Dear Santiago

Dear Santiago,

I went to your website and read your poems
"Bomb" and "Death" were especially touching
I have seen sufferring and death as of late
You have seen suffering and death before
We all live with sufferring and death throughout our lives
Because we live
Because we are all human
So we grow from it
and we learn from it
and we hurt from it
But we are living
and that is why we share our suffering
So we can keep on living

-Anne

Black and White

For some reason, both of these projects really made me think about the concept of black and white--dark and light--presence versus emptiness, etc. I took a picture of both of the projects together, and I though they looked pretty neat.

I think there is a lot of meaning in the grid project, as what you create by either filling in (or not) can depict something larger. The concept of size is also challenged as smaller boxes can ultimately make up larger boxes.

The Xerox images intrigued me because of the outstanding difference in what was closer and further to the Xerox machine, when I was actually copying. Light means a great deal in this project (as well as dark) as it determines what is highlighted and what is hidden.

Gray is often lacking or overlooked with such extremes of black and white. I think the mind's eye's tendency to look to classify merely black or white can be easily related back to the way we view race in this country. On the same note, it's interesting that once we entirely eliminate color (that which we are not supposed to pay attention to in regard to one's race), we are left with only black and white (which, ironically, more accurately depicts the way we view race).

Xerox Project

Grid Project

Here are some pictures I took of my grid project. My digital camera is broken, so I used my camera phone to take them. I hope you can see them alright!