machinery of the mind

I have a friend in Washington who surprised me the other day by telling me she'd used my picture (top) as motivation for a art practical of hers (below). This is what she had to say about it.

"The subject of the project was machinery. And our art reacher left it pretty open-ended. Most students in the class juxtaposed machinery that is so unnatural, cold, and man-made with human life and flesh. For example, one person took the image of a near and arranged gears and screws inside the ear to illustrate the inner workings of the ear.

I remember sitting in our mac lab going through pictures for inspiration. Picture of machinery, gears, screws, etc and I quickly lost interest. I then remembered a photo you had taken months ago of that doll with its head smashed in perched on a sofa next to your friend in a gorgeous black dress. It was so well composed and always struck me. I printed out the photo and cropped it so that I only had the doll in view. I projected it onto paper a traced the outline out its head. After months of shading and sketching, the part of the body where you friend's hair used to be was empty. There was something missing. I thought about the concept behind the piece... the way our mind works like pieces of well-oiled machinery until we begin to loose our minds. I know I had. But the mind is so much more complex than a series of actions, commands, gears, and screws that work together in perfect unison. I started to imagine everything our brain formulates and represents: words, images, memories, and things that make no sense. So this image that was so structured with a tiny bit of clutter turned into a mess that perfectly defines my state of mind. No one knows exactly what goes on inside that head of ours, but we all seem to realize that it is a beautiful place.

Machinery of the mind.

At first this title was so cliche and I only gave the piece that title because I absolutely had to name it to submit it to the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers competition. I think it was then I realized I never name any of my art. I don't think I ever thought about it [pssshhh... the art speaks for itself]. But as cliche as it is, it is fits quite well."