Ok so the elephant is coming along great I am trying to loose my expectations and just do. I like it so far.
                                             In other news!

Making my self 10x10inch shadow box picture frames!
So I started making frames finally! For some smaller sized paper works! I’m excited cause I cut the channel for a glass panel and made the outside of 4 frames so far. So hopefully I can attach a back that has the ability to be removed. This is step 1 being done, and step 2 almost there, I have 2 more huge pieces of wood which means 4 more frames! Making a total of 8 all together. Then I’ll be able to move on to the next steps, which would be cutting the back, painting all the wood white, inserting glass, using adhesive tape on the back panel to attach some works, and then attaching the panel to the frame. I’m so excited cause I’ve never done this before and it’s working out well. So far it’s only cost me 10 dollars, to buy the wood and a panel but I might need to buy another panel. I also need to buy glass, and some how cut it, and buy house paint. I think it will cost me all together another 20 bucks, which is a total of 30 dollars for 8 10x10 frames, when 1 10x10 frame cost $25 at your local A.C.MOORE.

Mini watercolor sketches of the same image
Painting 3 workshop
2012
Experimenting with idea’s

Kurt Cobain’s Hair
Artist and the Notebook
This was another attempt at creating an icon out of the body. I drew it on the date of Kurt Cobain’s death. I tried drawing it so it would embodied him. My next attempt will be Courtney Love as I have a continuous obsession with her. It’s an awful shame that they share one of the most heart breaking romances to ever be famous for. Kurt was a legend that wanted ended it and the reason I adore Courtney so much is because she is still kicking and screaming just like a legend should.
2012

4 Mouth’s
Artist and the notebook.
This was my idea to make a small series in trying to create Icon’s out of the body. Unfortunately I got caught up doing the same thing over and over and couldn’t find any part of the body I found more interesting. Ps. All of these are from photographs of albino’s. I was trying to relate it to a series I had been doing in another class.
2012

Portrait 2
Advanced Life Drawing
Water Color
2011

This painting was about identifying societal repression with in the self. We all have those guilty thoughts, those “evil” ideas, those thoughts that society would disagree with, or that the world hasn’t adjusted to yet. Here evil pierces through they eyes, the melting flesh, and the color red. There is an underlying passion evoking it self. But the posture is just a glimpse, and a fleeting moment. Dominance and primal instinct are denied in the human race, but you can tell when some one reverts back just for a second in there mind through an expression.

Portrait
Advanced Life drawing
Charcoal
2011

A self portrait.
Coming forward from the space I was thinking about romanticism the idea of self indulgence, and the denial of an identity, while still holding onto to some romantic ideals like life and death. Here their is a figure unsure of it self though it has presence. This drawing to me had to do with the theory of Alan Watts discusses nothing. It is a self portrait that defies a self due to it’s intrinsic nature, yet still retains form due to it’s being. So we are here and we are not, and we are equally nothing as we are equally something. Sometimes I can’t help but feel who ever I am is “missing”. Sometimes I think faster than I act, sometimes I am disconnected from an act, and sometimes my body is disconnected from a thought. We are two beings physical and metaphysical. We are who we portray ourselves to be in society, and unless someone cares to learn more we become another person for that person to know deeper. I am nothing, and I do hold onto these memories and my emotions and I do feel it is important to feel, and so color could not express this idea. Only black and white could really present the two beings as they are. I believe their is a time to feel and time to not. Usually when I feel is when I am “holding onto something” or when “I’m not alone” physically or mentally. When I am not interrupted I am in the moment of an action an action that is completely disconnected. It is like sleeping with out dreams. It’s like turning off.

Look Mom I’m Jumping on the Bed
Yarn, sticks, resin, epoxy, bed, sheets, pillows and blanket.
2011
Sculpture 1 (Installation) (final)

The first idea was a failure and so I moved on. I decided to use the same materials and recreate my idea. I began to create a piece that had to do with the negative space around a person. The objects I used for this piece were white yarn, branches, wire, and resin.

