Title: just passing through
Medium: digital collage Size: 24x36cm Date: August 31st 2016 This piece was created to convey a part of me. I used the bluntness of Barbara Kruger and her use of text in her work as inspiration to convey a sense of ephemeral being. The water reminds the viewer of drowning, yet also supports a fluid and transparent calm as I’m not shown in the piece struggling. I used photography and Photoshop to create the piece and convey all the ideas I wanted to get out, parts of me I wanted the viewer to really understand. |
Essay
My life has always felt temporary. I am a translucent, transient being existing in transitory time in the static lives around me. I devised multiple exit strategies in my life, each one more final than the last. I covered myself in scars and told myself that they'd fade away, too. After I stripped away all of my layering, all of the things that once made me smile, I was left with a hollow chest. Then I was asked, why am I empty? It could be my mind, fresh out of serotonin or dopamine (they checked in the back, all they found were repressed memories). It could be something I learned from my mother on nights her chest blew empty, too. Or, it could be my own actions. Something had been sitting at the core of my existence, and then I pushed it back down and let it shrivel up; believe me when I say it hurt.
As a kid I got the sense that the prefix “trans” was bad. Transportation, transmission, transgender. It wasn’t clear what a “Tranny” was but it didn’t sound nice. That’s what was so terrifying about realizing that I was absolutely, positively not a girl. Hard as it was dealing with homophobia and knowing I liked girls, transphobia always felt so much worse. It's hard to understand when someone doesn't see you as a human. Out of all the things I've been called (Queer, Fag, Tranny) "it" is the one I've never been able to reclaim for myself. It's not something I can find any power in, and it's the one people seem to love most next to mentally ill. Growing up in a transphobic world shaped me; sometimes all I think about is the overwhelming group of people who'd rather see me dead on the pavement than happy in my own skin. I still believe when my life ends, it's going to be at the hands of someone else.
In a burst of confidence and defiance, I started to accept myself. That was probably the happiest I've been in a long time; I had started to heal. I came out in December, 2015. My mother insisted I not tell anyone.
I was a mess, further so than I already had been, but here's the thing. I can't remember the last time I relapsed. Everything feels different when you're not hiding, or repressing, or doing a combination of the two. I breathe differently now than I did a year ago. I know, and knew, that lying my whole life away could have worked. There's one thing better, though; possibility. There's a possibility that one day my mom will understand, and a possibility that I'll be happy and healthy, and the possibility that life will, in fact, get better. I'm still miserable, and often go back and forth between hopeful and hopeless, but it's better. I don't hurt myself, or write suicide notes recreationally, or drink my way through the onset of a panic attack. That might be as good as it gets for right now, and that's fine. I still have possibility.
As a kid I got the sense that the prefix “trans” was bad. Transportation, transmission, transgender. It wasn’t clear what a “Tranny” was but it didn’t sound nice. That’s what was so terrifying about realizing that I was absolutely, positively not a girl. Hard as it was dealing with homophobia and knowing I liked girls, transphobia always felt so much worse. It's hard to understand when someone doesn't see you as a human. Out of all the things I've been called (Queer, Fag, Tranny) "it" is the one I've never been able to reclaim for myself. It's not something I can find any power in, and it's the one people seem to love most next to mentally ill. Growing up in a transphobic world shaped me; sometimes all I think about is the overwhelming group of people who'd rather see me dead on the pavement than happy in my own skin. I still believe when my life ends, it's going to be at the hands of someone else.
In a burst of confidence and defiance, I started to accept myself. That was probably the happiest I've been in a long time; I had started to heal. I came out in December, 2015. My mother insisted I not tell anyone.
I was a mess, further so than I already had been, but here's the thing. I can't remember the last time I relapsed. Everything feels different when you're not hiding, or repressing, or doing a combination of the two. I breathe differently now than I did a year ago. I know, and knew, that lying my whole life away could have worked. There's one thing better, though; possibility. There's a possibility that one day my mom will understand, and a possibility that I'll be happy and healthy, and the possibility that life will, in fact, get better. I'm still miserable, and often go back and forth between hopeful and hopeless, but it's better. I don't hurt myself, or write suicide notes recreationally, or drink my way through the onset of a panic attack. That might be as good as it gets for right now, and that's fine. I still have possibility.
Process
Brainstorming
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Planning sketches
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Taking Photos
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I took pictures with a Cannon EOS Rebel T5, in my bathtub. I required help of a friend, Nazareth Torres, who I instructed as much as I could prior. I could have taken more pictures but being underwater proved to be a problem for me. In the picture my arm stuck out of the water because I was holding something, but this was easily fixed in photoshop.
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Photoshop
I own photoshop at home, and have experience with many of the tools I used while creating my piece. The first thing I did after taking the photos was edit them in lightroom, before switching over to photoshop. In the program I rotated the picture manually and cropped it. Then I continued editing the look of the picture with the brightness/contrast levels, the saturation (0), and the exposure (specifically the offset and gamma correction). The decision was made to remove the logo off my sweatshirt so that it didn't distract from the words later, and so I started experimenting the clone tool. At first it was difficult covering a large area with a smaller one, but I was eventually successful. Having learned this new tool I used it to expand the corners where there were distracting parts (like my arm, or the edge of the bathtub). I created the background for the text before the text itself. To do it I created new layers, one for each, and filled them with color. After having them in a general size and area I put in text, 100pt, Franklin Gothic Bold for the font, italicized, with a drop shadow. Once a word was put in place the layer serving as it's background was changed once again using free transform to fit it better.
