Mass Hysteria

    After being stuck in transit for three days i can ,for the first time, claim that i am ecstatic to be back in Old Town Maine. Two cold sleepovers in the airport, 7 hours of carting my luggage around and a hundred more spent re-booking flights has lead me to feel this way about my small home town. Being able to breathe and feel at ease with a large amount of space around me, versus being cramped and compacted in a small airport was a nice change. As well as seeing a familiar face and being able to make small talk with people who speak the same language. However if i were to take anything from the stressful experience that caused hundreds of people to be stranded, not to mention the fact that some missed christmas, it would be the fact that i was able to keep calm about the situation. I think one person described me as being very zen. I was able to lead others instead of panic with them, although to be honest i was less calm then they thought. But after a while you just have to grow numb and accept the situation your in, expect the worse possible outcome and continue to jump through hoops to not let that outcome become reality. Being able to communicate with people weather it be taking sympathy for the U.S Air employee or being able to relate to other students, to have some kind of moment with people is something i will never forget. It took a whole airport to shutdown for people to stop rushing, to wake up from their routine, to detach themselves from their plans, and to communicate in a non-artificial way to wake up and reach out to the people around them.  Although some  were never able to wake up and take a hold on the situation, others were able to take the time and build acquaintanceship with others around them, they were able to make a valuable moment out of a catastrophe.

Identity

        For my portrait assignment in my film photography class, I was interested in translating the idea that our identity in a large part steams from what the media presents to us as fashionable and sometimes we can find ourselves lost in these ways of representing ourselves through our tastes in fashion. Fashion can consume our identity.  I came up with a series of five portraits that best illustrated this concept to me. 

   The portrait where Samantha's face is seen reflected in the window with the mannequin is the strongest to me because it relays this idea quite well. One has to search to see her face amidst the poster of the model, the hanger of clothes and mannequin, here her portrait is literally drowned out by fashion. Although the top left portrait is a bit literal in translation, the page of the magazine literally reads, 'the danger of beauty', i still love it because it resembles that moment where sometimes a stroke of luck brings everything together. Samantha just happened to turn to this page, while we were shooting, and it became the perfect composition to use as the introduction to my idea.

The Primavera

        The Neoplatonic reading of the Primavera, peeked my interest when I learned about it in my Hidden Meanings, art history course. Warburg, a German scholar of the 15th century studied iconology from the cultural point of view of Christian Neo-Platonism. A philosophy started by Plato and studied by Ficino, Landino, Demetrius and Poliziano. Plato taught that there is a 'World of Ideas', where our thoughts and ideas are in there pure forms, this is perfection. We Transfer these thoughts and ideas to the Material world through the process of creation. Somewhere along this process things become tainted, they become imperfect. Because the Material world is imperfect, we are imperfect. When we learn things we seek the origin of the idea, the logical connection that links us back to the 'World of Ideas', perfection. Love, the love for ideas and creation is the spiritual part of us that allows us to move back and forth from the world of ideas to the material world. My favorite reading of the Primavera steams from this neoplatonic philosphy. In the Fasti by Ovid, there is the story of Chloris, who was a Nymph. Zephus, the god of wind, lusted Chloris and raped her. Choris, because she was touched by a god turned into Flora, the goddess of flowers. This story of Zephus and Chloris is represented to the Right of the Primavera, we see Zephus peeking through the trees snatching up Chloris,flowers are coming out of her mouth, "her lips breathed roses"-Ovid. To the left of Chloris is Flora, the goddess she transforms into. In the center is Venus and cupid representing Love. Venus seems to be pregnant, meaning here she is represented as the earthly Venus. She represents materialistic love, earthly love. To the left we see the Three Graces, Armor- Love, Voluptas- Pleasure, Pucchritudo-Beauty.  The three graces represent the movement from the materialistic world we see represented to our right by Venus, Zephur, Chloris and Flora, to the "World of ideas". Love is the upward movement, Pleasure is the downward movement to the material world. Beauty is the function of passage to one side to the other. Mercury is the connection to the "World of Ideas" he is the messenger of gods and is seen as a link between the human world and the divine world. he is touching the symbolic clouds, the heavens or the "world of ideas". He makes an upward movement-Love.  The painting is representitive of the fact that the material side of us has the opportunity to get to the higher side of love.  We may find something beautiful, so we seek the pleasure we can obtain from it we lust after it. But if we learn to love this beautiful object we can be taken back to the 'World of Ideas' to perfection. To love the spirit of beauty  and not just the pleasure of beauty we can be taken back to the perfected idea of love.

