Tag: ash king

MEMORY MAKING (AND FAKING)

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Imagine you could go on a holiday, but once it was over, you had to erase any evidence that it ever occurred and your mind was wiped clean of any recollection of it happening. How much would you pay for such a holiday? Would you even bother going at all?
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We spend a great deal of our lives tending to the making of memories. They feel intrinsic to who we are, and an accurate record of our past experiences. But often these memories are far from accurate and often cultivated at the expense of our experiencing self – the self who would’ve likely had a damn good holiday.
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The experiencing self is the one that answers the question “How does it feel now?”, the remembering self is the one that answers the question “How was it, on the whole?” “Memories are all we get to keep from our experiences of living, and the only perspective that we can adopt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembering self.”
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Only thing is, that our memories work in strange ways. Not so much remembering things as they actually were but rather fleshed out from a bare few indicators of significant or intense experience – namely the peak and the end. Think back to your last relationship. Chances are, if things ended badly, it’s harder to remember all those happy, content and satisfied feelings you felt together before things went south. Or getting a tattoo – it might not have hurt too badly the whole time, but you’ll remember the worst of the pain and that’s what you’ll take away from it.
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Our remembering self is important because it allows us to learn and grow from past experiences. But it can be unhelpful when we compare present experiences with the memories of old ones, as they can pale by comparison – not due to the fact that the current events are any less significant or meaningful, but rather our remembering self has imbued the past with a reverence not so much earned by the events themselves but by the constant re-remembering of them. So the good times are remembered as amazing times and the bad times are often remembered as being much worse than they were.
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A lesson to be learned here is to have a healthy skepticism of our memories, and not to disregard the experiencing self as transitory and insignificant. Spend time cultivating mindfulness and try and be present in the moment as it occurs. It’s a challenge, especially in our current society where a moment can be captured so easily by an iPhone, with a selfie stick, or when you (me) have just bought a new SLR camera.
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“The photographer does not view the scene as a moment to be avoided but as a future memory to be designed. Pictures may be useful to the remembering self – though we rarely look at them for very long, or as often as we expected, or even at all – but picture taking is not necessarily the best way for the tourist’s experiencing self to enjoy a view. ”
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Ol’ Johnny was spot on…
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Quotes taken from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow (Pages 381 & 389)

THE PROBLEM WITH BEING KIND

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When asked the question “Are you kind?” I think most of us would want to answer in the affirmative. We like to think of ourselves as essentially kind – not wishing ill will to others, wanting to help when we can by lending an ear, offering up a smile, a word of encouragement, a hug or a shoulder to cry on when somebody needs it.
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Being good feels good and according to studies, when we perform acts of kindness, we are being true to our own nature. Research conducted by Max Planck at the Max Planck Institute showed that people begin helping others at a crazy, young age. “…a 14-month old child seeing an adult experience difficulty, such as struggling to open a door because their hands are full, will automatically attempt to help.”
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But I can’t help but think, in spite of our in built tendency towards kindness, how rare it is to be truly kind without conditions. We often treat kindness as a transaction – do something kind, so we’ll get something in return. Whether it be; mowing the lawn for your lonely, elderly neighbour so they’ll leave you their vintage Bob Dylan records when they die, smiling at and tipping your bartender so they might overfill your scotch in the next round, or even holding a door open for someone and expecting a “thank you” for your efforts.
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Putting it like this makes us sound bloody selfish, but I’m definitely guilty of it. As much as it feels great to help people, to connect and be compassionate, it feels crappy to be taken for granted, and to have our time and efforts wasted. There seems to be a fine line between doing no harm and taking no shit. How often do you reach out to a friend or family member who shows no reciprocity to your acts of kindness and compassion? What’s the point of turning down your subwoofer at 11pm when your neighbour only ever speaks to you when they’re complaining about noise? And why bother giving that homeless lady your spare $2 if she’s just going straight to the Bottle-O?
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Being kind is hard work. It’s sometimes difficult understanding why some people even deserve it. But perhaps instead of assessing who is worthy of what level of kindness, and doling it out based on a potential reward system, we should make the act of kindness the goal in and of itself? And hey, be selfish. Do it because it makes you feel good. Because it helps you sleep better at night knowing you’ve made someone’s life a little brighter, richer or easier, even just for a moment.
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Like me, writing this blog, for you.
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(YOU’RE WELCOME.)

