College is Exciting!!

Sorry for SUCH a long delay, College and Life got in the way of my photography, but I'm finally picking it up again. The First Series of Pictures was a Photo Essay on the destruction in Alabama after the huge Tornado last year. These photos are pretty recent, and show how much work needs to be done, but also how much hope lies ahead.

This next series is me fooling around with this decorated tree on campus called the "Tree of Life". I loved the broken mirrors... so many possibilities, so little time!

I hope you enjoyed!!

-Babs

It's 21 for a reason!

My latest project was making a public service announcement against teenage drinking! I really liked this project, I feel like my shots came out just as dramatic as I wanted! I hope you like them as well....BUT, before that, read this:

During the past 3o days:

• 42% drank some amount of alcohol.

· 24% binge drank.

· 10% drove after drinking alcohol.

· 28% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.

Also, 72% of students have consumed alcohol by the end of high school, and more than a third have done so by eighth grade. This brings me to my story. When I was in eighth grade, I watched a boy nearly die from drinking too much, and now, I want to make sure that never happens to me, or any of my friends. Don’t you want to save your friends too? Underage drinking is strongly associated with many health and social problems among youth including:

• School problems, such as higher absence and poor or failing grades.

· Social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in youth activities.

· Legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while drunk.

· