Reading Journal 10/1

While flipping through the New York Times this week, it became clear to me that it is always easier for me to get through news articles concerning art and culture. Although I do read political and economic articles, the arts is where my passion lies. At the present moment, Carol Vogel of the New York Times has caught my eye as one of their standout writers. Her voice is familiar and comfortable, yet informative and intelligent. One article I enjoyed most was her write up on pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, who is opening a black-and-white exhibit at The Morgan Library on Friday, October 22nd, 2010. Carol opens this article by jumping right into the content, rather than pointlessly introducing the author in a mundane format. She starts off right away by telling us the artist's source of inspiration, which is mundane images such as ads for foot medication, hot dogs and BB guns. Although I have yet to see the exhibit, Roy's style seems similar to Andy Warhol's, which is hugely positive in my mind. It makes sense that Vogel is writing about Lichtenstein, because she has done articles on rare Warhol pieces that were being sold in the past.

Vogel's style makes me reflect on my own, and inspires me to cut out extra words and go straight for the content, something I have always struggled with, but steadily improved upon. Her opening sentence for the Lichtenstein article is "Inspired by mundane images, Roy Lichtenstein managed to create art that has become the stuff of legend: illustrations of advertisements for things like foot medication, hot dogs and BB guns, not to mention his signature reinterpretations of comic book images." (NY Times) Her use of specific examples and a somewhat sweeping statement ("the stuff of legend") in the first sentence really grabs her readers and gets them hooked, allowing her to easily segue into the real content with no awkward transitions. I find this no nonsense approach to be extremely inspiring because it eliminates fluff and forces the writer to only include vital information in a succinct way. After following Vogel's work this past week, I am convinced that I must truly tailor my writing style to be more acute and less frilly.