Student 35

"Looking Through My Eyes"

To begin my self portrait examination, I would like to take a moment to tell you how I came up with the ideas on the poster, and tell you the significance of the items that I've drawn. I will also discuss the theories we've discussed in class in relation to my portrait, and I will also tell you how the use of color, line, and shape played a role in the development of my portrait. I will begin my telling the significance of the drawings that I have included. Some of this is personal, but it is necessary in order to give the idea of what each thing means to me.

My idea for my self-portrait came to me in class one day and I immediately began scribbling down the ideas that popped into my head. I wanted to display my love for music, family, and my state in terms that were somewhat literal, but also had some good symbolism behind them. My idea to put the background of my portrait as the Georgia state flag was hard to convince myself to do, but I felt like it was necessary in order to give a good definition of whom I am. My use of the state flag was not intended to say that I am a racist as some might think based on the presence of the rebel flag. It is a mere representation of where I am from. There has been a lot of talk in the news lately of taking the rebel flag out of the state flags, and I think South Carolina has passed a bill that will exclude the emblem from theirs. I am not going to get into the politics of this issue, but I feel that our flag represents the history of Georgia and is a good representation of what this state has went through in order to be the thriving state it is now. I wanted to use to flag to display my satisfaction with this state and to let people know that I am from Georgia.

The main subject to my portrait was the eye. Anyone can come up to me and carry on a conversation with me without much problem. But you don't really get to know someone by just talking to them in a normal conversation, not me anyway. I believe that in order to get to know me, you have to get inside of me. I asked my girlfriend, Keri Eckhardt, to tell me how she figured out so much about me without asking, and she simply replied, "It's in your eyes." So I decided that the main focus of my portrait would be what people would see if they were to look deep into my eyes. I tried to give the idea of you looking into my eyes by putting the color of my eyes, blue, around the collage of drawing in the center, and then draw in the pupil of the eye on top of everything else.

Once you get inside my eyes, you will see a totally different person than what you would expect just looking at the physical side of me. I am an emotional person, and I wear my emotions on my sleeves. I represented this with the river effect coming down off of the hillside in my portrait. The water had a double meaning, and I will discuss that meaning when the time comes. If you look closely at the portrait, you will see a name emerging from that background. This is the name of my fiance, Keri Eckhardt. She has been such a major influence on my life that I had to put her in there somewhere, and if you look in my eyes close enough, I guarantee you will see here there. She is the literal representation in my portrait, and is represented by her name. The date in the left part of the eye (the significance of red will be discussed later) is our potential wedding date of June 29, 2002. I also have her birth date written down, which is July 7, 1979. It is hard to explain just how much Keri has changed my life since we met. She means the world to me and I cannot think of anyone else better to spend the rest of my life with than her.

One of the main influences of my life has been music. Now that I have started to write my own music on the guitar, the influence of music in my life in immeasurable. Music has lifted me up through my depressed times, and it has given me the strength to see the world in a different way. The band that has been the biggest influence on my life is Creed. I have represented Creed in several ways. The red emblem that I drew below the pupil of the eye is Creed's emblem. I also represented Creed by writing down some of the lyrics that have affected my life the most. The music side of Creed is something that I've tried to produce in my writing, and the lyric side of Creed is just unbelievable. The lyricist for Creed lets his emotions flow when he is writing and in doing that, he has enabled me to face my fears and continue on when I don't think life is worth the trouble.

To represent my parents, I came up with some ideas that are not directly noticeable. I've included their birth dates on the right side of the eye, and I've also represented them by the cloth that is draped over the cross. My great-grandmother gave my parents a gift when they were married of a long quilt that she stitched by hand for them. It was a significant gift for my parents because they were young when they got married. The color scheme for the cloth and all the other portraits will be discussed later. I also represented my mother and father in a symbolic way in my portrait. The fact that I have the ability to draw this portrait is a direct compliment to my mom, who is an exceptional artist in her own right. My dad is represented in the over all portrait. He has always told me to express my feeling in a way that I understand, no matter who understands them with you, or if they do not understand them at all. His confidence and leadership in my life was a big reason of why I was comfortable in expressing myself in the way that I did in this self-portrait.

The influence of color, line, and shape played a major role in the development of the portrait. The most noticeable shape in my portrait in the circle. I have included five versions of the circle in my drawing, and they stand for different things. The effect of the outermost eye and the pupil are used to represent the structural form of the eye, but also to represent the completeness and wholeness that I have in my life now. The oval shape of the eye is a form of the circle, but was used in my portrait as the support for the eye. My fourth version of the eye is the sun that is behind the cross. It is a circle with jagged edges that represents the hard times that I have went through in my life. It shines through the cross and gives the silhouette of the Creed emblem. This is my fifth version of the circle. It is not noticeable at first, but the shape of the emblem is in a circle. The jagged circle that represented the struggles in my life is represented in a very meaningful way for me. It shines through the cross, and leads to the Creed emblem, which as I mentioned earlier has changed my life through music. I also included the triangle in the form of the green land mass in my portrait. This is portrayed as the building block of my portrait because that is what the triangle represents to me. I did not include the square in my portrait because the representation of the square is not something that I think is a good way of expressing me. The crosses I used can be very deceiving. Some might think it is a spiritual meaning because of the way I have it drawn, but that is not the case. The cross is merely one of my favorite shapes, so I wanted to have it in my portrait. I also wanted a way of showing the quilt, so I used it draped over the cross. The two crosses in the background are just accessories to the big cross.

