Shaneen Johnson

ACM: Guggenheim Museum Paper: Hilda af Klint

Spirit, body, soul. I have always believed in these three in one, which is based in my belief of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  These beliefs did not begin, ironically, in a church. They began with vivid dreams, visions and things my grandmother would call, "talks with God." Afraid and confused, these occurrences would leave me wondering if I had been asleep or awake, if they were warnings, prophecies or if I just ate too much before I went to bed.

My fear turned to curiosity and I dove into spirituality, absorbing everything from my local five dollar boardwalk psychics to hundred dollar books. It lead me to burning candles to bended knees, from saences to pews and from calling on dead ancestors to calling on Jesus.  I joined cults, then turned atheist, only to become a church member. As my journey for truth continues, my search for purpose within this life is still in need of deep answers.

My need for understanding went from deep to drowning, unsure of the answers I had found. Sometimes my answers confirmed my personal theories and other times, confused me even more.  The closer I came to enlightenment, I seemed to have have more questions than answers. Even still, I feel like a child, trying to understand the physics of scientific hypotheses and theories of a galaxy that existed way before I did.  My only hope is to find the truth, however horrendous and however glorious.

My trip to the Guggenheim to visit Hilma af Klints works intrigued my desire for a deeper revelation of spiritualism.  It also sparked an interest to explore such things and the possibility to adding these experiences into my own works of art.  Complex in its simplicity, I stared at her work in need of understanding and yet, not needing clarification at all. Somehow, understanding was not a main necessity at the moment of observation but rather, to gather an appreciation.  Each piece held a sense of symmetry and balance, while remaining beautiful and eloquent. Each demanded attention and praise all its own. Within the colors, shapes and size, each canvas told a story. Although I am not sure my interpretation is correct, my perception of it did not hinder my curiosity to explore.

Klints work also made me feel the relevance of good versus evil in the sense of a spiritual karma beyond the realm of our humanistic reality.  While reading National Geographics, “Life probably exists beyond Earth. So how do we find it?”, there was a sentence that got me thinking about this other realm; “There are more planets than there are stars, and at least a quarter are Earth-size planets in their star’s so-called habitable zone, where conditions are neither too hot nor too cold for life. With a minimum of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, that means there are at least 25 billion places where life could conceivably take hold in our galaxy alone—and our galaxy is one among trillions.”

One among trillions? If our planet is one among trillions and there has not yet been any confirmed life forms beyond our own, what if we are the only ones out here? In this vast world of galaxies and supernovas, what if we are searching in vain? My own experiences combined with artist like Klint,  remind me that we are not alone, but maybe we are looking with the wrong eyes. Maybe the telescope will not contain the answer. Maybe this realm cannot be entered with physical eyes but with spiritual ones. Maybe...

Shaneen Johnson

ACM: Newark Museum Exhibit

Growing up in a predominately black community, it was always said “you have Indian in your family.” I am a light skinned, nappy red headed girl with freckles and I guess that was the easiest explanation. Although never verified, I assumed this identity as a child and claimed it as my own.  Elders assumed we blacks, like the Natives of this land, were victims and identified our story with theirs. This not only made us communal but also neighbors.

This tale integrated its roots within the black community and is still being told.  I believe it helps us to seek an identity since ours is unknown. It helped us seek a commonality in a land where skin color was priority and the right to live was based on someone else's value of your life.

This indian  myth may or may not be true.  I have no idea if I have Indian blood in  my veins. I look at my family pictures and see features that I've inherited from both my parents.  Both sides sell their stories of heritage differently. My father's side shares a history full of integration, migration and segregation.  This side has horror stories of slavery, addiction and family secrets. The other, was a lot more spiritual. This side speaks on building churches with brick and mortar and training their daughters to be independent members of society.  Deeply spiritual, they relied heavily on the Bible and never dared to deny their sweet Jesus. They warned us that so much as a glance at a ouija board would wither our soul.

It is interesting, that within both sides of my family, and a lot of African American families alike, they do not really pass down any mythological tales. Most truths are now being sought out and are just being realized and acknowledged through the advances of technology. My families embedded a here-and-now sense of reality within the children and to only learn from the past.  Ironically, those Biblical stories can be considered mythological. Stories of splitting seas and slaying giants seem almost too wonderful to believe. Nevertheless, these stories gave hope and faith to my family to keep them marching forward in difficult times.

Those stories are the reason I chose the following four photographs to represent a few things.  The first was to symbolize the lineage of ancestry that may or may not belong to me. The second is the many silhouettes that have come before me; I too will be a silhouette one day. The third, a chief sitting in a chair, reminds me that although I do not know if this blood runs in my veins, there may be royalty in my bloodline and I should act accordingly. The last image is to show the dimensions of this life, from generation to generation, the things forgotten and the things remembered, from time past to the times to come.

I plan to do one of those genealogy test one day.  I hope it reveals some truths about my narrative so I may correct or verify some of the myths that surround my own identity.  I can honestly say, I will be a bit disappointed if the test reveal that I am not of Indian descent of some kind. My story, like many of us born in America, started our lives on their land and in some small sort of arrogance, would like to say that we are not only neighbors but also family.  

