Pressure Drop

It's weird, transitioning from being in school to being on break. All of a sudden I have nothing to do. It's like school teaches me to forget how to entertain myself. But I think I've always been like that. I find it hard to keep myself entertained unless I'm doing something art related.

So, I suppose the solution is to do art stuff all summer? But...that requires money. And I can't use the darkroom. Which is complete bullshit.

I do want to try my hand at painting, which is something I've earlier expressed an interest in tackling this summer. So maybe I'll save up some money for some brushes and paints and a canvas and have at it. I just need to pay for my carpet to get cleaned, pay off my speeding ticket, buy myself some recreational fun items, buy myself new shoes, a new bathing suit, and apply for art shows first. So, you know, that won't take forever or anything. Ugh.

Magic Dance

I guess I should be a good artist and work on photo stuff this summer. I can't seem to find the motivation to set up photoshoots or anything. I can't even afford milk. So, my priorities need to get in order.

I want to be as unproductive as humanly possible this summer. Is that bad? Shouldn't I feel motivated and inspired and blah blah blah? Ugh. Damn.

Maybe it'll come to me.

Fuck You

No, seriously, go fuck yourself.

Stay Together For The Kids

Sometimes, I really hate that this happens.

That I get affected so easily by what's happening around me. And I know that other people notice and think I'm weird and blah blah blah.

I wish I weren't so paranoid. I wish that I could believe that people might actually genuinely like me. I wish I could believe that I was something worth liking.

Whine. Anyway.

Everyones At It

I get how drugs are harmful and all that, but why is there such a stigma about it?
Seriously?

Cigarettes are harmful, and one of the quickest things to get physically addicted to. Alcohol is pretty fucked up when you think about it, and yet we push that shit down teenagers throats like it was healthy. I just don't understand how certain substances got the short straw while others are 'cool' and get glorified.

Everything is better in moderation.

Save Me

But I've learned my lesson.

I'm the only one who can save myself. I'm my own hero in disguise. I'm Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Superman, all in one.

True Love Will Find You In The End

I wish more people believed in Karma.
Now, religion is a tricky subject (and yes, I'm counting Buddhism as a religion, even though a lot of people don't. But it is, and it's a little offensive to practicing Buddhists to have their religion discredited from theological debates). And ideas similar to Karma come up a lot in different religions. But the true, pure idea of karma is something I live by, and it makes me really content, and I wish I could share that glimmer of inner peace with others.
Basically, to those who don't know, Karma is the idea that whatever you put out into the universe you get back. This comes up a lot in Wiccan practice (every spell cast comes back three fold or ten fold, I forget which). Any negative thoughts come back to you, and any positive thoughts come back to you.
This is how I live my life, always wishing the best for everyone, even if I don't know them. Even if I have every right to hate them. I can't make myself hate them, because I don't want to be hated. I can't wish ill on anyone, because I don't wish ill on myself. I think that this forces me to try to see others perspectives, try to truly understand their actions before jumping to conclusions and making myself a victim, which is really important to me.

Just...a useless rant, I guess. I don't know. Eh.

Daydreaming

There are two types of people, I believe: people who hardly ever daydream and people who never stop.
Unfortunately, I am one of those people who never stops daydreaming. It's great for my artwork, but not great for real life.
It means I'm an absolutely terrible listener; since I was a child, it's been really hard for me to comprehend audibly. They made me get my hearing tested in 6th grade because I was tested on learning capabilities through various forms and my audible comprehension was so low they figured I wasn't hearing the instructions properly. No, I just don't know how to make myself listen. I'm much better at visual comprehension.
It means that if I'm not looking at you speak I probably have no idea what you're saying. Not because I can't hear you but because I can't get my mind to focus on what you're saying unless I'm looking at you.
It means that I can NEVER pay attention in class. Ever. It's why I take such meticulous notes, so that I can go back later and re teach myself everything I was already supposed to have learned.

