Duality Essay

A relationship that I truly treasure is that of myself and my mom.  I remember the day I was in a fight with my mom, and my grandpa told me, “You should just forget about this fight, your mom is going to be your best friend forever, no matter what.”  I thought he was crazy when he told me that.  I had always taken my mom for granted, or at least it seems that way now that I look back.  Now that I am away hundreds of miles away at school, it seems as though I am closer to her than ever.  She truly is my best friend, and I can go to her with whatever problems I have.  She supports me when I am doing something great, and when I am not succeeding.  She is the one person in this world that knows everything about me, and loves everything about me.  She is a whirl wind of adjectives; fun, loving, stern, supportive, and beautiful.  She is my mother, but more importantly my best friend.

            I think this best friendship connection we have going, really started my senior year in high school.  It was probably a coming of age thing, where I was finally mature enough to just be friends, and not be a person in which she just has to “babysit.”  Our relationship has significant factors that make it great, such as our honesty and respect for each other.  I have never lied to her, and I know she returns the same courtesy.  I am respectful to her and all of her belongings, as she is to me.  We share a lot of things, and that gives us a strong bond.  We have similar tastes in most things, and therefore it makes us one in the same. 

            We also have physical characteristics that make us similar.  We are both tall and kind of lanky.  I have been told that I am the “spitting image” of my mom; I take that as a compliment.  My mom is everything to me.  She is the person I can just be myself around.  She accepts me for everything I am, and want to be.

I Paint

This video is awesome!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozc6t4KwEko&feature=player_embedded

Martin Puryear

This was a great reading, I thought that Puryear's passion for art and traveling was very inspiring.  His love of learning to cultures and immersing himself in foreign areas of the world is something that I can relate to. I have always wanted to travel, and now that I am coming to that age where I am able to do so, it is very interesting reading about people who do this for a living.  I thought his work was exceptional, he is a very talented sculptor.

Kendall Buster

After reading this article, it is clear that Kendall Buster is a very talented artist.  Her resume seems to be never ending with her work.  Recognized all over the world, Buster truly has some great accomplishments. After looking at all of her work, I have even more of an appreciation for artists.  All of her projects were so detailed, and looked as though they took a massive amount of time.  I thought her work was great, and I enjoyed reading her bio.

Errol Morris on Photography

This video summarized the idea that photography is not always realism.  People assume that because a photograph is taken of real objects, there is so much that can be left out, or cropped out to skew the realistic parts of a photograph.  Morris makes a point that there is so much that you can do to a photograph to make it different than the human eye actually sees.  An example made in the video was the pathway where the elephant was cropped out.  Had the elephant been in the picture, the image would be completely different.  The main point of this video is that photography is not as real as most think, it can be skewed to how the photographer wants it to be, therefore not showing all of the reality.

Ways of Seeing

This video was very interesting, in part because it was an old film, but also because it mentioned things I really had not heard of before.  With the invention of the camera, everything we knew about seeing changed.  This video made a point about the fact that after a camera was invented, the whole world of imagery changed.  The camera changed not only what we see, but how we see everything.  Even paintings from pre camera era, were viewed differently after the invention of a camera.  Because before a camera, we could view the painting in generally one location, after the invention of the camera, the paintings came to you.  Often times these paintings defined the buildings they were located in, however now this was no longer, paintings were on the move.

Masters of Illusion

This video was very insightful as an artist and photographer.  With the video being primarily about depth and vanishing points, the information was very useful.  Vanishing points are one of the key parts of any piece of art.  For example, a vanishing point can give a painting depth, and have it make sense to a viewer. Another example, for a simple photograph, depth can add so much to a single image.  This video was very helpful and I am sure I will reference this video again for future projects.