I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am

I had to buy a new pair of shorts and a new pair of jeans this past weekend. The reason: none of mine fit anymore; I've dropped from a size 8-10/9-11 to a size 6/7.

Going out to find replacements for the ones that no longer stay up (or are uncomfortably bunched up around my waist with a belt or drawstring) annoyed me, probably more than it should have. For one thing, I used to love going clothes shopping - I was able to easily spend an entire day doing nothing but looking at and trying on clothes. For another, even with the weight I've lost, no one wants to see me going around with my pants off. XP

I tried to look at the situation from different angles on my drive to the store; being someone who battles with depression, I have to be constantly mindful of my thoughts and mood, and when I'm able, analyze and intervene to stop the downward spiral.

The first thing I realized was that the expedition should not be making me angry - after all, with many Americans (especially women) desperate to lose weight, I should have been ecstatic that I was able to drop from 151 lbs in January to 132 lbs with virtually no effort. The reason I was annoyed and a connection to my weight loss dawned on me at the same time - I have made a strong effort to cut my level of personal consumption (in all areas) since I moved into my new apartment in July. I was annoyed that I had to go out and buy clothing when I already have perfectly good ones in my closet, and there were other things I would have rather spent the money on.

King Henry VIII after Hans Holbein the Younger

That, in turn, made me consider how over-consumption in general has hurt us as people. The weight issue is obvious - our over-consumption of food, especially high-calorie comfort food, rivals that of Henry VIII, and our population's continually-expanding waistlines show it.

Henry VIII was, in many ways, a one-man warning of what was to come for the world. As each society shifts from pre-agricultural to agricultural, from agricultural to industrial, and from industrial to consumer, our level of consumption - on both personal and societal levels - climbs exponentially. When we step into a consumer society we are called that because it becomes the primary function of the society - hunting and gathering, agriculture, and industry all go by the wayside as occupations of a few, and the majority spend their time only consuming. Henry VIII was a consumer - he consumed food, resources and even wives to levels that were unimaginable for many at his time. He started out life with a high level of education and appreciation for literature, strong athleticism, charisma, and enormous wealth his father had accumulated through frugality and careful spending. His life ended in obesity and a host of accompanying painful medical problems, and his legacy became one of greed, cruelty and self-centered ambitions. Despite his desire to build a lasting family and keep devout to his religion, Henry VIII allowed his voracious consumption to override discipline, resulting in a fractured family, his infamous number of wives, and a Church divided so as to accommodate his grasping.

What one man could have changed, we can also change as a society. We've led ourselves to believe that the path Henry VIII took is that of not only satisfying wants but needs; that to live well, we must live large, in every way, shape and form of the word. Today, a strong consumer society not only convinces its own that to be "happy" we must have more and more stuff, but it also presses these ideas on other societies that are not yet there. This creates a desire for a consumer society before a culture even makes the leap themselves.

A society centered around consumption is not sustainable; there is no way for it ever to be. If a group continues to consume with out ever producing, it must find those things it consumes elsewhere. Even then, material resources are finite - they will eventually run out. Additionally, a consumer society believes itself to be "the best way to live," and as a result, does its utmost to convince other societies to live the same way. Consumption increases further, with fewer producers and the same finite level of resources. It does not take long at all for such a system to reach a critical point - in fact, we are there now. The social, political, economic, religious and even climate woes we currently face have strong roots in over-consumption and its accompanying ills.

Thankfully, it is not difficult to turn this mindset around - it only requires a dedication to doing so and willingness to try things outside our comfort zone. Even when a society as a whole isn't yet ready to make a change, individuals - such as the young architect living in New York who downsized to a 78-square-foot apartment - can make meaningful changes in their own lives and set the example for others. 

This idea is not new. Buddhism has tackled the issue of attachment - desiring things and latching on to them as a personal support - for centuries. In a conversation titled "How Do We Bring About Collective Awakening?" Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh discusses the illusion of hunger and why we consume the way we do. "The problem is that there is a lot of suffering inside of each person," Thich Nhat Hanh explains. "And there is a vacuum inside...pain inside. And people, because they don't know how to handle the suffering inside, they try to run away from it...they try to cover up the suffering inside, by the practice of consuming."

This is something every single person can change within themselves, and that's where societal change begins. Mahatma Gandhi told us to "be the change you want to see in the world," because that is the most effective place to start. When you change your ways, you not only begin living the way you want to live despite what others may or may not be doing, but you give your cause leverage. You are "walking the walk." You are "putting your money where your mouth is." You are that which you want to be. Anyone on the outside can only look at your example - how can they argue against something that is working?

