30 Day Drawing Challenge - Day 4, Favorite Place - There's no place like Home

30 Day Drawing Challenge - Day 3 - Favorite Food

Chiles Rellenos. I will eat at least 3+ per sitting left to my own devices.

30 Day Drawing Challenge - Day 2 - Favorite Animal

I struggled a bit on favorite animal if only because I kept going back an forth on a favorite animal. I'm a fan of pets, including dogs and cats. I like my chinese zodiac counterpart, the monkey. My longest running love affair though has been with tigers. I decided to keep it simple, and just go the old graphite and paper route. 

Starting off the New Year with a 30 Day Drawing Challenge.

I'm starting off a 30 Day Drawing Challenge in order to keep my claws sharp.

My goal, and means of keeping me on track with this challenge is to have my drawing for the day posted before midnight the day of the challenge.
This is my drawing for the day.

I'm not particularly thrilled with the result, and at the end I felt like I was rushing for the sake of having the drawing complete rather than completing it for the satisfaction thereof. I'm sure I could have done much better, and in time I may revisit this.

EDIT: I am doing this challenge in tandem with a friend, and I was going off of the one she had picked. She had originally proposed the idea, and selected a challenge which was not as intimidating to other friends of hers who are non-artist types. I have amended this entry to reflect the format of the 30 Day Drawing Challenge.

The Celebrities I Credit With My Making It Through A Deployment in Baghdad" (2013)

There are several ideas which I have grappled with and are still exploring. One of these is the premise of celebrity cult. I will observe the way some celebrity icons wax and wane in fame, and the fervor which fans will exhort the virtues and accomplishments of their choice celebrities. Famously examples of the adulation for the cult of celebrity include Chris Crocker's "Leave Brittany Alone" video regarding criticism of Brittany Spears. There are also cult followings of Lady Gaga, Cher, and Madonna. Other celebrities which have their "cults" include Ricky Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I can write for days all the multitudes of celebrity cults. Within the framework of religion, any sort of adulation does result in the worship of an idol, or a false god. This, of course, does nothing to curtail the fandom and worship. Being the self-critical, self-doubting insecure person I am (some would say self-reflective, but I don't give myself nearly as much credit), I juxtaposed my own taste in celebrity cult worship and thought about who it is I would remotely put on such a level. But also in contrast, how I put them on the status of "Idol Worship". Because I tend towards a less fervent about the cult of celebrity, I liked the word play of Idol/Idle since it plays on the lackadaisical or errant distraction from what could be a stronger spiritual/religious/moral focus. Conceptually running through the ways in which people worship both religiously and in the cult of celebrity, I thought about what would be ways which people show their devotion and 'worship'. 

The first of these explorations took on the idea of gilded imagery from old Byzantine style artwork, with my own art making style. I thought about who are the celebrities I focus on, and why I focus on them. These three images are portraits of Bryan Anderson, John Nolan, and Sacha Sacket. In 2005 I was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq and I credit their stories and music with finding courage and sanity to make it through what was one of my harrowing ordeals. Bryan Anderson's story gave me the inspiration and courage that even if I were to be disfigured and blown apart, I would find a way to move on from that and continue my life. John Nolan had just launched the first album with Straylight Run, and their music was a soothing influence while overseas. Sacha Sacket was an artist I heard about overseas, and the friends who introduced me to his music I would not had met had I not deployed.

 All three paintings on my wall.

Bryan Anderson

John Nolan

Sacha Sacket

"They're Mine to Keep" (2011-2012)

There is a stigma which is disappearing, but is still prevalent with the military and with society at large. The idea that soldiers are an embodiment of strength and courage, and that they are anything but weak. If a soldier should happen to need help for any reason, they will show said vulnerability, and that is simply unacceptable. It is however, a tremendous act of courage to show that you are weak and can be vulnerable. It acknowledges that weakness, and allows you to heal from that. I witnessed a Gulf War Veteran, Teddy, show said moment of courage and weakness in a round-table discussion for a group of actors with the Two Pence Shakespeare Theater reinterpreting "Romeo & Juliet" as a post World War I story where all the younger male cast were war veterans. Teddy started to break his composure a bit and told of all the stories, all the loss were "Mine to keep!". His gesture resonated with me, knowing there is the statistical certainty that thousands of soldiers feel the same way and carry similar burdens. In response, I cast a series of arms imitating the same gesture Teddy had made, and represented those memories, and those who were lost as these watery fading silhouettes. This was an installation in the National Veteran Art Museum as part of a show "Radical Vulnerability" which was on display from November 2011 through September 2012.

The Penance Cycle: I'm a Terrorist (2011-2012)

Before I deployed to Iraq, I had a 90 hour Arabic immersion course which I picked up the alphabet and some conversational Arabic in which I could introduce myself, state who and what I am, and that was about it. In trying to learn more of such a complex language, and working with a Psychological Operations Unit, I saw some of the products they were making. One poster caught my attention because of a word which had what amounts to a series of "Y's" in the end of the word punctuated by an "N". The word was "Terrorists" or الإرهابيين. Using what little functional conjugation I knew, I twisted the sentence to a declarative "I'm a terrorist" or "أنا إرهابي"  This resulted in my wanting to explore how my relationship as a participant in Operation Iraqi Freedom, a war started on false pretenses measured with my actions for and against the Iraqi people, and the United States Army. Inspired by the work of other calligraphers such as Hassan Massoudy, Khaled Al Saai, and Ayad Al Kadhi I clumsily began my own explorations the way a student repeats a sentence over and over after committing some offending action and getting caught.