While I was taking anti-anxiety medication, I found that this was never a problem. Which I guess means that my incessant daydreaming is a byproduct of my severe anxiety. It's how I cope with being around people in the real world. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anthropophobic, but leaving my house gives me severe anxiety. And I just daydream to disconnect myself from feeling anxious about being around people. But it has detrimental side effects, I believe. Not severe, but just enough to be upsetting to me. Because I want to feel good about leaving my house and going outside, and I want to be more extroverted.

Digital Final

Time And Narrative

I am not sure how I feel about this particular series. While I am normally all about creating narratives, I struggled with expressing my idea properly. I wanted it to not be a direct narrative, but more implied, more spaced out, more about feeling than plot. My main topic, I suppose, was an extension of whatever existential crisis I have been having as of late. I wanted to express that weird loneliness; that surreal, irrational feeling that we are the only people who feel the way we do, who go through these emotional stages. This is not so, however, though we often forget it. I wanted to convey that struggle to constantly remind one's self that we are not alone, even when we feel our loneliest.
Technically, these images have been very satisfying for me. I've got a good grasp on the focus in these images, and the contrast is strong in each one. I think the zone system is working very well, I can see that it is improving my technique quite a bit. I also really enjoyed, once again, working with Fiver paper with these prints. The tones just seem richer to me, though they are more muted than matte RC paper, but i find I prefer that with my style of work. I enjoy contrast, but not too much. I don't need the image to be flashy, merely realistic in lighting and contrast.

Sunday

This is all I want in life. It is the cutest fucking thing I have ever seen. It's the worlds smallest deer, it's called a Pudu. Just look at it! Don't you just want to cuddle with it!?!?!! It's absolutely amazing. It's the cutest fucking thing. It's so silly looking, and I want to spend all my days with it.
Literally, this is all I want in life.

You've Passed

I've taken back so much control in my life recently, and it's fucking great. I've never felt more in control of what's going on than now. It's incredibly scary and frightening, because now I know that whenever I fuck up it's my own damn fault, and no one elses. But, at the same time, this is exactly what I want. I want people to call me out on my bullshit and help push me forward, ya know?

I'm excited for this new direction in my life. Only good things can come from it, I can tell. Bring it one, life. I'm fucking ready.

All I Have To Give--Pt. 2

I listen to the Backstreet Boys more than any person really should. Especially by myself.

I don't know how this happened, but for once I feel like I'm a fully functioning person. I'm managing my time and staying busy and I've got everything under control. For once.

Except for I'm about to lose my job. I'm spending money too quickly. I'm so uncertain of the majority of my relationships it's not even funny.

But I'm not focusing on that. I'm focusing on getting my finals done and being happy with all of my friends and always listening to good music. That will keep me feeling sane for a little while longer.

Hymn

I thought about this while I was drunk at Stay Sweet Fest all weekend.

Music scenes are much like churches, especially punk. There is a leader (singer/preacher) that the audience responds to when prompted, the audience is supposed to be unquestioningly devoted to said leader, there's lots of erratic movements and blindly shouting along with the leader. And at the end of it all, an unexplainable sense of euphoria.

I think I've always felt this way. I often tell people this is why I listen to Girl Talk; whenever I hear a particularly clever section of a song, or the beat hits just right, I imagine it's what Church and talking to God is supposed to be like. Unexplainable euphoria and a feeling of invincibility.

Nature

So, the following is my proposal for my darkroom final:

For this final project, I thought about all the possible things I could photograph. I thought about shooting tableaux photography, especially since I really wanted to revisit the fabrication project. However, I found myself fantasizing about roaming around outside and photographing what I saw; getting lost in this new greenery and translating it into black and white. So, this is what I’m going to try and do. Find the natural places of Richmond and focus on photographing nature.

With this assignment, I want to focus more on aesthetic than concept. I felt I tried too hard with concept in the time and narrative project, and it didn’t translate very well. While I would definitely like to try to return to more conceptual work in the future to better perfect conveying a theme in imagery, I think that I need to take a step back and better perfect my sense of aesthetic style and see what comes from that.

