Ok, so last time I was just messing around, but now I've edited the "corn" picture. Thoughts? I need to switch from piece to piece to keep myself interested, so sorry about the craziness. This piece is about childhood...



I thought that the older one had more balance, but the corn took away from the depth of the original photo... Which is better?

Here's some corn.

Gwyn, I like corn.

Ok, so I've been playing around... I'm not really sure if this is close to done or just the beginning...


Thoughts?

I know, I don't post like I should.. Both of my majors have to do with computers, and I spend 5 hours a day in front of a computer, but I still don't like to talk randomly (like facebook..). So, anyway about what I plan to do this semester. I am finally starting to plan my wedding. As I am going through all the hoops I have found that religion is starting to play a big role. I have been raised catholic. I spent 13 years in catholic schooling and went to church with my father every Sunday. I still go to church with my dad when I'm home. But the problem comes when deciding how to get married and what to do. The catholic church is very specific about how marriage is to happen. My fiancee was raised catholic (he spent 3rd grade and up with me in catholic school), but he doesn't really believe it. I understand his point of view, he questions the church's rules, like dogma (whatever the pope says is truth and is part of the catholic faith). One of the rules that the catholics believe is that when there is at least one catholic in a marriage, then the children must be raised catholic. I don't have a problem with this, my mother is not religious, my father did everything in that field. My fiancee does not have a problem with raising our children catholic, but all the rules bug him.

So.... My first work will be about religion and rules. There was a reading in church 2 weeks ago:

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus,
they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals
with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
—For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews,
do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the tradition of the elders.
And on coming from the marketplace
they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed,
the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds. —
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him,
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”

He summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.

“From within people, from their hearts,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”

The idea is that rules should not control your faith. My work(s) will be centralized around this idea....

More to follow.

Alright, I've thought about this semester a lot.... I know, I've had all summer to think, but it's always been hard for me to pick a topic. This is my last semester in computer art, so I need to start focusing my work for my senior show. After much thought and debate I would like to work with text again. The images I've done in the past with text were some of my favorites. I'm going to start by studying some artists that as work with text. One of my favorite artists is Jenny Holzer. She not only works with text, but also addresses social issues. Here are some of her pieces:

:





And she works in very public places. I like the boldness of her work, and I would like to replicate the feeling that her work brings.

I guess now I have to find out what I'm going to do....

So, I got no work done this week. I saved my time on Thursday and Friday afternoon to print, but then things got all messed up. I knew that something was wrong with my arm on Tuesday, but I ignored it and hoped that it would fix itself. But by Thursday my arm still hurt, so I went to see the nurse and told her I thought I had a clot in my arm. The bugle and the pain was not really convincing, since my arm was not discolored. But after some persuasion, she agreed to order a test for a clot anyway. So, on Friday afternoon I got to visit the hospital. When I got there the technician even told me that she didn't expect to find a clot, that I was too young, and again my arm wasn't cold or discolored. But to her surprise, and none to mine, she found one right where the bugle was. Then I got to walk over to the emergency room and get pumped full of blood thinners. Luckily they only kept me for 2 hours and sent me home with some prescriptions. I will have to be on blood thinners now for a few months, but one more medication is nothing to me. While I was in the ER they did some blood work, and as I asked they did test my kidney functions. And, to my disappointment, my kidney functions are not getting better, they're not even staying stable, they are getting worse.... I guess I knew that, I mean I haven't really been feeling better, but I still hoped that all the medication they've been dumping into me would have done something. Well, something other than raise my blood pressure so that I got a blood clot... So that's my life right now. Tomorrow, or I guess this morning, since I couldn't sleep, I am going to a programming competition. This one is smaller than the last one I went to in the fall, but I think it still should be fun. Google reps will be there, and I hope that if there are less people, then maybe I'll get noticed more... Well, I hope we do well and that the drive (to Pittsburgh) and back in one day won't kill me.

Ok, so I haven't done much work at all... I did take some amazing pictures on vacation and I should have them tonight to show. Anyway, it seems that my health is going from day to day. Sometimes I feel great, and other times I feel like crap. Some nights I sleep like a baby, and others I don't sleep at all, just stare at the clock all night. I know that this is mostly from my medication, but it still upsets me. I'm so frustrated because my blood work didn't change, even after 2 weeks of steroids. I guess that I should be patient, but it's really hard to be patient waiting to find out how long you have to live. If I don't start responding to medication in the next month, then my chances of losing my kidneys go way up. Right now the doctors keep telling me that the medication should help and that I should regain functioning in my kidneys, but what they aren't saying is that if the medication doesn't work, then I'm going to go into kidney failure eventually. It could be in 5 or 10 years, or it could be in a few months. So now I'm playing the waiting game, which is frustrating.... This week, when I'm up to it, I will start mono printing and hopefully, if they turn out well, print some more pictures. I know that the printing has nothing to do with my flash project, but I need to do something different, I don't feel like everything that I do in one semester has to have the same theme.