Carbon Copies
Artist Statement “No one ever taught me/ how to apologize/ to my own body./ How do I make amends/ with someone/ I spent half my lifetime/ trying to break?” ~Marina V. “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and they will come forth, later, in uglier ways.” ~Sigmund Freud “I act and react, and suddenly I wonder ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?’” ~Sylvia Plath “One day I just woke up and realized that I can’t touch yesterday. So why the heck was I letting it touch me?” ~Steve Maraboli “When every time you see him, it’s like the first time your eyes glimpsed a clear night sky- and like the stars he only grows more and more lovely.” “ When you burst into song and serenade and dance through the rooms of your house, the corridors of your work, school, across the streets, into shops- spontaneously. Just because that is what he does to you.” “Show me the most damaged parts of your soul, and I will show you how it still shines like gold.” ~Nikita Gill “When thoughts of him project from your heart to your mind on an endlessly repeating film reel.” Continuously fighting oneself. Not allowing for happiness, but it’s all you want. Seeing true beauty, but afraid of the moment when some unforgiving, demonized spirit slithers its way into your life, snatches up your dearest moments and replaces them with fears and insecurities. Nonetheless, the ironic thing is, those insecurities are derived from nothing at all, yet are suddenly everything. There is no reason to think in such way. Trust, warmth, love, and life have only thrived where your blind eyes turn. Actually, not so much blind, for you see these things, you just cannot believe that these gifts are meant for you. The chords that had once been your heart strings, have sat silently for so long, begin to play again; being plucked in such a beautiful and majestic way for your ears and soul. Ponder if your heart is even allowed to feel this way, “Is it to good to be true? It must be, what have I done to deserve to be so happy, to deserve this, to deserve you?” Oh, but that is the sadness indeed, for every individual should be allowed, no NEEDS to be able to feel this way. To feel important, blessed with the gifts of the world, to not only see in grays, but those gentle fuchsias and warming lilacs. Thy eyes and heart have been opened. Yes, more vulnerable to the bright and harsh environment the surrounds me, but only the fiercest of opportunities evolve when the light is allowed to get to them. And every risk, pain of reality, every chance of heartbreak, of envy, doubt, fear, loss, and hurt will be worth it just so that I can look into your amber eyes once again, hear your soft whisper of my name, and be reminded of why I am in your life, and why you are mine. |
The Foxes Artist Statement “I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague." - Agent Smith As a species that developed moving transportation, electricity, realized that the light we see at night is the lasting imprints of stars that exploded billions of years ago and their light is just now reaching us, know the exact force that is pulling us to earth’s surfaces (9.8 m/s), know the exact pressure to stop implosions while traveling two miles underneath the sea level, know how to cure life threatening diseases, built a machine seventeen miles long under ground that speed up atoms so fast that when the collide it cause an explosions so vast we were able to discover the actual mass of an atom and this was all captured by a camera five stories tall, are able to think creatively and outside the box to write our emotions in life changing poetry, fascinating fiction, and complain in blogs to anyone who is willing to listen. But, in the same breathe we are a world of destruction, we built a floating trash pile in the middle of the pacific ocean the size of Texas, ripped a hole in the O-Zone layer the size of Maine, create nuclear fallouts that cause areas of the earth to be uninhabitable to any living organism, we cut down our own life bringers, have cities so polluted they can't see their own hands in front of them and have more people die from the smog then heart attacks, we spread and devour any objects in arms length, and we still have yet to address even more issues. Cancer is of our creation, the amount pesticides and other byproducts have caused actual mutations in our genes resulting in cancers and allergies that were not as apparent as 30 years before. We grow our food to be bigger and better but cut down our humanity in processing this in half. Animal abuse surrounds us and we hear it on the television but turn it off at the end of the day. We kick our issues to the next generation. As our earth dies in front of us, be become less connected as a society. We love less, and message more, time spent outside is now used at the screen of a computer, children are losing skills of concentration and effort, and adults are having shorter wicks of peace and catch fire and rage more often. A simple “I’m sorry” is no longer expectable. All great moments in our history is worthless, because the human races as a whole is worthless, for we do not notice our imperfections. Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money. |
Steal Case Artist Statement “She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something” Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park Why cant beauty be painless? “Black ocean, cold and dark I am hungry shark, fast and merciless But the only girl that could talk to him, she couldn’t swim Tell me what’s worse than this” ~Lydia by Highly Suspect Are women held like idols? “Threre’s an energy When you hold me When you touch me It’s so powerful I can feel it When you hold me When you touch me Its so powerful” ~Powerful by Major Lazer Women are pushed in the light expected to act and look a certain way according to a book written a long time ago. Women are imprinted from a young age the dos and don’ts of society. Evidence surrounds us all. From the tight revealing dresses displayed in store shop windows to sliming diet pills. Women as one are pushed down a road ending at a drop off point of no return. Why is female anatomy held like a trophy to some and a disease to others? Why are little girls searching for approval in men when they can’t even look in the mirror and see something beautiful? Society has a sick way of twisting hopes with dreams. Changing oneself for the gain of others is no one’s dream. And the hopes of women will certainly never be filled by others, one action is disowned by one group of people and the next action is disgusting by a different group. Only when allowance to be unique and the cares of others are destroyed is written as the last sentence in that old book, will there be peace. |
Phobophobia Artist Statement “I’m not the only kid who grew up this way, surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme about sticks and stones as if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called and we got called them all. So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us, that we’d be lonely forever, that we’d never meet someone to make us feel like the sun was something they built for us in their tool shed. So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone, that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there’s no way for it to metastasize, it does.” ~Shane Koyczan I am always searching, hunting, and fretting the fears, the voices. The ones that follow me, that peck at my back reminding me of the failures, the wastes of my life. The ones that remind me that I am not smart, not beautiful, not important. The ones that doubt my very existence, who scream my ears “why even try, you won’t make it.” They weaken my knees, break my heart, my motivation, they rip to shreds my happiness, and falter my walk. Phobophobia, the fear of fears. I am afraid of the thought of fear. More like I am fear. I am engulfed in disapproving, soul crushing thoughts of terror, fright. My days are led, choked by the grasp the hand of fear. They lead, I follow. I have no choice but to bow down the painful thoughts of unhappy ending, day in and day out. I see no end. I have tried to be strong for me, to support me. But when you are afraid to step outside of your house, to talk to individuals, to make friends, to believe in yourself; you slowly find it hard to move. You are frozen in place like a deer caught in headlights. You know your certain doom, but do nothing to fix it. I allow these fears to grow, instead of whipping it back into place. How can that be? How can I know the answer to my pain, and not be able to change the outcome? How can I fear so much fear and not love enough to change? What is wrong? Is it me? Is it society? No…it has to me, what is any other answer… |
The Light
Artist Statement
Why sit around and dream, when you can do? I find life to be a beautifully curious and evil beast. Born to consume all living creatures in its wake, leaving nothing but of corpse of what was. But before that unfaithful moment, bound to happen to every individual, life also offers a gift. A gift filled with adventures, lessons, love, loss, excitement, emotions, and most of all happiness. What life has taught me about happiness, is that it does not come alone. With out pain and sadness, happiness could not shine as brightly as it does, and happiness is the soul purpose of life. To be grateful for the moments in time, the people surrounding you, and every event bound to pass by your feet. So strap on and expect a ride, live with strides, but also baby steps and remember every second in between for whats the point of life if you are living?