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. 

    

    

    

    

Project Proposal

    Good morning, children. I have made for you this project proposal for breakfast. It is an abundant feast, for a special day, complete with three courses. Please put your napkins on your laps, so as not to spill any project all over your new clean trousers. 

    To start, I have Video Concept 1 fresh out of the oven. It's hot! Let it cool before you eat. Patience is a virtue, my little bears. You'll find that it tastes exactly like my costume. The anatomy of my identity, my image, the symbol of my self. Textures, layers, coats of paint I encase my raw naked essence in. 

    While the Video Concept 1 cools, I have some fresh Video Concept 2 to tide you over. It will be very familiar to you, the center is warm and sort of gooey; it tastes like how your grandmother smells. Video Concept 2 can only be consumed raw and plain. Modified in any way, it actually magically turns into Video Concept 1! Do not be embarrassed children, a natural reaction to Video Concept 2 is that ancient shame that made you cry when you were born. 

    It is a special day. It's April 6th, after all. So I have prepared for you a Video Concept 3. Funnily enough, Video Concept 3 is made by mixing some Video Concept 1 into your Video Concept 2! My mother used to make it for me, so I would stop crying. 

    For this morning's breakfast, I harvested the ingredients from my pores and photographs of myself that I didn't like. I mixed in the moment I get home after a long night. It's all from the garden, except the seasoning in Video Concept 1. I got that back in high school, in the Landmark Auditorium. 

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