I want to explore nature. Nature has not always been my friend; I have a very strange, very strong phobia of butterflies (I know), and because of this usually springtime is not my friend. However, having gone through the rough horrors of seasonal depression, I find that the only thing that makes me feel sane is spending the majority of my free time in the warm sun, fears be damned. With this new psychological compulsion to immerse myself in nature, I’m appreciating nature in springtime as I never really have before, and in a city whose natural side I am not yet familiar with. I want to photograph this exploration and explore the foliage I come across in my wanderings.

My main basis of this work is my previous work with abstraction: I found myself more drawn to the images I took of abstractions and patterns I found in nature rather than the images I found indoors, or the patterns I created myself. Working off this work, I want to keep examining nature in that same vein. I’d like this work to lean more towards abstraction and less towards recognizable landscapes.

7 Days To Change Your Life

I need to get stuff done this week.
I can't linger on the problems in my social life, or all those bills I have to pay, or just how fucking painful this sunburn is. I need to do work.
And, of course, I have to work tomorrow, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Joy. I wish I could just not have a job during exams. But of course that would be counterproductive, because finals are expensive for art kids (especially for photo majors...$56 for 6 rolls of film. Ugh). I think I have to buy new fiber paper soon as well, because I'm pretty sure I spilled beer on my fiber paper this past weekend. I'm pretty sure I spilled beer on everything this weekend.
Well, hopefully I can get all my shooting for digital done today, then hopefully do some shooting for darkroom on Thursday if I don't have to work? Hopefully. I NEED to shoot for that final. I'll be doing that all weekend. Joy.
When is all this bullshit going to be over?

Gorgeous

Thank God for springtime. The sunshine makes everything better.

Jezebel

All these finals sprang up on me. Fuck.

And the thing is, I passionately care about all of them. But I feel like I'm not going to be able to put my all into all three of them. Because, you know, I have a job. And as selfish as it is, I would like to hold on to what remains of my social life. If I don't have non-stressful social interaction at least a few times a week, I feel like I'm going insane. I don't know, maybe that's what I need to do for the next three weeks?

But like, Shane's final is just fucking ridiculous. I think he thinks his class is the only one I care about, which isn't true. Then there is Laurens final, which I can't even shoot for until I get money from my dad to buy film. So, I'll be waiting for something that may or may not happen. Good. Then there is my digital final, which I don't think is gonna be too bad, I just need to find the time to go downtown and get everything shot. And then work on it. Get some good HDR shots.

Stress, get outta here.

Fame

What is wrong with me?

I wish I weren't such a weirdo around people. It makes me mad. I want to be normal. Just once, it would be nice to actually feel like a normal person.

Oh well. Maybe someone someday will appreciate me. Until then, I'll be patient.

Dear Shane:

Fuck you.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Oh, and by the way, please go fuck yourself.

I know that you are trying to push us. I know that you think that eventually we will respect you and realize the error of our naive, bratty ways and see that we are all better people because of how you made us work.

This is what you thought last semester, too, and surprisingly it didn't work on me. I felt like you didn't let me explore my own process, instead you forced your presumptions on me and I eventually did what you told me to do not because I felt a connection to it, but because I needed you to stop making me feel like a piece of shit.

You didn't even try to let me explain my process or how I wanted it to go. I picked self image and physicality because you told me I should work off the fear project. And everything else I did solely because I thought it would get you off my back. I feel terrible even claiming that work as mine; it is completely you. There is nothing of me in that work.

I want this work with Jamie to be different. I really like the relationship and friendship that Jamie and I have, and I have a great feeling about us working together and designing our own shoot. But the way you sprang those due dates on us in class was not fair. What you should of done is told us the due dates and let us work around them in planning, not let us plan and then try to tell us that 'oh just kidding, this is what you should be doing'. Jamie and I had already begun planning our time around our schedules how we saw fit and how we worked, and all of a sudden you want to override that just because you can? That's not fair at all. Once again, you're forcing yourself into our work arbitrarily to make sure we're going about the process the 'right way', when this is not how we naturally work. So now, we have to pretend we're doing it the way you want us to when really we're just going to do it our way anyway so what difference does all of this make?

