Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione [sic]

 L’autunno.

At some point I wanted to do a series of this nature, with a couple sets entitled L'estate and L'inverno, but as with most ideas, they gradually dissipated and were absorbed into the creative chaos of whatever I can do right now, which is not much.  I often find that I simply don't have the energy to plan anything out, and when people do show interest in shooting, I am more compelled to go do it before they change their minds.

The history with this one is much more personal, as she used to climb me like a jungle gym when she was five and I worked for her parents.  Later she would disappear completely, and I dealt with her sister pussy-footing around shooting, but never actually committing to it.  Regardless, both of them were dear to me, like sisters, like kids, and her recently showing up as an employee at my brewery opened an odd door for me to reconnect.  She hit me with a lot of sad stories, and the mere mention of certain names would cause her to break into tears.

Another reason why it is difficult to shoot local people: there is always a history and there is always a story; there are always people who will assume; and there are always people that you would put on an exclusion list to view the work, or even know it exists.  I, personally, have an odd history with this town, as my work and story were entirely inappropriate when I started doing this, but I never shied away from doing it how I needed to do it, so that I could evolve how I needed to evolve, and any negative opinion of my work was met with a couple middle fingers.

I have always said that if you don't want to see my work, stop looking at it.  If you don't like what I have to say, stop reading.  This one is having trouble finding footing in life because she doesn't really understand a lot of things, but that's what life is.  You have to figure out who you are.  Most fall right in to who everyone around them wants them to be, but they just want you to suit their needs; they don't really care about who you actually are, but that doesn't really matter because most spend the next 6-10 years figuring that out, and even after that you figure shit out every day for a really long time.  The great thing about having genuine friends and family is that they love you no matter what.  I never really had those friends; I never really had that family; but the only thing that makes that constant butting of heads worth it is to have someone on the other end of all the bullshit.  Sometimes it takes 20 years; sometimes it takes a lifetime; to get those people who claim to love you to understand that their love doesn't exist on their conditions; sometimes it just doesn't ever happen, and you have to figure shit out.  I'm rambling again.

“He left the Senate and ended his life by starvation.  His books, so the Senators decreed, were to be burnt by the aediles; but some copies were left which were concealed and afterwards published.  And so one is all the more inclined to laugh at the stupidity of men who suppose that the despotism of the present can actually efface the remembrances of the next generation.  On the contrary, the persecution of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated their oppression, have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their victims.” ~ Tacitus, Book IV, 35

Someone in the ancient world wrote some books that did not say great things about Rome, so he found himself standing in front of the senate defending his work.  Regardless of the sentence, he decided *insert middle fingers* to take matters into his own hands and get the fuck out of a tainted system.  I don't wish that on anyone, but it is ancient testament of the lengths to which people will go to prove very simple points.

I had told her that I would remove her scars, but upon further review I told her that I didn't want to.  The things we go through make us who we are, and scars are a roadmap to the soul.  I remember being so bored with the mundane fucking bullshit that this world tried to condition me to be ok with that I would slice my skin open, just to feel something the least bit extraordinary.  Other people have deeper, darker reasons.  Some people are just tired of being ignored.  None of the reasons are more or less significant than others, and all of them are very easy to deal with, with minimal effort and humility.  There are two sides to every story; more people, more sides.  Who's to say which of those stories is correct?  No one.  Not a single person on this planet is great enough to say how they feel is right, especially when another individual human soul, who is free to feel and think whatever they want, is involved.  Try explaining that to someone who has it all figured out.

I don't write very often anymore.  partially because I don't really have time to even feel anything, but mostly because whenever I do I am just overwhelmed by what a shit show human beings are.  We are a precious few who are just trying to survive; and an ignorant majority who assume power and beat us further into submission.