Touch Assignment 2

 

Piece of me 
Digital Photography

"Hair deeply affects people, can transfigure or repulse them. Symbolic of life, hair bolts from your head. Like the earth, it can be harvested, but it will rise again. We can change its color and texture when the mood strikes us, but in time it will return to its original form, just as Nature will in time turn to our precisely laid-out cities into a weed-way."

- A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, page 64

Hair makes us who we are. Personally, I don't know who I would be without my hair as it makes up a big part of who I feel I am. Hair grows and changes to express who we are on the inside and when we lose up to 100 hairs a day, a small piece of us is left behind, lost in the world forever as we move on. I lose a lot of hair in the shower, leaving that part of me to get sucked down the drain and float on forever until it eventually disintegrates. I suppose I'm just floating along until I disintegrate as well. 

Touch Assignment 1

Her Signature

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 11"

"Most of the cold receptors lie in the face, especially on the tip of the nose, the eyelids, lips, and forehead, and the genitals are sensitive to cold, as well. It’s our outer shell that seems to fear cold most, acting as a sentry on perpetual watch. Receptors for warmth lie deeper in the skin, and there are fewer of them. Not surprisingly, the tongue is more sensitive to heat than many other areas of the body."

- A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, page 67

This painting was inspired by the quote above but also by infrared imaging. I watch a lot of ghost hunting shows where they use infrared to detect a ghost's cold signature which is categorized by purple or a dark blue. However, when the camera is pointed towards a living human, they have a wide range of colors. I just thought it was very interesting to see which parts of our body hold the most heat, which are sensitive to cold, and the way it helps us function.