youremynirvana

I’m sad because I have no place to call home.

Sad because time is slipping out of my hands.

Sad because I feel no satisfaction.

At least, not like before.

I cry because it hurts.

Hurts being alive; hurts getting old.

I don’t recognize what I see.

I don’t know myself anymore.

I became a manufactured idiot.
When I tried so hard to not be.

I lost sense of passion.

Because I thought solely on the money.
I was never good at competition.

I was never competitive.

Maybe that’s why I’m a misfit; I don’t belong.

I don’t like feeling sad. 

I’ve grown used to  disappointment. 

I’ve grown used to self punishment and self harm. 
To headaches caused by insomnia and excessive crying.

My brain loses oxygen as people around me find the need to be alive. 

Find the need to survive.
It’s a routine.

Nothing more.

What’s the point of that?

Why can’t I be happy like everyone else? Why can’t I be like them?

Why do I have to think of fucked up things?

Why are all my idols dead.
I don’t see it the same anymore. 

Light.

I’m not happy to see it anymore.
Colors aren’t vibrant.

They’re not like before.

(Disclaimer: 16 year old me wrote this; I just went back and proofread.)

Heart feels cold on a summer night.

You see, you hear, but you don’t feel. 
The pain isn’t as bearable as you thought. 

Love isnt as beautiful as you imagined.

Thats what you get for being good. Thats what you get for being you. 

The darkness in your eyes is the real you. 

Fake. 

You think youre happy, but you’re the most depressed.

Telling people to take more care of themselves because you want someone to take care of you . 

You dream of that day someone names a star after you, not knowing youre a billion light years away. 

You believe in stuff you see but why not believe in what you don’t?

You feel selfish when you dont want to let go. 

You strangle yourself in your dreams. 

The disease inside of you kills others instead of you. 

But the light you see isnt the light you know. 

The fear of losing is the same as the fear of finding. 

Look for the liver not the heart. 

If you have know me well enough you will know one thing about me: I always color my hair. There is not a moment in my life where I feel truly satisfied with how my hair looks. Having it one color just isn’t my thing. So I tend to switch it up very often.

I have gotten tons and tons of questions about my blue hair that I will gladly answer today.

First off I want to give you the name of the place where I get it done:

If you ever do  get to go to this salon, ask for Mayra. She’s the best hair stylist and hair color expert there.

Here are some questions I collected from Instagram:

Q: I see that you had a copper tone before the blue… did you have to lighten it more before that?

A: Yes! I had to bleach my entire head! It was a pretty easy process, even my hair stylist was impressed. Get your hair bleached professionally please!

Q: How do you keep the color so vibrant and your hair healthy? Do you know any hair lighteners that remove fashion colors easily that don’t destroy your hair as much?

A: The best secret for keeping your hair vibrant is probably not to wash it as often as you would normally do! Dry shampoo is now your best friend!

My hair is so far from being healthy! However, it tends to look pretty healthy sometimes. That is because I use the Moroccanoil Intense Hydrating Mask.(https://beaudini.com/product/moroccanoil-intense-hydrating-mask-8_5oz-250ml?gclid=CPyBpaSUv80CFQiQaQodQ6sFeg)

It is a little pricey but worth it!.. Plus, it smells so good.

I have also heard of this brand: Overtone. It is meant to be a conditioner that you put on top of your fantasy color so it can always look freshly colored!

I’m afraid I’m not familiar with hair lighteners. I have never bleached or lightened my own hair before. I talked to Mayra, my hair stylist, and she mentioned that hair bleach sets that you find at Sally’s are actually really bad for your hair. They usually supply the highest concentrated bleach and sometimes, the buyers are not aware if the bleach they put on their hair is going to destroy it completely.

That is why I always encourage people to go to a professional! Bleach is not to fuck with.

Q: What color brand did you use?

A: I used the “Poseidon” color by Arctic Fox. (http://arcticfoxhaircolor.com/) It’s vegan and cruelty-free!

Q: How fast is the color fading?

A: This was probably my biggest fear from the beginning. How long will this color last? How often would I need to get it retouched. Here are some pictures that would help you answer that question:

As you can see, this is a true blue. Almost a navy blue, but not quite there yet.

As you can see, a lot of the blue is still visible. It basically almost looks the same. The only thing that has changed are my roots. After a good time consuming shower, my roots lost the dark blue color and started to fade in to an aqua. Also, my shower was full with blue dye splats.

WTF! That’s a huge difference isn’t it? I had washed my hair once again, and this is the hair color I got. It is loosing a lot of the true blue color and turning into an aqua color. I like it, but I don’t love it. My hair stylist told me it will turn green.

I took this picture 2 days ago. So as you can see, my hair is still aqua. Not green yet!

Overall, I’m really happy with how my hair is fading. I would have thought of the fading part to be much quicker.

If you ever want to dye your hair a crazy color PLEASEEEEEEE don’t do it yourself. Unless, you are a professional.

I hope to be updating this blog as I accumulate more questions.

Hopefully I answered your questions and helped at least a little bit!

See you later,

Youremynirvana

When I look at Beauford Delaney’s Self Portrait, it reminds me of the faceting techniques cubists used. There is this flatness in the painting, yet we are still aware that space and three-dimensionality is present.

