Entry #7: #<-----Waffle fry?

Radiohead "Present Tense" from the album Moon Shaped Pool. IF YOU HAVE NEVER LISTENED TO THIS FULL ALBUM, DO IT NOW.  

   For some people on this planet the hashtag is as normal to them as green on a turtle. On the other hand, some of us on this planet had to make a transition into this digital world all at random moments in our lives when the opportunity to learn presented itself. It has been a big change for people born in the early 90's and the years that preceded. For the latter group of humans, the world we once new would never be the same. I guess that is how the story goes for every generation, but technology seems to have advance the evolution of our species into hyper speed. 
      In the Summer of 2013 I bought my first smartphone, it wasn't until months later when I learned about Instagram that hashtags surfaced into my reality at the ripe age of 22... Even at that time I didn't really grasp the value of the hashtag. I kind of took it as a new trend that people "did" like today's dabbing, I just knew that  people would say things like "HASHTAG bacon" when they were jazzed about things like bacon... 
      Nowadays I have grown into welcoming the hashtag as I have learn to utilize its capabilities in my own life and business. Not only do I get to #art and link to a world of people doing art or are interested in the subject, I have found a new way to open myself up to a whole new world of art and media by looking into what other people have hash-tagged.
       This feature in technology has just made this world even smaller now that we can be connected to anyone around the globe simply by putting a waffle fry(aka hashtag) right before the word or words of interest.
       I don't know of any songs off the top of my head that reference hashtags, but I did add a song from my favorite Radiohead album Moon Shaped Pool, which has some digital-esque qualities to it.

This painting I did in acrylic also doesn't really reference hashtags... But it does give a feeling of fractured space and time, which is an essence that I get from the digital world, "Glitched".

     
       

Extra Credit: Money

Look how adorable Paul McCartney from The Beatles is...

"Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money's gone, nowhere to go
Any job, I got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go"

         Capitalism, monarchy, communism, they are all very distinguishable forms of government that all seemed to be centered around and elite. But at what point does one shift to a society where the wealthy 1% doesn't control the majority of the worlds assets? In the movie "Capitalism, A Love Story" Micheal More seeks to unveil some of these truths about our current form of government. 
         This movie was very entertaining and somewhat painful to watch the same time because it hits so many truthful aspects about our society. One of these issues he confronted that really hit home for me was the interview he had with the pilots. This is a huge issue that many people with an education are facing. Many who go to universities are some how allowed to let 18 year old humans take out thousands of dollars in student loans, but in the same time in their lives are not even able to take out a $5,000 loan for a car without a certain amount of credit history. How does it make sense to allow an 18 year old to take out a $20,000 and often greater loan from a university before one even has the chance to establish any financial stability for themselves... Some who continue on to a doctorates end up with $100,000 in debt. As we saw in the movie about capitalism, even those who work in their degree often don't even make an income over $50,000 some around $30,000. This is not the case for everyone, but I have met several in this exact same position, personally. Something needs to change nationally in this country.
           There are many countries that have came up with wonderful solutions to this problem such as Germany, so I wonder what the hold up is here in the United States. I fear that the issue has a lot to do with money as this movie addressed. 

