Monday, 12 September, 2011

Today's influences come from more somber, sad place.

Unfortunately, a good friend of mine took his own life yesterday. From this, I've been looking at the world a bit differently.

The first influence I've been thinking about is nature- every rock, every tree and stream- all of these things and many more are living beings, and for me, not just in the molecular sense. Science proves that all cells are living, but for me, I've always felt as though all things in nature, whether it be a fish or rock, have a spirit (something of Native American origins, here). If you do something to disrupt nature, you're sort of taking its life. So really, my influence from all of this is conservation, and saving the environment. I'd like to use recycled paper of some sort this semester, to promote this feelings and thoughts.

Another influence, though rather commonplace and a bit cliche, is the Beatles. I've been listening to them a lot lately, and have been pulling some interesting ideas from their music. Of course I have to tone them down a bit; the psychedelic imagery one conjures up when thinking of 1960's musicians generally comes in a lot of bright colors and forms. What I am taking from this inspiration is the willingness to free yourself when listening to music- allowing your body to move freely, in form and expression.

The final influence for this week is my absolute favorite artist, Alyssa Monks. Her paintings are the perfect example of photorealism- you can't tell they're even paintings until you're right up against them, seeing every brush stroke. This takes me back to my friend that I lost- from a distance, he was perfectly fine, always laughing... This image was taken for granted, and no one looked close enough to see what was really going on. From this I'm going to take a closer look at my artwork- pick it apart until everything is fine, both inside, and out.