The color scheme that I used had some significance to it, and some favoritism also. The state flag is colored as it should be with red and blue, but instead of using white for the traditional white part of the flag, I used grey for two reasons. One is to represent what the flag's heritage if from, the Confederate, and to represent the shadow of distraction that people feel like the flag represents. As mentioned earlier, I used blue and black for the eye because it is the color of my eyes. I used green for the triangle because it is used as the building block for my portrait and it represents how ‘green' I am, from the stand point of being innocent to the world that I live in. The purple color that I used for the quilt had a family meaning to it. It is the favorite color of my great-grandmother who sewed the quilt. The jagged circle is in the color of dark yellow because it, in one way, represents the sun, but in another it represents the light that shined through to give me confidence in viewing my life in the way that I view it now. The colors of Creed's emblem is simply the colors that they've chosen to use in the symbol. The dates that I have in the corner of the eye have double meaning. They are important dates in my life, but I did them in red to represent the blood veins that people have in the corner of their eyes.

We studied several different views of the self this year in class. Among these views are Freud and Jung, the Asian view of the self, and the notion of art as self-expression as seen in the art and music of the Romantic period. To begin, the ideas of Freud and Jung are the ideas that are still with us today. Freud has taught us that the mind can be divided into three components: the id, the superego, and the ego. The id is the side of your mind that is responsible for a person's wild and animalistic behaviors. He believes that the instincts that we possess as humans come from the id. The superego is the moral side that tells you to always do what is right, and the ego is in the center that acts like the executive. The ego is the central unit and decides what ultimately happens. The example that were given in class was the example of the ego acting as a referee to the devil side or you (the id) and the heavenly or moral side of you (the superego). This example of the ego can be found in many cartoons today with the character thinking of doing something and the little devil popping up on one side of him, and the angel popping up on the other side of him. Assuming the role of Jung, the self develops out of the ego. The self is balanced, complete, and whole. Jung tells us that your true self should be portrayed no matter what the case is. Another version of the self that relates to Freud and Jung, is the articles that we read about Rilke. In these articles he deals with many versions of the self that could be viewed through the eyes of Freud and Jung. In assuming the role of Jung, and evaluating the article titled "Faces," the woman from this article is a introvert. She hides behind her real feelings and emotions and tries to be socially accepted. She wants to achieve social acceptance in such a way that she does not act as herself , but she acts like someone who she feels society wants her to be. If you take on the role of Freud and analyze the articles, you would think along the same lines as Jung, but believe that with help and an understanding of your inner self, you could face your fears and become a better person.

We also studied the Asian view of the self through Hinduism. Hinduism is one of the world's most tolerant religions, in which reverence for life in all its various forms is a key tenet. These are still the ideals of India today, which stands as the world's oldest culture in continuous existence. Hinduism began with the creation of the caste system, and this system is still used today in India. The Hindu religion evolved during the Vedic Period of 1700 B.C. to 500 B.C. During this time, the Hindus developed a system of religion text through knowledge called the veda's. The last of the veda's is the Upanishads. These are the world's oldest religious text, and are still in use today. They are also considered as "teachings received at the feet of the master." There are several forms of Hindu belief, and one of them is the freedom of choosing their own path. This means that everyone is free to follow their conscience with different incarnations of the divine. These different incarnations include Buddha, Jesus, and many more. To the Hindu's there are 330 million Gods which equal the totality of all living things. But, they put their emphasis on one God, who is Brahman. The Hindu religion is also a religion that believes in reincarnation of the soul. They are also a vegetarian culture. They believe that everything living is a god, as I alluded to earlier. This is why the cow is a very sacred animal and why they do not choose to eat beef.

The ideas of art through Romanticism is very interesting also. They are believers of self-expression through your soul is better if you can express it through artistic ideas. One of the quotes that we were given in class was the quote by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder which states: "In the mirror of tones the human heart learns to know itself; it is how we learn to feel feelings." This quote summarizes the way I feel about self-expression also. The ideals of the Romantic Period reflect my self-portrait the best because I have told people about my inner feelings, but in a way that is not completely evident and understandable to everyone. The ideas of the self through Freud and Jung have had as influence through helping me realize what my id, superego, and ego are telling me, but that is as far as their influence goes.

In closing I would like to say that this assignment was the best assignment that I've ever participated in. It has allowed me to open up and see what I have inside, and it has shown me different ways of expressing myself in such a way that I feel comfortable with. The idea of self-expression through art came to me when I started playing guitar, but the real emphasis of the idea never affected me emotionally until this project.

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