Lee's Artlog

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2008- I did a few facing page pieces in my sketchbook over the break between second and third term at Art Center. It is critical that I continue to draw, everyday if I can. This is the only way that I can improve and continue to change.  Merely going to school and doing the homework stagnates creativity. The only solution is to find the time to work outside and create my art, regardless of percieved failure and ignorant of futility. My sketchbook is my laboratory. 

I Dream was the result of my frustration at getting no positive feedback on the most recent scholarship review that had occurred.  The caption states “I don’t draw… I DREAM”.  The drawing on my page, a stick figure, is supposed to be a sarcastic, sharp jab at those who doubt my ability. The irony is in the quality rendering of myself and the thoughts above in conjunction with the placement on the page.  I was really pleased with the outcome of this piece and could turn it into an exploratory painting later.  

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2008- Another from a set of quick chinese brush studies, Agony only took me a few minutes to compose. The clothes don’t really feel textured enough or communicate the elegance of the cloth to differentiate it from the skin and therefore looks like a burlap sack. The color is nice however, and the splatter gives a simple added effect to communicate this piece’s worthlessness effortlessly.  After this my art would go through some more transitions in the next week or two before I settled on my current organic line quality.

In my neverending search for my own origins and answers to God, I have come to understand something differently that I had always taken for granted. When I look at something as a basic element and a founding part of an equation or idea, I never question if it has faults or failures.  Eventually when I come to view equations and ideas from another point, then dissect my own ways and concepts, it is then I come to a threshold of awakening. 

A few weeks ago, I was questioned about my religious beliefs. The topic does not scare me and I wholeheartedly took the side of there being an ‘end being/ product’ to life while another student questioned the existence at all.  In the end it came down to an argument of you can’t prove it’s there and you can not prove it is not here. (‘It’ referring to the idea of God as not male or female or possibly both.)  I came to a conclusion during this coversation that all this time it has never been a question of what or who. (-This has always been a founding concept of my idea of God and how I interpret the church sees it.) The answers lay not there, but in the fact that I have always been chasing spirituality, not God.  I at this point, have come to accept my fate as being damned, but refuse to bow to cruelty because that is not a part of the overall being that I have become.  My moral character exists in this lifecycle to affect, live, and change the world, regardless of my outcome, and the crimes I have put before me.  I am here help and fix others, and guide them towards their own path, passions and spirituality. I am myself, my own religious shaman, calling man to awaken to a greater cause of their own doing, and being. We are not forgotten by God, simply, we have the free will do whatever, and should not be afraid of the consequences if we trust our heart and moral fiber. (I think a great flaw today in religion is the idea of if I am good, I get a punched ticket into Heaven. This concept is broken and ultimately is more sinful than being honest with yourself.) Certainly there are semantics to be debated about ‘moral character’ but if we try to touch everybody we can with kindness, there can be little wrong with that.  God is in my hope, and embodies my spirituality.  We have a lot to learn from one another about ‘goodness and Godliness’ because we have become disconnected from spirituality just like everything else in this world due to oversaturation.  Everybody is their own prophet and shaman unto themselves. 

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2008- I continued to work feverishly in my book for a few days more. Next after Demonsoul and The Brigadier was The Leader. I seemed to be redefining and manipulating my new style with little effort. On this piece I focused on the head and the creation of something.. different. What came out was an alien with a huge back cranium and muscuarily protruded eyebrows.  I was hitting on something here with the way I was now drawing. There was a sense of realism and style now emerging from my work.

As we look towards the future, and are faced with an American uncertainty not seen since World War II, we are left to question our place in the world.  American policy after 9/11 dangerously turned right and our government became more authoritarian.  Media was curbed and asked to be more sensitized to information while unlawful seizures, activities and human rights were curbed by our government in the name of ‘freedom and safety from terrorism’.  The media has become a corporation sideshow promotion, government tool and scandal rag.  Modern art collapsed under its own weight and now we are crawling through the refuse of anonymity looking for a solid resonating voice.  More than ever we are now in a dangerous timeframe where liberties and sensitivities are not being considered properly and ‘political correctness’ has become a saintly, sanitizing word phrase.  Did we almost succumb to the drumbeat of the fascist government under the current administration’s policies and attitudes?  I’d bet that many countries in the world see us as bullies, as much as we’d like to perceive ourselves as liberators and protectors.  We’ve been writing the histories because we have been winning the wars, but now in this day and age, with the ways wars are fought, political, ideologically, and surgically, does art really apply to define the borders and give provocative answers when the heart is no longer contained in the message?