HEROES & VILLAINS (OF FACEBOOK)

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I’ve considered deleting Facebook. Many times. I find, particularly when I’m in a fragile emotional state, it can drum up feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. Life’s-not a-competition-but-you’re-winning kinda thing.
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I’m not deleting Facebook, however, as it helps me keep in contact with my close friends and helps me get work, so I’ve basically tried to live with it instead of against it. One of the most helpful realisations I’ve made recently is that Facebook is a stage, and us (the donkey’s on it), merely players. Now I’m certainly not judging the validity of everyone on Facebook’s “realness”. Of course, you’re all the realest (ok, maybe second realest if we’re counting Iggy), but the image we present of ourselves across Facebook is a construction. Almost like a reality tv show, where we know we’re watching real people, but we also know we’re not getting the whole story.
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So, day in, day out we are confronted with a myriad of people that invite us into little, carefully crafted snippets of their lives. And soon enough, characters emerge. Depending on your world view, your personal tastes and your position in life, you notice that, as in any good stage show, there are goodies and baddies, people you root for and people you boo (maybe silently behind a Retina display monitor or loudly in a string of comments with accompanying angry gifs to convey your furious emotions. I, for the most part, prefer the fourth wall up for my dramas, so will rarely get directly involved (but it you prefer a pantomime, hey, go nuts).
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As with good characters too, we’re often encouraged to read between the lines. The way you are and the way you appear (on FB) are not always in sync (and are occasionally completely at odds), and obviously you don’t share every aspect of yourself with the Facebook community (although it seems like some people are trying to, amirite?) so there are a large number of conclusions being drawn here, about you, about what you’re like, what you do, who you are. People will use whatever colours they want to paint you into a hero or a villain (a hero in your eyes might appear as a villain in mine and vice versa). (Of course this only works for people who solely exist in your life as a cyber presence – IRL friends and family have established their multifaceted and complex human natures to you through a history of real life interactions.)
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The characters on my wall are endless, and I’m clapping for the girl who’s attended a slew of weddings but it still waiting on that proposal from her long time boyfriend. I’m cheering on the newly pregnant woman who doesn’t disguise her struggles and appears both genuinely thrilled and properly terrified by her impending sentence. Then there’s the less-than-heroic young, corporate dude who shares meninism posters, photos of Friday night piss-ups and memes featuring women with huge breasts, or the self righteous mother who deems everyone’s life achievements unworthy compared to the fact she’s popped a couple of blubs out of her uterus.
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You may think I’m the villain, for making these judgments. You might preach about supporting all my fellow FB frenz and that I should be speaking up for social justice and I should defriend/unfollow anyone I don’t agree with or think is a dick. But srsly dudes, I don’t want a Facebook feed full of people just like me, furiously agreeing with one another. I like the try hards, the braggers, the preachers and the jerks. They’re probably a punish in real life, but on Facebook, they keep things interesting (the baddies are always the most interesting).
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If you’re reading this, disgusted and horrified that I’m blithely suggesting I’m reducing you down to a pantomime cyber character, fine. Let me be the villain. Or defriend me, I don’t care. I think it’s a healthier approach to start seeing Facebook as the fabulous, constructed, masterpiece theatre it is, rather than a gripping insight into the real lives of others: where I for one, am a glamorous and successful, young artist with a thoughtful, inquisitive nature, a handsome boyfriend and an eternally happy family.
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Because nothing reeks of reality more than total and utter perfection. lol. 

I’M AWFUL, DON’T JUDGE ME

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Yesterday I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and I started sniggering. I had landed on an image that someone I follow (but have never met in person) posted of their original artwork. I found it amateurish and obvious and basically basic. It was just the sort of art that I would never make and never share and I hated it, so I just laughed at it. But then I stopped myself.
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A part about me I have never liked is that I’m a bit of a judgemental bitch. I don’t know whether it came from going to a highly competitive school or having very specific tastes and preferences I hold in high regard, but I just am quick to find things I don’t like about situations/people/places and judge them harshly (and mostly incorrectly) on that basis. It’s silly, and nasty and completely unfair but I never really acknowledged it as a problem until a few years ago when I got into a funk where pretty much anything I said/did/was was not good enough. I put a lot of pressure on myself and didn’t achieve a bunch of goals I had set for myself, and I thought I was hopeless failure. But in amongst my despair I got fairly introspective and I finally realised that that judgemental part of me (that I always just attributed to me having high expectations and good taste – hmm) was actually poisoning me from the inside out and making me judge and annihilate everything I was. It was brutal and destructive and so I realised that in order to try and stop hating on myself and everything I tried to do, I needed to start being kinder in regard to the people/places and situations around me. I started to check myself when my mind would leap to the first nasty conclusion. I tried pulling a Pollyanna and seeing the good and the noble in things. Often it felt trite. Often it felt like I was betraying my true, sassy and amusingly-critical self. But I kept at it.
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I’m not saying I’m your regular Maria Von Trapp now – far from it. Sometimes it feels like being a bitch gives you character, but mainly it just gives you self-loathing and an insecurity complex. I certainly think that that awareness (and practices that promote awareness such as meditation and yoga) really helped me start to move towards a kinder and gentler space. Not only for those around me but also for myself.
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So when I laugh at people’s creative exploits on social media (or their ugly outfits, or their poorly applied eye-brows,) I stop and I breathe, and I check myself. Who am I to judge? Aren’t we all just out there giving it a red hot go? And isn’t the bravery it takes to try tough enough without having some self-righteous stranger sitting thousands of miles away behind a backlit screen sniggering at your attempts? So be nice. God knows I’m/it’s trying.

