Why Is 2011 Leaving?

Bird's Eye View - Shenzhen. Weng Fen, 2002.
Learning from the past, but always looking to the future and what it's ahead of us.

Being this the last day of the year, it is not surprising to find many of us thinking about the memories and experiences another year has contributed to our life story. Despite of my suffering from the lack of ability to equilibrate strong cognitions simultaneously, 2011 was a pretty unforgettable year, yet I do not understand why I have the need to acknowledge the year’s blessings at the very end. Is it easier for us to look back and recognize the steps we have taken in 365 days? Or do we follow Aristotle’s theory and believe that the end of everything we do is happiness? Nevertheless, everybody desires to successfully conclude their year without dramatic interventions or physical danger, although those resolutions seem implausible these days. Maybe, we just need to find new realistic resolutions in order to find the last day of the year satisfactory, instead of frustrating over not meeting Justin Bieber. Or maybe, we need to become oblivious of New Year’s resolutions and just live your life to the fullest, taking day by day. This is the point I was trying to get at, if I hadn’t allowed myself to ramble so much. Subsisting one day at the time with little regard to the future is extremely difficult. We humans have a tendency to count the days; instead of making them count… we are afraid of being reckless. We are afraid of change. At least I am very aware that I am. However, things will not stay the same no matter how much we would like them to, and when a life change occurs, we have two choices in how to respond. We can despair that a change has come and assume the worsening of the situation, or we can respond with excitement at the new possibilities the change presents. I want to live day by day; I’m just not sure if I will follow what I preach. Hopefully, 2012 will allow me to be illogical and incomprehensible, without me having to explain it to anyone (just like I was in 2011).

Critical Final Thoughts of 2011: One of the best years of my life.

I love my friends!!!

Feelings And More Feelings

Self 3, Brookline. Nicholas Nixon, 1947

When you don’t express your feelings out loud, you seem to swallow them as if they did not belong in another place but your stomach. 

Frustration into crashing reality when arriving my so called home was what I felt. I didn’t understand it at first, but the sour gulp that was this feeling assaulted my trachea, impeding the invasion of a breath of fresh in my lungs. My heart was reluctant to accept I had come back, dissatisfied at the already perceived resistance to the fulfillment of my will. With every thought passing by, the more I convince myself needing an emergency tracheotomy. Abundant reasons answer the “why” of my behavior, maybe I was not ready to leave; but when was I going to be anyways? The place I’ve calling home for the past four months gave me an unforgettable experience: it allowed me to reencounter with the person I am and I want to become. Am I going to be able to overcome the difficult process it is forgetting Atlanta? I think I never will, and why should I? It touched my heart, and all the people I met did also. I became just another person in the crowded subway, another leaf in Piedmont Park, and another story to my foreign friends. Will it matter to Atlanta that I had gone? No… but to me, it meant everything, including who I am today. I will not let this frustration interfere with my daily life back in Venezuela, although it seems as if it were impossible. Frustration will only be the essential fuel to my success.

I will come back.

Good-bye My Dear Place

         
          Good-bye exasperating sound of gunshots in the middle of the night. Good-bye acidic taste of dismissing your friends when graduating because of the lack of opportunities.  Good-bye never-ending televised presidential lectures talking about the supposed improvements of Venezuela’s economy. Good-bye non-existent public transportation system, which instead of taking people everywhere, takes crime everywhere. Good-bye desperation and anxiety whenever I leave my house (or even in my house). Good-bye land of the forgotten, I wish to never come back.

          Good-bye satisfying smell of my grandma’s kitchen, replete with Cuban flavor and spicy humor. Good-bye everlasting revolutionary chatter on my aunt’s dining room every Sunday night.  Good-bye soothing caresses while sitting on my stepfather’s lap. Good-bye sweet and salty taste of cheese and plantain in every lunch. Good-bye impromptu diners with my best friends, sharing new stories and experiences. Good-bye dear place, I will forever love your flaws and your mistakes.

Feeling Springy, But I'm Really Falling.

Untitled - Victoria Smabunaris
The sky inspires the most beautiful ideas.

