The Realm of Thought

This is a girl who is achieving a new level of awareness, not only about herself but about the world around her. She is seeing her many levels of consciousness, which are very different but also connected, the insanity of the world, and the lack of freedom. The claw which is captured by the vines and barbed wire is the really disturbing, dangerous thoughts which, at least in her mind, are pretty well under control. The stairs are her memories of where she has been. The other doorways lead to different levels of thought, some more enlightening than others. The swirlies in the bottom right hand corner are jumbled thoughts, though they're not necessarily bad thoughts. The puzzle pieces are all the things she's already figured out. Finally, the bird cage is on fire because the bird inside it committed suicide in protest to its lack of freedom.

This was mostly inspired by a movie I recently watched called "Waking Life." That was what I wanted the atmosphere of this picture to be like, confusing and yet clarifying, symmetrical and yet asymmetrical, tragic and yet wonderful. Totally and completely paradoxical. The cage which has a sign reading "Do not feed the Ideas" was inspired by my friend, 's butterfly catcher picture. The blue-green rift with springs and gears coming out of it is supposed to be a rift in time and was inspired by a conversation I had with my teacher about what time is (I'm still not quite sure.)

Wow, I had a lot to say about this one...