KC and self portrait

So today I went to a portfolio review hosted by the KC chapter of AIGA. It was very helpful to get new different perspectives on my work. Suffice it to say I have a lot of work ahead of me still to do, but I am encouraged as well.

We had to leave by 4:30 am in order to get there on time. I however woke up at 3 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So now, it is 12:30 and
I just got back and I've been awake for almost 24 hours.

Before I could go to bed, I had to satisfy my photography craving
{326 to be exact}. I haven't shot in a while and the SPS self-portrait assignment due tomorrow provided the perfect excuse.

Ode to Memory and Sleep

The faint buzz of swollen noise

Lies in my hearing.

The room swelling & swaying through the

Words hurled at my brain.

The overexposed branches rise up

Behind the tiled grey triangles.

The flushed sky an indistinct thick paste-

Colorless-

Lies heavy above us.

The tone of urgency quick & clipped- slightly reprimanding.

“Fill your mind” before the words dart & bounce

& disappear quicker than little foxes

darting into the cracks in the room. Seeping

through the door & the floor.

Before lies a million tiny hairs stretching

Out their fingers, cautious – waiting

For the unexpected guillotine to quench

Their effort – merciless

& unqualifying.

Deep thin canyons line perpendicular

Fingers. Slowly spreading into

Unidentified grids of red texture.

Clear to blurry to clear. The world fades

In & out slowly, slowly, the

Lid is sinking down – Vignetting

into blackness.

Being led- forced - into a frame work

The cattle drivers of our mental formation

Grates the independent spark that

Flutters, spits, sparks &

Sometimes shrinks so small

-it seems almost nothing is there at

all.

But then the fact of

Oppression comes roaring

Back into a flood of fire.

Life truly is an open

Road stretching far and

Bowling around us. A

Soup of the conglomerate circumstances.

Vaults slamming – flashes

Of strong memory. Strange

Bits- ragged torn-

Blow up & disappear.

Strange- forgotten

Hunger- forgotton

Memory of hunger. Why

Do mouths move in

The rhythm of cyclical

Chewing? Daily, monthly,

Yearly- out of necessity

Or pattern? Living breeds

(thoughts) – thoughts

begat action-

the

nature of Sound & Life

&memory. Grab the rope

the splintered strands

together give strength

to the whole. In life is hope.

Balance

I have been thinking about the balance of things in life. As a student, it is hard to juggle all the different aspects of life. And I don't think I have been doing a very good job of that recently. For class we had to read a few of Sir Philip Sidney's Elizabethan sonnets. Here is one of them that has to do with sleep. I have been thinking a lot about that as well recently because of the lack I am getting.

39

Come sleep! O sleep the certain knot of peace,
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland, and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

How does one juggle the balance of living with schoolwork and everything else that creeps into our busy days? I know that most people's life in this age is driven by speed. But why does this have to be? I had a good talk with a professor today about several things, one of them being balance. He had good advice. Sometimes, if it's getting to be too much, we may just need to drop something and let it go. It could just be that you resign yourself to a zero on that project. He asked me if I could do that. And honestly, being the perfectionist and academic student that I am, I think that failure is one of the hardest things to deal with. I don't know if I could resign myself, even if it is killing me. That is what I am learning: how to be in that place- where failure may happen and even be necessary for survival. It's the hardest lesson of all.