Self-Centered

The project with Taylor went very well.  I work very well with her because she isn't afraid to tell me an idea is bullshit and ignore my ramblings.  She is great with tuning out my madness and dealing with my moods, whatever I seem to send her way.  She had great ideas and did a lot of the work behind the scenes.  She put plenty of hours in the labs when there weren't many people around to notice.  I think the project came out as a trapped piece.  It is dark and distorted with a sense of captivity.  Many of the shots turned out to be cage-like, juxtaposing with shots that represent an escape or open road.  After we finished we starting talking about self-portraits and how we wanted to go about it.  I know I can't look at myself in the mirror without seeing the influence of my family.  I come from a large family that all lives around each other.  I grew up without close friends but was necessarily unpopular.  My brother, who is actually a cousin from Mom number 2 (my moms sister that I've always understood to be Mom number 2) would always buddy around in school and come home and create worlds on the farm.  My grandparents are the foundation upon which my family is built.  My aunts and uncles seem a lot more like second and third mothers and fathers.  I went home and gathered up a bunch of photos of my family.  Some of them portraits and others moments in my life that I've been surrounded by the people in the circle, the only circle I completely trust.  I want to call my self-portrait Glass Bottom Boat and have it be a slide shot of the people and times that have shaped me into the person I am today.  I want it to be in color to show the life that they have brought me.  I then want to shoot myself with a green screen, watching the slide show go by like the viewers.  I will be small and in black and white to represent without these people and times I am just like everyone else.  I want to show the razors edge we walk between being self-destructive and how you have the ability to change but not always the desire.  The person you always knew yourself to be isn't necessarily the person you've become now that your outside of the family nest.  It will show the ways in which I have succeeded and some of the ways in which, I feel to this point, I have failed.  Recognition of the fact that you are original only in the sense that you are a product of those who allowed you to be original.