Entry #6 Unda pressa

"Silver Lining", Tiffany Holman, Oil

        About a week ago I was taking a yoga class here on campus. The room held just a handful of students in with our yoga mats laid out like staggered notes on a staff. The instructor here on campus has the most adorable European (German, I think?) accent, colorful laugh, and twist of sarcasm. We began our class with a little discussion about stress. She told us a story that evening about the early yogi's and how different their purpose was. They used yoga as a tool to experiment with the breath, just as a wood wind musician would, Except in this case your body would be the instrument (I Don't know if that metaphor makes a whole lot of sense). Nowadays There are many different variations of yoga ranging from Buddhist monks to people on Instagram. 
       While on our topic about stress, I shared a little bit about what we had been talking about in my psychology class that week. Stress can do a lot of horrible things to your body (heart attack, autoimmune diseases, and the inability to fight off illnesses for example ). Many studies have been done on it, but one really stuck with me was an experiment they did on rats...It was pretty inhuman... But interesting. They had three rats in individual cages that were a tight little cylinder shape so they could only move back and forth. One rat was the control subject (let's call him rat C), so nothing happened to him except that he was in the same environmental situation and had the same amount of food as the other two. A little bell would go off periodically and when that happened, the other two (rat A and B)  would receive an electric shock 10 seconds after the bell would ring. The two rats that were being shocked had one small difference between their cages. One rat (rat A) had the ability to push a little button with its nose that would stop the shock and if it happened to do so then rat B would not get shocked either. So they received the same amount of shocks. The only difference in their two scenarios was that rat A had the ability to do something about it's situation. Rat B on the other hand had no choice in what happened to it. After the experiment they decapitated and dissected the rats and looked at their stomachs. They found over several case studies of this experiment that rat B with no control over the situation had over twice the amount of ulcers in its stomach every time. They had no environmental differences except that psychological one. The fact that one was hopeless in its situation and the other could do something.  
          They related it this back to humans and how we process stress. Our cortisol levels don't jump up when we do activities such as running. They do when you enter a stage of fight or flight mode, in order to affect your adrenaline levels like if you were being chased by a bear. Although stress can be harmful to our bodies, it has withstood time and human evolution. We don't experience the same kind of stress our ancestors did though. We didn't have to hunt for our food in the woods or deal with the same environmental situations that our elders did. Today it takes its form in prolonged states, and in many social situations. But what this study of the rats has taught us all about stress is that it is much more harmful to our bodies depending on our psychological states. Whether or not the person burdened by the anxieties of day to day believes that they have the ability to change things vs someone who believes that they are hopeless in stressful situations. For example, someone who gets promoted at work. One can become stressed realizing the more responsibilities and time they are going to have to put in or, someone can take it as an opportunity for growth and do new things. 
           Life has a wonderful way of taking hold of a person and turning them upside down. The unexpected can send ones cortisol levels through ozone. Stress effects all of us deeply and in many different ways. But it's important to remember, no matter what, whether you are chronically ill or are dealing with a hectic life, you do have a choice to change things. Even if it's just the way you perceive the situation. We live in a world with endless possibilities. "Save up your hopes friends"(Listener).


Attached is another song by the band Listener. This song got me through the election season and after.

The art at the top is a painting I did about a year ago about this topic. The concept of it is to symbolize being swept away in chaos and up to her neck in it (the red) and the figure reaching for that "Silver Lining". The fish are there because I was going through a fish phase and decided to have them flying through the air. 

Entry #5: The Dream

Tiffany Holman, Dry Pastel

           America's "dream", land of the free, home of the brave, and functioning middle class that feeds it's happy little capitalistic society. Whilst reading the article about Doug Ducey's plans as governor to enhance the education system here in Arizona, I found myself nodding my head in a confirming, yes. The audience his article seemed to be focused on was directed towards the parents and legal voters in our state, which is to be expected. But it almost felt as if he was trying to sell his ideas to the working class. He was offering to provide more funding for education, great.  His goal was to hoist Arizona from its current 43 percent of adults with education higher than high school to a whopping 60 percent, wonderful. But what was missing to me was any regard to what the kids want. We definitely need more funding to work towards this goal but, it seems to get lost in the conversation of  education. How do we change peoples passions from dreams to reality? Especially our youth's. It's important to be able to pay your bills as an adult, but his mentioning of finding employers and asking them what they want made me wonder. What to the growing children who will be making decisions later in our society want? And how do we strike that balance. The way his article was presented seemed to me almost as if our goal was channeling education and these humans lives to fulfill societies needs. At that point, when we are trying to strive so hard to fit into a niche that a capitalistic environment desires, whose dreams are we really trying to fulfill? The wants of the people or the desires of someone making money off of their lives?
         Often I hear from students, who received an expensive education, but claim they are never able to use it. In other scenarios I hear from students that they have no idea what they are going to do, they are just there at school to fill a requirement for whatever reason. I don't deny the importance of an educated society. Even if one has no idea what they want to do, it is important that people navigate through advanced education to get a better idea of the world that they will be expected to be apart of as an adult. I just wonder what kind of society we could produce if we allowed people to harness their passions and teach people to think critically or creatively about the world.
         Let me get off my soapbox... I may be a little hurt that often in education we take away the "fun" classes that allow people to think outside of the box, such as the arts, music, or physical education. Unless someone goes to a private school that focuses on these forms of education, they are often lost in the world of public education where a big part of our society grows from. After speaking with a handful of my teacher friends who have their doctorates in music and work at these private schools, they talk about all of the amazing composition projects their students are working on. The qualitative research they do of these students after they leave schools with an emphasis on the arts is a amazing! Even the students who don't continue a career in something like music report on how much it influences their creative abilities in fields like the sciences.
            Anyways, yay teachers! I'm ecstatic you are getting paid more, but I don't think our fight for a better education here in Arizona ends there.


