The Deleted Post

The memory is still fresh, but the desire is gone. I was going to explain what animal represents me, why, and where this view comes from. Screw that. I wrote half of the post at school, came home and wrote the other half. The computer auto-connected to SOVA. It had 5 bars. I finished the work and pressed "publish".

And it vanished. I opened up my soul, and it vanished. Life is a greedy beast, it seems. Well, it was just a post. A shard of me. And perhaps it is better that it is gone. Still, I like to have my thoughts on paper. It clears my head, frees me. I don't have to remember them anymore. The memory weighs me down still. Perhaps I am not meant to part with it yet.

I do not know. I know that when I write, I get carried into the world of words. Computers are cruel. No matter how much you work at something, they do not recognize its value until you tell them. My words will never return. That's why I can't just redo it. The memory is still too fresh.

The Snake

I love to read comics. There is a story in one of them, the story of a man with ambitions, a snake, and another, a chick, yet unable to fly, but already so far ahead of the snake. The snake captures him, thinking that if he makes use of him, he will be able to fly. But when the chick grows up, he kills the snake, and tells him: "You are the snake, cursed to crawl on the earth, wishing for the sky. You will only ever see the sky... in the talons of the hawk." Those words remained with me.


Veronica asked us, in 2D; "What animal represents you best?" A Tiger? A mouse? Are you resolute? A coward?  Courageous? Fearful? If you were something else, someone else, if you were a dream, or a sunset, what color would you be?


The snake. It looks upwards, at the trees, the sun, the sky and the birds who fly in it, free, and it envies them. The snake is a sad, cursed beast, bound to the ground, unable to achieve it's ambitions... It will see the sky , feel the cool wind, the the thrill of flight once, perhaps. In the talons of the hawk. 


I imagine myself as a bird, flying, free. I fancy that I can fly, run faster than our boundaries, jump over fences and houses. I stand at the edge, often, ready to jump. Ready to fly. But the fear grips me. I cannot leave the ground. I cannot risk myself such a long fall. I might die. I might break my legs. I might never walk again. I already cannot walk. Fear holds me down like lead. If I swim, I sink. I cannot fly. I cannot float. I am not the bird; I am the snake. Forever bound by my own fears.


Will Death release me?

This Photograph is my Proof.

This photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us. And she embraced me, and we were happy. It had happened. She did love me. Look, see for yourself.

Don't we all have those days?

You walk away from a part of your life, and you wonder whether or not it actually existed? Was it all just a figment of my imagination? Did it even have any meaning? People change with time, and we always forget what they used to be, it's like there's only one slot of memory for them, and it overwrites the previous entry when they change. I wonder... Did she ever love me? Did I love her? It was a long time ago, wasn't it? Now... We're different, aren't we?

Time erases memory, and memory is the only thing we have to prove our existence, our past. Except pictures. Pictures save us. And condemn us when we can't recall what they mean.

Our uncertainty is our weakness. My uncertainty undoes me.

Run to the Hills

White man came across the sea

He brought us pain and misery

He killed our tribes, he killed our creed

He took our game for his own need

We fought him hard, we fought him well

Out on the plains, we gave him hell

But many came, too much for Cree

Oh will we ever be set free?

That sounds familiar, in more ways than one, sadly.

