me and you (what a feeling).

These are some test strips from my first photography assignment. It was pretty much left open to whatever we wanted to photograph, just so long we tried out some different lighting scenes and  adjusted accordingly to the aperture/shutter speed. While I didn't really plan on taking anything I really invested in, I really love these photographs I took of Matt. They ended up being really intimate and truthful (hopefully I'm not coming off as pretentious this early in the game..haha) It's cool..I was thinking about how this kind of 'truthful intimacy' is used pretty frequently in art, and the way people's art is really a testament to the way they really see their lover. I thought it'd be fun to play the Name Game quick..

Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar.

Egon Schiele & Valerie (Wally) Neuzil.

Francis Bacon & George Dyer (some of my favourite paintings- oh, yes, there are lovely multiples).

Gianlorenzo Bernini & Constanza Bonarelli.

 Salvador Dalí & Gala Dalí.

Édouard Manet & Suzanne Leenhoff.

Alfred Steiglitz & Georgia O'Keeffe.

major tom to ground control..

I have a lot of things on my mind lately..just kind of a pooling of random inquisitions and fascinations..

space. it may sound cliché, i don't care, but i am so fascinated in it all. the texture and skin of each planet (the colours are getting to me), what constitutes or makes for life on each planet (is there life on all (if any) of the planets?) so good. i just want to make super chunky, thick impasto-styled paintings based on those incredible national geographic-esque photographs. jupiter (above) is most probably my favourite. there's something super mystic about those shades of blue and how i find myself constantly returning to these shades in works i get "pulled" into..i could take this one step further and bitch it out about NASA's termination of the space shuttle program and how it's so irresponsible to end our resources with what is real, natural and unknown to man so we can continue a war on drugs or more sport stadiums, but i'm not going to do that..

david bowie. i've gotten ridiculously obsessed with bowie as of late. (i've had "hunky dory" on repeat when painting more than once..) particularly the song (and early video) of "space oddity" (shocker, it involves the unknown insecurities of life/space). but seriously it's so good. that song in particular can go so much deeper than the surface level if you take the time to hear it out..(and the bass in that song blows my mind- listen to it through really good headphones and you'll see what i mean).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67kmFzSh_o&feature=related

this is one the many paintings done by adolf hitler. i don't mean to get all pseudo-rebellious on you, but it's really amazing. i want to see more. i'm super, super interested in his connections with gustav klimt's vienna academy of art school and how he was turned away at eighteen. i recently read a brief little biography of egon schiele and it noted his connections with the school and someone brought up how hitler was just a few votes shy from the administrators to making it into the academy. if he had made it into the academy, how graciously different would  the world  (or possibly, not) be? i just think it's amazing that this kid is only eighteen and has been rejected in a painstakingly personal way and completely revamps his life into this unworldly, unthinkable way..i also like, when i was talking about this with my roommate, how impersonal his paintings are. she said there, more or less, isn't really any of hitler in the work. it's just done so black and white. here's a rendering of a landscape followed by some viennese buildings. it's rendered beautifully, no doubt, but nothing much more is really offered. i want to see more personal collections of creative thought (i.e. early journaling, sketchbooks..).

henry moore. i've grown increasingly infatuated with henry moore's sculptures, as well as sketchbooks. so, so, so good. i feel like he has such an incredible overview and narrative with figures and space in relation to themselves, which is something i am trying to work on. i'm actually starting (and continuously revising) this new painting project that is based on a lot of things, but really shines an influence from moore in it, i'm coming to realize. it's really cool when you kind of subconsciously pull these influences from art (or anything for that matter) that you study for long enough and then when you step away from it long enough you can see them clearly (like being able to 'pull' out what appears to be obvious shades of green in pthalo blue that others might not see..)

anyways. that's the jist of what's going on right now. i will keep you all posted on my painting project which i am going to get started on again in the morning. :)