leg up

Yesterday we went to the Van Gogh museum. The art was wonderful, but the exhibit itself was rather disturbing. It seemed as if Van Gogh was always trying to please Gauguin, even though his natural style was so different. Also it seemed as if Van Gogh was much more optimistic, yet he was the one who killed himself. Maybe he was too busy trying to please everyone else that he forgot about himself.

Although, another thing the exhibit highlighted was how much these artists seemed to be obsessed with themselves. There were numerous self-portraits, portraits of each other, as well as objects representing the artists and even the artists casting themselves as biblical figures (ok, only Gauguin cast himself as Christ, while Van Gogh replaced Christ with a symbolic yellow sun). Is that what you need in order to go down in history as a great artist, lots of self-portraits? If this is the case, I want to be covered, so last night I attempted my own sort of self portrait. When you're a photographer, though, you don’t have the same freedom as a painter. I decided to do something a bit different. So, here is a part of me anyway.