Arielle Herman - My Head, Exposed: April 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tryna Find My Style

Oil on cardboard
April 2012
33 x 20 in

Here is my latest painting. As you may be able to tell, I am trying to experiment with different styles and media (for example, I modeled this piece after the work of artist Mandy Tsung, and I also tried painting on cardboard with oil paints, which is something I had never previously thought to do).

I have also gotten much faster at producing paintings; it took me around four days of really working on this painting to actually complete it, which is a GRAND improvement from me previous 5-week painting sessions.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Current Song Stuck in Head: Lana Del Rey - Diet Mountain Dew

So, I haven't done one of these bad boys in a while.

I'm not quite sure what to think of Lana Del Rey. It's true that she underwent a questionable change in appearance in the interim between her quasi-career as Lizzy Grant and her current career as Lana Del Rey--which seems to have the whole hipster world in a tizzy--but there's no denying that her music is catchy. Enjoy!

Lana Del Rey - Diet Mountain Dew <--right-click to download

Insights

"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour." —Anonymous

"If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present." —Lao Tzu

"Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness. Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can't change." —Unknown

"My message is simple: live alert, and live spontaneously, and live totally." —Osho

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

"The whole message is to get beyond the mind and then everything is crystal clear. Then you don’t ask any questions. You simply act out of your clarity, out of your transparent vision. And each of your acts has a beauty — tremendous beauty of its own. It has a grace. And it has a power of blessings to shower over the whole world." —Osho

“Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“My Symphony: To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--This is to be My Symphony." —William Henry Channing

"The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can’t have it. The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible." —Ram Dass

"We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society." —Alan Watts

"And as you come closer to yourself, you are coming closer to the universe. And the greatest moment in your life is when you accept the mystery of existence as it is without asking any question. You have understood one thing, that existence is mysterious and is going to remain mysterious. There is no need of any knowledge. That means you have settled with the universe as mysterious and you have settled with yourself as innocent. This is the second birth. In India we have called this state dwij, the second birth. And this is our search here." —Sat Chid Anand

"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars…and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers — for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are." —Osho

"When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change." —Thich Nhat Hanh

"To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease." —Eckhart Tolle

"They say nothing is new under the sky. Really, nothing is old under the sky. Only the eyes become old, accustomed to things; then nothing is new. For children everything is new: that is why everything gives them excitement. Even a colored stone on a beach, and they become so excited. And everything is a new world, a new dimension." —Osho

"The society teaches you, ‘Choose the convenient, the comfortable; choose the well-trodden path where your forefathers and their forefathers and their forefathers, since Adam and Eve, have been walking. Choose the well-trodden path. That is a proof— so many millions of people have passed on it, you cannot go wrong.’ But remember one thing: The crowd has never had the experience of truth. Truth has only happened to individuals. Whenever there are alternatives, beware: Don’t choose the convenient, the comfortable, the respectable, the socially acceptable, the honorable. Choose something that rings a bell in your heart. Choose something that you would like to do in spite of any consequences." —Osho