Spiderman, Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962)

Unless you're fine with being Henry VIII. If that's the case, by all means, continue on your way. Just remember the lesson we consumers learned from Spiderman - with great power comes great responsibility. Both the pleasure and the pain of that way of life are yours to bear and yours alone - a consumer culture forces individuals to focus on themselves and only themselves, after all. It's not so different than ceasing to follow that route - the focus remains on the self. The difference comes in the consequences for the world as a whole. Even when we try to pretend we are isolated, what we do to ourselves has repercussions globally; the type and direction of those repercussions are what's changed by the path we take. Is the scope of your view, your imagination, limited only to your own short life, or is it wider than that?

As Captain Planet used to tell us at the end of every episode - the power is yours. What will you do with it? I'm going to be teaching myself how to alter clothing and donate a few nicer pieces to Goodwill or CASDA. ^_^v

The Aura in Digital Painting

Portrait of a Courtesan. Caravaggio. c 1597. 

One of the things I struggle with in my art is depicting real people in a way that conveys something meaningful about how I perceive them. With fictional characters, there's a bit more freedom in the realm of sensitivity to the subject - an artist can't offend a fictional character through a choice of pose, composition, costuming, etc.  (It is possible to offend the character's creator, which is a discussion for a different time.)  In addition, with real people, art tends to give only a snapshot of who that person is. The large body of discussion surrounding the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck clearly shows the difficulty and diversity in something as simple as representing two apparently married people. And, at first glance, the painting tells little about the couple except they're relatively wealthy. It is only through interpretation of artistic symbolism and outside knowledge of the persons involved that any further information is gleaned.  In a different example, Caravaggio's Portrait of a Courtesan depicts Fillide Melandroni holding a flower to her chest. Without context and title, there's no reason for a general viewer to assume this woman is a prostitute, let alone one who was a regular artist's model, had a bit of a temper, was involved in many fights including one where she was accused of throwing a knife at another person, and would ultimately see her pimp killed by the very artist who painted her portrait.

Contemporary artistic media offers more options for depicting real people, including home videos and easy access to cameras for family photo albums, scrapbooks, and sharing moments of our lives with friends. Blogs and social networking sites encourage "cam whore" behavior, wherein we obsessively take photos of ourselves in an attempt to "show the world who we are."  It has never been easier to document any given individual's entire life in artwork - in pursuit of a scientific advancement, one researcher even recorded every waking moment of his child's first three years of life.

Despite these advancements, there is still frequently something lacking in portraits of real people. One thing that jumps out at me in particular is a lack of spirit, or 'soul' if you will, of the person. It's exceptionally difficult to create a visual representation of the vibrant energy that separates living beings from masses of fertilizer or organic computers. Even cutting-edge science struggles with what it means to be "alive," both in the medical field and in artificial intelligence or robotics. However, I don't think that means an effort shouldn't be made.

Kirlian photograph. Artist unknown.

Historically, the idea of representing this "aura" or "body of light" in art is not a new concept. It's found in the very earliest artworks still left on our planet, and has been used traditionally to highlight supernatural, holy and spiritually advanced beings. As spiritualism and parapsychology gained popularity in the West, more depictions appeared in art, and photographers even began experimenting with ways to capture this energy on film. Kirlian photography and photography with devices intended to represent auras are two of the most popularly-known types of aura photography. It has been disputed whether either of these types of art have actually captured a living energy of any kind, as both can be used on non-living objects, such as the key pictured here in a Kirlian photograph.

The most successful artworks involving the spirit seem to come from pairing a living artist with a living subject and allowing the representation to be interpreted through the artist. This seems like it should be common sense, but in a world that's becoming increasingly reliant on machines, it's worth noting. In pursuit of this additional feature in art, I've been working on theory and ideas for a new type of digital painting for the last few months. (When I say "new type," I am referencing "new to me." I am certain I am not the only one in the world who's come up with this idea.) My goal with these "digital aura paintings" (for lack of a better term) is to express the vital energies I perceive in the subjects in a way that helps the viewer also understand those energies.

Because the realm of spiritualism, parapsychology and supernatural studies has become highly fractured and diverse in the contemporary era, I'm going to start by clarifying some of the terminology I use.

