Keep Looking

 

Keep Looking

Wooden dowels, wood flooring, paper butterflies from book pages, wood glue, wire, yellow and orange highlighters

15", 17", 12.5"

Inspiration: 

                    My inspiration images for Keep Looking are based upon the 'cut out' method, and an ara mitama. The 'cut out' method is where you find a page with text on it, wether its from a newspaper, a book, or a printed piece of paper, and you cut individual words or phrases from this page and use it to create a completely different meaning than the way it originally started. An ara mitama is a japanese creature from an anime series called Ayaka. These creatures represent anger, aggression, and other heated emotions. In the anime they make a big appearance and they must be fended off by the main protagonist. The creatures come from the people that visit the island, Ayaka. When tourists come to this island they bring with them their emotional baggage which then leads to ara mitama turning up.

                    I chose these as my inspirational ideas because I wanted to use the words from a Christian inspirational writing book called, Something More, to have the meaning from different chapters in this book correspond to a different meaning that I cut out of each chapter. I used the form of the ara mitama because I was fascinated with it and thought the idea of this creature would best fit for this piece and help elaborate its meaning. 

Artist Statement: 

                    With all of these in process photos I have chosen to publish with this blog post, it show how far this piece really came to be from one form I believed to be set on, and decided to use this form and completely cut through it. I originally was inspired by Athena Tacha's environmental piece called Green Acres. The form was pleasing, but not what I wanted to go for. So, I decided to have the ara mitama carry the weight of the butterflies on its form. They resemble harsh emotion and the butterflies are ever changing beings that change from form to form until they natural transform into a beautiful butterfly. They change their form and the ara mitama have to be forced to change their form when they are defeated in the anime. I really appreciated the contrast between these two ideas.

                    When I found this book, Something More, I knew there must me more to it than just an inspiring title. So I looked through and read the chapters and decided on a few that I wanted to use to cut out method with. Once I was pleased with that I found the words to correspond with the chapters. Then I put everything together and it just came to life and spoke for itself. As I was driving in the car, which is when i usually have downtime to think, I came up with this: If you keep looking, eventually you will see that there is one bi butterfly and on that butterfly it will tell you what two smaller butterflies already know. I was really inspired by this one little saying that pushed this idea of changing,  growing, and becoming a true form of yourself. I tend to enjoy little words and phrases, just like I like to live by the Bible verse James 1:19,"Be Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger." It helps to shape me as a person. Which is another reason why I liked that this book I chose tied into the meaning of this piece so nicely.

                    From the many individual images I posted of the butterflies, these are showing what each of them has a phrase or words glued on their wings that give a deeper meaning. You will see the phrases and words are highlighted in different colors to show the connected the bigger ones have compared to the littler ones. You start by reading the first yellow highlighted butterfly and behind that one, you will find two others that correspond with it. For example, the phrase "Happiness is..." and the words that follow with this one are 'unhappiness' and 'choosing'. In order to know what happiness is, you have to experience what unhappiness is to understand what true happiness is like. It's also important for one to choose to be happy then forced to be. Another example is "The Dilemma of Our Rebellion" which has 'sufferer' and 'observing' to go with it. We are rebellious as humans and if we learn to know what true suffering is like when we are rebellious, we will be the ones watching from the sidelines at those who are too, learning from the same mistakes you've made before. Potentially those who've learned their lessons to not rebel against higher authority, will be guiding others into a better direction.  The last two examples and the final butterfly arrangements on my piece are, "Receiving Love" and "The Enigma of Healing." "Receiving Love" has 'sacrifice' and 'patient and kind' to go along with it. In order to receive love, you have to make sacrifices. Wether that's sacrificing everyday of your life for your spouse, or going against what fleshly desires you may have to love on others instead of just you. Love is patient and kind as it says in the Bible. Seems self explanatory in itself. The last one, "The Enigma of Healing" has 'by-product of the self-giving' and love your enemies to go with it. When you are in a state of healing, you are feeling broken and down. Giving yourself and your worries to God will relieve you of your daily stressors. Perhaps there is forgiveness somewhere inside you to forgive whoever has wronged you or the reason for your sadness. One thing I find hard to do when healing from being critiqued, is learning to appreciate everyone's input about my piece. Some say more than others and I have learned a lot about critiquing this semester of college that I never thought I would. My dad taught me to be tough to handle things like such, but it is always hard not to want to think everyone who has something different to say about my work, is an enemy. So, loving your enemies is more personal but is healthy for you to do so you can love your neighbor and spread the love and light of Christ. 

                    Each of these meanings will mean something more to a viewer that looks at my work, but my intentions are such and I would hope to get the reaction from someone saying they understand who they are becoming. I feel like an important part of life is learning who you are now and learning from those around you, while waiting for the future to arrive when it is time, in God's timing.