Yes, you read that correctly. As of this Saturday, May 13, 2006, I am officially (ok, its not official until the diploma arrives sometime in July…) a college graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Studies with a minor in Art from University of Maryland, University College. My collegiate journey began fall of 1982 at Seminole Community College in Sanford, FL. The bulk of the journey, however, has been in the last five years, with much concentration and no life since January 2005. The journey from there to the here and now has been my life, and it has taken twists and turns I could never have imagined, including a cast of characters so colorful no fiction author could have ever created.
Graduation has brought about more than the usual casual introspection as I reexamine my life. I wonder what my life would have been like had I been more diligent and pursued my degree back when everyone else in my circle did. Would I have been more successful? Probably. Would the choices I made in my life been more thoughtful, more informed and less impulsive? Yes, yes and no – I would have had the tools to make more informed and thoughtful choices, but innate personality is one thing that doesn’t change no matter how educated one becomes. Would I have still married the absolutely most wrong man for me? Probably not – most likely I would not have been in the place and time that allowed me to meet that man.
Speculation on what might have been can drive one crazy – who can say what my life would have been like having made other decisions? It is clear that each decision I made has led me to today. Don’t misunderstand, today isn’t bad, it is however, not what it could have been. That is what I mourn. I always thought when I finally achieved my degree, I would feel more complete, and that its acquisition would eliminate my feeling of being less than. Right now, my accomplishment is bittersweet at best. So far, it hasn’t eliminated that inferior feeling and that bothers me. Will it ever go away?
On a happier note, my graduation dinner was a grand time Saturday night that I celebrated with my friends. It was interesting to see four of my worlds intersecting in one place and time, all seeming to coexist peacefully. Pictures are forth coming. Thank you to all who made it to my party – you made the party as special as it was.
Graphic Designs Using Scanned Objects
These three graphics are experiments using objects scanned and creating something new and different with those objects.
Life on the Grid
Strongly influenced by my mother’s love of scary movies, I discovered a predilection for graphical images that explore the thrill of the scare. Hence, the imagery I enjoy creating tends to fall into the horror and science fiction genres.
The graphic Living on the Grid was influenced by the Sci-Fi channel television series Battlestar Galactica.
Living on the Grid
Use of two pill boxes scanned to create the foundational images of this graphic
Heart In My Hand
The graphic below Piece of My Heart, represents the influences of a weekend zombie movie marathon and depicts mankind’s conceit of playing God through the unnatural and catastrophic effects of regenerating the dead.
Heart in Hand
Graphic created from scans of my hand, a styrofoam red glitter heart, oak leaves and a gold hair tie.
Bobbing in Paradise
The final graphic, Bobbing Paradise, was my vision of the sub tropical world I left behind, bobbing along in a vast ocean.
Bobbing in Paradise
Graphic created from scanned objects: a windup toy gator, a palm frond, and orchid flower
Graphic Designs I’ve Created
Logo design
The design below is a personal logo representing 2 people with diverse personalities.
The resulting logo played off each person’s inner and outer perceptual duality through the use of their initials.
The forward facing initials represent the public face of the person, whereas the backward facing initials represent the private, or inner face of each person.
The hot colors represents aggressiveness, extroversion and excitement, the cool colors represent calm, depth, introspection and fluidity.
CRRC Personal Logo
Graphic Design created to show the personalities of the two individuals
Snakes & Ladders
The graphic below is a visual representation of a Hindu morality game called Snakes and Ladders.
In the U.S. and Great Britain it is known as Chutes and Ladders.
The game teaches players about the consequences of living a life filled with the seven deadly sins or the rewards of living the seven heavenly virtues.
Snakes & Ladders
Graphic depicting the 7 deadly sins
Decartesian Sense of Self
This image was a Decartesian Sense of Self project.
The first set of eyes shows the external world’s perception of how people view me – it was an even split – It seems I have a strange cat/dog duality.
The second set of eyes reflects the shape consensus – Again, an even split between a multifaceted star and an endlessly moving and twisted mobius strip. The final set of eyes is my personal internal inventory.
Eyes are the mirror of My Soul
Graphic depicting the Decartesian Sense of Self through images as the eye pupil
Pastel Drawings I’ve Created
A Floridian by nature, my visual aesthetic was formed by the enigmatically subtropical landscape where I was raised.
Atypical to most Florida postcard landscapes, the scenery I prefer is not the sandy beach dune overlooking a turquoise ocean.
Instead, my Florida reveals a lush and unspoiled landscape of old — populated with a stalwart under story of palmettos and majestic, gnarled live oak festooned with spanish moss, the salt marshes and rivers filled with shadowed swirling water and their unseen activity just beneath the water’s surface; tall grasses silently watch from river banks while the alligator and white heron perform the eternal dance of life and death.
Bird with 2 Elephants
I remember getting my first box of pastels with great glee. I also really didn’t know how to use them, so I used them like charcoals. Somehow, this first drawing came out alright for doing everything wrong.
Bird With 2 Elephants
One of my first pastels
Gator Country
Gator Country
Pastel and charcoal of two gators
Heart of Palm
Single color pastel of one of my favorite subjects, a palm frond.
Heart of Palm
Cobalt/Purple Pastel of a palm frond
Charcoal Drawings I’ve Created
“Relaxing” is a self portrait. Its one of the rare quiet moments I’d had in 2005. “Portrait” might be a too formal of a term what what this depicts. Its a drawing of my legs as I sat on the sofa one night. Either I’d just had a pedicure or I had the presence of mind to paint my toe nails. I think its the former.
Relaxing
Charcoal of me relaxing one night in 2005. My legs propped up on the ottoman
Abby Series
From 1995 – 2008, Abby, my mischievous beagle, was my most enduring companion, who through the years challenged and surprised people with her canine antics.
A two-piece study of Abby, created in charcoal depicts the canine as a playful puppy on the day she was adopted (April Fool) as my best friend.
April Fool
Charcoal drawing of baby Abby the day I brought her home,
This second charcoal drawing of Abby is a more formal human style headshot/portrait (Portrait of Abby).
Portrait of Abby
charcoal drawing of Abby in her senior years – 2006
It was at the completion of the Abby charcoals that my preference for non-human figuration was fully realized.
Yeah, once you read what this is about, you’ll definitely say I was being flippant, but I can’t help myself. To those with weak stomachs, I can only say, move along, there’s nothing here for you. You have been warned.
I read with horror a tale about a German “cannibal” who reportedly ate his victim, not because of a “desire to kill but by his victim’s wish to be eaten.”
I’m old enough to know there are more strange things between heaven and earth, and my predilection for horror genre not withstanding, I shouldn’t be so shocked or surprised. But I am, and more so at people’s desire to end their lives. What created and allowed to flourish, the two very twisted minds such as the cannibal and his victim. How does one, let alone two people come together for something like this?
The cannibal and his victim’s story is being played out in German courts as I write, not for the first time, but a second go round, because the German courts ruled the cannibal’s original sentence was too lenient.
Worse still is the fact that there has been a movie made about this. What as a global society are we coming to? I can’t decide what bothers me more – the cannibal or his victim.
