Caryn Creviston
Thesis
March 23, 2010
Let me begin with several propositions based on what I have been learning about myself. Much of my behavior is governed not by what I know, but perhaps what I do not know or by things of which I am consciously aware. The subconscious mind plays a large role in our everyday lives and interactions with other humans around us. Gaining a better understanding of the subconscious dimension of my life could only further enhance happiness, success, and harmony. I have been consciously unaware of my true self for many years. Until recently there was hardly an effort by me to accept the challenge of a genuine inward journey. Within the past several years however, I began to retrieve knowledge buried within me like a dead body accepting its presence rather than letting it rot hidden inside me any longer. The result of this is that new self-knowledge is present in me now, not only in my subconscious mind, but in my conscious mind as well. This enables me to better understand why I behave the way I do, and it also gives me the power and control to change behavior when needed.
I never realized before importance of knowing myself, and how freeing it is to have an understanding of my behaviors and personality traits and where they come from. The success of the inward journey depends fully on how bravely you face yourself. Knowing that I have denied the existence of certain parts of my past I have now begun to raise questions and face who I am now, who I have been in the past and who I desire to be in the future. I have succeeded in the first steps of this inward journey through the artwork I have been creating this year. I am recognizing not only the positive aspects, but I am confronting the negative aspects as well. I am giving up the wall that for so many years I built between me and myself, a wall that also divided me from everyone around me. I am discovering my true self, and not what others perceive me to be, or what I believe I should be to please those around me.
Many of my responses or actions are triggered by emotions, in which I am susceptible to miscalculation and misjudgment. Being emotionally functional and expressive is important, but I do not want emotion to destroy my ability to reason. I say this because, for many years I let my emotions take control in many situations, which led to frustration and confusion about my past and where I have come from. These kinds of earlier experiences contributed to the building of my physiological wall.
Growing up I had a difficult time controlling emotions, and learning an appropriate level of expression. I often dealt with severe anger and depression problems. This only caused more conflicts within my relationships and interactions with others around me. Because of this I grew up with a constant underlying sense of anger and sadness building up inside me, always affecting my every word and action. Without realizing it I dragged myself down with a heavy weight of unresolved emotion I carried for so long.
I feel that there are definite emotions that are expressed by my work. In most of it one can sense sadness or emptiness. I have found that most people who have viewed or reacted to my artwork outside of the University’s Art department, or those who are less familiar with my work have often seemed shocked, surprised, or frightened by my work.
I am an emotional person, this is clear to anyone who knows me, but I am not necessarily an open person. I relate to others up to a certain point of intimacy, but once I begin to feel uncomfortable I close off and try to hide my feelings. It does not surprise me that those who do know me well are still shocked and frightened by my artwork, because they probably do not understand that aspect of my personality.
When someone views my pieces I want them to relate to the piece in any way that is beneficial to them as an individual. The pieces are self-portraits to me, they are expressing that which I have gone years without saying out loud, but to my viewers I could only hope that they will gain a better understanding of me, as well as take some inspiration or motivation with them to begin their own inward journey.
Like the majority of the work seen in my senior show, my piece titled “Book” portrays a very personal and intimate view of my inner thoughts and feelings. This piece has been in progress for several years, and will continue to be in progress for years to come. I have taken a book and began to alter each page to create a journal in a way, by using the authors pre-existing words, as well as adding in my own. I remember the first page I started on, page 75, I opened the book and it fell on this page. I skimmed through the words on the page and these were the words that seemed to be reading me, “Her pain no other will feel, and now keeps the girl.” By connecting words from one line to the next I created this sentence that seemed to articulate my exact thoughts. I painted around the words, gluing in images or clippings, marking out letters and sentences. And almost every day after that I would open the book to a new page and see what hidden message would be waiting for me to decode. It seems that it has been a way for me to express these personal feelings, in a comfortable way.
There is one piece from my collection I believe that stands out from the rest of these emotionally heavy pieces. “Her wisdom from your discouragement”, is titled from a line you can find in “Book”, page 76. “The girl, who has no name, lifted her face, manly tears, her wisdom from your discouragement.” This message I created felt very peaceful, and calming to me. When this piece was created, I felt the position displayed a very reflective, relaxed, feeling of contentment. Knowing that from all the discouraging words given to me, I can still find wisdom and peace in myself is a very beautiful thing. The piece has captured a special moment of reflection and peace.
I did not come to these self-portraits easily. It took me awhile to realize that I was doing something extremely beneficial to my emotional and mental health. For a long time it seemed I was lost within my artwork, and that I did not have a very clear direction.
In my four years of studying art at Anderson University the most influential advice I had been given was “read your art”. Until this was said to me I was very quick to settle for less than I was capable of. At this point is when I felt a breakthrough occur in my artwork. This is when I realized how everything was coming together, and I started putting the pieces where they were meant to be.
I had been making things that to me, the purpose or meaning of them was disguised and unclear. Yet I knew there was some meaning behind them that I had yet to uncover. I began to uncover a relationship between my artwork and my writing. I was finally beginning to understand how to read my artwork and how to understand the meaning behind the direction I had taken with it. It was then that I could take what I realized and what I had started to the next step or level of form and content.
