Final MFA Show - Cycle to Now - sustainability and life cycles

Feeling Dark, there is a bigger picture.

"Wisdom takes many forms.  It is the source from which fertile inspiration comes, and it arises beyond the framework of time and space in which our human lives are enmeshed.  It is close to the creative energy of the universe itself, and as such cannot be restricted or tied to any one set of ideas, beliefs or instructions, though each of those sets may contain a drop of wisdom which has given them life." - Theosophy

Rise Up by Eddie Vedder

My mom, a few months ago, during chemotherapy.  She is healthy and moving forward

Focus.  Just stay focused. Focus on bettering yourself, trying to understand the energies that move through you, and forgiving yourself and those around you for all of the shortcomings that life shows.  "Balance is not a fixed place at which to arrive.  It is a dynamic awareness that continuously adjusts to the changing energies of the moment." 

                                                           -Ganga White, founder of the White Lotus Yoga Foundation

Art and Sustainability

 The choices we have are important.  They shape our days, but they also shape energy.  

Death or LIfe? Which do you choose?

Where do you place your attention?  

How does it affect you? 

We have choice within perspective.  

Empower yourself towards positive choice.

Looking for the positive pockets

At this point, I have to search for the positive pockets. The negative aspects of the way the world is right now is so heavy. We all feel it, but through the heaviness, the positive pockets really glow green. Consciousness gets tighter and stronger about the issues we face, and having an open heart is crutial to forward successes. On a mission to find the positive pockets.

Why or Why Not?

I do feel that these images talk about the behaviors and attitudes that contribute to 'the problem'. We feed our bodies toxins, we have toxins in most our products. We have no way of restoring earth's materials and natural resources. We abuse, and abuse, knowing these things we complacently abuse.

These images push me deep and push me dark. What are we doing?

But I have learned there are truths on both sides, the good and bad that keep things progressing forward. I am out to photograph these choices, to bring light to them and awareness to our current state of being, or 'not being.'

Doing Our Part...

Near the Norton Simon, art is being made.  

There are spots everywhere where passion for the future of humanity is the main concern.  These places are alive with innovation, respect and intrigue.  I stumbled across one of these places below the pasadena bridge.  There they make ecological sculptors, take interest in the environment, collect rain water from the roof, and plan on raising awareness by looking at the world as a community.   The art shows how tricky the world is right now.  The art tells the story of the importance of helping and caring, and this shot shows my project by highlighting theirs!  

The Visual Results of our mistakes

America is experiencing the aftermath and suffering from decades of complete excess.  My definition of excess is as follows, 'trying to fulfill internal happiness with the material.' According to Webster,  excess is, "surpassing usual, proper, or specific limits, excess by comparison, and immediate indulgence to an amount of degree beyond."  Whatever the definition, the results of such behavior is clear.  If you look hard enough, the visual show is beginning all over this country. 

Where do we go from here to adhere to the Energy-Climate Era?  

How do we salvage a system that has been functioning with no regard towards sustainable, energy effectiveness for our future? 

 In the short term, the system forgot what ethical standards are, focusing on excessively filling pockets, with total disregard for others and the planet.  When energy poverty, "which is sharply dividing the world into electricity have and electricity havenots," is the determining factors of future economic success, America needs to saddle up and be the global leader that we have been in the past.  In order to recover, we as a collective American society, need to recognize our behavior, we need to look within and see where our faults lie, and work on bettering minds, tenacity and the ability to identify positive behavior.     

It is not pretty, but it is where we are...