I used the yarn, sticks, and resin to illustrate a series of objects that based on shape, color, placement and size were to play with the space 2 dimensionally, 3 dimensionally, shift weight and invert presence. I was trying to bring presence to the negative space by illustrating contour lines, and illustrating flat and 3 dimensional objects in front of a black sheet. I was also trying to invert weight, by placing a clear resin puddle and using resin made objects that are suspended from a string in the center.

The idea is here is a man who stands on a bed his legs are spread and his arms are up creating a shape similar to an X shape. The yarn and objects are used to illustrate his posture by solidifying the negative space within the objects. The background becomes interrupted by what is now the positive space that frames the negative. His weight is played with in resin and yarn in the sense that where his feet should be placed is a translucent puddle and the negative space in between his legs is activated by a resin and yarn mobile that creates 3 dimensions with flat objects.

Weight is distributed through out the body in different ways. By being sensitive to this I invert the torso with a thin string of yarn, lighten the feet with the resin objects because a translucent object reads weightless compared to a colored one and created something heavy above the head with an upside down 3 dimensional pyramid illustrated through binding a structure made from branches and wire. . 

By using a thin string to suspend the weights above and below the torso I am activating the idea of weight through out the figure as something opposite of what human presence is by creating an inverted positive space figure.

I am discussing with myself a focus on life as something that always has balance because internally I feel that life is indecisive and full of struggle. I play with three dimensional and 2 dimensional in the shapes I create. The bed acts as a stage for my narrative, and also the bed and the pyramid above my head act as the three dimensional.

The sticks on the wall create a contour and the yarn being wrapped around them helps for me to reinvent their dimension through the color white. The string in the center  creates an inverted weight as well and becomes 2 dimensional on the wall behind it. I am creating 3 dimensional contours that play with negative space because of their shape and color.

I call this piece Look Mom I’m Jumping on the Bed, for me it has to do with a lot of personal things. It has to do with growing up as a gay child and being scared to have a connection with your parents due to a difference in time. The idea behind the title is to show that nostalgic connection we share between our parents and ourselves that seems attention seeking and free when we are young. Here I present the viewer with a man in hopes that I can still bridge the connection between the ages as an adult. The reason my piece resembles something similar to an artifact, relic or old monument is because I remember hiding to please them and always finding it harder to connect, gauge and coupe with the age difference between us. It is simply to reference a prior date to my existence. It took me a long time to come out and even today I still struggle with finding comfort in myself as a homosexual male.

I choose white because I still feel pure and innocent, branches because they are natural and I feel like I can relate them to the figure, yarn because I grew up illustrating since I was 3 or 4 and using line, and filling in spaces has been something familiar to me forever. Using the yarn implies my ability to illustrate the space and determine circumference and measure. I use the space of a bed because this is where I feel most alone, most private, and where my more worrisome thoughts accumulate all at once. I worry about balancing life especially because now the balance of life is completely at stake according to some new laws being created. Though I’ve just been received the ability to get married, it seems that America has been going through some spontaneous law changes due to the American public peacefully protesting against big business in occupy wall street. I can’t only say that though we are starting to reach equality we took a step back and are about to be repressed again.

Obstruction
Sticks, wire, yarn, mortar mix, branches, and flowers.
2011
Sculpture 1

Multiple Processes that come together to create an obstruction. Each processes was created to block off the space with in the hole as well as to change with in each process and through each process change the shape, or is constantly changing over time. The idea is that not facing something head on creates a mess of things that don’t last. In the end their is a reminder of what once was in every layer. You must dig deep to dig even deeper just to fill the void.

Moss Hair Dryer and Pillow
Sculpture 1
Hair Dryer, butter milk, sugar, and real moss.
2011

The moss Hair dryer is a piece that is about if human life had completely cycled to a new generation of people after an apocalypse. The hair dryer is found as an object but unknown as to what it was used for. In this time period plastic bags survive and are found all over the world in excess. But again no one knows what to use plastic bags for so they stuff their pillows with them. Pillows are still known about because their is enough documentation about sleep by this time.
Creating this piece was interesting, I didn’t create the mixture the exact way I should of and so mold grew all over it, I tried to get rid of it all but some surviving mold spores exist.