I was seconds away from telling you to go fuck yourself in class today. Thank God you gave us time to leave. If you had tried to speak to me anymore, I would've said it. I'm usually the one sticking up for you and saying that your intent is what makes your actions okay, but right now all you're coming across as is an uncaring douche bag who is exercising power because he can, not because he cares. And that's not okay with me. I will not let you walk all over me and make me jump through hoops because you have authority.

People As Places As People

Getting ideas going, definitely beginning to feel inspired.

I've figured out what I'm doing for my digital final! I was going to do some complicated portraits and blah blah blah people and nature, highly stylized, but I might just save that for a summer project, because I'm just unsure of time for all this. Instead I'm focusing on industrialization as form. Lots of modernism and underlying Freudian complexes. Should be exciting. Now I just need beautiful weather and a completely free afternoon...

Sigh.

Have some rough ideas for what I'm doing in studio with Jamie. Definitely some cool ass portraiture. I got a few rough ideas for costuming/make up/character... just gotta figure it all out

I have no idea what I'm doing for my darkroom final. But I have lots (too many) ideas. So that's a start.

Dark Night Of The Soul

I want to feel inspired. Instead I just feel sad. I hate this so much.

Fire & Rain

I need to get out of town. I hate this feeling, like I'm trapped here. This is the worst about not having any money: I have a car, but cannot afford to leave town for a weekend.

My sister is coming up next weekend, so hopefully that'll help me feel better. I feel like distance may give me some perspective. I hate feeling stuck geographically.

Fabrication

New work. I love using matte fiber paper. It looks so good!!

Vega-Tables Reprise

On April 21, there is a meteor shower.

Anyone want to watch with me? I'm going to try my hand at some long exposure stuff. We can drive out to the country side and enjoy the warm weather and have fun!

Yeah?

Good Times Roll (Part 2)

I need to find a proper place to vent my frustrations and petty anxieties.

Many people would say 'oh, that's why you're an artist, just go take some pictures'. And I wish that's how it worked for me. But I find when I make art out of anger and terrible emotions, it doesn't translate well. Only when I feel truly INSPIRED!! can I make good art.

I don't know if I can even explain that inspired feeling. It's that voice in the back of your head that gets overly excited. It starts as a whisper and builds into a booming voice that just constantly yells DEAR GOD PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN OR YOU WILL EXPLODE. That's the kind of art I like making the most.

Lately, that voice has been talking to me about collaborations and fringe culture. Let's see where this leads.

All I Have To Give

I feel so unaccomplished, but I also feel like I try so hard. Like, how much more do I have to do? Am I even capable of doing anymore? I know that I am, but I feel like I'm not.

I'm gonna start saving money to apply to another show. I doubt I'll have saved $40 by May 30, but I'm going to try. (That's just pathetic, that I don't think I'll be able to scrounge up $40 by then).

The thing is, I keep really wanting to put more of myself into my artwork, put myself out there, try harder. But with my current financial situation, there are so many other things I need to take care of before I can get to the art stuff.

I know that I have no right to complain about my financial situation, though, because so many people have it so much worse than me. And honestly, I chose this for myself. I could've had everything paid for if I had transferred to UNCA. They have a pretty good photography program. It's geared more towards photojournalism, but I could've managed. I would've been in the mountains, close to home, living with one of my best friends in the whole entire world, and having the majority of my expenses paid for by my father (if I had transferred to UNCC, he would've paid for everything) (seriously, how little my father cares about me as his own flesh and blood seems almost comical if it weren't such an endangerment). Instead, I acknowledged that it would be much harder for myself to do what I wanted, and did it anyway. I'm notoriously stubborn, I will not compromise what I want just to make my life easier.

That's why, yesterday in Seminar when everyone was talking about what they've done to accomplish their goals, I just wanted to stand up and scream 'I'M STILL A STUDENT AT VCU! I STILL HAVE A ROOF OVER MY HEAD AND I EAT AT LEAST ONCE A DAY! I'M STILL ALIVE AND TRYING SO HARD TO GET THIS DEGREE! THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING!'. I think a lot of people take this education and this university for granted, and it always stings for people like me who are $25,000 + in debt after one year of education. That someone else came across this so easily, while I've been saving and scrimping and starving for so long just to get to the same place.