Anyway, I was using a tape recorder to record a song I made for the Creative Response project, as a response to the art show that's going on right now and which I saw the opening last night (and then had an awesome time on the yukon riverbank) So I was in the bathroom - there's a mirror, and I love looking at myself goof off in the mirror. So I decided to have some fun.
I practiced the words to Run to the Hills for a bit, and then tape recorded myself. While I was listening to the recording, I began to act out the words and pretend to be a rocker. Anyway, so I redid it with the camera. It wasn't very hard: I get very into things when no one is watching.
 "Sounds familiar":
Well, it's a comment that I've made many times before. Everywhere the white man went and they saw that civilization was less advanced than their own, they took it over, drowned its culture, made it theirs. The americas got the brunt of it, but also Africa and Oceania. And much later, through economy, Southern and Middle Asia. And Japan, too. It's funny... In the middle ages, when both the muslim empires and the asian dynasties were more advanced than the european kingdoms (Socially, scientifically, artistically, technologically, or a mixture of these) Europe suffered no crippling invasion from nations from other continents, except perhaps the turks, but even then, they did not conquer even half of europe. Perhaps it is because they were simply out of the way. Perhaps Europe was so secluded that it's existence was considered irrelevant by other cultures. Nevertheless, when the european powers discovered sub-saharan africa and the americas, they did not hesitate not only to exploit resources, but to exploit and or get rid of the people that lived there. The africans, I believe, were too far behind to have any fighting chance against the gun toting, seafaring tourists, or were a peaceful people, which is somewhat unlikely, and the amerindians, - First Nation, I believe is the politically correct term these days - who would not give up their fertile and sacred lands to these invaders, and fought for their freedom and peace, were crushed, bio-bombed, massacred, pillaged, raped, or in canada, tortured through assimilation and put into "territories". - cages; the entire country was their territory, and should still be.
I despise the ignorance of my white ancestry. It makes me sick to think about it. It's worse since I have only that as a culture to rely on, almost like you. History class should make you want to crawl up into some derelict corner and pray for salvation for all the shit you've caused.
Don't mistake me. I'm not racist - I am against cultural bleaching, or as the taboo words go => Ethnic Cleansing, Cultural Genocide. Sounds pretty bad when it's said like that, eh? Give yourselves a pat on the back. In the last century you went from causing genocide to turning a blind eye to it, to supporting it under the table. It's not like white people are the only terrible people on the planet - the chinese did some horrible stuff to themselves, and so do african tribes, mostly to their women. That makes me sick too, but that's not comparable. Europeans did what they did to other cultures, partly out of cruelty, partly out of ignorance, and partly out of obedience. On that last bit, look up "The Milgram Experiment" on Wikipedia. Better still, here's a link.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

It'll open your eyes, if you didn't already know. Screw you europeans, through your graves and down to hell where your murders haunt you still now, 1, 2, 3, 4 centuries later. Tell you what; your descendants aren't much better than you were. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, they say.

Alegria

Make them laugh. They'll have a hard time shooting you.
What if anything were possible?
If you have no voice, scream; if you have no legs, run; if you have no hope, invent.
In the brave new world of the year 2000, a kiss can still break your heart.
If I were King, who would replace me?
We have no illusions. 

Port: Havannah, Cuba

Watercolor of limestone caves in the west end of cuba. This piece was my 3rd successful (by which I mean not abandoned) attempt at using watercolors, but I was annoyed with how livid the scan version looked. So I played around with it in Aperture to try and get back some of the vividness that the original has.

I must have done a fairly good job of it, I think.

I'm playing with the idea of starting a KotOR manga project, but the scale and sheer time that it would take to do even one chapter (something like, 30 hours per chapter) is scaring me at the moment. Many school projects loom on the horizon, yet to be started, after all...

I also have to make 5 new entries into my sketchbook by friday. I'm doomed.

ODDoceans and satellites

Rush Rush to the crash site, you have to take that picture before school starts, because you have work right after. And then, of course, a twist of fate; the entire class goes to the exhibit.


Anyway, the ODD gallery show was some guy, Kelly, who put together a few dot matrix printers and made this giant room speaker which reads live data from seabuoys (those yellow meteorological platforms anchored helter skelter across the oceans, they read things like current direction, wind speed and wave height) and turns it into sound. It's really cool when you see it, because the speakers move around and it makes for an interesting surround sound experience. One of the sounds sounds pretty much like the low bellow of a whale, others are sharp and short, and others sound like blowing wind. I have a video of it, but I don't know how to upload video, and my pictures are locked in the Aperture image library, so I don't know (and it's too late to care) how to upload them. I'll edit them in when I can.

The crashed satellite is a replica of a Lockheed Martin GPS satellite made entirely out of birch wood and then painted to resemble metal - and it is quite successful. It was made by an artist - in - residence from KIAC; a guy called Brandon Vickard.

[EDIT]: My new camera has a manual, Aperture and Shutter function, so from now on my close up shots should be less blurry. Although sometimes blur is cool.

