I forgot to take my camera and get a photo of it, so that will have to wait until Monday, but allow me to briefly explain all the idea's behind the piece.
,So as in most art classes, the initial project is a self-portrait. Since this a senior level class, we are allowed to use any medium we want, with the only real stipulation being that it had to be big. So, what better and more obvious route for a self-portrait than a mirror?
I've had an old and beat up, junky looking, 4 foot high(ish) mirror in my room for I don't know how long, and it was pleading to have something done to it.
I began by staring at myself for a long time and trying to get a feel for the proportions of my body.
I then walked forward, sketched rough lines of my body on the mirror using an oil pastel, then stepped back and viewed the overall shape. I did this a few times until i had a loose but accurate silhouette.
I then mixed flour and water and made a sort of paste or podge, and slapped it on the mirror in the shape of my head and upper torso. Pieces of torn up newspaper were pasted on the glue-like liquid, and a body quickly began to take shape.
I left the eyes un-newspapered though, and clouded the mirror around my figure so that the only clear reflective spot is the eyes.
This is my personal interpretation of the idea of Ubuntu: I am, because you are.
Over the last two weeks, so many things in my life have revolved around the idea that people need people. Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller, the sociology lecture I audited, a friend rehashing a conversation he had with our youth pastor, the speaker at youth tonight; it all centers around one thing: relationships.
Not the retarded high school dating kind, but the real, tangible and visceral relationships between people: peer friendships, older mentors, older friends, younger friends you feel a strange disconnected paternal link to, friends you talk with 'til 2 in the morning, friends you walk with while working on life; in short, honest relationships.
The shear importance of other people in our lives is staggering, and the shear potential of ourselves and these other people is also staggering.
An hour or so ago I was dropped off by an older friend who sat and talked with me and a younger friend for 3 hours in Tim Hortons. He said comparatively little, nor did he raise any new ideas to the forefront of my mind, but rather he carried himself in a humble and interested way.
It was very educational and extremely interesting.
Even though nothing he said was really 'post-discussion ponder worthy,' how he was is something that I can feel influencing me.
Before Springvale Senior High commenced tonight, I sat down with previously mentioned youth pastor. We were talking about something trivial, facing each other, each of us on our own couch, when I realized that I had automatically adopted the exact same pose of recline that he had had before I had sat down. This annoyed me, so I cursed him for his dominance and left.
Around 20 minutes later, said older friend from Tim Hortons was sitting on the same couches, and I went and sat opposite to him to talk to him. We weren't conversing for long when I noticed that he re-oriented his body on the couch to mirror mine.
I was mildly blown away.
According to Body Language, mimicking someones body language is a sign that you like them, and it makes whoever you're mimicking feel more comfortable around you. It's also a sign of interest.
All of this, from someone significantly older than me and at a completely different stage of life.
Now, his mode of recline mirroring mine could have been entirely coincidental, and indeed probably was, but the fact that this happenstance made me feel so good just enforces this idea of how important other people are.
I wasn't even looking for validation as an interesting person from him, and yet I derived it and felt extremely good about it.
This all relates back to my self-portrait because it's really just about our dependency on other people to fill us. As I said, I left blank spaces for the eyes, so that the viewer may position himself so that his (or her) eyes fit exactly into the piece, and by them being in it, brings it to life.
But, that being said, there is only so much that people can fulfill other people. In the end, it will take something more divine, something more inspired in order for that paper mache newspaper man to arise from his glass bed and walk. Something else will need to fill him, just as something else aside from other people needs to fill us, and indeed, is the only thing that can fill us satisfactorily.
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