 

THE PROBLEM WITH BEING PERFECT

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They tell us that perfection is unattainable. An unreasonable benchmark that haunts and hinders creatives like a hovering black cloud with impeccable eyeliner. It seems fair enough to ward people off the idea of striving for perfection. It halts a great deal of projects. Stirs up inner conflicts. Turns people into quitters.

“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” Dali said that . But I often have a problem believing the impossibility of attaining perfection because, quite honestly, I feel confronted by perfection constantly and relentlessly. What drives me towards seeking perfection is the pure evidence that it exists. In John Lennon’s Across The Universe. In Mark Rothko’s 1962 Blue & Grey. In Pinterest photos of naked cakes. In fine lace detail on AP lingerie, antique jewellery, pink peonies and Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve.

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Now, creative & aesthetic perfection is objective. I’m sure you could actively find fault in any of the examples I’ve listed above (not to my face though, or I’ll cut you). But I think that they’re perfect. And if they can be perfect, then why can’t I? Or at least why can’t I create something that is?

I think the corruption comes from the creative process itself. The sweat and anguish about selecting just the right colours. Or having the lines just the right length or nailing the texture, or perfectly balancing the composition. It’s all trial and error. And even when we’re finished and are left with something that we’re mildly happy with, it still seems far from perfect, because for the creator, that completed work is still charged with the memories of all those little failures that went into creating it. And nothing feels less perfect than failure. Where as when we look at the work we admire of others, there are no memories of failure. No recollections of struggle, or disappointment, or regret. Just something beautiful. Complete. Perfect.

Perhaps the real challenge lies in the ability to allow oneself to recall those struggles and see perfection in the final work even still. God knows its possible, or should I say, Kanye knows its possible…(same thing really. According to him). Or is the greater task to not aim to see things as perfect and imperfect, but rather just as they are, and as they affect you.

I did a painting of some pink peonies. The flowers were perfect. The painting, far from it. And I guess that’s okay.

STILL, LIFE?

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Ever have that feeling when you hate literally everything you do? I haven’t been particularly friendly with my art practice of late and gave myself a challenge to do something completely different to what I usually do. An impressionist still life of flowers let me explore a different medium and subject and I’m quite happy with the result. It was also quite therapeutic – the thick, execution of paint, and the relaxed but focused gaze upon the poetic arrangement of my favourite flowers. I might try a few more.

GOOD EXPOSURE

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Starting a brand new mixed media, portrait series exploring women exposed, open to violation yet poised to devour. I love reworking the sensual into the cold and sexualised figures discovered in Tumblr porn searches. Breathing a new life into these bodies.

THE LADIES NETWORK

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So pumped to be a part of the next epic exhibition hosted by The Ladies Network. The night will be made up of a bunch of amazingly talented females showing off their creative wiles. I’ll have a nice little stash of framed originals for anyone who is keen to come check me out. The opening night is Friday 13th November, from 6pm at Ambush Gallery in Central Park. Girl Power.

JIMMY DEAN

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Today for my #facemyfeels challenge I did a quick sketch of James Dean. What a dreamboat. Am enjoying the portrait style and keen to try some larger scale portraits out in the same vibe. If you’re interested in purchasing this picture, it’s A4 size. Make me an offer.

FACE MY FEELS

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This month I’ve given myself the challenge of a new portrait every day. I’m calling it #facemyfeels, as I attempt to explore and represent different faces that inspire, encourage, and astound me. My project is already underway on Instagram and you can follow me @ashking, or search my hashtag #facemyfeels to see the portraits so far. Here’s one of my faves of my spunky man, in pen.