The Fall of Man

Humans nowadays are wasteful creatures. We work for money so that we can buy things we don't need, eat when we're not hungry, rest when we're not tired. We waste everything from nature to time, for little or no reason. We are becoming a decadent civilization, at least here in the west. We expect comfort, and are baffled when we do not have it; I sleep badly because of cold yukon nights, and I complain, and am pitied by others who think that my right to comfort has been violated. I buy food at the grocery store; I heat up the water before taking a shower. I am angered because I had to pay to use the dryer, because my computer does not connect to the internet, angry at the toaster and the frying pan for burning my breakfast.

We rely on things - clothing, to keep us warm, houses, to protection from the elements, grocery stores, to have all the food we need to eat, on washing machines and computers and microwaves and remote controlled televisions and memory foam beds and countless other things... And when they have expired, we throw them away; the milk, on april 7th, instantly turns sour, because the carton says so. Things said by milk cartons, or politicians, or t.v. advertisement have become the truth; because we are no longer inquisitive enough to want more than what is out there. We are conditioned - from birth - to believe in others, in ideas and thoughts that come from others, in plenty of things which we have no knowledge of, just because everyone else believes, or because it seems as everyday as gravity.

You see, we are giving up our ability to reason. We are becoming slaves - to information, to technology, to our own belief that comfort breeds happiness. We are vaguely aware of the lie, but we are comfortable, so it can't be true. And we are addicted to it, so that even if we did know the truth, we would not walk towards it. It is because we are bred to think that there is no life if it is without comfort.

There was, long ago I believe, another civilization that spread through the world, infecting the upper class and the aristocrats - they lazed about, feasted, partied, ejoyed themselves while their vaults filled with money others slaved for, like dogs, and each expected nothing less from the other. Foolish and ignorant, satisfied with what they had and believing that it was enough, they symbolized the decadence of man. Was this the pride of the roman empire, the french aristocracies, the british admiralties, the chinese monarchies, one after the other? It doesn't matter.

Rome burned, and so did London. Revolution spread throughout nations and across continents. The french courts were executed, of course. So I must wonder... Am I high enough on society's scale to be fated to fall, a slave, really, to my perception of my needs, my vanity, my distorted sense of self, of comfort? I pursue art, after all, so I must have too much time on my hands. Am I thus condemned to fall at the hands of those I tread upon?  And if I am not, then I am most certainly an executioner, one who has suffered at the hands of civilization, of "democracy" of advancement", a debris, a piece of shit, once condemned to work like a dog, and now, free to exact vengeance on those who called themselves the masters?

Which one are you?  - Or better still, which one would you rather be?

The Forward Winds

"The forward winds"; Brace to them and catch them in your sails, and they will push you forwards.

That's my new Way. I used to think that there was simply a presence that made everything click, a "god" that was present in everything, but not in the way religions think of it; more of an energy, a driving force than anything that can be represented. But recently, I feel liberated, above myself, and I believe that it is because of the Winds. I feel like luck will not desert me until I desert myself.

I am by nature an inactive person, but I loathe staticity.  I have come to think that there is always a way to get to a good place, to brace back to square, even if you step astray. It feels as if though I am being helped, subtly, as if though options are present, and will take me to where I want to go, if only I have the courage to take them. It's not about doing the opposite of what my gut tells me anymore, it's helping myself.

A simple example; I made the wrong salad one day at work, and right after the head cook told me that I made the wrong thing, an order came for just the salad that I was holding. Of course, a person ordered this salad, but I think that the winds pushed this person to order it, and because of that, I was given a second chance. These winds help at random, sometimes a great deal (paying for my two first nights in Dawson) and so I'm afraid that they will abandon me, and I feel that they won't as long as I push myself. Perhaps these winds ignite a response, and then it's up to us to sustain them with our own efforts. Anyway, it seems a bit abstract, but I understand. It's pretty hard to explain, though, and perhaps it I'll forever be the only one to see things this way. That's alright, though. Everyone to their own beleifs.

The Art Of Motion

Out of the many ideas that I had for today's post... I stumbled across a website showing this video while looking for lyrics to Eminem's "Like Toy Soilders" or while looking for a suitable picture for the 4D extraction homework. Anyway, it's a stop animation piece created and directed by Russel Wyner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9kiy7tgmy8

It's an interesting video, no? I was surprised as it was the first time I had seen stop motion - heh, that's an interesting term, no - in use in something other than movies, and at first I never would have thought of it as possibly being referenced as "art". This, I guess, is a testimony to the free and personal nature of the art world... Anything you can imagine is art, no? BTW, at the beginning of the video, it is winter, while at the end it is summer. Interesting. Taking a perfect rotating 360 of capitol hill must have taken some time, too.

