Little life updates

Well. It has been a VERY long time, now hasn’t it?
To give you a few updates, I have officially graduated with my degree’s in Studio Art and Psychology, I am now working at Sangria Grille–one of my absolute favorite restaurants :), currently I am applying to the Peace Corps, and trying to find a way to get my life in order. We’ll see how that goes 😛

Thesis Show=SUCCESS!!!!!

Since I have not written in a while, I will give you a brief overview of everything that has happened over the last several months:

I decided that my thesis should reflect the person I am and want to be, so I decided that who I am is a helper. The main objective of my project was to actively involve people in this project so that it was more relational to a broader audience, rather than stand-offish. I wanted to make a difference to the small world around me and get something started. What I ended up with was so much more than I could have ever asked for.

Artist’s Statement:

We all have secrets, and people dealing with an eating disorder have a very large burden that they carry because of the shame, guilt, and stress felt from having this disorder. It is very rare that an eating disorder is about the food they …eat. Rather, it is a struggle with their emotions and their perceived lack of control in a world they may not feel like they have any control, and they try to push it as far as becoming—or appearing—effortlessly perfect. My objective is to make people aware of disordered eating patterns and give them tools to help someone—be it for a friend or self—who might be dealing or coping with an eating disorder.

The result was amazing. God blessed me beyond measure with this project, and I still plan on pursuing this project for at least one more year. We will see where it goes 🙂

Check out this site, I was featured in my school newspaper:)

http://www.uiargonaut.com/sections/news/stories/2011/march/3111/the_importance_of.html

Emotional Representation in Binge-Eating Disorder

This was my second paper for my thesis course. My score? 24/25 😀 She actually liked this paper! Go figure….

Note: I have changed my thesis project, again, and this is more the direction I am headed! I’m quite excited 🙂

 

Emotional Representation in Binge-Eating Disorder

Shay Driver

University of Idaho

 

Thesis Question: When it comes to visual history, the topic of Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) is quite sparse. When thinking about the emotional aspects that drive BED, are they the same or different from the insecurity felt by others?

Eating disorders are a major problem in the United States. One or two out of every 100 teenagers will struggle with an eating disorder at some point in their high school career, and likelihood of developing one increases with age (kidshealth.org, 2010; Matlin, 2008). Although Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa are the two most recognized eating disorders, there is, still, one other that is more common. Binge-Eating Disorder (BED), is defined as ingesting unusually large amounts of food in a discrete period of time and feeling a loss of control while eating (DSM IV 4th Edition, 2000 via Crow et al, 2008). This eating disorder is the most common eating disorder in America at the moment, and is more prevalent than Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa combined (raderprograms.com, 2010). Other characteristics of this disorder include: feeling stress or guilt while binging and binging episodes happen two or more times a week for at least six months. BED is similar to Bulimia Nervosa with the exception of not purging after consumption or indulging in excessive exercise afterward. In essence, food is their drug and their addiction and is often used as a substitute to try and fill a void in their lives. Although it is very common, readily available information regarding the causation are not known.

Finding fine artists who deal with this topic is just as difficult.  One artist who does address eating disorders and body image directly is Jessica Ward. Her current body of work explores the idealization of the female human figure and the issue of control felt by people with eating disorders (Ward, 2010). She primarily does very detailed illustration-quality drawings that show her subjects in a very glamorous style that also have a retro feel because of how the hair is styled. Ward mentions in her artist’s statement found on her website (http://www.jessicawardart.com/), that the role of hair is a metaphor for control as well as ideas felt by the woman with the disorder (2010). Although her drawings are quite beautiful and have the capacity to communicate the message of the disorders, the figures, in my opinion, are too beautiful and don’t really speak much deeper about the disorders other than a brief, shallow glimpse into what the artist thinks the disorder is about, not what it actually is. In her drawing “Binge Eating Deity” (See Figure 1), the drawing is skillfully drawn, but it really does not read as the disorder being represented. The only inkling I have to relate it to the disorder is the overwhelming amount of hair in the picture to show the lack of control she feels when presented with food based on what the artist described the role of hair in the first place. It could also represent the abundance of food consumed and how overcome she may feel because she has no control when she eats. The other issue I find problematic is that all of her drawings show her women to be too confident, rather than the insecurity and shame most women, men as well, feel when suffering from an eating disorder. Aside from these “problems”, her work is beautifully done, and still expresses eating disorders in a unique way.