The portrait contained dark linear lines that are not much organic but try to maintain geometric. The eyes and nose are emphasized because of the square and triangular shapes conveyed. The lines vary from thick and thin and the most interesting thing is that the obvious features like the eyes, lips, nose, and eyebrows are the features that are emphasized with black bold lines.

What I also found very intriguing was the use of color. The medium used helped Delaney create the beautiful overlapping greens, blues, browns, and yellows in the face. Although the colors overlap and seem to be irregular in pattern, Delaney seems to have been strategic because the face does not lose dimension.

The different values of colors really help the viewer distinguish the lights and the darks of the face. There is contrast between the colors and the values used in the face in comparison to the rest of the painting. This contrast creates balance as we see the hat and the clothing being painted in a very bold way with lack of values. Not only this, but we see balance because red isn’t seen in the face but only a small amount on the nose and under one eye.

Nonetheless, this help create harmony and unity with the painting as a whole. Space is manipulated with simplicity. The painting’s background lacks in any kind of extra information therefore making the human figure itself the main focus of the work. The texture of the painting looks very soft due to the blending of the colors that resemble almost a water-like consistence. Some areas, however, seem to look rough in texture. The background of the painting looks rough because of the small brushstrokes one can see. The brushstrokes on the background, hat, and clothes are very different from those on the face. There is a lot more detailed movement on areas that are not the face. The brushstrokes are repetitive and obviously lacks using more than one color so this contributes to the roughness of the paintings texture. Overall, the composition is very proportionate and all of the space is used making the painting look complete and rhythmic.

Now this is my inspired piece I created:

When I was creating this piece, I kept in mind that the assignment was to pick three things I enjoyed about Delaney’s self portrait. The techniques I enjoyed and liked were: the distortion of the face, reminder of Picasso and cubism, combination and use of colors/medium, and the overlapping of those colors. So all of the time I was painting, I kept looking back to those “rules.”

My instructor made me change the painting because he observed that my piece had lots of potential. He insisted I pushed more into something that would be completly different than Delaney’s work. I clearly did not understand the assignment because I was thinking that the finished assignment had to be somewhat of a replica from the original piece. I would have changed the different of this piece drastically if I could have done anything I wanted.

I have had experience prior to this assignment with painting with colors and overlapping/experimenting with oil paint. So I believe I could have wow’d! the whole class showing them my true potential with colorful self portraits.

Overall, I enjoyed looking at Delaney’s Self Portrait and somewhat trying to mimic it. Of course, it is nothing alike! My painting includes much more emphasis of the neon looking colors, which is something different that I tried here.

I hope you enjoy my approach to mimic a masterpiece.

Be my guest in analyzing my self portrait.

I decided to visit the Me And My Arrow exhibition at the Kavi Gupta gallery. The first thing that I noticed when I walked in was the fact that the exhibition consisted of sculptural work but it was also an installation piece.

The installation on the wall was the thing that intrigued me the most. It was a wallpaper consisting of colorful arrows going both up and down. The way that they are constructed confuses the viewer because of the different lines and objects having different colors. There is not one single color that is used next to each other which only emphasizes the idea of non-repetitive techniques.

Even though the eye sees pattern, only a small portion of it is actually a pattern. The arrows are the pattern, as we can see how the arrows are going up and down in the same sequence. However, the colors are not really a pattern. When you look at an arrow with a particular color, we can look at another arrow with the same color and then look at the colors around that arrow and see that they are not the same as the previous arrow we looked at. The three dimensional arrows vary in size. They are interesting in form and they almost seem to be a small part of the installation on the wall. I like the unity of the exhibition as a whole.

I enjoy Tony Tasset’s idea of making such a simple object like an arrow, and make a whole installation/exhibition about it. Even though it seems to lack in meaning, it is something that appeals the eye and the colors cause different kinds of emotions to different people. When I went to the exhibition, I took someone else with me and they mentioned that the colors made them feel overwhelmed and mimicked a puzzle game. I felt like it was the opposite. I felt like it didn’t overwhelm me at all and on the contrary I wanted to see more of the pattern expand into different forms. It was a new way of seeing arrows and using something as simple as color to change the meaning and emotion of an arrow.

 

Artist of drawing: Sean Youngs 

These are the moments I fear. 

When I’m alone with myself.

My own thoughts, opinions, fears.

Fear.

The only thing that reminds me I’m alive is my heart beat.

But have I ever lived?

Is there more than just this?

This.

The feeling of isolation. 

Of never ending confusion.

Circling my inner thoughts with desperation.

Who am I? Who am I really?

The sound of airplanes in the night sky remind me of you.

Yes you.

The one reading this at this very moment.

Where are you. In time. 

Are you as perplexed as I am.

Are you also a 20 year old questioning the purpose of life?

Or are you a 30 year old questioning your marriage? 

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that human beings have to feel this at night sometimes.

Sometimes 

I don’t know whether I’m actually here.

If I’m actually present.

Something about this world tells me that there’s more out there.

Beyond the discrimination and violence.

The poverty and the hate.

These are the nights I rise from my procrastination to actually think of the inevitable.

Of the future.

Dear future me, tomorrow me:

STOP.

Stop feeling bad for yourself. 

Start to actually sleep.

Look around you.

There’s more to life than just your heart beat. 

If your art doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t expect it to mean much to someone else. You are what you make; what you create. Never pressure yourself to make something amazing all the time, the unexpected is what tends to succeed the most. The days when you don’t feel like an artist just remember that you are no different than Picasso. We are human.