Freak gets and "A" in my book

So I finally have learned the real name of “Freak,” as it turns out his legal name is Joshua Ahrens. For this assignment Freak decided to write “No One” on a piece of tape and stick it to his paper, which he later balled up and stuck two pencils in (in the shape of an ‘X’ of course.) To top it all off, he then dug a hole and buried it.
Initially I wasn’t really sure how to take Freak’s assignment. How do you grade someone on his or her representation of his or her self? I sat down on a picnic table to think about it a little longer. I tore a small piece of paper out of my notebook and wrote on it, “How can no one leave a mark?”
I then started thinking more and more about what he had to say. I didn’t really agree with what he said. I feel like he will probably be the most memorable person from the class. Ten years down the road I’ll be talking about this course that bored me to death. I will remember nothing except, “There was this guy, we called him Freak…”
Anyway, I really started to look deeper into his project. Then it started to make since to me. I’m sure it probably wasn’t intentional, but there was quite a bit of symbolism in his project. I think inside he might really feel like he is ‘no one.’ Maybe that’s something that he wants to ball up and bury deep inside of him. Maybe he’s had to deal with other’s telling him that he is ‘no one’. Which seems so different from the Freak we see in class. He seems extremely confident in himself and fearless. Not in the sense that he would try to cut someone, more in the sense that you would need to watch what you dare him to do because it’s as good as done. That’s why it was hard for me to agree with him when he said he was ‘no one’. The Freak we see in class is certainly full of life and seemingly self-assured.
When I take it all in, and try to analyze, it makes sense to me. If this project is really Joshua Ahrens on paper, then this was a very real project. What the project says to me is that Joshua has a low self-image of himself and Freak overcompensates.
Maybe I am completely wrong, but that’s what I think. It’s possible, however, that I see it in that sense, because I relate to it. When I was younger I was extremely depressed, eventually I was standing on the suicidal line. On the outside, you would have never guessed it. I was the happiest person you had ever met. Inside, I was in agony. The only real sign was my writing. Which I didn’t even know was a sign. I didn’t really let anyone read, but the few that did were like, ‘wow, we need to get you some help.’ I really had no idea how sad I was.
So enough about me; I guess I am looking at his project like a contemporary art piece. This is what I get from it. Which really makes me think twice about how we look at art. It’s important that people can relate to it, regardless if that’s what you meant or not. I mean, kind of like R.E.M songs. Most of the time you have no idea was Michael Stipes is saying, but you feel it. He could be singing about how chicken shit is stinky, who knows, but you feel it. Art speaks to us, but only when we can hear it. When it relates to us, when it’s something we understand and can comprehend. That’s what we are missing in this class: Relatability. If we could relate the Art 21 stuff to ourselves, it would be meaningful to us. Maybe the class doesn’t know itself. If we did then we could appreciate the class more. I understand the ‘it works if you work it’ argument, but I don’t, personally, feel that is the case. We need to have commonality in the class. We haven’t even gotten an opportunity to really get to know each other. After today, I now officially know one more person’s name…, which takes me up to maybe knowing 5 people’s name. Maybe. I think we need to know secrets. If we could take off for a while around the building, right down a secret, then through it in a hat. Random people draw it out of the hat and read it aloud, or something.
So I’m going on track. The moral of the story, I would give Freak an “A”. Regardless if it had much meaning for him, I think it had a very deep meaning to me. In my eyes, it seemed like it was a pretty naked moment. The beauty of it all, is that it doesn’t really matter what he meant, because I get to own it now…. We all do. Like deleting Damon’s art. We all own that experience. We are the only one’s that know what was there.