This is when I realized that I was making self-portraits, and I was not just making them to have a self-portrait, I was making them because I was learning about myself through the process as well as addressing my past. I have learned to release built up agony, pain, and anger through making these self-portraits. I have also forced myself to look deeper than my reflection in the mirror and understand who I am and accept it.
It was not until the suggestion to “read my art” that I realized what I was making were in fact self-portraits. I just stepped back and made comparisons of the things I was creating. I had been making many elephant figures, which held such sad expressions, and heavy emotions. There was a very similar emotion carried throughout each individual one. They all seemed heavy, dismal, and dark. I began to make a connection between the elephants and my autobiographical writings. I realized that these elephants were about me, they were portraying something much deeper than an elephant figure. When I realized this, I knew that I needed to find a better way to portray them as self-portraits, something that would read better for the viewer. So I began giving the elephants more of a personification. After trying this I realized it was not reading the way I needed it to. I decided to use my actual body as the vehicle. Once I started doing this it seemed to open up so much more room for me to be much more expressive and clear. I was using my actual body as a vehicle of expression and that seemed to read easier than the elephants or the human/elephant figures. Once I began using direct molds from my body the outcome seemed much more real and effective to me personally, as well as the viewer. It made the process of making each piece seem much more intense and genuine.
The process is very important to my work. The process of making the portraits is more than just modeling for a plaster mold, then pressing clay, or wax into the mold, then pulling these out and manipulating them. It is just as much mental and emotional as it is physical work. Tearing into the clay pulling pieces of my face away, breaking myself down physically because I let issues build up mentally and emotionally.
The piece titled “Breakdown” has been a very therapeutic journey throughout the process and execution. “Breakdown” is visually representing what has been happening to me mentally and emotionally throughout my years of neglecting to acknowledge parts of who I am. I have let issues and hurtful things build up inside of me for many years, without even trying to understand them or address them. In turn this has been slowly breaking down who I really am, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. “Breakdown” shows the importance in recognizing hurtful things, or negative feelings, and the effect it could have if I choose to ignore them.
These pieces are more than just a physical representation of my self-portrait. For some time now I have been intrigued by the thought of combining different autobiographical outlets of myself together, and how impactful that could be for me and my viewers. I have written lyrics and poems and songs for years, and often the words and the feelings and emotions within these lyrics and songs directly relate with the artwork I am making. As of now, I have two different pieces that I have created based off of two different songs I have written. These songs are self-portraits in themselves, but when I use the clay or the metal to physically build what is happening in the song it provides a very powerful and impactful feeling, listening and seeing all of it at once. It is very important to me for the viewer to take advantage of the opportunity I am giving them when they view these pieces. I have the songs available to hear and listen to while looking at each piece. It is more than just background music in a gallery; I hope it will be an intimate experience for each person.
“Sleep Machines” is a song I wrote about how I feel a lack of real interactions with humans, and the heartless social routine I feel controlled by. Observing people’s everyday behavior, and communication I feel like we are all turning into machines, hardly taking time to experience the complexity and beauty of our individual minds. We are all becoming this mass of heartless empty figures, continuously neglecting to accept our failures or mistakes. The piece Sleep Machines represents the machine like structure I feel that humans have taken on, emotionally and mentally.
“Blood and the Sun” has a similar context within the lyrics to the song “Sleep Machines”. When I wrote this song, I happened to be taking a course called ‘Hebrew Roots of the Christian Faith”. Within this course we discussed much about the Holocaust, reading books that led us through the first hand tragic experience of a survivor. Knowing that one human is capable of doing this horrid action to another human baffles my mind. I often wonder how long it will take before something of this manner would happen again. The song explains my interpretation of this happening, and my fear of our heartless society. The figures to me represent a heartless society, and the people who have been stripped of all humanity and freedom just waiting in line to die. I see all around me those who have lost their true selves, and are unaware of their real identity. They are lost, and they have lost their sense to feel genuine connections and give true love and attention to other humans. I am just as guilty as any other lost human. I too fall into the contribution to our heartless society and this is why I must learn who I really am.
I have been told before that you cannot fully love another, until you fully love yourself. From past experiences I found this to be true. Without understanding and having awareness of one’s actions, feelings, and emotions it would be impossible to have a genuine, intimate connection with another. This is why I have taken a serious approach to my inward journey, and why I encourage others to do the same.
I cannot say that I have not been inspired by many different sources or experiences to build this path of an inward journey, and creating my self-portraits, but most of my inspiration has come from wanting to better understand who I am and how I can rebuild the emotional and mental parts of me that I have slowly let breakdown. I have been very blessed and appreciative to have the opportunity to grow as an artist in a department that builds who we are from within, where we have come from and pushes us to our fullest potential. I am proud to say that I will be leaving this department with more than just a degree; I have learned more about who I am and where I have come from, and I have learned to accept that and embrace it. I feel that my senior portfolio represents and reflects the idea of an inward journey, and I hope and encourage those who view my work to start their own inward journey.