So, Shane, if you ever read/browse these blogs, that's what I'm doing. I'm working a low-paying job at the mall and paying my rent late and trying to keep up my credit score up so I can actually get approved for a new apartment come June. I'm driving my car for days with the gas light on and I'm buying $.60 mac&cheese for dinner, I'm doing my laundry only once a month to afford film and I'm trying trying trying to make a name for myself as an entertainment and wedding photographer. I'm writing my debts on my bedroom mirror so I never forget what I owe, even though my sense of self-entitlement is screaming out in protest.

Underneath It All

So, relating back to an old post, does anyone who reads this blog have pets or know people with pets that I could photograph?

I keep thinking about trying my hand at animal photography, and though it can be cliche, I am excited to try it.

The Mariners Revenge Song

Another medium to conquer: glass

Now that sounds hard as shit. But I would love to not only master photographing glass, but making it. One day...

New/Old Work

Some old photos from my trip to NYC this past October. Recently edited them. I'm quite fond of them in black and white.

Graceland--The Tallest Man On Earth (Paul Simon cover)

And speaking of covers, this is one of the more beautiful songs I've ever heard

Mumford and Sons covering Old Crow Medicine Show--Wagon Wheel

I absolutely love the original version of this song, and this cover is beautiful. If you don't like Mumford and Sons (or really folk music) there may be something wrong with you. I genuinely believe that. It's just beautiful music. It's sunshine and empty fields with tall grass, it's compassion and love and everything good in the world. It's heart and soul.

This song makes me incredibly homesick for North Carolina everytime I hear it. One of my best friends lives in Boone, while another best friend lives in Asheville. I got to visit my friend in Asheville this past September, and it was wonderful. It's just a beautiful mountain town. I'd like to go visit my friend in Boone soon, but I just have no money.

Ugh. I hate being poor.

Merge--

Sorry for this being so lengthy

What do I care about?

Last time I was asked this (damn you, Shane!), I said I cared about body language. More specifically, how people (myself included) hold themselves when they know they are being observed, and the differences in body language among people.

While I do still find this very interesting (and always will), I think my main interest has shifted from that to something else.

Right now, I am interested in words. In their arrangement, in the way they make the reader feel, in the way they look, how fonts convey tones, how they look on a page. I'm interested in sounds, fragments, diction, rhetoric.

This may sound weird, but I get told frequently that I should be an English major. I'm a HUGE book nerd, and I'm not too bad with writing when I really try. This probably has something to do with the fact that my father got a degree in English, and is currently an English professor at my hometowns main university (UNCC, 49ers!) (among other things, he also teaches a class on cult films, an anthropology class on the culture of America in the 1980s, and a womans studies course that analyzes the portrayal of women in noir film). Also, as a child, I was something of a literary prodigy; by the time I was 10, my reading comprehension was at the collegiate level. I learned to read before I was 5 years old, at the same time as my older sister. I'm fairly certain that if I weren't retarded at math, they would have made me skip a grade in elementary school. As I child, I spent my summers indoors reading (I had no friends and with my bizarre phobia of butterflies spending time outdoors in the suburbs didn't seem like much fun), so my father made me write book reports on the books I read to make sure I was understanding them, and he at one point made me read every Shakespeare play he owned (Cleopatra and Marc Antony are my faves).

So, with all this, I've spent my whole life obsessed with reading and devouring words and history and stories. And most people tell me that because I'm so good at it and spend the majority of my time on the internet looking up Faulkner analysis that maybe I should try my hand at being an English major. But, it's not really what I want to do. Photography speaks to me in way that simply reading cannot, even though I'm not as good at photography as I am at being an obnoxious asshole in discussions about books.

However, I am fascinated with words and the power of words. I've incorporated words in my artwork before; for my final portfolio in darkroom last semester, I did a project on the Ophelia complex and how that affects lifestyle and how young women portray grief, and wrote little vignettes to accompany each image. I may include an image and one of the vignettes.

Even now, in darkroom, I am working on narrative, in which each image is representative of a state of being that I may find myself in, and I am relying on having captions to help me express this narrative.

