about my scar. The scar assignment was chosen because it had the most significance to me, and I had a solid story to tell about it.
What is art? A lot of the time, art is defined and thought of as paintings on the wall, museums and arts and crafts, like cutting, gluing, coloring and putting materials together. This website shows otherwise. It redefines the ideas that we regularly would have about art. It shows us that life itself is art, and that anything we want to look at, in a way, can be art as well. There is no such thing as something that “has” to be art, but there is such a thing as what you “want” art to be. I think that Miranda’s goals, with this site, is to have us really think, understand, and take into account the different types of arts there can be. She shows us just how creative she can get with some assignments that she gives, for example, photographing a scar and writing about it, is not regularly an assignment that we would receive, or even taking a picture of the sun and writing about it, for that matter. She wants us to be aware that anything can be elaborated on, and made into something that has some sort of meaning to us. Even when we think we have gotten the stupidest assignments, we get our little minds working and giving ideas and opinions within no time, and when we finally have all sorts of things to say, that’s when we realize that the assignment wasn’t so stupid after all. In conclusion, I think that Miranda’s goals are to get us to look at life itself as art, to get us to collect our thoughts and feelings about things we wouldn’t regularly think to elaborate on, on our own time. Most importantly, she wants us to know that our ideas, opinions and stories count as something, even though the rest of the world may think of it as nothing, to each one’s self, it may be considered art. Art is something out of the ordinary, it can symbolize and hold meaning for someone, and it can also bring out ideas and opinions in someone as well. So, in this case, this is why I chose the assignment #11, because it brought out all these feelings in me. I can also see what Miranda July is trying to make us understand, and I fully well grasp her concepts.