  There are many reason as to why and how America is in the state that we are in.  Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, explains "Industrialization promoted urbanization, urbanization eventually gave birth to suburbanization.  This trend, which was repeated across America, nurtured the development of the American car culture, the building of the national highway system, and a mushrooming of suburbs around American cities, which rewove the fabrics of American life."  This is when I was born, in June of 1979.  The fabric of suburbanism was woven, excess was everywhere;  the gap days, but pre-abercrombie.  As a pre-teen in southern California, the only place my friends and I would go is to the mall, a place to do nothing but walk around indoors and consume.  The frustration I felt then, was similar to an experience of traveling to Panama some ten years later, hoping for anything authentic to the indigenous region of Central America.  Travelers and locals alike told me to check out the shopping, they described it as inexpensive and wonderful.  What I found was a soulless attempt to sell soulless cheap 'American inspired' junk.  I recognized then that materialism had spread like a virus and the overall negative footprint America was having on the rest of the world ,both economically and socially, was detrimental.  The only revival option we have, is the opportunity to lead through example by 'Code Green'.  "Code Green means making America the world's leader in innovating clean power and energy-efficiency systems and inspiring an ethic of conservation towards the natural world, which is increasingly imperiled." 

Let's begin with this image.  "Everything you need in a neighborhood" soulless excess.  Nothing makes me angrier than soulless excess. The idea of buying just to have.  The idea of not thinking about what you are wasting.  The idea of not using what you own.  The idea that if you market something the right way, it will sell regardless of its substance or quality.  The idea of producing goods that are not sustainable so that more of this behavior takes place.  Here is a community who has produced something soulless.  Built cheaply, with no quality,  suburban communities have produced many similar structures.  The selling point of this community is that it markets just that, a community; you can find everything you need right there.  The problem is that this community was built on marketing a great concept, and then actually creating fluff.  A post attempt at suburbanization, jumping on the soulless excess bandwagon inspired only by money, not quality, sustainability,  or integrity.  Now, not only is this excess visible, but it is wasteful, as no one is purchasing and the poor quality is not fit for long term wear.  

   The counter to this image is American River, at least they have nature and a view.  Tent City, the controversial area, only blocks from Sacramento's capital building, running along the American River, where unused Railroad land has become an area for homeless to make a home.  The conditions there are based on necessity, the counter-opposite of soulless excess.  Necessity is the recognisable need of something for basic human survivals;  food, water and shelter.  Showing necessity and living in connections to understand necessity is crucial to understanding what soulless excess is, does, and perpetuates.  

  

Ohhh, lightened images.  My website is coming and so am I.

Back to school, yahhhhoooo!

Normally I don't watch television.  The commercials make me angry; the increase in volume, the lack of creative intellect, and the thought of disconnected boardrooms make me want to gag.  But as I sit here watching the Superbowl, the top commercials air and that aire of brilliance and creativity resonate through the box, as the best of the best commercial pitches release themselves top to the public.  That box, our American media television hierarchy, the viewing link to most peoples whole-world experience, structuring thought, or the lack there of.

The mindless entertainment regenerated me back, back to my studies.  My dreams of being expansive and creative and inspired by literature, art, and history dominate.  No dollar manipulated media can enter my vortex, because it acts as advertising, promoting what we think we should be, while deflating the idea of accepting, embracing and loving who we are.  Loving our differences and our imperfection, remembering the soul that, connected, can be intact and the most grounded beautiful force to resonate with. 

Feels good to be alive.  

Mexi-Cali or better?

Back.  I can feel the drain of the US.  The decline that is apparent and the thought of how nice the cushy excesses really were.  How other countries emulate finding that comfort, or already have it in such sophisticated ways, long-time observers, students of the mistakes of our over publicized, American culture, as media tries to suffocate the root structure of this beautiful country.  

We stand untied, in hopes to find that media rotting life of super-stardom, a new horizon hovers like a surfer waiting for the swell to hit, for how good things were, lingering reminders of the last best wave surfed, and a thought that people can make things happen, that connection acts like a siv in finding pure authentic gold.  It is all happening, and this countries roots run deep, these roots are our culture. 

But it is greater than the money, better than the thought of what the future can be, and greater than us.  It is connection, elemental, physical, and chemical.  It is the unexplainable and the comfort in not knowing answers, but continuing to explore the knowledge that leads to empowerment.  It is setting your belief system and ideology to except what you have, appreciate the effort of acknowledging the simple, the breathe, and breath.

Write, read and communicate.  and then read, write and communicate more.  Find the things that stimulate you and continue to stimulate yourself.  Mexico stimulated me in ways I could have never imagined, and I look forward to the continued travel and learning of life.