I see no problem with using heavy literary influences and words in my artwork, and want to pursue it more and really perfect the interplay between the verbal and the visual, diction and composition. However, I worry that I will begin using words as a cop-out; falling back on captions and written word because my visual images are falling short. I've realized that my images really make sense to me, but I cannot for the life of me make them make sense to anyone else. It's weird, trying so hard to express yourself visually and just being so misunderstood (ANGST).

Ugh, oh well. I just love writing, I want it to be part of my work. Maybe that can be my thing. My life dream as a photographer has been to make a book of images with corresponding essays.

Here is an image with a vignette (back story on this: In August, my older sisters boyfriend died tragically at the age of 20, he drowned in the Mississippi. He was a great person, and my sister loved him dearly, as did everyone that knew him. He was caring and funny and one of those people that you just implicitly knew you could trust. He was supportive of any decision you made, no matter what it was. I struggled for a really long time with not only the grief of having someone I know dying but also with seeing my sister so hurt and wanting so badly to make everything better for her but not knowing how. Also, I personally have always had trouble expressing grief, and still to this day have trouble coping with my own grief. I used this project to wrap my head around expressing grief and better come to terms with my own emotions about everything. The image is not of my sister, but the accompanying story is supposed to be from her viewpoint about the death of Eli).

You were the key to my happiness.

You brought so much happiness into my life. You were enlightening. You were fun and dangerous. You were everything I could’ve asked for and then some.

You were forgiving when I needed it and stern when you needed it. You were everything you should’ve been.

You made me so eternally happy. We were equals. Nothing could’ve gone wrong with us. We were so in tune, so in sync. We were made for each other.

Our hands fit perfectly together, and our bodies intertwined just right. We were everything for each other and nothing all at once.

I’m not sad without you. I’m just not happy. It’s a sad place to be in when you realize no one else could be quite as perfect as that one person, though many people will come close. It’s just something I have to live with. I’m fine with it. I wouldn’t want anyone to be more perfect for me than you were.

You were taken from me far too soon. That sweeping river that flooded my heart with your loss. I can’t bear the thought of it.

When you lived in my bed, every morning when you woke up you would look me in the eyes and tell me ‘This is the first day of my life’.

I tell myself that every day when I wake up. It’s the one connection I still have with you.

Claiming your things might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Seeing all your stuff, knowing it no longer had an owner. When I found my letters in your wallet I thought that surely my heart could take no more of this pain. That I couldn’t be continually reminded of how strong our love was, and how desperately soon it was cut short.

For the first two months afterward I would find little reminders of you all around me. One of your long brown hairs still on my sheets. Your scent still lingered in my car. That sock you swore you could never find was lodged deep under my bed.

I want to forget the pain without ever forgetting you. I pray every day that somehow, some way, you’ll make your way back to me. I know somehow it will happen. I can’t believe that the universe would give you to me and take you away just like that. There has to be a bit of you left for me on this earth. You were just as much a part of me as I was of you. That’s how you live on here. You live on forever as a part of me.

I’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery.

What's My Age Again?

In times of physical discomfort, we always instinctively want to place the burden of care on someone else.

I am at that point right now. The painkillers generally keep the pain of the burns away (although right now, the next painkiller isn't kicking in soon enough...). However, I want someone to take care of me. I don't want to research Facebook or read artists blogs. I want to curl up in my Snuggie (oh yeah, I own one. jealous?) with a book of poems by Susan Minot and have someone make me Chai with a little too much sugar.

Why do we do this? Have this desire to be taken care of? Regardless of age, we still beg for others to care for us physically. Before I even put ice to my burns, I was on the phone with my mother, asking her what to do and how to treat burns. Which is ridiculous. I know how to treat burns. Neosporin, Aloe Vera, ice, gauze. However if it weren't for her, I would've never have gone to health services, so it was probably good that I called her.

Something to think about.

What I've Never Photographed--

Excuse me if I ramble/make no sense, for I am on painkillers, and they just started kicking in. (I gave myself 2nd degree burns today, long story).

But I was just procrastinating, stumbling around the internet, and kept finding random pictures of animals. And I thought about it, and realized I have never photographed animals before. I really want to now. I've tried almost every other form of photography (except for underwater). So, one of my next goals: photograph animals.

