Pretty Face

"She was made after the time of ribs and mud.  By papal decree there were to be no more people born of the ground or from the marrow of bones.  All would be created from the propulsions and mounts performed underneath bedsheets-rare exception granted for immaculate conceptions.  The mixing pits were sledged and the cutting tables, where ribs were extracted from pigs and goats, were sawed in half.  Although the monks were devout and obedient to the thunder of Rome, the wool of their robes was soaked not only by the salt of sweat but also by that of tears.  The monks rolled down their heavy sleeves, hid their slaughter knives in the burlap of their scrips, and wiped the hoes clean.  They closed the factory down, chained the doors with Vatican-crested locks, and marched off in holy formation.  Three lines, their faces staring down in humility, closing their eyes when walking over puddles, avoiding their unshaven reflections."-The People of Paper, by: Salvador Plascencia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRwFRMGpTWg&feature=related

Bukowski

"what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire."

— Charles Bukowski, from “how is your heart?”
*reposted from Liquid Night

Artist Statement

I am interested in the struggle within a person between evil & good, darkness & light, black versus white.  I’ve become obsessed with the darker aspects of my psyche craving to see, touch, and feel protruding bones. Entrenched in my obsessions, I am bewitched by the idea of disappearing into a strangely isolated place.  To combat these urges, I descend back to the sensory world through my work.  The velvety feel of charcoal, the fluidity of ink, and the hardness of metal all provide a resting place for my unrelenting thoughts. The softness of the charcoal and ink on pure white paper, counterbalanced by the heaviness of the metal helps me to further draw on the concept of duality.  Movement is just as essential to me as the feel of something. I enjoy caressing the charcoal into the paper, just as much as forcing the metal into a sharp angle. I compulsively draw and shape these angles in an attempt to exorcise my own fear of losing control, and obsessively make work to give me a sense of identity and presence. By constantly experimenting, I satiate my desire for continual growth and change.  Through the act of creation I’ve found a place that joins the meditative and sensual worlds I inhabit.

Fini

Here are the final installation shots of my work in the Crisp-Ellert. I've learned alot about myself and other people in my BA class this semester.  I really hope I can manage to stay in touch with people, as I am not too good at it and I am curious to see where everyone ends up and what they are doing. I am excited to graduate and leave, but I think I will miss St. Augustine more than I thought. O well, so it goes

Girl

Cyborg thanksgiving girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nxwpEI695o&NR=1

Newness

More Work

Bridge Freezes Before Road

"From where I stand I don't exactly see things from where I stand."
Richard Prince

New Work

Updates.

People Are Strange

Am drawing in the midst of my classic rock weekend.  Had forgotten how much I'd loved the Doors, I have since I was young. More specifically Jim Morrison.  In an effort to refresh my memory and rediscover my favorite man, I googled him.  I found that he was born in Florida and spent time during his childhood in Jacksonville, as his father was stationed at the Naval Base there. He also graduated from high school in Alexandria, VA. where my grandparents and aunt and uncle on my fathers side live-a family living, at least when my father, aunt, and uncle were growing up, the military life like Morrison's (they were even Navy like his).  Morrison was evidently very much influenced by Nietzsche and his belief of Apollonian and Dionysian duality, to the point that it would later appear in his lyrics/poetry.  I had made a blog entry on this just a few days early.  I was completely unaware of this when I was younger, nor had I listened to the lyrics enough to make the connection.  It is so weird how our unconcious asthetic and auditory decisions manifest in work.  I was unaware of what I found about Morrison, lets face it as a middleschooler I just thought he was hott and liked how his music sounded, I had no concious knowledge of his interests and yet had just posted about Nietzsche and his thoughts on duality early, duality being very much an interest to Morrison.  It never ceases to amaze me, how every interest I had when I was younger has shown up again in later life-specifically in my work, which I consider to be my inner world reflected outwardly.  Morrison also had an interest in mysticism, symbolism, and ancient mythologies. I've developed an interest in these things as well.  Iggy Pop claims to have written his song The Passenger about Morrison. The Passenger is my favorite Iggy Pop song. Again, I had no knowledge of this connection..strange days
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwjMqOtqO0U&feature=fvwrel

Life in Black and White

In The Land of Blood and Honey

And here's one for posterity

Why is that Art?

Nietzsche

"Dionysian represents a collapse of borders,frenzy,and excess.  The Apollonian is close to Formalism.  The Dionysian embraces ambiguity, content beneath the visible surface, and messy complexity that a 'detached' gaze cannont reveal."

Nietzsche upholds asthetics over politics: He doubts that the ills of existence can be solved by politics and instead advocates that an asethetic appreciation of life can provide meaning and significance.  The essence of asthetic doing and seeing for Nietzsche is willful transfiguration and transformation toward perfection.  The aroused and frenzied will is the motivating power and aesthetic perception.

Words

seduction(seductive): enticing a person to engage through temptation and excitement; beguiling, captivating

sensual: provides gratification of the physical and especially the sexual appetites; physical rather than a spiritual or intellectual

sensous: appealing to the sense; appreciative of the pressues of sensation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpVY5OBqG3Y&NR=1

Alkaline Fantasy

The Morning After



The dawn came sheathed in an alkaline mist
Intertwined with the ghosts of last night's fantasies
Curling and flaring
Charming though it is
Be warned it will strangle
With its feathery exotica
Forcing you to inspect the chiseled asphalt
Disguised with blooming jonquils
Before it recoils into the ribcage of the lagoon

What Else

I gave girl number one some skin. She has turned into the experiment one.  The second is of the next large drawing that I've started.  I don't know what she will be. I've now got three little metal creature things made.  One sheet of weldeable aluminum yielded them.  I have another piece that I will cut in to.  I am planning on torching the pieces, that way they have nice blue color.  This is what my head says, I still need to test it out. Got some used bike tire that I think wil look nice with it, but I didn't add the tire till the end of the sculpture the last time, so who knows.

What the Living Do

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
-Marie Lowe, "What the Living Do"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1mVSTnzxBs&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLF67E23BEC64612DD

Metal

Metal sculpture I've been working on.  I cut 1 inch slats from a sheet of thin steel.  I then attached them with rivets. I am thinking I may make a bunch of these shapes and incorporate bike tire, like my previous sculpture.

People in Pain

"People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves."

— Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted


Elliott Erwitt
Jacksonville, Florida, 1968
From Elliott Erwitt: Personal Exposures

"As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature’s cage."

— Vladimir Nabokov, from “On a Book Entitled Lolita”

*taken again from liquid night

New Hardware

SO it was foolish of me to think that i'd actually stick to one thing.  I'm thinking i might make experiment with aluminum and bike tire.

Girl

Progress on new large drawing. its 6ft in length horizontally

..And of the Sound of Wind and Rain

I'm interested in a visual language that's over-determined, exhausted, or just over-burdened by meaning. The heavy-handed one-to-one of 'black-equals-wrong' is incredibly interesting to me -- less as something that has a meaning in itself, but more in how those visual codes can somehow become reanimated. That's constant throughout my work. All those images are like zombies -- they're stripped of vitality, yet sometimes they get life back in them ... and. like zombies, usually something goes wrong when they wake up again. - Banks Violette
^{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frh22M9FgZ0}