"Time is a Thief With a Loaded Gun..."

Sorry that it's been a long time since the last post (wow, just under a month). I've been super busy with school, and because I've decided to focus on said school, I'm passing all of my classes, all with 2.0 or higher (I know that's not much, but that's saying something when you're talking about me.) An excuse to sit down and do a picture was that for a critical thinking English class I'm taking, there's a creative final project due, something that you make (picture, poem, sculpture, etc) and then an analysis paper on what inspired you to do it this way.

I actually finished this one about a week ago, but had both a vital test and presentation due for my math class (on which I got an 87% and 97% , respectively). Now that all the 'main projects' are done, I can devote more time to drawing again (though lifting weights has become a fascination to me as of late...it really is true when weight lifters say that it's addicting).

Anyway, the theme of my English class is American Literature that has to do with time travel (and perhaps the best book that's been covered is 'Slaughterhouse Five' by Kurt Vonnegut.) So, the theme of the 'creative project' had to do with time (passage of it, time-travel, etc).

Here's a quick explanation of what's in the picture: the eye represents life, our experiences, our failures, our triumphs. When we view life as the means to an ends (the end being death, thus the skull in the pupil and the person's clothes turning monochrome while looking into the eye), we tend to lose sight of all the amazing events happening around us (the colorful backdrop of 'tick-tock'). We need to instead focus on the task laid out before us (one day at a time, thus the eye focusing on the man), and this almost always, at least with some of the more important aspects of life, requires taking a chance (the flipping of a coin into the eye). Making a choice or taking a chance will effect the rest of your life (thus the ripples from the coin distorting the clock inlaid into the eye). All we can do is to make sure our decisions are the best ones and will effect our lives for the best.

It was actually quite liberating to take my art seriously (I mean REALLY seriously) for once, trying to create metaphors out of imagery. Expect to see more of these in the months/years to come. I don't know when the next picture(s) will be up: I still have a few more weeks of school to go before summer, and at least two more papers and two more tests to complete. But who knows: maybe I'll cram a lot of work into one day and have time left over to doodle up a little something (I've got 3 big pictures/projects in the works as of this moment, one to be finished before school's end). So stay tuned: there will be more soon...I just don't know when. And, as always, hope this one was worth the long wait.

By the way, the skull in the pupil was an accidental reference to the M. C. Escher picture foundhere. I thought of it, put it in my picture, then stumbled upon Escher's picture will trying to explain to my grandma what "tessellations" are, using Google Images. Go figure, huh?

© 2010 Jeremy Owen

Cheers.

~J