Povertys ghost

Most Americans don't believe poverty in the U.S. is real, that people everywhere can sit down every night to a meal and not have to worry about when they will eat next.
My project is meant to show the discrepencies between the wealthy and the poor, those who have shelter and those who don't, those who have food and those who must scavage.

Man, Peace, and Sunburn

Fabric Walls




















Reflect Peace on the Road to Nowhere




















Super imPortant stufF

capitalism without a face

For this project i tried very hard to stay away from clique topics, and obvious ones. I went threw 7 images before i finally liked three of them. So they go in order from top to bottom.

A Consumer Without a Face
In a capitalistic society, i feel that the consumer begins to loose there identity by conforming to popular trends in fashion. This image is from a magazine dating back to the early 60's. I first rendered the image and took out any unwanted dust from the image and cleared it up. then i proceeded to take the clothing and wrap it around the consumers face. It took awhile to wrap it so that you could still see the texture of the ladies cheek bone.

Who Really Is the Terrorist
After watching the war and peace report one late night, i was stunned by the images of corruption of our own government. In the report an intelligence official released disclosed information to the public about the death of two European reporters. It was announced that it was done because of false intelligence, but later reports now say that military officials knew that the hotel was occupied by reporters and still called it a "terrorist threat". Why must so many people die in the name of peace, and terror. Why must such a great country spoil its name in the heat of war. This is a tribute to all falsely accused of terrorism and my god bless their souls.

The HatE Lingers on
A friend and i where talking the other day and she urged me to check out this summer abroad program in Vietnam, that worked with children with mutations from agent orange. I have heard in passing about this but never took the time to read into it. After reading for a few hours i was inspired and made this image. This is an image of a victim of agent orange. Images such as this one are hidden away from the public. There was approximately 21 millions gallons of agent orange dumped in Vietnam during the years of 1962-1971. The toxic chemical has caused many birth defects in American troops. And because is has seeped into the Vietnamese water supply and has been causing mutations among new born. The image i have shown is nothing compared to some of the others.

Action against War

I have never seen anyone walk away from a protest feeling any sense of resolution. However it is necessary to acknowledge the importance of standing up to a War machine that would rather roll over you than listen to your ideas. Unfortunately when ideologies clash, intellectual restraint dissolves and madness ensues. These are three images from an Iraq war protest of some years ago. That these images were taken so long ago, and that the problem still remains is sickening. My friends are still in the streets, and the War still remains. Regardless of the resolution, there is quite a statement to be made for it all.

Pollution, Puppy Mills, Poverty...

For my assignment, I chose to do pollution and puppy mills. In the pollution picture, I took a serene desert photo with a blue sky, then found a picture of a dreary, looming sky, and made the desert a bit more gloomy. I added some trash to illustrate how people pollute and dump over the environment. Afterwards, I created a smog that sort of blocks the sunlight from the landscape.

In the puppy mill picture, I drew a puppy, then created a haphazardly put together cage. I wanted to formulate a trapped and helpless feeling, since animal cruelty is so barbaric and if more people knew of the kinds of things that went on, they'd be disgusted.

Statements

Here are my pieces for the Make A Statement assignment.

The first is a piece about cannabis. When I found out that the piece did not have to be a political statement, just something we felt strongly about, I chose to switch gears from a legalization argument to my feelings about it. The phrase earth and sky speaks as to the way cannabis has two distinct sides to it: the physical and the spiritual. It has power in both worlds, the realm of the earth and the elevated realm of the sky. Much like how the Native Americans perceived tobacco smoke, we can watch the smoke from a bowl traveling into the sky, joining the other spirits there. Artistically, I wanted to do something I hadn't done before. The intent was to do some nice clean design work with plenty of negative space and an interesting color scheme.

The second piece is in regards to this election. I chose to take masks of Obama and McCain and reference the Masks of Comedy and Tragedy. This whole thing has been one incredibly grandiose theatrical performance and the curtain is about to fall. You'll notice that there is no frowning mask. The audience will be the tragedy, but when they are they will not be on the stage. They'll be walking the streets, droning away at the day.

The third piece depicts a zombie in a business suit. I think conceptually the image speaks for itself. I tried following a tutorial for this one. It was very indepth and the guy's end result was amazing. However, it was a video tutorial in french, so I had to just watch and try to follow a long with no words (not to mention his photoshop was in french as well). It didn't work out that well. If I were to try this tutorial again I would pick a better starting image, one with a higher resolution and more detain in the facial region. The one I started with was a little bit blown out in the face and didn't have good texture like you would want in something like this. Anyway, and interesting try, but not completely sucessful.

Rebellious Propaganda (updated)

"Speak & Rebel" is a parody of a childhood learning toy that I had called "Speak & Spell". "Raise Your Fist and Resist" are Rage Against the Machine Lyrics". Their music is fueled with strong political messages that I've always identified with. The graphic of the person holding a fist in the air is a modified version of their album cover,"The Battle of Los Angeles". I liked the idea of combining childhood paraphenalia with strong ideas of rebellion as the youth are primarily responsible for our future.

This piece uses an old magazine cover which depicts the "Pyramid of the Capitalist Scheme". My goal was to point out that many of us are blind to the controls of capitalism, politics, and religion. It seems as though many of us forget the roots of our society even though they govern our everyday actions as a nation.

For this piece I dug out my old Legos to portray an idea of rebellion and non-conformity. The title for this is, "One Day As A Lego Lion". Once again, the idea derives from Rage Against the Machine frontman, Zach De La Rocha. He started a side project titled, "One Day As A Lion" which comes from and 1970's George Rodriguez photo with a caption, "It's better to live one day as a lion than a thousand years as a lamb."

Children Rights

I chose to make my statement on children's rights because I feel it's a big issue all over the world. The first piece I did illustrated child soldiers. I tried to make them look as miserable and sad as possible and I made the background bloody red to illustrate blood and death. For the second idea on children rights I decided to illustrate child prostitution and showed the children as lonely and clueless as possible. I put the hand in their to illustrate praying to get out of the horrific situation. Lastly, for the third illustration I used a couple of images to show abuse and neglect that some children have to deal with everyday. This is an issue that I really feel stronly about and children do not get the right's that they should.

My friends Non Profit

Really good stuff going on in Aspen Colorado. A non profit my friend started. Awesome web design.
http://www.re-generation.us