Green World

My favorite color is green, which is derived from the Old English and Middle English word, "grene," having the same root as the words, "grass" and "grow." The color is associated with life, growth, vivacity, and nature, as well as rebirth and immortality. Green is also a calm, grounded, and tolerant color, yet youthful at the same time. On the flip side, green is the color of envy and jealousy, and serpents and villains are often portrayed as green in color. Of course, green is also associated with money and wealth. We relate forward action with the color green (a green light at an intersection). My birthstone is green (peridot).

Today I took a walk, surrounded by my favorite color. Everywhere I looked was green, green from the rain. I began to capture everything in my favorite color, and now I have a plethora of little memories, little frames:

Extra Reading:

Daniel Hjorth: I love Hjorth's project about young ice swimmers from Denmark. The kids he photographs are as young as seven, and submerge themselves in water that is as low as negative two degrees. Hjorth captures the kids' expressions directly after they come out of the water (after about ten to fifteen seconds of being under). Their skin is so bright, their expressions raw. 

How I See My Grandmother

My grandma, Donna, came over today for Easter. She was able to leave the little room she lives in right now, the one she has to obediently stay put in for six weeks while the latest of her many hip surgeries is given time to heal. In the past year, my grandfather has developed dementia, and now he and my grandmother, who have been married for over fifty years, are growing too old and fragile to take care of each other. Grandma wants to go home so badly in order to tend to my grandfather, but she has to wait through the slow healing of her hip. It is interesting to watch Donna have to be in a place I know she hates--she cannot walk, or do hardly anything on her own while she heals. On top of that, she has lost much of her eyesight. Still, she has such a sunny personality that if you didn't really know her, you would think she was as happy as ever. To watch this internal battle of sunshine and darkness go on inside her, is what it is like to be a part of her family.

Extra Reading:

Allison Diaz: You can view Diaz's work on both her blog and her Flickr. Diaz makes beautiful, kaleidoscopic images that look almost woven. 

Melinda Gibson: Gibson, from London, creates photo montages with images from the book, "The Photograph as Contemporary Art" by Charlotte Cotton. Gibson's final images, which have the same name, question copywriting laws and our educational system. A book, as Gibson argues, has its own copyright, and only ten percent of the work can be reproduced lawfully. However, anyone can go on the internet, save an image, and do whatever they wish with it. Each image that Gibson has created to question the way we define copywriting laws is dynamic both aesthetically and conceptually. Go take a look, and have a happy Easter!

Collaging Myself

Today I began cutting out many different things from a magazine so I could make a collage. I came across one large photograph of a woman whose eyes I liked, and I cut them out. Empty holes were left in her head, and I realized the altered photograph now looked like a mask. I held up the page to my face, and this is what I got:

After seeing this happy accident, I decided to collage a few more self-portraits, and here they are:

Extra Reading:
Daniel Gordon: Gordon creates interesting, almost violent-looking portrait collages that I love. There is something about the art of collage that looks so cool, as it is usually a little undone.

From Inside

All of the following photos were taken today, looking out of a window. I spent a lot of time inside on this sunny day, partly at work, partly in the car, partly in the grocery store. While inside, I searched for beauty on the outside. Here's what I found:

Extra Reading: 

Rainbow Collections: Rainbow Collections is a zine where each issue focuses on a specific color. This month's color is red. The photographs do not have any other guidelines other than showcasing the month's color, which inspires an interesting combination of photographs in the final publication.

Diana Markosian: Markosian's project, My Father, The Stranger is what first drew me to her work. When Markosian was seven years old, she and her mother were separated from her father. As an adult, Markosian travels halfway around the world to meet her father once again, for the first time since she was a child. Her photographs are evidence of what she finds in her meeting with her father. 

Movement of Compassion

Many of you who know me know about the work I have done with registered sex offenders. Last summer I did a photographic project with a wonderful organization called Young Photographers Alliance (YPA). I decided to focus my work on the lives of registered sex offenders; as a childhood sexual abuse victim, I was and am interested in the other side of the story: a sex offender's story. For the show I participated in with YPA, I presented photographs of a man named Tom Madison, a registered sex offender who is also an activist in politics and sex offenders' rights. You can view images from this project here.

My artist statement is an important element to this project, and it is as follows:

One thing I have never fully been able to escape is my memory of being sexually abused. The state of terror and shame that I experienced as a little girl is still inside me, even after countless hours of therapy.

The man who molested me died suddenly after I admitted to my mother what he had done. Since then I have wondered what it would be like to be a registered sex offender, rather than the person who had been molested. I noticed that many well-meaning people in my life did not want to talk about the issue of sexual abuse, much less hear what a convicted sex offender would have to say. Still, I could not forget about the man who had abused me, who had been my stepfather. I loved him very much. I wanted to know why he would do such a thing to me if he cared for me, too.