The bare touch of the light

The soothing wind playing with the hidden clouds

I wonder why I should leave



Dear Angel

Wings are placed on the most unexpected people.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, enlightening paths when dark days prevail. Nevertheless, dear Angel, I feel alone. I miss your echoes of mercy and whispers of love. I haven’t tried to silence the static of worry, the stress of disorder and the magnitude of life. It is my fault that you are not here; I myself have frightened you away. What can I say? I wasn’t prepared for your sudden goodbye, nor for time to march forward, stopping for no one. I’ve struggled through the remainder of life, holding onto the memories, determined to never forget you and never let you go. I will never forget the first time I met your daring eyes. They were beyond anything earthly I had seen. I realized you were heaven sent, and to God I thanked for my life you touched with just a simple gaze. Every moment of bliss is made bittersweet by your absence and every second that passes disintegrates my heart. Never should you worry, my dear Angel, I will eventually be fine. It doesn’t matter if I can’t see your wings, you, my angel, have wiped the tears I shed since I could no longer hold you in my arms. I will feel how you fly so high beyond my sight, but always caring down upon me.  Closing my eyes, opening my heart, I obey this immortal touch, this light caress, and this unreal illusion. I will find my way over these crashing shores, knowing within my heart that my soul will always find yours.

Setting Free Your Inner Self

The Eiffel Tower, also known as "La Dame de Fer".
Being my dream place, I chose as a setting for my fictional story.

              Essential and precious is the impartment of ideas, free from internal constraints. An artist lays on the crispy lawn where the twilight days merge into mesmerizing nights of black and gold, in love with the subtlest charm alongside la Dame de fer. She wishes him to rebel against the walls that have imprisoned his words for so many years, walls that he built himself, robbing his freedom from the inhibitions of the social structure. Even if she evoked the most compelling dreams, she somehow thought he would never accept it. “Please my dear writer” she thought, “don’t censure yourself.” He would never embrace the gift of writing the most thrilling fantasies the world could never imagine. He would never write until every corner of his body was emptied and felt his soul emerging from the place it has been hidden, just like he did before, just like he used to. Or at least she thought.

 

              The artist shamefully chose to taste the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of his opinion, depriving himself from the privilege of explicating the beautiful and the rare with the help of just a pen. He claimed not to be as easy as it seemed, but reluctant to embrace his gift he chose to never demonstrate it for many years. Never has he let his emotions speak for themselves, but there was something he couldn’t understand about the woman he was with. She illustrated images, followed by emotions and feelings he had never felt before. He knew meeting her would be overwhelming, but he felt the heat of passion with just a gentle gaze. A deep desire crossed his mind, wishing to stay entrapped forever between their spark. There is no corner she could not fill, causing the waves in his heart to stay still. Lost in her magic, he quickly searched his bag. While desperately looking, he was surprised at what he was about to do. Time ceased, his heart was captured, and inspired by la Dame de fer, he began to write.  

Telling a Story

Dishwasher: Slackers' Best Alternative.

Trust me, this usually isn't the way it looks.

TEQUENOS!!!!! (Venezuelan food tastes like glory after three months of having none).

Green but Clean.

I've been called a Fashionholic.

Books among other things.

Color, color and color.

The background is the least important.

A Colorful Unreal Perspective

One of my favorite artists, Gerhard Richter, over painted my dreamed location: San Francisco

My shades of black and gray can only bring a sense of the unreal to the acclaimed as one of the world’s most beautiful bridges, drifting upon the sensory beauty featuring orange vermillion, sweeping cold cables and the blinding rays of the sun. I can only mean illusion; a daydream in the fixed pathway between two stable ways of thinking and living… yet built high above a watery, changeable element.

…But I can also mean reality. The very real emotion of an artist, immersed in his perception of his dimensional world, caught up in a reflection of his sensitivity. A common photograph, a hand movement, a reawakened desire… A heart beating faster with each vision of what lay ahead… A feeling materialized.



My American Persona

Expressionist

Subjective, Aroused

Experiencing, Distorting, Feeling

Emotional experience rather than physical reality

Evoked ideas.

Untitled, Jackson Pollock (1948)
Hidden Intentions, Showed Innovation.

Piedmont

Wild, Pure

Realizing, Admiring, Breathing

Absence of restraint in choice

Released.

Paradise 13, Thomas Struth (1999)
Nature is the perfect Habitat.

As a Native

Robot Trainee

Mechanical, Irrational

Adapting, Automating, Resembling

Conveying a sense of having a mind of its own

Society’s artificial intelligence.

Even technology needs a break. Taken by Victor Ramos
Photogallery

Revolution

Rebellious, Conflictive

Rioting, Disagreeing, Defying

Recklessly acting in a dangerous system

Fear.

The Scream, Edvard Munch (1984)

 

Take a Picture of My Heart

You are the quintessence of all what’s beautiful and rare

The muting of sorrow and despair.

You are the unworldly rhythm of my thoughts

And the immortal fire of teenage love

You are the soft captivity of my soul’s desire

And the deadly browns and glittery yellows of the autumn.

Gerhard Richter, Overpainted Photographs.
There is more than one way of interpreting the season of transformation.

