Break Science/ city guts and human Heart on mirror/ April 12 2012

So my friend finally sent me the shots i've been patiently waiting for//

But this is ONE of my favorites.. Refer to March Update for the preceding stages of this piece

We had the final critique for our class today; we had to chose one work to talk about, i chose this one. When it was our turn, our professor would ask just us a series of questions about the piece and the semester.
Mine went a little different. Before she could ask me anything, i asked those at the critique to get up and look at themselves in the mirror. Immerse themselves, see themselves surrounded by this graffiti and keep in mind what they feel. Many said things along the lines of, 'it made me a bit uncomfortable,' or 'it was really cool, i really got a sense of what graffiti is and the message.' Looking back, i find it easier to define the goal of this work, it's simple;

1. If it changed how you feel about graffiti in some way, if it made you feel something along the lines of uncomfortability, then i've proven my communication through graffiti.
2. With graffiti there is a message, you just have to look close enough.

I then explained my art, in the way that most people worry about which colors to use, or what the composition will be, what to paint. I focus on what feelings i want to get out. The majority of my work is done from pure emotion, and living 'in the moment'. I asked students to help me deface this mirror, write on it, anything. I wanted it to be a communal thing, directly reflecting graffiti, as well as the ^living in the moment^ aspect. I included personal things to the wheatpaste collage in the lower left; a love letter/goodbye letter, shreds of a past sunflowers, soil from Providence, RI, a representation of my crush from this past spring, and other artifacts i was enduring within the time period i created this piece. I named it Break Science because of this song i found/obsessing over it during my work on this piece. I explained how huge emotions are for me etc etc, and how my work greatly reflects that. I could've gone on and on, but the point was, I was successful in conveying the message through something which is passed by unnoticed(most of the time) everyday, and brought the viewer into the scene, into another 'dimension', into my life every day.

Oh, and there was a high school show at COD a couple weeks ago(where this article is from), conveniently it was the night i put this on display there..forgot to put my name out there with business cards -_- oh well..