Anything You Can Do I am Unsure of
2011
Fasners, Vinyl Suit bag, Vinyl comforter bag, string, wire, House siding, electrical tape and wood.
Flexible Structures (Final)

For my last project I really wanted to test the materials, relate it back to my last couple of larger projects that I was doing in the class, and still fit the criteria. I made a clear pair of jeans with slippers out of a vinyl coat bag, a vinyl comforter bag, tape, wire, wood, window blinds, round head fasteners, a zipper, a button, and a needle and thread  The entire making was a learning process, because I’m new too sewing and have never made a pair or jeans or slippers before.

            While making this piece I was trying to activate the negative space around me by illustrating motion and bringing believable weight through something that is translucent and has a narrative. But because I am new to this idea myself, the piece was supposed to be a trial for learning motion, stiffness of objects, placement, balance, measurement, and the ability to bring it all together. I wanted to make sure I had a repetitive motion happening in front of me so the puppetry system seemed to work. By extending 4 pieces of wood, and 2 pieces of window blinds with a wire running through it and piece of wood on the back of it along the out side joints of my legs toward the same points on the pants I’d be able to replicate motion through these stiff but flexible materials. I created an attachment system through wire, so I’d have the ability to reattach and tighten. The pants stand at least 2 feet in front of me imitating and activating the space through a copy of my own motions. I made the pants by creating tubes similar to the length of my legs then creating a gusset and a wide tube for the pelvic area out of the clear vinyl materials. Then I created 4 wire circles to be placed inside the legs of the pants at the joints, and a larger wire circle at the waste to make them feel like they had been filled. I took the slippers I made that are held together by fasteners and put a string through them and the pants so they’d move when I moved the legs. The whole idea was to illustrate space and imitate motion.

            It basically has to do with setting goals for the future, I’m trying to illustrate the idea that I can’t keep up with myself because I am in living in the present. Here I use white to discuss nothingness, and vinyl to discuss subtle presence. By personifying goals through the nothingness and yet presence I am saying that there is no way to figure out something that isn’t physical by a physical presence. Decisions are flexible like the materials but by speaking your “mind” though intrinsically void you are creating a statement about yourself that might not be fully truthful. Here the color and material come into play, white discusses purity and nothingness, and vinyl discusses presence due to its ability to refract light. I’m creating a physical statement that is unsure of it self, yet is being pushed by what is occurring in the present. I’m extremely inspired by Alan Watts.

The Spiritual Plague.
Flexible Structures
Fabric, grommets, string, wire, and grid mesh.

Sewing together a Victorian pattern fabric helmet, neck corset, and mouth guard has never had so much to do with my self! I realize that most of the work in the class flexible structures is some what relieving of an internal thought process and a narrative.

I used two types of fabric, grommets, 2 different types of string, white screen and different gauges of wire. The process was based on fitting the fabric to my body as tightly as possible and sewing the fabric to a frame that I created from wire and screen to fit my skull.

The entire piece I thought required an arm piece to show case the idea of an insect inspired exoskeleton. But what I didn’t realize right away was the 1^st part of the project I was making was completely related to the mosquito. The mosquito is a tiny insect made up of three parts, “the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.” Just like this my piece is made up of three parts, and like the mosquito’s exo-skeleton the piece sits firmly on top of what’s underneath and is kind of furry or hairy. The head which if you count the proboscis(or needle nose) on a mosquito’s head is actually longer than the thorax of the creature, and the abdomen is longest section of a mosquito. I extenuate my own neck with the corset, and then I cover my mouth and place the helmet on. Each piece acts as a way to compensate a relation in proportions between the head to neck section of the human figure and the body of a mosquito.

Also the piece resembles a plague doctor mask but isn’t functional like one. The narrative I’m taking on has to do with death and religion, and the mosquito and plague seem to fit together with this idea of death, and this spread of a certain type of sickness. The reason I talk about this idea of death, is because I struggle with a severe case of depression and a way I coupe with this is by fantasizing about it in extreme ways, these extreme ways are some what comical now. I am also dealing with some upcoming death in the family as well. The sickness is shame, I cover my face, I corset a part of my body, just like anyone else I also have superficial insecurities. I think that idea is brought on by how I don’t identify with one gender, and how I as a person am constantly in a confused state of what to believe and not to believe and I feel like this comes from the vast world and all of it’s. Here the idea of the fabric plays in, and creates the connection to religion, and gender. The colors are blue and white and have this whimsical some what Victorian celebration style floral pattern. I’m an atheist and I believe that religion sometimes divides the people and sometimes it separates us this is why I don’t part take in any specific religious acts with full comfort. The piece and I together become a curious spiritual creature that share an ephemeral male like presence, but is androgynous to the viewer. We don’t judge the creature by its masculine or feminine we judge it on its shape, color, and association.