I use the word perceive rather than see to help clarify the experience. There are many ways to perceive something, but for the general population seeing something means having a direct, visual experience with open eyes. I do not see things any differently than others with my degree of nearsightedness and corrective lenses; however, I tend to observe and perceive things differently than many people, even some of those in the same fields of interest or occupation. Perception is unique to each individual, and in that way, art created from perceptions also becomes unique.

I use the word color in the sense of the general understanding of hue held by the average population.  (White and Black are not "colors" in art terms, and tints like Pink or shades like Midnight Blue are not strictly "colors", but they are widely accepted by the general population as "colors.") When I'm working with colors in aura paintings, I am intentionally choosing colors to represent specific perceptions. The colors I use are based on a system that, while widely used in contemporary discussion, is by no means globally understood or accepted. (Color and what it conveys are connected strongly to culture as well as nature. The best way to observe this is to consider the colors considered "traditionally acceptable" for weddings and funerals. This varies greatly around the globe, partly because of cultural traditions associated with different colors.)

The pallet I work with is not quite as diverse as some charts/pallets found in discussions of aura colors; rather than adding tints and shades, I target specific areas of the figure and cover larger or smaller areas with the color in question to represent degrees of strength in the energy influence. Within my work, I use twelve colors:

Red: Energy, passion, instinct, human potential. Red is frequently associated with the root chakra, centered on the perineum, at the base of the body.

Orange:  Physical needs and wants, reproduction, creativity. Orange is frequently associated with the sacral chakra, centered on the base of the spine and reproductive organs.

Yellow: Growth, personal power, the 'gut' instinct, expansiveness. Yellow is frequently associated with the solar plexus chakra, centered over the solar plexus region, or digestive system.

Green: Emotions, compassion, unconditional love, healing. Green is frequently associated with the heart chakra, centered in the chest.

Blue: Communication, expression, independence, security. Blue is frequently associated with the throat chakra, centered in the throat or larynx.

Indigo: Seeker of spiritual truth, clarity, mental intuition, balancing higher and lower selves. Indigo is frequently associated with the third eye chakra, centered in the middle of the forehead.

Violet: Universal consciousness, connection to the spiritual world, spiritual strength. Violet is frequently associated with the crown chakra, at the top of the head.

Pink: Unconditional love and balance between spiritual and material worlds. Pink, as a tint of red, reflects a high energy in these areas.

Brown: The Earth, practicality, common sense, the material world. Brown is a tertiary color, and as such blends energies together.

Gold: Understanding, healing, service to others. Gold can intensify the presence of orange and yellow.

White: Purity, clarity, spiritual progress, healing. White is ultimately all colors in perfect harmony. White is sometimes associated with the crown chakra in place of violet.

Black: Hidden facets, mysteries, harboring negativity and the unconscious. Black is ultimately the absence of all colors and reflects the loss of those energies.

Working with this as my pallet, I create a portrait as I normally would of any person or character. I apply multiple layers of overlapping airbrush-style color regions below the portrait as the base aura, then apply another set of layers above the line art layer to intensify or add to the aura as necessary. I use the Gaussian Blur tool to help diffuse the airbrushing to the degree desired.

The first completed portrait I've done this way is Mother Monster, a portrait of Lady Gaga. This provided an additional level of challenge for me to work out. With public figures, who the person is in private and who they are in public are two different things. Even those who truly try or profess to be 'themselves' or 'real' on television have an additional layer of energy that's not normally present, because they know someone is looking at them. (This is why some children turn into hams and some become quiet or withdrawn in front of a camera, even though it's not typical behavior for them. Even if it's just a family photo, they have come to learn the presence of a camera means an image of them that is going to be saved and probably shared with others.) The degree to which this affects any given person varies tremendously, and without knowing the person intimately, it can be difficult to pick apart. Again, this is where the artist's perception comes into play, rather than what the artist is seeing. In this way, the artwork becomes a snapshot of how I (the artist) perceive the subject at that point in time.

