ok, so for my final i went out and interviewed people about jeff koons red balloon flower. check out my footage. pretty interesting.

Ok, so as far as a metaphor goes, i'm not sure howww closely i will touch on that, but i really wanted to talk about this piece, so i am going to try and relate it as much as possible to the assignment. I created this piece out of frustration. I was feeling artistically drained and uninspired at the time. That happens to me a lot it feels, because i never take a break to sit and reflect on other things. i constantly googogogogogog. Anyways, i was in an setting where i felt like all the art i produced and all the art others came up with was meaningless and void of purpose other then a technical exercise. One day my class went to a nature lab to draw dead animals. As i looked at the butterfly i was drawing encased in a glass box, i could relate to the feeling it could of had. Yeah i know, what sort of feelings can a dead butterfly have? or other dead animals in there...? they are dead! well, they weren't to me if that makes sense. They felt constricted within the confines of the dull wooden walls. They were there to serve a purpose of being stared at and meticulously copied. I could relate to that... well not the copied part. The more i drew the dead butterflies and other species the more i felt united with them. Together we were trapped in this stagnant place. When my teacher told us to make a collage with these photos, i knew i had to break from the bubble i felt caged in. While others sat around and chatted about their plans of artsy fartsy collages i racked my brain for something new- something fresh. Something to break away from what i was doing. Break away. that was it. I wanted to take my drawings and unleash them into city school i had grown to detest. I wanted to take something like a boring butterfly drawing and personify it. I wanted to take them and put them in a totally different context then they were use to being seen. I decided to take the drawings and turn them into a living breathing vessel. I went to kinkos and blew up/shrunk and copied hundreds of my drawings. I bought bottles of mod podge and white paint. People that i told were confused as to what i was doing, but i did not want to take the time to explain. I had a plan and nobody would alter my path. I found the perfect model. someone totally comfortable in his skin, well maybe a little too comfortable. I started to rip the pictures and collage them on his body with glue. it took hours to get it just right but when i was done i had created this new living breathing creature. i took paper and graphite and gave it life. i took dead butterflies and insects and gave it a pulse. I unleashed it into the town. I followed this creature around documenting his every move. He was not to talk. He was to live in the moment of being this creation. He was to forget about who he was and think about who i had transformed him into. Peooples reactions were incredible. Smiles, confused looks, anger, giggles. I saw it all. People pulled over to get pictures with my creature. They honked, drove in circles, everything you can imagine. I felt vindicated when it was over. I had broke through my artists block. I created something that gave a collage and boring studies more depth and new life.

An orgasm for the eye. My friend dropped this statement once and i thought of this experience. An experience so visually striking photographs can't do it any justice. A year ago i traveled to the island of sardegnia off of Italy. I did not go for tourist reasons, like to site see or to get a perfect tan. I went for a much deeper / darker reason. To say the least, i was surprised at what my eyes sat foot on when my shaky plan set down on a cold windy winter day. I eyes fell onto a paradise. Something unpolluted and almost completely untouched by modern eyesores. I saw sheep. Sheep with thick coats of fur running through the streets as their bells tinkled in the breeze. The palm trees that surfaced from the ground stood tall with age and good nourishment. They were certainly the farthest thing from the trees i saw in myrtle beach. The architecture. oh god, the architecture. so beautiful. so old. covered in beautiful rich coats of mango and lemon paint. It offset the piercing blue sea that engulfed the island. The sea, was a site. It stretched out for miles and miles, with hitting the coast of kenya. I was told the water was murky for that time because it was winter, but i felt it was the clearest water i had ever seen. The water was translucent exposing the grains for coarse acidic sand underneath. Sea glass scattered the beach catching the sun at perfect moments. It was completely deserted. It was a paradise. How can some people wake up to this every morning? My father does. I wish i did. The water stung as it soaked through my hightop red and orange nike air force ones. The intensity of the temperature was liberating. I felt that i was in a place close to my ideal of heaven. That moment restored my faith in their being untainted beauty left in the world. My biggest fear has been in loosing the beauty of nature. The feeling that i get from being in it, connecting with it, can never be replaced by skyscrapers. The connection i had with that sea went back hundreds of years. Through the sea was connected with my father, which ultimately connected me to my heritage. This connection reminded me of a turner painting. Beautiful and violent in paint strokes, rich in paint, saturation, darkness, and potent meaning.


My soul transcended from my physical body towards the depth of the sea. It intermingled in the abyss of salt, creatures, and stories. My soul found its home, in the confines of this translucent liquid ecstasy.