Frank Warren is the creator of the community mail art project known as PostSecret. It is an ongoing project that started in Autumn 2004 and had its first exhibition on January 1, 2005 (Kutuzova, 2009). Although he does not create the works himself, he compiles, shares, and publishes the willingly shared secrets of others that are sent to his home in Germantown, Maryland; receiving an estimated 200 post cards per day. His belief is that if we free our secrets, we are able to become who we are truly meant to be (Warren, 2007). Warren is credited as being the most under qualified psychologist in the world because people are so willing to tell him their darkest, most embarrassing secrets. Many of the post cards received relate to image (body, fashion, interior self, etc), broken relationships, phobias, love, faith, and other subjects that people generally hold back from others due to shame or embarrassment (see Figure 2).. This is similar to how people with BED feel about their disorder. They feel shame after they eat such great amounts of food that if anyone were to figure it out, they would be completely ashamed. We all hold secrets, for BED, it’s the amount of food eaten to hide emotional setbacks from the world that they would rather not share, or the fear of rejection in some way. Although many of the secrets that are posted on the website do deal with various topics (http://www.postsecret.com/), there are also some criticisms of the works itself. Some have said that the “secrets” are not really secrets, but rather more like comments, or even just diary excerpts shared with the world (http://justmarvy.blogspot.com, 2009; Kutuzova, 2009). On more than one occasion, many of the secrets posted expressed how writing that secret made them realize something more about themselves, i.e. they had a problem, they didn’t actually love someone like they thought, or confronting something about themselves that they may not have realized or liked. In order for them to get better, they had to admit the embarrassing truth to themselves, which is an important part to improving yourself with BED.

The final artist I will explore is Janine Antoni. Antoni is a contemporary artist who produces performance and sculptural artworks. Her works have an autobiographical reference to her life and deal with “extreme acts with the body” and find creative ways of relating her work to the people around her. In her work known as “Lick and Lather,” I found it particularly interesting and pertinent to BED. This piece is a cast bust of herself in both chocolate and in lard, then she proceeded to partially lick off the face of the chocolate bust, while she washed the lard bust over the period of a couple of hours (See Figure 3). Each act causes part of the piece to be eroded away slowly. It is visually and conceptually intriguing when considering the thought of beauty or even our image slowly being taken away (Art21: Antoni, 2003). When thinking about BED, this, to me, speaks about how the emotional connection with food, the feeling of separation from the self, and the numbness felt while eating does the same thing as licking the chocolate and washing the bust. This act leaves only a vague representation of the original face or self. After a while, eating, for the binge eater, causes some sort of disassociation with the self because the instances in which they eat are during emotional times. They are trying to sooth their pain by eating and trying to distance themselves from the pain they feel (Bulik, 2009; Lamothe, 2002).

Conclusion

The ability to relate is important to art works. An emotional response within a viewer is a key piece to a successful art work because so many of us try to find a way to relate or figure out why the artwork we are looking at should be important to us. Although not everyone will be able to relate to having an eating disorder, many are able to empathize with the person coping with the disorder. Desire and cravings are very strong urges that we each have experienced. In terms of BED, the desire for food is so strong that the person feels powerless and is unable to stop him or herself once he or she has started. In many ways, it may feel that they are taking a backseat to this monster that has taken over their life. The point of mentioning all this is that all three of the artists above share a common thread of the self-conscious self that we all have experienced. Each illustrate in very different ways, but each are still the same to some level, just expressed differently. Whether it’s through getting anonymous post cards, doing performances, or doing a series of drawings, they each have found a different way of showing the way they cope with their idea’s of self or perception of self and others. Just as each of us will express or hide our own insecurities in different ways.

Another shift in my thesis

Yeah, yeah, I know! How many times am I going to change this thing, yeah? Well, this time I’m actually commiting a little bit more!

I’m focusing on Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) and creating a way of representing this disorder aesthetically through sculpture and not make it seem too preachy. So far I am working on a stuffed animal (a horse) and creating this object that generally is seen and used as a form of comfort for most children, but tweaking it so that the hair is nails or chains or at least something that may be seen as dangerous or harmful because with BED, food is their comfort but it is also what is harming them as well. Hop that is helpful for the time being! I’ll try and be better about posting! 🙂

Presentation today!

In one hour, I will present my in-progress works for my BFA thus far. Kind of interesting to think about considering I didn’t actually get started until about a week and a half ago!