Anyway, I was looking over old e-mails earlier yesterday and found this interesting comment I made; It's raining sunshine outside. Perfect opposites. Of course what I meant is that it was raining while the sun was shining - I remember, I was working on an english course at the time, sitting in the dining room with all my things, writing to a friend. Anyway, this oxymoron strikes me today as one of the poetically cool things that come off the top of my head, and to which others sometimes allude to. Today, I took this comment in the literal sense. I will get back later with some artwork on that theme.

Nebula

This is a Nebula, my first fully digitally created image, made with photoshop and the help of an online tutorial (internet. there's nothing quite like it.) It's the desktop I use on my dell laptop, and so the left side is mostly empty. I think it's rather cool, although in my efforts not to follow the tutorial, the work became somewhat diminished. Oh well. At least it's nice and personal.

I used Red Blue and Yellow because someone once told me that those are the primary colors from which any color can be made. Unfortunately, you can't see the stars in this size. Whatever. Experimenting with different mediums is the key, and photoshop is an immensely diverse medium, just like any physical tool.

The Walrus- Extraction

Text by Edward Burtynsky published in The Walrus. Comments first. I think it's pretty interesting.


I have, like the author, been a witness to Earth and nature's vastness, and also to the impact of man. When our ragtag crew of untrained high school graduates sailed away from Dakar, Agadir, or some other industrial port whose name escapes me, I saw the smokestacks shrinking in the distance, and empty skies all around and above us, I realized the true vastness of our earth, and how small and insignificant that smokestack may have seen to us humans in the past. But with modern knowledge of the earth's situation, I can appreciate that like our slow-moving ship, that smokestack works continuously, night and day shooting toxic gases into our seemingly unaffected atmosphere. After years and years of continuous operation, that one smokestack would have produced enourmous quantities of waste air, just like our ship would have traveled insanely great distances.

The question, then more comments, perhaps;

I would ask this to humanity as a whole, not to incite action, or the desire to act - desire to act usually becomes desire to act, and nothing more. How much worse, do you think, will things get before they get better?

Burtynsky's final comment about extraction of truth is also interesting: To the world's polluting corporations's billionaires: How much more must you make before understanding that it is not your grandchildren, or your children who will suffer from your actions, but you?

We are already suffering, as if from a flood: the poor get hit first, and worst, but it is not long until even the wealthiest can no longer pretend not to be affected. We are so eager to point the finger, all of us, to the faults of others (Burtynsky notes that "while much has been... said about the Brazilians hacking away at their precious resource, little is said... or even known about our own.") It is the oil companies' fault, the governments' fault, humanity's fault; never our own, never us, never me. "I'm just a tiny human, no matter how much recycling I make, or how much gas I try to save, it'll never change anything. I'm just a small human, It's not me who's doing all that pollution, it's not my fault, or my responsibility, and I couldn't do anything to our huge planet even if I tried.

Just like the smokestack, right?

Prologue

So this is it. The Record - all fancy-like. Hooray. And so it befits this first post to be a self-portrayal, of the textual fashion. Yeah.

So yeah, this is me. I'm a recent acceptee of an out-of-the-ground art program way out of the mainstream, and I like it like that. I came here to further my knowledge of art, and one day maybe, hopefully become a comic book artist, to draw manga or perhaps funny sketches of daily life or growing up and things like that. Way down the line. For now, I'm just an art student. 

[EDIT] WARNING! THE FOLLOWING POST IS RIDICULOUSLY LONG FOR NO GOOD REASON! PROCEED AT OWN RISK!