The musician I am sharing today is an Arkansas man named Dan Smith, and his band "Listener". This man delivers the most intense poetry reading you have probably ever heard (or seen if you watch one of his performances). He often writes about social issues in the most creative way, enjoy!

(p.s. If you are a hip hop fan, you should check out his album Whispermoon that features some of his early work)

Entry #4 Sacred

"Stop and Smell The Roses", Tiffany Holman, acrylic on wood panel

          To be sacred is to feel some sort of connection to a higher power. In fact, the Google defines it as "connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration". But what about the people who don't believe in a god? Is there a sacred space for them? This is a very touchy subject for most people and in most business or social situations when you are in public it is often avoided completely. Not necessarily the subject of God, there are people handing out pamphlets about this all over a college campus, but the conversation of the absence of one. 
           After spending the majority of my life surrounded by an extremely religious population in Southeastern Idaho and choosing not to worship anyone from a very early age, I have found a different form of solace, life itself. Is it so out of reach to accept the world around ones self and understand that there is so much we still have yet to learn about it and it's majesty? That there may be sadness and suffering on this planet, but a heavenly place where this is absent isn't the solution to this problem. I have chosen not to live for death and the afterlife some claim and instead accept this world as it is, see the absolute beauty in it and spend my life trying to be not only be the steward of it it, but enhance it and all of the organisms that occupy it the best that I can.
         Last Fall I was asked to paint what was "sacred" to me as a class project. In my progress of developing a concept I was bombarded with people fighting for what they believe to be religion. Creating hatred among people who were not like them, fighting wars based upon religious beliefs, and leaders threatening each other through tweets. I felt crushed that people would spend so much energy on hate. This is a threat to the tangible world that I deem sacred. It amazes me how some people can get so caught up in faith and personal views to ignore the beauty in the people and world around them.


       The first painting is of this concept I have written about today, I imagined the potential of what could be if these leaders actually did what they said they are going to do at the time this was painted (which were threats of starting war). The figure stripped down to nothing and amidst the terror reflecting upon how fragile life really is. 
        The second painting titled "Home" is a compilation of elements from all of the places I consider home. I have quite the nomadic heart and these are some of the places I have spent a significant amount of time in and felt a sense of home at. Some of the elements that are incorporated into this painting are: The Idaho blue bird, Kentucky tobacco leaf, Walla Walla, Washington indian, Wyoming Tetons, the playa (ocean) in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Roses from New York. Places I intended to add in later: Arizona cactus, Ohio shotgun houses, Nebraska planes.
      The musician I am sharing today, Mariee Sioux, this artist is influenced by Native American music. Her work is filled with references to nature and the Native American people. For those familiar with the story of this group of people know that the history involved with them and our settlers trying to convert them to their own religion is one that we should never forget and learn from. It is evidence of the turmoil human's selfish personal views can cause. 










