Three Objects

I began this project by collecting three or more real-life, portable objects that meant something to me in a provocative way. 

I keep a box on my shelf. It's dark green and metal. About the size of a complete Webster's dictionary (Webster, 436). Big enough for all of the words. I keep all of my most potent possessions in there. It's big enough for all of my most potent possessions. Love letters, bullets, promise rings, knives, teeth, empty little bottles. A box of stories from that one time that I... 

I harvested some sentimental secrets from that treasure trove. I don't have much of a statement about them, though. 

I started to be consumed with the endless potential of certain things. Even packaged consumer goods. Even a can of soup can evoke consumerism. A pack of Jell-O, already opened, already consumed. What's the story there? The possibilities are as endless as something that lasts forever. 

I wanted to make a comment about spirituality, so I decided to include a cross. Happy Easter (God, 268). In conjunction with the packaged consumer goods, I thought I could evoke a sort of worship of consumerism. Totally true, wow. "At the altar of the self-checkout line, we kneel and eat a gumball" (Nietzsche, 16).

I wanted to take us to a sort of 'desperate quest for beauty' place... I didn't want the altar to be completely barren; however, to keep it in line with the themes I'd already curated, I decided to go with some flowers. Flowers are often on religious alters I guess, but to add a superficial element, I thought fake flowers would work better. I plucked a few out of a vase, where they had been pretending to drink water. 

I decided to round out my altar with some trash. I think it worked with the theme of orthodox consumerist lifestyle of post-postmodern American all you can eat idolatry... and whatever comes after...   

Works Cited 

Merriam-Webster. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Merriam-Webster, 2014.

God. Holy Bible. ESV ed., Crossway, 2001.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. The Genealogy of Morals. New York, Boni And Liveright, 1918.

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Final Project Reflection

    For two and a half months now, I have been collecting the ingredients for this meal you see before you. Some of the elements are stale, some sour, some fermented in their jars. I stole some of it, from the birds that sang late at night, from my father's voice, from sirens that rang through the city. I found some of it in my lower abdomen, in memorabilia, in my unwashed pillowcase. I threw it all in this pot, it congealed, it came to a boil, and it sat there cold overnight. So now you can eat it if you want. Or you can throw it against the wall and watch it drip down into the floorboards. 

    Watching you look at it makes me lose my appetite.  I think I'll just look the other way while you eat it, your chewing makes me sick. Mulling over it in your half-open mouth, it looks nothing like it did before. Enjoy yourself, I guess. 

    Swallow, down the chute. Are you full? Would you like another serving? What will you say about it once you've left the table? What will you still be craving? When will you eat again? I could make you something else. I could give you more. I hope you're quiet. I hope you're satisfied. I hope you're full.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CAzndK_RQcNWj9cZOArtmbX0M4hj43jW?usp=sharing

    

reflection

For many moons now, I have been fascinated by Elvis as a work of American culture. “The king of rock and roll”, a true male sex symbol, flamboyant, masculine, immortalized in roadside figurines and cardboard cutouts. Until about a year ago, I had never consumed his work, for the text overshadowed the art. On social media, I witnessed discourse surrounding his repackaging of black artists' music and style to a white audience and his relationships with women. It seemed he'd fallen out of favor in the current political climate, which I found intriguing in contrast with his original controversies in more conservative circles of his time. He sits between liberation and conservatism, so I began to consume his art to explore that grey area. The music remains insignificant in regards to his image; in the context of Image Music Text, I found that Elvis himself is the artwork, rather than the artist. 

He speaks to the country conservatism wants to identify with. Loud, strong, Christian, hot-blooded, and free. The “again “ in “Make America Great Again” is referring to the turn of the century, when Elvis was in his prime. As America declines, as Elvis did in the 70s, we long for the years when we were undeniably the king. Before we had to acknowledge that we built our kingdom off the backs of marginalized groups. The modern denial of Elvis as the king of rock and roll goes hand in hand with the acknowledgement of the United States as the symbol of freedom we crave to be. Elvis was created as a mascot of America, and his image changes as the image of our country is reevaluated. 

My project for this class has been about the difference between the self and the persona. What lies between my outward identity and my personal essence? Elvis, as a symbol or a piece of art, created by American culture and record companies, has no personal essence. Any identity he possessed as a man was as mortal as any human being, but the identity that was crafted is immortal.

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Journal Entry 3

"The artist is in search of his 'truth'" (Barthes, 151). 

The project I've been forming in this figurative womb of mine is an ethnography of myself. An attempt at my truth. Truth is a tricky thing sometimes. It often reveals itself in unexpected places and inconvenient times. The truth is rare, and when I see mine standing there, a moment of reverence is declared. I make gentle eye contact with it, and when I blink, it disappears. 

When I look for my truth, it hides in shadows, under makeup and baggy clothes. It's running from me! I chase it down alleyways, through crowded courtyards, and parking garages. It's gone. I give up. As I turn to head home, a piece of me breaks, something fundamental, and I fall to the ground. It's humiliating. But the truth is right there. And it's humiliating how close it was the whole time. It's all so humiliating. But I kept looking, with a limp that slowly healed day by day. 

As I chased after the truth, I left footprints and chalk drawings on the sidewalk. I described it to strangers in hopes they'd seen which direction it ran. I recited poems about it to them, to glazed eyes and vacant expressions. They told me the truth was right there, standing on the sidewalk, in a long black coat. I couldn't see it anywhere. So I kept looking. I continue to look. 