Candy Chang--Before I Die

Candy Chang is a public installation artist, designer, urban planner, and co-founder of Civic Center who likes to make cities more comfortable for people.

This project in particular, 'Before I Die', is pretty cute. She took the side of an abandoned house in New Orleans and turned it into a giant chalk board that lets members of the community express what they would like to accomplish before they die.

Though this particular style of art is not something I would like to pursue visually (or maybe not so obviously), I do appreciate truly inspirational and motivational pieces such as these. I wish there were one in Richmond, I would love to participate and maybe help document. I imagine working with her on this project was an amazing experience. Just thinking about it makes me want to jump in on community improvement. If I had the right people, it would be so much fun. Maybe I'll start brainstorming in my free time (yeah, because I have so much of that...)

Street Art

Banksy and other cool folks

Street art is something I really wish I could do. I don't know why I think I can't do it. I have no practice with working with spray paint and making something look good, I'm afraid of getting caught, and plus, I feel like I have nothing that important to say.

I want to at some point do a little street art though. I just need to have confidence in myself.

Kid For Today--Growing up with the Internet

For my UNIV200 class, we have to write a research paper. I chose the topic of social networking websites and how they influence common stereotypes and types of communication.

I chose this topic because I've always slightly resented the internet, and wanted to better understand the function of the internet as a source of communication to make a final decision on whether or not I dislike it as a whole. This research paper, while at times enlightening to analyze the research, hasn't really changed my mind. Even though I see all this research and see how great communicating via internet and how it really is promoting community and is functioning with physical-world interactions, I still can't wrap my mind around the concept of taking the internet seriously. I distrust the internet greatly, and it is often hard for me to see genuine intent behind emotional exchanges via internet.

I also think this stems from my social anxiety disorder. The internet is the ultimate Big Brother, except for anyone could be the Big Brother. Sometimes people will mention something from my personal blog, when I know I have never told them about it, or reference a conversation I've had on Facebook with another friend they may not even know, and it gives me a sense of discomfort. It makes me wonder: Why are you watching me? What are you looking for? In person, in general conversation, I can read body language and facial expressions and see intent. On the internet, intent is imagined and self-projected, and it scares me.

It is, in a sense, the ultimate narcissism.

Something to ponder later on down the road. All my biggest intellectual interests are deeply psychological, and I've been having trouble getting that into a visual portrayal instead of just verbal. Hmm.

Inspired--Man On Wire

Check this out right now

Watched? Okay good.

"Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge - and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope."

This guy is such an inspiration. I mean, he really pursued what he wanted to do, you know? Regardless of what was going on, he refused to take no as an answer, and spent a great deal of time pursuing this dream. It wasn't legal, it sure as hell wasn't safe, it was most likely bat shit crazy, but he did it anyway, because something in his soul pushed him forward after all that time.

I love his philosophy on the whole thing. That we must not become complacent and simple, but rebellion is an act that can be exercised. I push myself every day to live this way; I think it will help me loosen up and help me find a path easier. I find it is often easy for me to get stuck in ideas and themes and aesthetic styles. I want to constantly explore and push myself to try new things everyday.

Good God, that was quite an invigorating movie-watching experience.

Let's Get To Know Each Other

I oftentimes go by Kelso. I'm trying to understand myself and my chain of thought, and better organize my sources of inspiration to find a clear direction to take in my artwork.

I prefer Southern Gothic literature, but have recently begun reading poetry.

I'm a movie fanatic.

My taste in music is centered around rap and folk, primarily because both have created a strong mythological fringe culture through a heavy lyrical style that focuses first and foremost on story telling.

My main interests for the moment:
--Cinematography and symbolism in music videos
--History of rap/hip-hop culture
--Ophelia Complex
--Poetry
--Truth in stereotypes/how common stereotypes influence artistic interpretation
--Southern culture/tradition
--the Mississippi River (symbolism in art, historical importance, folklore)

This is my personal blog: MY TEEN ANGST. It's not very interesting, but you know, just thought I'd throw that out there.