While reading Jenny Holzer’s Truisms, I noticed that she was to be considered a neo-conceptual artist. Jenny turned to strategies of mass media and advertising in her work which is a way to get noticed in my opinion and to actually get your name out there. She was known for Truisms which started in 1979 and then carried on this tradition by putting up truisms in local areas in Manhattan to bring out her work to random people. She used these truisms as a symbol to represent people and the things that hurt people or things that bring people down. She shows that just behind a person holds the life of human and the battles that they may have gone through. It made it to where people can relate to other people that may be going through the same thing. Her work and her meaning are still displayed today in famous world museums that people can see all over the world.
My truism comes from one of the most difficult times in my life when I went off to college. I went away to college my first year and lived in Athens with none of my friends and 3 random roommates that I ended up hating. I went to class and basically came back to my apartment….alone. I always felt alone. I didn’t get to make friends that well. I wanted to come home all of the time. I struggled with my classes. I didn’t make the best grades my first year. I just hated everything and I could not wait to switch schools. I learned that it could always be worse and that it would all be over before I knew it and I just prayed for the best with the next year in my life. I figured that it wasn’t time for me to leave home, my friends and family. I thought I was ready, but it ended up that I just was not ready for that point in my life to grow up and be “alone.”
I like the Truism statement you chose, because it’s definetly true and I agree with it 100%. I also love your paragraph of your hardship you experienced in college and how you picked yourself up and got it together and you didn’t let anything hold you back or make you give up. Life does go on and we have to keep going with it.
Although the statement is a well known saying (which is something you were instructed to avoid) I think it’s a good reflection of something that you learned from your experiences. I wish that you’d had a better time in Athens – it’s a great school, for sure. Your sentiment about “life going on” seems a little dismal though – I hope that your current circumstances have improved.
It is true Life must go on I left my house when I was seventeen, the feeling of being alone is terrifying it is hard to live alone. When I was in the navy I was deployed twice aboard a submarine every day was a struggle to be surrounded by people but be so alone. I kept a journal and read the bible and the one theme that kept me going was life must go on. Next time you decide to go out on your own remember no matter where you are your family is just a phone call away.
Having strength in hard times is not easy. You are a very strong woman to endure that. In that situation it can be easy to let the bad things get you down and keep you there.