Going Vegan

  Of course I have to decide, my last week in Italy, to go back to being Vegan. Something I had experienced with once before, but eventually gave up on, and now here I am feeling the same old convictions to reduce my carbon footprint, simultaneously providing myself with a healthier diet and ultimately a healthier body. I never had felt more fit and healthy in my life then I did when I was a vegan. Looking back its hard to see why i ever stopped but i think the criticism from my peers and family wore me down. I was the only Vegan I knew and I think  being told i was crazy finally convinced me that I was. But after experiencing a completely opposite diet here in Italy, one based on pasta, cheese and chocolate, I can honestly say I was happier being healthy then i am being tastefully satisfied. This isn't to say that one cant be healthy without being a Vegan, but is to say that I cant be healthy without being a Vegan and this statement comes from a lot of research and self-evaluation. Without a moral compass guiding my choice in diet, I'm lost. My own vanity isn't enough to stop me from eating the things I find delicious. But knowing the cruelty that goes into butchering animals, not to mention the harmful drugs that are injected into them to keep them alive, drugs eventually consumed by us, the dangerous chemicals used to wash the meat once butchered, the amount of energy invested into factory farming, more energy than output contributing to 13% of the earth's global warming, all these things do stop me from eating animal products. I know that even vegetarianism is a touchy subject not to mention eliminating all animal products entirely but one fact is certain and that is farming is not what it used to be. Factory farming has taken over the world, in a valid effort to feed the world, yet has crossed some serious ethical issues that people need to be aware of and evaluate how they will or wont let these issues effect their everyday life. Well, I have researched these issues extensively and I can not disregard the ugly truth that I had uncovered. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but bliss is short lived. To decide to become Vegan means a instant switch in my diet, its either now or never. And yet I'm faced with the same hypocritical issues that plagued my conscious from the first time around; How can I eat Vegan and advocate for the ethic of being Vegan and not live Vegan?, that is, not to wear wool or leather, to not use products tested on animals or made from animals and this list is extensive and goes all the way to the chemicals I use to develop photos. To completely follow the ethics of being Vegan, to reduce my carbon footprint entirely, would leave me living naked in the woods somewhere.  Recently I've come up to a conclusion that has satisfied my own conscious, and that is the simple fact that something is better than nothing, some change and some effort is better than no effort. Of course this means I wont be buying anymore leather products but getting too into the fine details would leave me with an impossible problem to face, not to mention car-less. So starting today September 12th, I am officially Vegan again, with crossed finger's, hoping the smell of Mac and Cheese will never again lead me into temptation.

In Our Hearts

      Is art something that has been placed in our hearts? Is any interest acquired at a young age a desire found from within us or was it an early impression imprinted on us from an experience or role model? Although most probably a mixture of both, I would like to claim that art for me, was a desire that consumed my heart from an early age. Why was it art that I sought to learn more about? What was it that made me want to try and draw something for hours on end? What was it that wanted me to perfect my coloring book pages? What was it that made the Renaissance artist, Filippo Lippi draw on his and his friends textbooks, events that lead the prior of the Carmine in Florence to give him a chance at painting. What was it that made Giotto sit and draw lifelike pictures of sheep as a Shepard boy until he was discovered by Cimabue? The answers we'll never know for certain, origins of our interests can be something psychologically examined but I have a strange feeling that it is simply a desire placed in our hearts. But who placed it there? A question which's answer took me through a roller coaster of a journey, but has lead me to honestly and faithfully state, God. God placed this desire in my heart. Sometimes god makes his will known to us from the desires he places in our hearts, although not all desires come from him, through prayer and devotion we can distinguish between what is his voice speaking to us and what is temptation's. Alas, I am guilty of listening to all desires placed in my heart, but who isn't, eh? I know I can be eternally grateful for receiving the desire to seek art, without this light in my life, I'm not sure what road I would have stumbled down.

What is Art?

   I recently got into a discussion with one of my close friends who is a film maker over the following complex question; what is art and how do we define art? The answer, I still don't know. Perhaps art can not be limited by a definitive definition. Lets say art is anything unique and creative, that comes straight from that individuals own interests and ideas, making it an original piece. Now, wouldn't an invention say a microscope fit that definition? it was unique it was creative, whoever invented it made an original work. But most people would say a microscope isn't' a work of art because it was made for a scientific purpose, yet a scientist might look at a high powered microscope meet for studying stars, and call it and all its complexity of design and invention a work of art. The scientist out of love for his field could fairly view a perfected tool in his craft as a work of art, but what may be art to him may not be art to the artistic community at large. So what is art exactly? How do we decide what stays, what can fairly claim the label of being art? and what goes? Is every piece of film art? Is every piece of sculpture art? Is there a distinct difference between the qualifications that make pieces of new media art and pieces of fine art, art? And I'm not talking technique, I'm talking about that general criteria work needs to meet to become art. And does this mean you can not call yourself an artist until you create a piece of work or a series of work that is approved as being art? Are un-successful pieces of art still art?

What is Your Cage?

         After developing some satisfying prints of birds in cages I've been thinking about the cages that we inhabit everyday, why we let these things become our cages and how can we free ourselves from our cages. For example the mundane rituals of everyday life, like the everlasting cycle of doing the dishes, or taking out the trash or cooking can consume our lives to the point that were no longer living them, instead we are  just hypnotize in the rituals of living. And at what point do we let this become a cage? And at what point to we realize that it is one? The cage of Alcohol consumption and smoking cigarettes, the cycle of making ourselves forget the stresses that can fulfill hours upon hours of our day and can also be caused by the cage of mundane rituals, the cycle that cages us in this period of relaxation, that lets us for a moment ease the stress from our bodies. Bodies, our body the body your soul inhabits for your entire life can also become a cage. Cigarettes and Alcohol can impair it, lack of exercise, over consumption of food or lack of consumption of food can turn our body into a cage. Food in itself is another cage, trapped in the rituals of eating but also in the disorders of eating, eating too much can be a cage, eating too little can turn the lack of food into a cage. Its easy to trace our actions and behaviors to answer the question, how can these things become cages, the better question is how do we free ourselves form these cages.  My umbrella is a cage. Because it prohibits me from experiencing the rain on my skin. It shields me from the weather. What happens when it rains? You get wet. This can be a liberating concept. So what, you get wet, but you get to experience what wet feels like, what rain feels like. When do we trap ourselves in cages and stop experiencing life, the good and the bad? Yet a better question, when do we let ourselves break free? What can you do to liberate yourself?