 This piece would be used in a performance were I personify death, as a creature with my last piece the hand of death. The performance would portray this idea of “death to all types of generalization.” In the performance I would go around touching every one’s forehead with my hand to enlighten them to stay away from judgment. I will be ducked below the people to show that I am not one of extreme power, I might also create more corsets for my body. The idea is to represent what society and tradition can do too someone

Hand of Death
Flexible Structures
Wire, Fabric, Mesh grid, Gardening wire, Elastic, Cardboard, string, a glove, white spray paint and hot glue.
2011

I wanted to make a functional extension on my arm. I wanted it to cover my entire arm and extend to the ground. I’m going to use a pulley system that attaches to my arm for the large fingers to move some what accurately. Then I’ll be building a skeleton structure all the way up my arm past my shoulder. This structure will be created from fabric to give it an eerie feel as well as to test the materials.
I’m calling it the hand of death because I want it to be so large that it can almost wrap around a persons body. Eluding to the idea that death is larger than us, yet people commit murder all the time. Ideas of obtaining spiritual powers that end with consequence and trying to play the role of a sentinel being. The idea of power and how we use our self indulgent desires to create things that aren’t necessary. This power to create begins to look contrived thus causing feelings of shame and so the hand becomes jaded. I want this hand to symbolize my ideas of playing with extended space and still having to do with playing god and becoming the fallen angle.

Physical Embarrassment
3 large spools of Yarn, 3 Bottle caps, wire, and a hula hoop.
Flexible Structures
2011
            I had a lot of thoughts while creating this project, it seemed at the beginning I was all over the place, but I had just been refining my ideas. A lot of thoughts about embarrassment, and shame went into this work. After creating the skeleton of this project I realized that I had been weaving the spaces closed. This came into thought shortly after I had questioned myself what does this have too do with me? I realized that it had everything to do with me. I didn’t realize that I was covering up the holes, and was creating a smoother visual for my surroundings. Make up isn’t foreign too me at all. I also realized as a person I’m always looking too improve myself, I’m looking to better my understanding of the entirety of my life and the ones around me. If I were too impose these idea on the sculpture it would only make complete sense, that I was filling empty area’s that I felt insecure with, and that weaving through the empty spaces of the skeleton I created was too fill frailty with life and presence. I even went as far as too coiling around the garbage and the found objects part of my piece, because I felt it was subtracting from the works presence. Toward the beginning I wanted this piece too look similar to a sound wave, commonly scene on recording programs, but more three dimensional but as I continued it excavating deeper into the work and myself I realized that it is my insecurity with sound, more specifically my laugh and voice. I have always been the first one to judge my laugh because it is so outrageous, and I’m not afraid too show how much I sicken myself.  This insecurity with something that is more sound then visualization is completely equivalent to why I had been creating this sculpture. I had been covering up something that wasn’t visual but had so much presence. In a way it’s not a sad thought at all in fact I think it’s kind of funny, and in the end I feel like it’s a perfect visualization of my thought process. It seems clumsy and repetitive, echoing a voice, bestowing a presence. Using the methods I learned in class too accumulate a large amount of paranoia I constantly feel in large groups of people. Creating this work was therapeutic and relieving.

Sewn Objects.
Fabric, and cardboard.
Flexible Structures
2011

We had to recreate an object using fabric. I made a Wine glass by looking at a wine glass then creating similar structures out of fabric to sew together to create a similar form. Hand sewn. The white thing is an unclosed pillow with out any fluff in it. I used a sewing machine for this, I had never known how to sew at all before these two projects. For me it was a learning process of sewing and structure.