This is what I am up to in a nutshell: Landscapes are related to identity (and people) in that they have many similarities from continent to continent, but they each have subtle to grand differences.  Identity is not solely based on our differences, it is also to be marked by our similarities as well. It is difficult to surmise that someone is purely unique in every way, which is partly why I find this topic particularly interesting. We each have our own special code for who we are as individuals. We all have similarities among our friends which is why we make friends with similar interests and we butt heads with those that don’t or refuse to see things the way we see them.

Erikson is considered to be the foremost in identity studies in psychology because of his stages of development. The one that relates directly to identity is the fifth stage: Identity Vs. Confusion. This stage happens during adolescence and it is during this time that they start to form who they are, who they are going to be, and how they will eventually contribute to society. The stages are set up that unless you fulfill each stage you can’t continue on to the next stage (very similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs). What is pivitol during this point is having a group of people around you that have common goals, ideals, or morals. That’s what he says anyway 😛

Neo-Erikson James Marcia was another person of interest for me. He focused on two concepts: exploration and commitment. He felt that we need explore our possibilities in life and then commit. It is important that he felt that Identity Achievement came from dealing with a crisis in life, overcoming obstacles, learning from them, and then ultimately becoming a better person who has a better idea of who one is.

As far as new inspirations, Dan P. McAdams is the psychologist I have mentioned on and off over the last month or so with the topic of Personal Myths. Relating to what I talked about in the first paragraph, although we are all different, we each have commonalities among each of us. For McAdams, he believed that it was through our own story-telling was our similarity. We each have our own ways of telling stories, however, the themes are generally the same. He divided them into four groups: Irony, Tragedy, Comedy, and Romance. When telling stories, we will used this as a basis for most any story we do tell. It goes deeper than this, but I’m still in the process of reading the book.

Other people that I have drawn from are Joseph Campbell and Erving Goffman. Both of these people are not in Psychology, but they do encompass some theories very close to psychological theories that I almost consider them to be part of  the whole thing 🙂 Campbell felt that the meaning of life was more based on experiencing life, not just living or searching for the meaning. Goffman focused more on frame analysis. This refers to the attempt to control or guide people’s impression of him or herself. Essentially, we are actors. While Campbell is similar to McAdams, Goffman is more like Jung and the concept of persona and the mask we wear in society.

Anyway, I must head to my presentation! I hope it goes well…

I think my thesis may be going somewhere! YAY!!!

Finally! I think that my instructor may finally be seeing that I actually AM interested in my subject matter and she wasn’t discouraging this time…as much, anyway 🙂

Here’s what I’m thinking and potentially what I may do:

Creating elaborate drawings that are based on tradition and symbolism that may turn into prints or stitched on cloth (making a tapestry of sorts) and this is to represent how each of us have commonalities between each of us. We all share certain beliefs about life and our creation. We each are shaped by experiences we have had in the past and the present, and our identities are fluid and are always changing, yet we somehow hold on to our core.

Visually speaking, I will draw some influence from the repetitive and symmetrical characteristics of mandalas (Jung), the decorative styles of Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels, and Celtic design for more inspiration.

Hopefully this can be all drawn together and turn into cohesive at the end 🙂

Do we all share common themes in our lives in terms of our identity and the discovery of ourselves?

After doing a bit of research, and also talking to another adviser about my thesis (thanks btw :), the works of Jung have always been pretty interesting to me. I attribute much of it to his interest in religion, some to his own personal investigation into his own identity, and his reflections on his observations and other. This is not to say that I agree with everything he has to say, I just think he’s a very interesting person to draw inspiration from.

At the moment, it’s his thoughts on the mandala. He used them for various reasons, but what I think is interesting is that I have always felt some sort of connection to circular objects, and I have, kind of, made my own that I would eventually like to get as a tattoo. It is very representative of who I am in many ways. The way I feel about my faith, who I am, and what I want to be.

"I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate
position of the ego. ... I saw that everything, all paths I had
been following, all steps I had taken, were leading back to a
single point -- namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly
plain to me that the mandala is the centre. It is the exponent
of all paths. It is the path to the centre, to individuation.
... I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the
self I had attained what was for me the ultimate."
p. v
Mandala Symbolism. C. G. Jung. (a collection of three works)
translated by R. F. C. Hull, (Princeton University Press, NJ, 1973)

http://www.netreach.net/~nhojem/jung.htm
									

My own identity

Ok, so, here is the question: What is my identity?