This experiment in art has been a fun, challenging experience, and I have plans to keep working on it. I've started setting down ideas for a portrait of the Ghost Adventures team (Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin), Josh Gates of Destination Truth, and Prince Poppycock, singer and performing artist. The decision is partly because these are very high-energy personalities in public, but it's also partly because they're the only public figures I'm interested in looking at for any length of time at the moment. (Charlie Sheen is at the bottom of my list. Seriously...that ball of wax isn't very pretty right now, and it's not likely to improve soon. I'm trying to spend as little time on that particular celebrity as possible. :/ )

I'd also encourage any other artists who are interested in taking this idea and running with it to do so. There's this paranoid fear of "copying" out there, but any and every idea can always be improved on. Remember my motto when it comes to sharing my ideas and art: TAKE-USE-EAT. REDUCE-RECYCLE-REUSE. Most of all, enjoy yourself! <3

Rape Jokes Are Not Funny

This post was originally posted to my LiveJournal yesterday at 6:11 pm.  It is being cross-posted here for non-LiveJournal readers.

I've been mulling for hours about a topic I find myself commenting on repeatedly, but rarely - if ever - making a direct post about myself. As I thought about it, I realized part of what's held me back from posting in the past was the risk of sounding over-sensitive and being lumped with utopian thinkers who would remove essential freedom of speech in order to make everything "safe" and "happy."

Since I've become more active with anti-bullying campaigns and human rights causes, however, I've come to understand the need to let go of those fears and speak when something is wrong. Something is wrong, has been wrong, and it's now been brought to my attention three times today from separate, unrelated sources. That's urging enough for me to make my own post. Just so I'm clear, I'll boldface my stance from the start:

Rape jokes are not funny. They're not funny "if" some qualifier is added. They're not funny "if" it's a woman telling it. They're not funny "if" the person telling it "only meant it as a joke" or "if" the person telling it "knows a rape victim." Rape jokes are not funny, ever.

The first time this was brought to my attention today was through the tf_afts community post, Robots have nosebleeds apparently. The last comic posted in the samples is a "classic" rape joke, and there are plenty just like it scattered throughout various fandoms. Yaoi/slash fandoms seem to be particularly striken by it - probably because rape of men is rarely discussed and even more rarely taken seriously. It's not any more funny in reference to men than it is in reference to women.

The second time it was brought to my attention was during a phone conversation with my mom today, while I tried to explain to her why some forms of sex/gender/sexuality discrimination are not okay, even if the person is "just kidding around" or "isn't hurting anything." When behaviors are normalized through "joking," it makes it exceptionally difficult to remove them from a society. Worse, the normalized behaviors become institutionalized discrimination, which leads to hate crimes going unprosecuted. This includes violent acts of rape to cure lesbianism, which are sometimes supported by people even in the United States. I bet that joke about raping "that hot piece of ass" is pretty funny after seeing the photo on that last page, isn't it? (Sarcasm there, for those who missed it.)

I was still kind of stewing about that second instance when an e-mail from Change.org landed in my inbox. The e-mail was a call for signing a petition (many of the e-mails from them are), but I was particularly disturbed by this one:

Dear Betty Anne,

A vendor on the online marketplace Etsy is selling a greeting card designed to be given to somebody who has been raped. It shows a drawing of a naked girl huddled in the shower and reads: “Congratulations: You got bad touched!”

The same vendor also sells cards mocking the parents of children with Down Syndrome.

So far, Etsy has refused to take the cards down. An outcry of customers and potential customers can change that.

Tell Etsy to stop selling these offensive cards.

Etsy's "Terms of Use" list prohibited items, which include products that are obscene or designed to harass others. The agreement also says “Etsy reserves the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, at any time.”

Action is clearly possible -- we just need to up the pressure.

More than 1,000 Change.org members have already asked Etsy to stop mocking rape victims and persons with disabilities by removing these cards from its site. Click here to add your voice:

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_etsy_to_remove_rape_congratulations_cards_from_website?alert_id=dfRYwwoKCP_OrPCFCEXxr&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

The Change.org team

I decided to look further into it (as I usually do before signing any petition) and the cards in question do, in fact, exist - for the bargain price of $2.50, no less. The description gives that "playing it safe, just a joke" spin, but the tags on the card's listing tell you exactly what it's intended for. Worse yet, thanks to the tags "rape" and "raped," there's a good chance someone looking for recovery or anti-rape related items will also find this listing. Somehow, I think this is the last thing a rape survivor or someone close to them needs to see.

Rape jokes only happen because they are propped up as "acceptable" by our culture. Our culture only keeps propping them up as "acceptable" because we allow it - too few of us who find them unfunny are willing to speak up and say so, and silence is implied consent for behaviors like this. Thus, I am going to reiterate for emphasis, and hopefully to inspire others to take a stand as well: rape jokes are not funny.