Teenager

The fact that I'm mortal influences everything I do. Being conscious of how little time I have to 'experience' pushes me to come out of my shell and do the things I do. I don't have forever and so I go. Conciousness about existing as it is makes me feel trapped, like my humanity is a prision that I can't escape.

I feel condemned, even when I'm at an amusement park with my sisters all I can think about is their dying day. Consciousness is the bitter vegetable in the soup of my life, makes everything seem pointless. Why try to leave a mark in a world that will continue to burp out mortals? They will die, their kids will die, their kid's kids will die, and so on.

Perhaps it's a "phase" I'm going through but eh. Perhaps it's like a friend says, "That's how we feel now because we're young, we're teenagers. Forty, sixty years from now we'll think differently. By then we would've done everything we possibly could and whatever we didn't do we won't regret because we'll be too tired to."

Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. The thought ruins things, because of it I find most people boring, ignorant, parties are boring. I like to lock myself away and comfort myself with writing or reading. Writing, I don't know why I do it. Right now I do it for money. I wish to do it for money in the future but not completely. Stories designed to bring in cash soon resemble a prostitute. Tired, bitter, "one-eyed and sickly." But consciousness tells me I haven't the time to waste in making money or going to school to learn how to make money.


Everything seems like a waste of time. I'm boring.

Truth by Pseudonym

Truth by Pseudonym

Our projects were meant to be questionably funny. We've created three projects, one targeting safe sex and the other two targeting the economy. I feel that we did end up with what we had expected although as always the art took it's own course during the creation process.

Safe sex project:

The background of the poster is covered of different colored condoms to represent different flavors of "candy." The quote on the condom that Maria is holding reads, "Good Candy [comes in a wrapper]" making "Good Candy" the condom brand name and the "[comes in a wrapper]" the 'company's" slogan or whatever. Initially we wanted to hand out blown up different colored condoms that had our quote written on it, but we had to change our plans because of school rules and such. The reason we initially wanted to hand out condoms and not just make a poster was to make it a somewhat active advertisement. We wanted to be the business that hands out product samples instead of the business that just puts up billboards.


Economy Projects:

The "Girls Gone Broke" piece was inspired after Joe Francis's requesting of a bailout from the governement. Apparently with the current economy stress people don't buy their porn as often as they used to. If attention is paid to the contrast of the women in the background you can see it goes from sensual looking females to the decent moms and little girls.

Our "Lady Liberty" piece was inspired by the current economy and how America's people are basically suffering even while under Lady Liberty's protective robe. Our text reads: "Your Poor. Your tired. Your Hungry" which is exactly what the majority of America is today.

Teeny reflection on Ms.T's Katrina multi media

The juxtaposition of the list of facts and the hurricane/effect images really gave it the face of a t.v./radio/newspaper informative piece. It certainly helped the theme which I have it understood to be how the media affects what people care about and for how long they care about it. The art (music and images), and the article excerpts contradicted the media...I think the media [first portion of slideshow] was to inform as to the overall effects and who donated money and how many people died. However the way the disaster of Katrina affected people was hished after a while...I think there's a bright idea behind it all but seeing/hearing this didn't really get anything across to me at first, not until Ms. T explained the meaning behind it all did I understand it. Wasn't clear I guess.

Book

My initial theme was "children in my neighborhood." Throughout the creating of the book though my ideas changed, though I did use the intended media, drawings, objects and photographs. Originally I wanted to play around with toddler toy cars in the scenery of my pictures but as that proved itself impossible I did something else. Instead of putting children's toys in the photos I photographed children. Originally I wanted to avoid putting people in my book because I wanted to avoid both people and words and focus on objects. I ended up photographing my sisters. The one thing, for lack of better word, that stands out to me on the streets are teen parents. I wanted to mention that in my book, how sometimes people can't do what they want because of certain choices they made along the way. Even if they do do it, it is more difficult with a child. So, I hired my sisters as models and instructed them into costumes. My sister Carla was instructed to put on my dad's shoes because she has longer, thicker, boy-like legs. I had my sister Jazmin wear a pair of my mom's high heels since her legs are extremely thin and would make a funny contrast with the large shoes. I titled the picture "Playing dress-up" and it's one of my favorites.

As you can tell I did mess with the contrast and colors. I did this after noticing how "lame" the pictures looked. I like the way the photos turned out, being my first time taking photos for the purpose of art, the darkness about some of them go right with my theme. What I ended up saying about the children in my community was...How they live in a "real" world with a "fake" cover. My book cover is really pretty paper with flowers and animals in bright colors. I had the little kids in my CCD class draw on the inside of the books...Different crayons and different images. Then above this images I pasted down my dark pictures. Children go to school and smile at everyone, sometimes they're shy to draw in art class but they end up drawing a house with a red door and a tire swing, a dog, and two parents. I think what I ended up saying was, everything may seem like it is okay but that is not always the case. However I also think I said, everything may seem like it's wrong but that isn't always the case. I suppose I ended up with the old cliche: Don't judge a book by it's cover. When I realized this I was a bit angry. I think I couldve used more pictures and maybe more subjects or more drawing somehow. I'm not satisfied with my creation because it seemed too plain and the message too obvious. There were times when I thought "Why am I choosing this picture? How does this help my theme? Do I need it?" but I just went with the flow. Then again I am always too self-concious and very critical about my own work. I never did get a chance to hear what others thought. Regardless of my un-satisfaction I enjoyed the project, it was something fun and new. In my case it was also something experimental since I am a writer and not a visual artist.

Photos used in book and their titles:

"First thing I see in the morning" [c. 2008]

"The door dissapeared" [c. 2008]

"Chosen profession" [c. 2008]

"Playing dress-up" [c.2008]

"Night walk" [c. 2008]

"Daddy dizzy-walked home" [c. 2008]