Research/Experimentation
Before knowing what text I wanted to put on my image, I needed to know how to replicate the text in Kruger's work. The video showed how to create a box around my text (New Layer, Edit+fill, color=red, Crt+T).
The only tool I used that I wasn't familiar with other than that above, was the stamp/clone tool that I experimented with. After seeing what the program said about it, I experimented with covering up the logo on my sweatshirt and extending the edges of the water. Experimentation with this tool was easy and quick, but it was confusing at first to cover large areas or make them all blend easily. |
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Artistic inspiration
The inspiration for this piece was Barbara Kruger, of the Post-Modernism movement. Her work holds a lot of feminist themes, which connected to the activist within me. Viewing her work in class and in the Milwaukee Art Museum I've always been drawn to the messages she wanted to convey. She says about her work, she wishes to make things very blunt for the viewer by using words. While my words can be taken more metaphorically, they still strike questions within the viewer. which is what is intended. I connect the activist themes back to my own strong feelings about Trans rights and activism, conveying a little bit about what it's like to be transgender. Kruger also often challenges gender roles in her pieces and while I made no big statement, those themes resonated with me and choosing what to make for my piece.
Mimicking her style I took a traditional subject of hers, a person, and made a black and white photo with strong contrast. Then as she does in her work often I made white text with red boxes around each separate work or sentence I chose. For the inspiration for the words, I went along the lines of one of Kruger's more vaguer images, the ones which make the viewer question more than tell them something. The actual words are from a film called across the universe, a movie bases on the music from the Beatles. The drawing with the phrase "Just passing through" was made to resemble one of John Lennon's drawings. |
Reflection/Meaning
My collage was an overall success. I struggled to find a clear direction for it at the beginning, but after outlining what I wanted it came out extremely clear. It almost feels too simple, the process in which it was created and how it conveys ideas. I think I could have improved by having more pictures to choose from. I had more ideas that I could have considered more, and they could have strengthened the piece, yet I was over with the picture-taking part of my process as quickly as I could. Having a really clear vision of what I wanted out of it, I sped through the photoshop to create drafts that furthered what I wanted. I think my prior knowledge with photoshop strengthened my piece; it was easy to get through the simple parts and to experimentation. It also helped while planning my piece, knowing what I knew how to do, what I was good at, and what I wanted to find out specifically. I think the piece turned out cohesive and looks completed; it's visually pleasing in it's use of contrast, symmetry and color, and it's pleasing to me, as the artist, on an emotional level. It represents a big part of me, a drowning sort of feeling I have when it comes to my mental health. I've mentioned being transgender often throughout this page, but it's not completely about that. I did keep in mind my sense that I'm not a static being, and that I feel like I'm drifting about in space; a large part of that feeling is from me being trans, but it's not my whole identity. At the end of the day I still have the messy-mind that runs in the family. It's honestly a wonder we haven't all killed ourselves yet. Now, the piece doesn't tell you a lot about my background in depression and anxiety, or my family, or my destructive behavior, but it does show how I feel about it. Sometimes when you look at me, like in the piece, you have to ask; is he even alive?
I leave it up to the viewer to decide. Am I? I don't really know.
I leave it up to the viewer to decide. Am I? I don't really know.
ACT Questions
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
My piece was inspired by the work of Barbara Kruger, who made pieces with strong themes in politics/feminism. Her work commonly conveys a direct message through words. This inspired me to create a piece that I could relate back to activism, and convey a message that the treatment of myself as a trans person has affected me greatly.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author of my research talks about Kruger's life and her work in an unbiased way, highlighting her background in design and her feminist themes. They created it to give an overview of who Kruger is, and what she does and has done.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My research didn't bring me to anything profound in terms of realizations. While viewing Kruger's work I may have had cultural considerations, and thought in depth about the context of the work, but most of I found had been covered in prior knowledge. these things were mostly in relation to the time period and how it would have affected Kruger's political motivations, which affected her work.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
the number one theme around my inspiration was activism, with a focus on feminism and gender roles. These both challenged something that could be tied to treatment affecting a group of people, as I focused on.
5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
I suppose I came to conclusions about why Kruger focused on these political themes. I assume based on information given about the time period, her location, her acquaintances , etc. that these came from personal experience, which was important to connecting to my themes. She focused on Feminism as a woman, I focused on trans rights as a trans person.
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
My piece was inspired by the work of Barbara Kruger, who made pieces with strong themes in politics/feminism. Her work commonly conveys a direct message through words. This inspired me to create a piece that I could relate back to activism, and convey a message that the treatment of myself as a trans person has affected me greatly.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author of my research talks about Kruger's life and her work in an unbiased way, highlighting her background in design and her feminist themes. They created it to give an overview of who Kruger is, and what she does and has done.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My research didn't bring me to anything profound in terms of realizations. While viewing Kruger's work I may have had cultural considerations, and thought in depth about the context of the work, but most of I found had been covered in prior knowledge. these things were mostly in relation to the time period and how it would have affected Kruger's political motivations, which affected her work.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
the number one theme around my inspiration was activism, with a focus on feminism and gender roles. These both challenged something that could be tied to treatment affecting a group of people, as I focused on.
5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
I suppose I came to conclusions about why Kruger focused on these political themes. I assume based on information given about the time period, her location, her acquaintances , etc. that these came from personal experience, which was important to connecting to my themes. She focused on Feminism as a woman, I focused on trans rights as a trans person.
Bibliography
Barbara Kruger - Feminist Artist. (n.d.). Retrieved September 14, 2016, from http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html