But the chase is a delight! So what if it's futile? My legacy is the attempt. So what if my project is born, and seems dishonest? The attempt is my legacy. 

Journal Entry 2, The Artistic Dictator

    From the moment that something came from nothing, the materials for everything have occupied all that there is. All there is is a long story of all of it becoming something else. Art is the curation of everything into something. Concentration of essence into one point of focus. Choose your weapon: camera, brush, pencil, gun. Whatever it may be, the artist is the great dictator of change. 

    For my current work, my weapon is the camera. I can't take the whole world in through such a tiny little lens. Not enough time. Not enough room in that rectangle. So I will violently and perversely select the angles of my own curation. My collection, my world, my country. I was not elected by anyone but myself, but I will elect each aspect and steal it from everything else. My piece will be bloody and raw, stuck together with a ticky tack and sealed with sweat and bile. 

    Oh, but I must be gentle with myself. A violent display of my something makes it finite and hardened. Easily digestible, summarized, and skittish like a stray cat. I want to hide it from my lens, I know it's reductive and violent. I know I'm dirty, so I must stop pretending to be clean. 

    I did not create my own identity; I curated it by virtue of my dictatorship. This beautiful item, this turn of phrase, the black nail polish on my pinky fingers. My art is my collection, my persona, my exhibition of a piece of my something. This rotting altar I call myself, on display for whatever wants to see it. My something made of all that there is pointed at the focal point of me. I taste it on my tongue, like sweet gasoline.

The Exhibition

My mentor, Matthew Shortridge, always says, "My mentor, Lisa Scheer, always says, 'Being an artist is about finding what you're obsessed with and obsessing over it'". 

While attending the Jiayi Young exhibition, these words rang throughout my consciousness with great fervor. This crazy world we call home is full of spectacular specimens to be studied. While some artists find their obsessions in emotional and personal internal turmoil, others send their tendrils out into enormities beyond. With her background in data and science, it only makes sense that Jiayi Young finds what she is obsessed with within her fields of study. 

While taking my first perusal around the Wriston Art Gallery, I discovered difficulties within myself in connecting with her work on a personal level. As an emotionally driven artist, I kept trying to find the tragedy within her work. Where is the torture? Little by little, I discovered that perhaps I was attempting to make the exhibit into something it wasn't, and I began to experience the work differently. 

As Young began to speak about her work, her obsession poked its beautiful head out. There are few things I enjoy more than listening to the obsessed obsess. No matter the subject, if you are enthralled, it is my great privilege to be enthralled in it with you. I want to see what you see. Why is this fascinating to you? Jiayi Young expanded the boundaries of what I thought I could be obsessed with, for there is very little that can't be made into a human story. 

Even a little rock can be made into an enormous boulder. Clicks from social media data can sound human. The countless photos displayed on the wall documented human obsession and creation. The whole room was a microcosmic alter to modern life. Endless data, social media corruption, space, and technology. The exhibit walked the line between scientific study and art, as Young herself does. I began to think the separation of the two is an unnecessary distinction. 

I've recently been defining art as "human output". We consume through our senses, digest through emotions, and what we put out after we mull over our lives in our minds is art. The great gift of man. What you render is a reflection of what you are thinking about. Science and art are both products of the human intellect. I'm not insinuating that the two are synonymous, but the societal implication of their opposition is intriguing. I'm guilty of this silly assumption, for when I walked through her exhibit, a childish voice in my head whispered, “This doesn't feel like an art exhibit”. That voice is immature because it was a display of human output and obsession. 

Scientists are obsessing, artists are obsessing, everybody who is doing anything interesting is obsessing! Whenever I think about my mentor, Matthew Shortridge, quoting his mentor, Lisa Scheer, I always ask myself, “What am I obsessed with?”. This question always makes me hungry. I crave obsession, I look for it everywhere, like a child with a sweet tooth on an easter egg hunt. Give me obsession or give me jelly beans. 

Journal Entry 1

Artist's Village (2024)

 

     I painted this piece in May 2024. It was inspired by a girl I met at summer camp a couple years back, named Mathilda. She was always desperately grasping for attention from the wrong people. Eventually, we had to crucify her outside the residence hall. She could've had a bright future, but she just had to go and mess it up like that. Sad. 

    The image depicts her suspended nude body displayed in a geometric case. Wrapped around her legs is a serpentine entity clutching a malus domestica in his bazoo. Behind the display case, the castle walls stretch up towards the pungently blue sky, contrasting the dull buildings surrounding her. The image is wrapped in a blood-red border, matching details in the clouds and the serpent's offering. 

    The religious connotations are potent in this piece. We did crucify her after all. I included the image of the devilish little apple eater as a symbol of sin and temptation. A crucifixion of Eve. Mathilda just couldn't control herself, that's why we hung her out to dry.  

    Connotations spring up profusely in the structure of the buildings. It's evidently a sizable structure, perhaps a castle or a prison. With the towering display case in the center and surrounding windows, it is reminiscent of a panopticon. One of the windows, furthest to the left, is lit. Maybe someone is home. 

    The title of the piece tells us where we are, or so it seems. The title is not who is depicted, making the subject of the painting about the location. It's really not about her. She always thinks it is though. It's funny to watch; how she believes what people say to her. Everyone else knows, but we keep quiet. They crucify stupid girls in Artist's Village all the time! I've heard they typically do it over three-day weekends, with a side of coleslaw and plain burnt chicken. They just eat it with their hands while they nail the bitch up. Regrettably, I only got to do it twice.