Entry 4

On the Final Draft of My Research Paper

This term, my writing process was no doubt most difficult between the initial draft of my research paper and the final draft. I’d never written a research paper of this length before, and at the same time as I really wanted to be thorough I also wasn’t quite sure what depth was appropriate. I presented a lot of ideas, because I really enjoyed my research and learned a ton of interesting information that I wanted to bring up. My main challenge was how to make all of these points come together to contribute to a more streamlined idea. I think I tackled this mostly by presenting them in an order that made the most sense to me. This was often chronological, in regards to Rivera’s time in Europe, but it also involved making sure transitions to other less related ideas were smooth. I wanted to bridge the gap between Rivera’s experience with European Cubism and his later mural work in Mexico and the U.S. I’m not sure how effectively I did this, but I tried to do it through a discussion of his aesthetic style that carried over from Europe to his work in the Americas. Finally, I wanted a conclusion that came back to the ideas in my first paragraph but also connected these ideas to a broader significance, which was the idea of the role of an “artist” in society. I argued that an artist’s place is not to choose or present moral judgement, but to express one’s unique view of the world and all its truths. Rivera never really chose a side; he was constantly writing political and social paradoxes with his life. However, I wanted to argue that this was essential to his role as an artist, and that we as viewers of his work shouldn’t focus on his political message. Instead, we should take his work as a vital and colorful exhibition of the thoughts and visions of a man who lived his life in pursuit of constantly seeing more. We should take his scores of experiences as support for his ideas, and his credibility comes from these sometimes contradictory involvement with many people, places, and ideas.