Inspiration

I have been asked a lot lately what inspires me. In conversation I tend to get tongue tied because there are too many things to name. I figured that I would start to share some of my biggest influences here. My inspiration comes to me from everything, I am inspired by books, documentaries, movies, events, colors, light, mood, etc etc.. So as I am consciously inspired by things I will add them to this blog.

Perhaps more than anything else the environment really ignites something within me. I was a part of a group called Earth Force as a child and we flew to Washington D.C. to meet Al Gore before he was V.P. I was also a Girl Scout and so a love of the outdoors was cultivated in me early. I also grew up loving science and actually started college as a biology major, with the intent of becoming an obstetrician, however at 17, the age I started college, I was not interested in devoting the necessary time to chemistry that it would have taken for me to pursue that path. I digress, this documentary on the environment entitled HOME is one of my favorite documentaries for many reasons, the narrative is brilliant and the cinematography is visually delicious. If you find yourself wanting to watch a movie please watch this. It is amazing.

Here's where you can see it for free on youtube.

If you do watch it, please let me know what you think. This movie is a heavy influence in my thesis work.

This weeks Thesis picture/hw assignment

What I got out of Collingwood's theory on art was this idea that art is the expression of emotion. The artist has some inner issue/problem/feeling/desire etc etc that he/she wants to communicate and art is the accurate communication of that feeling. I think that Collingwood is much more successful in his theories then Bell was however, I think they both missed the mark in that art is more of an ideal or virtue. It is indefinable and yet it is.

With that in mind I set out to shoot an image that would clarify my deepest emotions or at least illustrate them. I think overall I am obsessed with philosophy, that was my major as an undergrad and with that I am always questioning everything, especially existence and reality. Perhaps my biggest drivers are the feelings that I associate with death ie. primal fear/embracing/curiosity/hatred/ultimate release. I tried to illustrate my feeling of being set adrift in life with the rolling of the landscape. I also wanted to show a pattern with the graves from an unsettling viewpoint. I wanted it to seem so uniform and neat, this idea of death in a grid on a rolling landscape. Also the grave I focused on was my grandparents and in that this picture was very personal for me to take. My grandmother who lived with my family from my birth until her death in 2005 is buried here and it was a very interesting experience being alone there at night and not feeling the nervousness I would have expected but instead an odd warmth and comfort.