Rest Assured

An 8tracks mix full of my current feel-good songs that are not too poppy.

I will be sending the mix on a CD along with some cover art to a lovely friend soon. I hope she likes it. 

xxx

Sometimes happy, sometimes sad

A few weeks ago, I was assigned in my art class to write a page about a "significant event" in my life that I would later incorporate into an art piece. I couldn't think of an actual event and decided to search through my blog for any writing that I could copy and paste into a word document and call an abstract representation of my "significant event". Easy enough. Since I was left with the option of doing this assignment digitally, I left it to the very last day to actually work on it. I chose a piece of writing that I had written a few days before and layered the text with two old pictures of mine. I did all that nice editing stuff, blah blah. I turned in my piece for critique and received mostly positive feedback from my classmates (except the kid who said that something about my piece "irked" him.....uhh, what?). I was given a moment to say something about my piece and since some people had said that they wondered what my significant event was, I explained that it was a representation of my "coming into terms with the way that I am and the fact that I'm better off alone a lot of the time".  On the way home, I started thinking about the million betters ways I could have said that. 

It is something that happens to me a lot. I figure out the deeper message of my photographs in hindsight 90% of the time. I'm not that great at coming up with concepts and sticking with them. I don't know if that makes a bad artist, a fake, or something like that, but I'm not too worried about figuring that out just now. With all that said, here is the final piece that I turned in:

The premise of my writing consists of the realization that I'm painfully introverted and that I am alone most of the time. The conclusion: It's okay. My significant event ended up being more of a significant concept. It is something that has been a part of me for a very long time and will continue to be a part of me for all of my life, probably. I am not made for massive amounts of socialization. Being alone is something that I enjoy and that fact is nothing to be ashamed about. Not having tons of friends does not determine my ability to build good relationships with people. I am normal and I am able to be happy, even when I'm all by myself. That's that.

Finally, I was able to put the pieces together of what this piece means to me and here it is: 

The self-portrait and the hand symbolize my aloneness. Me. The writing explains everything I already stated above. The more visible writing that overlaps my hand says "Sometimes happy, sometimes sad" and it simply represents the inevitable fact that sometimes I will be happy and sometimes I will be sad. That's the balance of life. Right when I thought of this, I realized that the self-portrait encased in the white circle vaguely resembled  a yin-yang. Perfect. Happiness and Sadness naturally coexist in the world and they naturally coexist inside of me, too. That's it. Oh, the composition has no symbolic meaning whatsoever. The blues tones were purely accidental and though I suppose that they add a gloomy feeling to the piece, only I would know that the story, indeed, has a happy ending! 

(Even though it isn't an actual ending. You could even say it's a beginning...)

To top it all off: I'm happy! 

a calm sunday morning and a giant wordspit

I love taking pictures but I haven't done it enough in the last few months and I have an idea of why this is so, but I'm not too convinced about it. This sunday morning was calm and the light coming in from the blinds decided to surprise me once again by manifesting itself in a beautiful new way: juxtaposed with my Beatles' wall piece. I threw on my new thrifted skirt that my mom washed for me and I had left to dry, hung up, during the night. I also put on a sweater that I bought along with the skirt.

Self-portraiture has been my photographic...um, style (?) ever since I began photography in 2008. I used to photograph my cousin Emily a lot but I don't see her often enough now. I also photograph my little sister at times when I'm in the mood and when she allows me to dress her up and make her suffer through posing for long periods of time until I get just the right shot. (Poor girl!) But most of the time I only have myself and my camera (and recently a tripod that I "borrowed" from my uncle, too). I could complain about my lack of models but I am actually completely comfortable with taking pictures of myself all of the time. I would like to have bigger photographic projects with models and cool locations, but I am satisfied with what I can work with.

Self-portraiture has become a form of therapy for me. I am comfortable in front of my own camera. I am myself, even when I end up making awkward poses (like the ones displayed above), not knowing what to do last minute. If I were to show the world all of the self-portraits I have, it would be pretty embarrassing and not because of the amount of them (though there are a lot -- so many that I've never dared to count or estimate), but because of the honesty of them. I am me, in my most human form: in all of my physical and emotional flaws. I take pictures of myself when I am sad and crying, happy and smiling. I take pictures when I'm mad and pictures when I feel even the slightest bit beautiful. A have pictures worth over 3 whole years of my life. I could dig out any picture file from my computer or cd's and find a significant piece of my life within. I have pictures of my old house, my old haircuts, the times when I used to wear eyeliner, the time when I lived with my cousin, the time I lived in apartments, when I moved to my current house, the times when I would take pictures of my clock while waiting for my boyfriend to visit, the times when I would dress up, when I used to wear colorful tights and skirts only, the times when I would rearrange my room, the healing process of the burn I got on my stomach, the times when I would cry about my boyfriend leaving to a different state, the times when I cried about our break-up, the times when I started eating healthier, the times when I went thrift shopping, when I was happy about having a better relationship with my family, when I first got my glasses, when I was grateful just to live, on and on and on and on. I have it all. Sometimes I look through my files and discover forgotten memories and I'm able to revive them just through looking at them in the form of millions of colored dots on a computer screen. Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating myself of life because of my constant reliving and remembering the past. At times I want to give it up, delete all the pictures, all evidence that I ever was. But most of the time I'm grateful that I picked up on this wonderful (and surely sometimes terrible) hobby. It has helped me become comfortable with who I am and who I've been. I regret nothing.

Life moves on and the pictures will pile up.