 

                  I

Love Child: Not Just a Black Girl

Love Child: Not Just a Black Girl

This project is called “Love Child”. It is based on a spiritual journey about myself which revolves around my most sacred part, which is my heart. As the earth spins, and as I do the same, we (the Earth and I) bond in this matronomy of existence so that she may teach me about myself and I, in turn, will reciprocate it to others.

  

Love Child, that is what my name means.  It  has become something I toil with, like a divine romance between the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual planes. Along this toil, I began to see, that it is in my transparency that allows me the freedom to be the most vulnerable. This vulnerability came with exposing great weakness and great strength, often times simultaneously. It was in those pivotal moments that I learned that I had to allow myself to be visible and to stop hiding. I began expressing these emotions in art, often using black, which is how my soul often felt while searching for answers.

These moments made me believe that I begun to be tested by God, people and the universe. To live up to my name, I would undergo ultimate test that would try my faith, hope, endurance, but especially what I was able to forgive- which are all components of love. I began to be placed in situations that required me to love others beyond normal capacity but most importantly, love myself this much as well.

Along this journey, I began to see the levels on which love existed and began to write vigorously about this journey in diaries and journals. I began to see the lines on a sheet of paper as my escape and my only friend, worthy to hold my entire heart without restraint. Thus, I incorporated this visual theory of line art into most of my work. It is a representation of the many levels of love, especially self love, which is going up and going down;. continuously building while continuously destroying.

These lines became a way to express the fluidity, the variability and the complexity of growth. It became my help in understanding that I too live on this line, this timeline, on this lifeline, which is a continuum of dots or periods; a reminder to self to always stop to smell the roses and then continuing, when I get tired, to stop and smell the next.

For this self portrait, I chose 6 works of art,

1. The number 6 represents the limitations of man, which acts as a reminder to go beyond my own limitations.

Each represents:

1. Gold- produced by pressure, found in darkness

2. Tears of Joy- that which the world sees

3. Tears of Pain- that which no one sees

4. Intimacy with self

5 . 5a: Relationship status (complicated)

5b: Relationship status (entertwined with coworkers, friends, etc) 2. I chose black, the main color to represent the feeling of ambiguity and uncertainty that I often feel.

I chose white to represent the feeling of serenity in that ambiguity during that uncertainty, but also clarity, purity and integrity.

a self portrait

artist statement

My self-portrait was very difficult for me to complete. It has challenged me in many ways and made me really have to think about what I was doing, and what I wanted to say. I knew that it to be personal, truthful, and come from my heart. I honestly was scared speaking about this topic and thought the whole thing was going to come out terrible. But in my gut, I knew I could do it and proceeded to go in the right direction. I started with my research about white culture and read articles about this topic. I found articles from Psychology Today and interviews from the press. I made sure when planning my story that I wanted to stay focus on Erikson's Stages of Developments theory, during the age 18-21 “Identity vs. Role Confusion.” This was about my identity, who I am, and what that means in general. I am a white America, well what the fuck is a white American? More complicated than I thought. And so by answering this question I wanted to ask people who also have shared this experience as I. Moving from the mountains of New Hampshire to the city of New York and talking about what we’ve learned and grown from living this life. So next I wrote my script and questions, and then I started conducting my interviews.

I knew that I wanted to use people whom I was very close too and that we’ve all have shared the exact same experiences. My best friend Rene Bennett was the male I met him in high school and we instantly clicked. We’ve been friends for around 5 years now and he moved down to New York to go to school at NYU my sophomore year of college. The little blonde girl is Meg Perrin she is one of my very closest friends from high school. I met her my freshman year in a musical and she moved down here the same year I did, going to school at Marymount Manhattan. Lastly, the curly brown hair female is my older sister Jessica Pappalardo. Well, she’s my sister, we’re like twins that bicker all the time. She moved down to New York after she graduated from college in Rochester, New York. These guys are like my family down here and it’s just nice to have someone you know from home who just gets it. After having a blast filming them it was time to get some coverage shots. I knew I wanted to be in the film as well, very small amounts, and I needed some of my surrounding areas. When going to the Hilma af Klint it was a good time to bring my camera and some inspiration and views. Luckily also my family came down during the time and we planned to go visit the Statue of Liberty. It was a couple of our first time ever visiting the monument. Riding the ferry around the island and seeing the whole view of New York, it was just magical. I knew it was going to be a perfect way to blend all of it into this video. Then soon after it was time to edit and laying out all my clips and audio and to create this story.

This video is shown so that everyone has a story and everyone has something beautiful to share. My inspiration is through that and connecting to others. I love to hear tales and experiences that people have lived and survived through. It gives me the inspiration to help share with others these stories of people through film. In the words of E.B. Tylor, culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." It is something that is passed on from generation to generation and something shared between people. It is expressed in many talented ways and from artists like Wendy Red Star in her photography and Ben Jones in his paintings. I personally do not believe I have a culture. I am just a person trying to enjoy my life while I’ve got one and express that through film and photography. We all deserve the freedom and right to be here on this earth. And sharing stories and spreading love is the only way of doing that. 