"Home", Tiffany Holman, Acrylic 
     

Entry #3 Skiwampus

           

            Something about introducing social issues through comedy just makes the unpleasant facts about our reality much more digestible. Unfortunately, many people take these sources of entertainment as their intake of news for the day. If not through extreme left wing media, through the opposing right. I don't doubt that maybe there is some truth strung throughout these forms of entertainment, but the fact is they give a skewed perception of the even that is actually at hand. What I mean by this is, that ones opinion of the situation has already been skewed by the person delivering it. Sure, a person has the power to judge the person delivering that information and it's validity but all one knows is the evidence that has been produced by a secondary source.
        I believe it's our job as the individuals not to only absorb every form of information that is presented by someone in a position of power, no matter how big or small (whether that is your boss, or the president of the United States) to make decisions for yourself. I think that if people took a little more time to step outside of conforming to a certain "side" and really searching for true evidence, listening to primary sources, and speaking with knowledge behind their words, we could have a much more productive society.
       I try my best to follow my gut, keep an open mind to what people have to say and try to determine whether they are speaking their own words or those put in their mouth by the social organization they subscribe to. I must admit though, John Oliver, Saturday Night Live, and Sarah Silverman (Especially her new show I Love You America) are pretty hilarious. I will definitely  continue splitting my guts laughing and watching them.

Entry #2 Aesop

("The Tortoise and The Hare" Painted by Tiffany Holman (me), Watercolor on paper)

The Hare was making fun of The Tortoise for moving so slowly.

"Do you ever reach your destination?" The Hare asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yeeeesss" The Tortise replied "annnd I geeet theeree quiiicker thaaan youuu".

↠⧫↞

                 Who created the moral standards we use today as a society? And at what point did humans switch from what Sigmund Freud (a doctor who also dabbled in psychology) would call the Id (pronounced Id as in, idiom) to the superego? Side note: The id is know as the part of the mind that acts on emotion and instinct, simiar to what some would call animalistic traits. The superego is the polar opposite in a humans personality. This part of the mind is concentrated on morals, social norms, and self-criticism. Frued claimed that the human mind constantly struggles to find a balance with each of these different parts of persona. The happy medium in between is called the ego. When one side gets out of check we experience anxiety. Freud's is one of many different explanations for the personality. But the question still lies with me, Who is setting these social standards that we base our lives off of? They are not static, whatsoever, and change so frequently.

                 It's in our nature as humans to conform, it creates an ease when commuting day to day at a variety of activities. This social script allows us to have expectations of people at the grocery store, and an unspoken communication with others when navigating through the DMV. But how far should one allow society to write the script of their lives? There must be a point as Freud thought, where the id and the superego meet. Where people can compromise with the world around them but still feed their natural desires. There are many places where people receive their mental references for socially acceptable behaviors. I believe the main source is through the media and the culture within our closet proximity, but one of my favorites is through a collection of stories called Aesop's Fables.

(The Northwind and The Sun, Watercolor, Tiffany Holman)

                The story of  The Tortoise and The Hare is one of 725 written by a Greek slave, known as  Aesop in the late to mid- 6th century BCE. His stories usually take place between two different animals teaching a moral. This last Summer I had the opportunity to work for a quintet of musicians here in the valley called The Mill Ave Chamber Players. During this project I illustrated seven different Aesop tales. Shortly after finishing these paintings, the composer of the music and I sat down and created some videos incorporating recordings of the music and art together. You can see all of the seven different videos by typing Mill Ave Chamber Players into Youtube where you will find their Youtube channel.

                                    (The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Tiffany Holman, Watercolor↑)

       
(From left to right:The Stag and His Reflection, The Shepherd Boy and The Wolf, The Fox and The Crow, The Oak and The Reeds)

         I had to add one of my favorite artists into this post who goes by the name Aesop Rock. AMAZING lyricist, I'm not sure how he memorizes all of his lyrics for his performances they are all so unique and obscure. Enjoy!