In my search for answers, I interviewed one man who will be on the sex offender registry forever. When I listened to his story, I realized that he struggled to escape his past just as much as I did. And like me, he could not escape it, and that pained him just as much as it pains me. I therefore paired portraits of him and I together, our pasts intertwined into one, something neither of us can escape. It does not matter that we have had different experiences with sexual abuse; both of our experiences are filled with instances of happiness, euphoria, depression, rage, and terror.

I present you with these images, knowing some of you will look away, offended that I would visually attach my story to that of a registered sex offender. That reaction is itself an escape, and the cycle continues.

Though I did not show images of her in my YPA exhibition, I also photographed a woman named Patricia Bowen, who has been a registered sex offender for several decades. I personally believe that Patricia was wrongfully accused (a rare case, but people can be wrongfully accused of sexual abuse).

When I first met Patricia, she refused to let me inside of her home. The privacy Patricia has in her home is the only safe haven she has left. However, when I called her back to ask if we could get together again, she very graciously offered to let me into her space. I did not take her offer lightly, and I hope the images I captured today rightfully show the compassion I feel toward this woman.

I also hope this post inspires you to be a more compassionate human being. It is not right for someone to sexually abuse someone else, but it is counterproductive to dehumanize registered sex offenders. Once we begin to dehumanize and isolate groups of people, we have lost progress. In order for sexual abuse to stop, I believe we must find a way to have compassion with all parties involved, even with those we believe have done something terribly wrong.

Extra Reading:

Johannes Stötter: This Italian painter creates absolutely amazing body paintings. So many of his pieces have inspired me. Stötter creates a lot of paintings that blend in with nature, and some are so realistic, you will not be able to tell which part is a human body and which part is the nature behind it.

Thank you so much for keeping up. 

Eyes, Nose, Mouth

eyeball

noun

the round part of the eye of a vertebrate, within the eyelids and socket. In mammals it is typically a firm, mobile, spherical structure enclosed by the sclera and the cornea.

or 

verb

look or stare at closely

Keeping an Eye Out for You

Fact: Each of your eyes has a small blind spot in the back of the retina where the optic nerve attaches. You don’t notice the hole in your vision because your eyes work together to fill in each other’s blind spot.

nose

noun

the part projecting above the mouth on the face of a person or animal, containing the nostrils and used for breathing and smelling.

or

the front end of an aircraft, car, or other vehicle.

or

a look, esp. out of curiosity

or

verb

thrust its nose against or into something, esp. in order to smell it

or

investigate or pry into something 

or

(of a vehicle or its driver) make one's way cautiously forward 

The Nose Dive

Fact: You can smell happiness and sexual arousal, as long as the individual you are smelling is a close romantic partner.

mouth

noun

the opening in the lower part of the human face, surrounded by the lips, through which food is taken in and from which speech and other sounds are emitted.

or

an opening or entrance to a structure that is hollow, concave, or almost completely enclosed 

or

verb

say (something dull or unoriginal), esp. in a pompous or affected way 

or

take in or touch with the mouth

Getting Mouthy

Fact: When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off. 

I like how many meanings there are for things. 

It gives you a lot of options,

yet it's also cause for confusion. 

To me, these images are structured confusion. 

Extra Reading:

Carl Warner: Warner began his artistic career as an illustrator, but transitioned to photography after he realized that a photographic outlet was better suited to his artistic talents. The results are often interesting when a photographer originally studies something besides photography; you are able to see those previous interests shine through in their photographs. This definitely holds true for Warner. One of my favorite projects of Warner's is his photographs of nude human bodies. The bodies are layered in a way that make them look like landscapes. Warner's work offers a unique and surreal perspective that is worth checking out. 

MRI Scans of Fruits and Vegetables: This is self-explanatory, and it is amazing. Go stare at the moving images--they are pretty hypnotic.

Park Play

The park in the spring or summertime is one of my favorite places to be. Climbing, playing, rolling around in the grass. The sunshine slants down into long columns and illuminates the grass to make different colored patches of green. Time goes on and on along with laughs, but like everything, day eventually turns to night and then you are left with little light bulbs. Everyone else leaves, and you are alone there to run free, like one of those woodland creatures.

Poetic Title: Some Things Change But Stay The Same

The drive home from the park is an almost ritualistic process: makeup is slightly messed up, window is cracked, music is played loudly. There is a slight high from the whole adventure you just experienced. Then you sit in the driveway for a moment and ponder your night before you travel inside and lay yourself to sleep. 

Tiny Dancer by Elton John played on the radio as I drove my way home.

Extra Reading: 

60 Inspiring Photographs: This is an amazing compilation of 60 photographs that illustrate the human experience. Each one is relatable and unique; some will make you laugh and others will make you a little emotional. I personally love the one of the double decker bus that waits at a crosswalk for a little boy to walk across with his mini double decker bus on wheels. Go check it out!