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So after a semester of being constantly told that my blog can be used or incorporated into my artwork, I finally came upon an idea that could work. Maybe.

In the arena of self-representation, I have a few physical attributes that could qualify as an avatar. The first is my ponytail; the second is my wandering eye. The third is my blog, which is also the most interesting way of representing myself. Here I am airing my dirty laundry in public for anyone and everyone to see without worry or care as to what people think of me. They can find this place and read what I really think about people or events. You cannot get any more honest and raw than this site.

And yet, I have another site that is filled with fictional stories and musings from an imagination generated by nothing but science fiction and flights of fantasy. You have an alter ego who is living a very secure life with an easy job and no real worries in the world outside of what his job requires of him.

In my research into the avatar, I found a duality that was very interesting to me. You have the old definition of the avatar in which the Gods would lower themselves for the sake of being mortal, often not realizing they are the human vessels for a very powerful divine identity. Then you have the contemporary definition with the online culture which is an elevated representation of how one wants to see themselves. This up- and down-grade of self could lead to some very interesting pieces.

So here I am with this idea having no way of actually making it into a visually interesting piece that people can look at and have conversations about. My intuition is telling me to pick the physical part of me and then place a body of text over that part or in the shape of that part. That text would be a blog-like entry explaining why that part of my body functions as an avatar. The problem continues to snowball when you ask things like "so how is this going to look in the gallery space?" As of right now, I honestly don't have an answer to that question.

In my conversation with my teacher, I remembered my video piece that Terry liked after my Study Abroad class. It was about memory and how an experience can often be forgotten rather quickly despite taking photographs to document it. In the video, I took the shots I loved the most and selectively faded them out until all that was left on the screen was a juvenile drawing of what my impressions were of the event. The actual piece went nowhere, but the process behind it came to mind this morning.

The new idea is to take this same process and fade in/fade out parts of my body that I wish were different for one reason or another. Start with the face, maybe work my way up to doing the torso (God knows I have body issues to work through), or something along that line.

Either way, I have to do something I don't like doing but is not resistant to doing if needed. I have to take pictures of myself.