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n_o0HfK9nA&feature=youtu.be

Museum Assignment

Guggenheim Museum Assignment

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist. She left behind more than 1,000 paintings and works on paper that she kept private during her lifetime. Klint believed that the world was not ready for her art. In the recent decades the public finally got a chance to experience af Klint’s abstract paintings. The paintings displayed at the Guggenheim opened up new perspectives for me and allowed me to explore into the mind of another spiritual and creative human being. Each painting delivered a different message. All the exhibits however were focused around the themes involving human life and its stages, spirituality, the human body, the universe, and the future.Hilma af Klint was involved with seances, trying to communicate with the dead, but soon decided that it was a better choice to attempt contact with higher spirits. She soon met a student named Anna Cassel, who was also interested in spiritism and the esoteric religion Theosphy. Spiritualism is known as the practice of communicating with unseen spirits gained a widespread popularity in the United States and Europe over the second half of the nineteenth century. Spiritualism would then eventually help Klint make a major artistic breakthrough. Klint’s legacy broke the stereotypes which allowed her to be comfortable enough where she could be herself through out her paintings. It was known that in the 1890s, af Klint was involved in spiritualism and had a group of who shared the same beliefs who established themselves as The Five. This group believed they communicated with and received messages from beings of higher consciousness by entering trance states or using a psychograph. Klint and these four other women strongly believed that what one could say becomes a part of ones identity. The theories of humanity’s connection to the universe is what greatly influenced her paintings. An interesting aspect of Klint’s work is the way she mixes floral designs, geometric figures, and biomorphic forms with letters with made up words that makes a vocabulary of complex meanings. If I took the effort to reflect more on the topic of spiritualism it could definitely play a part in my own work if I understood a reasoning for my purpose in life. My work is usually inspired by personal experiences so it would not be as significant. It is also important to be aware about the way how the universe is connected through this interconnectivity of time and space. With this I could interpret my personal experiences into narratives that could possibly bring awareness to self-reflection on those who could be inspired.

Works Cited

https://www.guggenheim.org/blogs/checklist/who-was-hilma-af-klint-at-the-guggenheim-paintings-by-an-artist-ahead-of-her-time

https://frieze.com/article/secret-seances-and-high-masters-making-mystic-painter-hilma-af-klint

 

Ellania Nym (Diana Diaz Self-Portrait)

  

Ellania Nym

Self-Portrait

Diana Diaz

Colloquium in ACM

Prof. Caçoilo

Spring’ 19

  

I grew up playing roleplaying video games like mmorpgs (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game like Fly for Fun, World of Warcraft or League of Legends). I always thought of myself as one of these characters as a way to help me deal with my own insecurities and weaknesses. When playing an online role-playing, game depending on the game, there are usually several kinds of characters, you can choose from. They all have different traits and strengths. There’s the sorcerer (wizard), the druid (healer), the knight (short range tank/ warrior) and the paladin (long range skill/archer). I would always end up choosing the druid because it was the safest one since it can heal itself and others. But who I really always wanted to be was the knight, which is that character who has everyone’s back (or front in this case) and that would fight for anyone against anything.

The traits of a knight are: fearless, and even though I don’t consider myself as fearless because most of the times, I am too careful, I try my best to protect others. For my self-portrait, I decided to create a small bust of myself and add things to simulate armor, and other things that would help me look like those characters. The idea of the bust is an honor to a character that not only represents who I am but who I’d want to become. It also represents family bonding, since this project took a lot of effort from my whole family who helped me through the process. I loved the process, and I loved what it allowed me to realize. Some artists that inspired me to do a bust were Paige Bradley and Jeff Koons. Eventhough they are both very different in style, I believe they have a very unique way of externalizing how they feel about their art. Their work is a representation of their own personalities. They inspired me to want to learn more about the fine art side that I have as a graphic designer
that I refuse to lose.

Since this was a long and tedious process, we kept changing from different materials to some others.
The list is as follows:

- Molding Clay

- Foam Boards

- Compound (Wall)

- Plaster

- Rolled plaster

- Silicone Glue 

- Beads 

- Acrylic Spray Paint

- Primer Filler

- Primer

- Wood Filler

- Putty

- Fake Eyebrows

- Fake Eyelashes

- Fake Wig

- Wires for the ear’s shape

- Tape

- Nest

- and the list goes on...

I want to credit my parents, specially my dad for helping me through this whole process. He did not give up on me and on the whole project. Now I know I am such a perfectionist and extremist when it comes to trying to do the best I can because of him. I want to thank my sister also. And last but not least, Prof. Caçoilo for creating this project. I know it was intended for us to find in us something we cannot find by doing what we do in our everyday life, in our comfort zone.

"He adopted a role called Being a Father so that his children would have something mythical and infinitely important: A Protector. She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father"