Gimmick

I wanted to play with the concept of truth in our daily conversations, particularly with the phrase “I’m fine.” I realized that I have repeated that so frequently that it has become an automatic response. It’s a bizarre combination of three words that live in a perpetual gray zone of truth and lies. It’s like a verbal shield to protect me from any potentially uncomfortable situations. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. But am I?

I understood the concept you approached through your performance and it resonated with me as someone who tends to put up a facade to avoid uncomfortable conversations regarding my true feelings. The repetitive response highlighted how we may be so comfortable with this ambiguous response we may neglect expressing our true feelings/desires, which is something I admired. I noticed the varying facial expressions when you answered and how every “I’m fine” felt different from the last, even with subtle pauses before you spoke and so forth. The small talk could have included other questions that would pry into this idea of “I’m fine”, which would feed into how we’d rather automatically reply with this rather dry response instead of answering the question that is being proposed toward us truthfully. However, you executed this well through a series of repetitive questions that never led to a different answer that would otherwise lead to the “potentially uncomfortable situations” that you had mentioned.

For my Performance, Zen-tangle Art, it is communicated in a personal and social issue. Personally, I struggle to control my anxiety and just recently discovered Zen-tangle art at my work. We have a class called “Social Group” at the high school for special needs kids to help them find ways to manage their emotions and stress. This inspired me as it was calming for me when I participated. It also got my creative juices following again. By merely putting on meditative music and draw away keeps the stress away and re-grounds your soul. It is a social issue in times like this. People are stressed and have their schedules full, financially, emotionally, and physically. Realistically, to stay sane, we need something to help us escape and refocus on the simple and happy things in life. I want the audience to experience how relaxing a Zen-tangle can be even on a bigger scale. Sitting in the warm sun, listening to the birds, and drawing calms the brain from this chaotic world. I believe what people drew reflects their thinking process and their emotions through these patterns. My overarching goal is to radiate peace and calm in our chaotic world, relax and release, and pause time for what matters most.

I thoroughly enjoyed your work and what it’s conveying. Especially when our work and personal life began to crush us, we tend to neglect our own well-being, and finding ways to regain ourselves from this rather chaotic world of ours is vital in itself. When watching your performance, the vulnerability of laying in the Zen-tangle itself gave the idea of letting go of what’s around us and I felt this heightened the message of your performance. The drawings weren’t staged nor initially planned, they felt organic, moving with the mind instead of ahead of it. And the way you were laughing, smiling, and overall enjoying the experience really sold the idea of escaping and focusing back on the simple things in life, something I found myself lacking in recent times. As your performance carried on, I expected there to be little to no talking since mediation often requires one to not speak but it did not hinder your performance’s quality nonetheless.

I have been so surprised at the backlash and anger surrounding wearing masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19. After the governor’s announcement about stricter mask ordinances I wanted to do something to support it. As someone who works in performance sometimes I feel like elementary school where we are all missing recess because a few kids can’t behave. This was the inspiration for the location of my messages, around places that are closed right now because of the pandemic (theatres, sports centers etc.) I hoped that this would exemplify the art . My original plan was to use a stencil and spray chalk to make it look neater, but the spray chalk totally failed and didn’t show up at all, but I didn’t want to use a permanent paint. The written chalk looks a littler sloppier than I would like, but I figured the message was the most important part. I stuck around a few of the places to see people who stopped and looked at my message, but Denver is pretty empty of people these days so there weren’t many. If nothing else I hope my work serves as a reminder of what we are missing due to our own ignorance and stubborn attitudes. 

For the project, I went a more land art approach. Materials I used were strictly from the environment. I wanted to make a mandala or something very symmetrical. Using rocks and leaves to create something like a mandala. Luckily it snowed, and I used it to my advantage to create more curves. The ideas was to use things to create something in its surrounding.

This video on global warming climate change was something that I made hoping to inspire others to always seek the truth in science. To evoke change in how humans behave and what is happening to our planet. This is such a powerful topic with heavy emotional material and has the potential to wake us up in ways that hopefully can help us see what is really going on. In this video I have included clips of political figures, celebrity interviews, documentary clips, and scientist speaking their own truths in hopes for real change. I included a song in the back ground that I hope made a bigger impact on the feeling when watching the video. This was quite a challenge to make a video of such content in such a short time frame so I hope my message conveys truth and makes each viewer question what they personally can do to make changes.

This video on global warming climate change was something that I made hoping to inspire others to always seek the truth in science. To evoke change in how humans behave and what is happening to our planet. This is such a powerful topic with heavy emotional material and has the potential to wake us up in ways that hopefully can help us see what is really going on. In this video I have included clips of political figures, celebrity interviews, documentary clips, and scientist speaking their own truths in hopes for real change. I included a song in the back ground that I hope made a bigger impact on the feeling when watching the video. This was quite a challenge to make a video of such content in such a short time frame so I hope my message conveys truth and makes each viewer question what they personally can do to make changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWCYw8Ilk7g Felicia Solomon’s Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or3U2rXxvQw

As humans, we tend to put so much emphasis on being happy and happiness, and we tend to think that when we are unhappy, there is something wrong. This past summer, I read a book called, Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett. The book talks about how we should allow ourselves to feel and recognize every emotion, and how our emotions aren’t bad, even when we feel the negative ones. In western society, we put so much attention on how life should be and how we should feel. We believe that we will live “Happily ever after” if we do certain things or have certain things. The reality is, constant happiness is not something we can achieve, and learning to accept other emotions than happiness is essential to our wellbeing. With this work, I want to show how we as a society are taught unrealistic expectations of happiness, and no matter whether we are famous, or whether we have everything we could ever desire, it is still possible to feel dissatisfied and unhappy, because happiness does not come from materialism and what we have but rather it comes from inside.