Writing Journal 1: Deciding on a Research Topic

Coincidentally, I think the idea for my research paper sprouted from one of our first homework assignments in this class, which was the first reading out of Desmond Rochfort’s book entitled Mexican Muralists. Prior to entering this writing seminar I assumed that we would be analyzing art, in particular murals, by talking about the color composition and other physical properties of the art. However, the first reading set the tone that each piece of art had a much deeper meaning, and a historical back story. As I read, the coinciding Mexican Muralist movement and Mexican Revolution intrigued me more and more. Up to this point, I could never have conceived the profound affect that art could have on propaganda and overall morale towards a current war.

This new and deeply thought provoking notion of the connection between a seemingly powerless mural being created for a deeper and more profound purpose led me to search for the origin or creator of this idea. In my opinion, the early twentieth century Mexican Muralist movement originated with the ideas of Gerardo Murillo, or Dr. Atl. It is true that leaders like Porfirio Diaz and Jose Vasconcelos greatly attributed to the birth of this movement through their government commissions and other subsidized incentives. Also, other artists at the time shared a similar sentiment as Dr. Atl, but I believe it was Atl that largely pioneered this idea. As a result, many people argue that he is the godfather of modern Mexican art, including me.

Additionally, the idea of this art being public and its inherent availability to be viewed free of any cost interested me. Later on in the course we started talking about who authorizes public art, and this notion got me thinking further on my topic. The Mexican Muralist movement was able to take such strong roots in the community because of its aid from the government. The Mexican government allocated funds to commission these famous artists. I found that idea interesting because in my hometown of Boston, Massachusetts graffiti art exists in many places, but it is obvious that the art was not commissioned by the city of Boston. Combining the ideas of the abundance of public art and the inception of the Mexican Muralist movement started by Gerardo Murillo makes up the general scope of my research paper.

Writing Journal 2: Finding Sources

After I finalized my researched paper, I began looking for sources. I started off with the Desmond Rochfort book, Mexican Muralists. The first two chapters of that book sparked my interest for my research paper, so I went back and re read those two chapters, this time annotating anything concerning Dr. Atl or that I thought could help in my research project. Next, I took to the internet and found a short article including many significant specifics on Dr. Atl’s life that I used to help write my introduction. Later, I began using the Dartmouth Library website and found a book with a chapter on Orozco and Siqueiros’s time at the Academy of San Carlos. Dr. Atl was the director of the Academy at the time those two studied there so the book provided incite on how they were effected by Dr. Atl while they were students. The book was also available to download as a PDF so I was able to bypass checking the book out of the Dartmouth Library or using Borrow Direct.

However, Dr. Atl is not an incredibly well-researched or written about topic and other than that one book it was difficult to find books that pertained to my research paper. Additionally, many of the books that might be of some use were written in Spanish. This led me to using more JSTOR and other internet approaches to finding specific articles on Dr. Atl and public Mexican art in the 1910-30’s.

In terms of searching for my pieces of art that I would use in my research paper, I looked mainly in the Desmond Rochfort book. Other than Dr. Atl’s artwork that I needed to use google to find images on, the main murals painted by Los Tres Grandes were all depicted in the Rochfort book. I did my research on these murals during my writing process for Response Paper 3. Much of my research for that paper piggy backed my overall research for my final paper.

Writing Journal 3: First Draft of Research Paper

When it came to writing my first draft of my research paper I divided the work up into two different sections. The first part was my introduction. When I submitted my initial research paper topic and annotated bibliography the portion of the assignment where I described my topic contained many of the main ideas that I later used in the introduction. After I completed that I went back to the work I had done and expanded upon those ideas and revised until I was happy with my introduction for the first draft

The second part of the first draft was the work I put in for Response Paper 3. The Response Paper 3 on who authorizes public art was modeled to be a section in my research paper. Analyzing some of the famous murals by Los Tres Grandes produced during the Mexican Mural movement was important in my paper to show the kinds of works that Dr. Atl inspired Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros to create.

With those two sections totaling around eight of my total fifteen pages combined I felt like I had a solid foundation on which I could build my final research paper. I left a chunk of work for the final draft, but my schedule allotted plenty of time to write my final draft, and I was extremely busy during the rough draft submission.

Writing Journal 4: Final Draft of the Research Paper

As I began tweaking my rough draft, adding content for my final draft, and citing my work I had to constantly rework my introduction. I find that after I finish the body of my essay I have to go back to the introduction to make sure the introduction acts as a proper road map for the rest of the essay. After I think my introduction is sufficient and my body is complete I began writing the conclusion of the essay. The conclusion was fairly difficult for me to write because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t restating the intro and thus using a circular logic as my Writing 5 professor stated in the Fall.

At the end I formatted the paper by entitling the image (Figure 1, 2,3, etc) and posting the URL underneath of it. This was surprisingly frustrating for me because allocating enough space for each image and making sure the spacing didn’t get messed up was a little harder than I expected. When I posted it into the website I also had to repeat the process. However, posting it in WordPress was a little easier than I expected because entitling each image with the bibliographic information is easily inserted into to the caption of the image, so it is actually easier than Microsoft Word. After I was finished with the paper and the website I began reflecting on the course as a whole, which I’ll talk about in my next Writing Journal entry.

Writing Journal 5: Final Reflections

Reflecting on the course two days of class stick out to me, and will resonate with me for the rest of my time here at Dartmouth and perhaps beyond. The first day visiting the Orozco murals in the library was so interesting to me because before that day I’d always taken the mural for granted, and never really taken the time to look at it. While I was cognizant of its existence, I never spent any time looking at it or analyzing what any of it meant. The introduction to Jose Clemente Orozco and the Mexican Muralist movement was made perfectly by visiting those murals.

The second day that stuck out and resonated with me was the class we spent visiting the Hovey Murals. Before this course, I wasn’t even aware of the Hovey Murals existence, let alone the fact that they are blocked off to the public. It’s amazing to me that these murals were a representative of the time in which they were painted. While many of the images are somewhat appalling in the way women and native Americans are depicted, the mural is nevertheless aesthetically pleasing and interesting. I found myself glued to the mural for the entire class period, learning about the history of Dartmouth College. I’m nearly certain that if not for this course I would never have visited these murals, which is a little unfortunate because I think it is important for each student at Dartmouth to visit these murals before they graduation.