I come from a small town in a small part of Ontario, called Prescott-Russel, a french-speaking jewel of a place stuck in between Ottawa and Montreal. It's an old, dying place, just like its inhabitants. And I lived on one of the newer, nicer streets with brick houses and of course, populated by retired folks. Not that I would have turned out different if it was any other way. I've always considered myself to be an introvert, I used to play with train tracks and lego, drawings and stories rather than soccer and hockey. So of course when the time came to play soccer and hockey, I sat. I didn't sit out, oh no I sat on the bench... Only just. It was the only thing I was good at doing  whenever sport was involved. Anyway, I'm a pretty weird fellow, very immature, easily excitable, neurotic, [currently famished and sleep deprived, but that's a story for another time, perhaps.] I used to live in my house, now I live on a couch, or a chair, or any other object suitable for comfortably receiving my backside, and close enough to a wall outlet that it can provide sustenance for my [also famished] PC, by which I mean "Portable Computer" I like to talk, and I like to imagine that there is a semblance of thought that goes into typing whatever it is I am typing, and there is. A semblance. You know, some people can think a ton on a subject, define it, refine it, and then give you 2 enlightening sentences, but as you've probably realized that's not me. I write everything I think, or almost, and everything I think is usually quite fluffy, all air with little matter. No matter. I will write and draw until my fingers fall off or I finally stab straight through the keyboard.

Not that my life is particularly exciting, but I need an outlet for all that excessive data, because it tends to overwrite important stuff, like at what time I'm supposed to be working tomorrow, and things like that.

I am a conflicting person. And since I'm growing weary of writing, comfortable as this sofa may be, lets just cut straight to the chase, without any detours, bypasses, tangents or unnecessary distractions or additions of any kind. Just pure, straight-up, well thought out facts. You thought that was funny? Good. I did too.

My main drawback is fear. Some people are afraid of spiders, snakes, others, like harry potter, are afraid of fear itself. I'm afraid of failure, and it has been shown me many times in the past. I will, of course, extrapolate, in a psychological format, and then we'll see where that takes me. (You see, I don't own my thoughts: they flow uncontrollably, and I ride their waves wherever they may take me)

Fear of failure likely comes from having been overprotected by my single mother as a child. I was encouraged to stay at home and look no further for answers than the dictionary, or the opinion of an uninformed relative. But I accepted that lifestyle, which only confirms that which my mother has recently revealed: This fear of failure, or it's disguise as fear of change,  runs rampant in the St-Denis family. My twin has it, My mother has it, my aunt and her daughter has it, my grandmother has it. We hesitate to involve ourselves in the unknown, but it is not the unknown itself that scares us; I am, for the most part, unmoved by the prospect of impending death, and that is because it is predictable. However, ridiculous things can cause me to fear if I am unsure of what will transpire, and this happens a lot in social contexts. Anyway, fear of failure has caused me to become secluded and to favor isolation, protecting me from the fear by removing any situation that could potentially create a failure. I realize that this fear is often what causes the failure A vicious circle, to quote Antoine de St-Exupery: 

- Que fais-tu là? dit-il au buveur, qu'il trouva installé en silence devant une collection de bouteilles vides et une collection de bouteilles pleines.
- Je bois, répondit le buveur, d'un air lugubre.
- Pourquoi bois-tu? lui demanda le petit prince.
- Pour oublier, répondit le buveur.
- Pour oublier quoi? s'enquit le petit prince qui déjà le paignait.
- Pour oublier que j'ai honte, avoua le buveur en baissant la tête.
- Honte de quoi? s'informa le petit prince qui désirait le secourir.
- Honte de boire! acheva le buveur qui s'enferma définitivement dans le silence.

And there is tomorrow's subject. This is a quite exciting project, a discussion with oneself. (of course I will have to navigate away from the traditional writing format in order to get passing grades, but it should prove an interesting and challenging piece of work.

So back to fear. I fear failure. So much that I would rather stay home and feel nothing than feel even the possibility of failure.

I experienced my first identifiable panic attack while calling Ashley Doiron of the KIAC admin, and it was an incredible experience. I quickly realized that if I let this fear govern me, it would take over my life. So. what do I do? I force myself to see that fear, to acknowledge it, and to realize that it is only a fear, and that my perceptions are hazied by it. And then, when I can see the fear lying there plainly as fears do when they are stripped of their power, I force myself forward. Forward, forward. Don't look back, don't hesitate. Just keep moving or the cold Yukon winter will get you. Stasis freezes body and soul. Will keeps you moving. I will, too.