Nothing like digging deep in search of an answer that, in complete honesty, I don’t have the faintest clue how to even answer. But I will tell you what I do know about myself and through my own experiences being abroad showed me.

While abroad, I realized many things about myself. For instance, I can be very extroverted and I can take initiative, but when it comes to being back home, I revert back to what I know, and that is to hide in my shell. I’ve noticed myself do it frequently since being back.  Although I did find it very difficult to reach out to others while there, they always seemed to continually reach out to me… even when I was scared that they would reject me.

That’s one other thing I realized about myself on a deeper level: I am afraid of getting rejected and then abandoned. I’ve never really been the popular girl, the one that everyone is dying to meet, whatever you want to call it. And when it comes to actually putting myself out there for people to see, I’ve often felt overlooked and not really wanted. Or when I am noticed, something happens and they just seem to up and leave. Most of the time without any real explanation. So if I ever come off icy, standoffish, a bit of a wench even, it’s not you, it is totally me, I just don’t want to get hurt and I’m afraid that even the nicest person will eventually leave. I’m sorry if any of you have experienced this.

I’m also not comfortable in large crowds of people. Yeah, considering that I went and LIVED in Sydney, Aus. where there are MILLIONS of people there, what would possess me to go to such a place? ( I will answer this later) I get anxious when I’m at LSF. Even though I know many of the people there, for whatever reason, I just get so anxious when I’m around people that I know there. As I mentioned before, my anxiety is attached to the fear of being abandoned and being rejected. It’s something that I am working on, and I am steadily getting a better handle on this.

As far as more positive things, I am a very determined and stubborn person, traits I get from my dad. I don’t like being told that I can’t do something, mostly because if feels like I’m being hindered and not allowed to grow or thrive as much as I want or try. If you limit me, I have to prove you wrong. End of story.

I heard from several of the friends I made while down there that I am a very compassionate person. Yes, I can seem like a very cold person (like I mentioned before), but that is the way that I protect myself from getting hurt over and over. It’s extraordinarily difficult to offend me, but it is ridiculously easy to hurt my feelings or break my heart. If you stick with it the softer, more loving side of me will come out, it is worth the wait, I promise. Once I feel comfortable around a person, it’s easier for me to show that side of me.

One of the many things that I do miss about Australia is their “aggressive affection” style. They are so open about loving each other. The openness they show with their affection is also reflected in the way they talk to each other. Granted they are all VERY joking people, but they would not tease someone unless they liked them, very similar to the way my family works anyway. The love they showed me over the few months I was there were unparalleled. It’s something I miss greatly, the constant affection as well as the words of love that were shared continually. In case you’re wondering, one of the best ways to get me to open up is to genuinely hug me and if I feel comfortable, I will open up.

Another biggie, and it is something that really has defined me as a person. Since high school I have lost nearly 150 lbs. That is enough to make another person. I’m a bit of an emotional eater who bottles things up inside. Partly how I got so obese. I am still trying to lose the remainder of my weight, but as it is said, the last five, or 20-25 lbs, are the hardest. Wish me luck!

Overall, when I look back on many of these things, I really do think about just how much I have grown as a person and how much I really want and need to continue to learn and thrive. i’m still figuring things out, but at least I’m still trying to at least =)

Cheers!

sites seen

Incredible Edibles: 26 Works of Art Made From Food

http://webecoist.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

Mmm! Jambalaya!

The nice thing about this last weekend was that Amanda and Andrew made such a cute couple and they both had a beautiful wedding! I love weddings 🙂 ❤

Anyway, on to the things  and happenings of this week! 😀

This week I’m making dinner for LSF and it smelled wonderful when I left (I am currently “in class” for thesis work), and I can’t wait to eat it!

Ok, here’s the dealio with my thesis:

I am thinking about doing ceramics, more specifically I want to attempt to find some oven proof stoneware and make molds and eventually make food using those molds. Or maybe even using silicon molds. I still have a lot to think about as far as the actual mold is concerned, but I’m slowly figuring it all out.

As far as the subject matter, I’m still thinking about personal myth and somehow finding a connection between food (which would be what the molds would be used for) and our own personal myths and thoughts based off of McAdam’s book on the making of the self and how we compose our identity’s off of events and people we interact with.

I think that a point of interest, for me, would be the section of the book that described life as having four basic forms: Romance, Comedy, Tragedy, and Irony. I will keep you posted when I have more time to write.