My work at the ICS

These are the finished pieces I produced while working in Hungary.  The main idea I was dealing with was how to combine the technical skill I am trying to build with something that makes the complete image more creative and engaging.  I think what I took most from this group of work was a desire to keep finding different surfaces to use as a drawing canvas.  I would especially keep exploring drawing on ceramic.  I enjoyed my devil’s egg but I wish I had had more time to build up sketches, a cohesive group of images, and a successful flowing composition.

Portraits

Part of my sketchbook work was trying to document all of the people in our small group. A person’s presence is such an important influence on how someone  experiences a place or trip. Unfortunately I didnt have the discipline or time to resolve all of these protraits but I hope you enjoy seeing my renditions of you all and thanks for being such an enjoyable group.

Ray Ray painted my portrait to round out the group.  Jena is also supposed to post one she did of me.

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Forbidden Photos from the Zsolnay Musuem

Pictures I wasnt supposed to take but did.  The last three are of a porcelain cabinet Andy wanted photos of.  Jenna also took some forbidden photos for me that I would appreciate if she posted them here.

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Esperanto and Language Equality

Since coming to Hungary I have spent a good deal of time thinking about the pressure for businesses to include English on their menu and for most Europeans to learn it as their second language.  Even though it is convenient for me as a native English speaker I feel that it must cause damage to a people’s cultural identity.  Very old Hungarian towns that have a rich history and culture are pressured through competition and hard economic times to need to cater to as wide a tourist audience as possible.  Now in large cities and even in Kecskemet Hungarians grow up watching their language forced to share room on menus, maps, and posters.  However when a Hungarian travels abroad their language is no where to be seen.  This is because Hungary had neither the population or economic sway English speaking countries enjoy.  It must be frustrating to witness the marginalization of your native language because you’re country is not as rich as the U.S. or the U.K.

This imbalance is exactly what makes the constructed language Esperanto so appealing.  It is ” an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that would foster peace and international understanding between people with different regional and/or national languages.”  I think it is a terrific idea and a pity that it is not more common or well known.

Radical Politics and Neo-Fascism

After reading and researching the Hungarian economic position I kept thinking about the goals of the Jobbik party and the troubles facing Hungary.  It is interesting to me how similar these goals and problems are to the climate that allowed Hitler to gain such popularity.  I am not saying that anything similar would occur in Hungary or could occur in our modern world but the parallels are definitely there.  The greatest tool Hitler had for rallying support was the weak and humiliated state Germany was in after losing the first World War.  I dont think it was the losses that rankled the German people so much but that they could blame their lose of people and territory on foreign powers that cared nothing for them and only wanted to profit from their defeat.  Likewise Hungary is much smaller because of the actions of foreign powers that did not care about maintaining territory for ethnic or historic reasons.  During the rise of Nazi Germany Hitler used  self-determination, the idea that any country or part of a country should be able to decide its sovereignty free of foreign interference, to invade and pressure territories into Greater Germany.  The Nazi argument was that foreigners were segregating ethnic Germans into countries they did not want to belong to.  Therefor it was Germany’s right to take action to bring their people back under one country.  This very same term, not surprisingly, appeared during my research of Jobbik political goals.  The break up of the Kingdom of Hungary resulted in ethnic Hungarian families that had lived in the same town for generations suddenly becoming the minority in new countries and being ruled by non Hungarians.  The economy in Hungary has obviously suffered from this huge lose of territory, people to tax, and natural resources to profit from.  A massive number of unemployed could only lead to further resentment of the interference of foreign powers.  It must be especially frustrating because of all of the Axis powers Hungary seems to me to be the only one to have lost territory. Italy , Germany, and Japan lost colonies but seemingly no other land.

mark making research

I have been keeping an eye out for unusual or interesting ways of making marks in drawing and have been photographing them. This is a good deal of what I found and plan to build a digital collection of these marks so i can pull from them for inspiration and ideas.

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Hungarian Poverty

Last night I spent time drinking and talking with  Chris and two Hungarian girls he met.  One of the topics  brought up was why Hungary was still using Forints instead of Euros.  Her explanation was that Hungary was too poor.  She said, and I’m trying to quote accurately as possible, that “Hungary is a bucket of shit right now,” it is very poor, she thought maybe the poorest country in the European Union and that being in the EU was very bad for them.

I looked into it and Hungary is not the poorest but one of the 20 poorest countries in the EU with many of the other neighboring central European countries  like Slovakia, Serbia, and Croatia. According to this website I found only 55% of the people in Hungary between the ages of 18 and 62 are employed.  In the transition to capitalism Hungary also lost 1.5 million and since that transition have only managed to regain 0.4 million

http://www.socialwatch.eu/wcm/Hungary.html

Militant research

 

My interest in history often blends  into my interests of metal or evil imagery, warfare, and the unreal.  I have been lucky to find a couple great references while shopping in Kecskemet on post cards, newspapers, and magazines.  The armor and weapons of dark age and medieval Hungary is very compelling to me in its combination of the western christian feudal war system and eastern steppe raiding culture.

Jena’s Work

After Jena’s grad presentation I remembered an image and story I had run across recently.  An oil sheik in the United Arab Emirates had his name dug into an island he owns large enough to be viewed from space.  The only way to  see the work Hamad commissioned is through google earth which was the immediate connection I made to Jena’s pieces.  The self obsession and pride also started to make me think of the binaries Jena was talking about.  Such hubris I usually associate with the west. Our culture is programmed, I think, to view the Arabian world as alien and opposite to our values.  So while the average conception is we are proud and arrogant the it is implied in binary thought that rest of the world is humble and respectful.  Arabia in general seems to embody many of the contradictory binaries Jena was addressing.  The Arabian elite and royal families are profiting hugely from selling their countries resources in very western form creating a huge division between the poor and rich.   A massive division of wealth is deeply connected, in my mind, to western imperialism.  However it is occurring in a very eastern, traditional, conservative, and religious  part of the world.  I think this earthwork challenges a lot of the thoughtless subconscious ideas formed in the us vs them way of thinking.

Top of the Mall

I know I’m not the only one who took pictures from our spontaneous group trip , I have proof Hailey did  so lets gather them here.  It might not be  culturally significant but it sure has a nice view of beautiful Kecskemet.

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