However, you are not a simple line representing the horizon,

The non-inspiring gray skies

Or the words in a lost dialect

And you are certainly not a deceiving vain smile

There is just no way you are a deceiving vain smile.

Vintage Weinernter, Gerhard Richter (1968)
Gray desplays nothing but sadness.



It is possible that you are the pearly treasures of the sea

May be even art’s never found hidden intentions

But you are not even close

To being the starvation for a shoulder when crying.

Ashville, Willem de Kooning (1947)
Can you see the message beyond?

And a quick look in the mirror will show,

That you are neither the fire congealed with senseless cold

Nor the taste of bitter strawberries to my full lips.

It might interest you to know,

Speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,

That I am the plain white canvas to your imagination.


I also happen to be the admiration of what we can’t understand,

The lights that spatter heaven above

And the mind’s departure when dreaming.

Drammen 1, Thomas Struth (2001)
Particularly exceptional were the lights beaming on the sky.

 

I am also the sweet masochistic distance

And the end to your means.

But don’t worry, I am not the quintessence of all what’s beautiful and rare

You are still the quintessence of all what’s beautiful and rare

You will always be the quintessence of all what’s beautiful and rare

Not to mention the muting of sorrow and –somehow- despair.

Poem

Wisdom resides within the mountains

Shaped in a clear, foamy river

Awakening a deep thirst of knowledge.

More Than Just a Sense of Belonging

Santa Lucía possesses a hidden charm that everyone is a slave of, including myself. Being the cradle of poets and artists, the inspirational and intangible characteristic of this piece of land is undeniable, evoking a sense of belonging that explodes within me when walking the irregular stone streets.

 I’ve caught myself drifting in Santa Lucía’s dimly enlighten striking narrow streets, bonding with the high and continuous facades, colored with vibrant and distinctive electric blues, shiny yellows and deep reds, using a visual language of color and line to create a conspicuous representation of what I believe it is architectural abstract expressionism. The everlasting ceilings and decorated walls reek of a rich blend of customs and traditions, proving to be the living testimony of Venezuela during the colonization. While walking in the striking narrow streets, I can only reproduce the stories those walls might hide, letting my thoughts merge with the revolutionary sound of the closely related residents… Letting my heart embrace the visual stimulation of the emotionally charged environment surrounding me… Transcending my logical construction of reality, bringing dimensions to my flat perception... Music, art, memories… No wonder why this is the spot chosen by the designers to exhibit their art. This place has seen it all, including my very own memoirs. What else will it be witness of?

Santa Lucía, Maracaibo.

Is Not Who You Are But What You Are.

Defining oneself in writing can be more complex than it seems. A million ideas flooded my mind, resulting in my brain working nonstop until confusion and frustration after hours of staring at the screen, it became clear to me there that was one word without which the world as I see it would change completely. Art.

                As an 18 year-old, I never expected to find comprehension of the world from an abstract painting. I caught myself staring at what I later learned was named "One: Number 31" by Jackson Pollock. The painting resonated within my mind as if the sound of the people’s chatter in the museum were nonexistent. An expanse of canvas bears the evidence of the artist’s energetic and dynamic movements to create these whirls of lines and colors, these skeins of enamel, some matte, some glossy, forming what I found was a vanishing sense of solidity. Contemplating it from a distance, the colors merged in my eyes, and its overall dimensions exhibited density and lushness. Pollock’s work, nevertheless, was conceived to be viewed from close proximity, revealing delicate details despite the industrial paints he used as materials. This sole painting was able to influence and affect all of my senses, my emotions and my intellect. My departure from reality was obvious, I couldn’t control such expression.

                I later realized I was staring at what I considered to be Life. It was complicated, passionate, vulnerable, deep and chaotic. I related more and more to the complex image, and time went by slowly as I flowed along the ropes of paint in Pollock’s creation. This feeling of communication between the painting and me seemed strange. This mysterious feeling awakened a curiosity within me, a thirst for the unknown – What else have I been taking for granted?

                As time passed by, I became addicted to the feeling art expressed, telling stories, feelings and frustrations through a mixture of textures and colors. Art had granted me a little world in which I could get lost in. Art provides a way to experience one self’s in relation to the universe. Art is an internal appreciation of balance and harmony, a basic human instinct that transcends the individual. This basic instinct can embody many forms: photography, dance, plastic arts and of course, writing. Being extremely logical, in each one of these forms I was capable of interpreting my feelings without over thinking. Some people choose to embrace this intangible sense, and some choose to never acknowledge its existence. I choose (and demand) the enjoyment of one of God’s greatest gifts: freedom of expression through every form.

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 Jackson Pollock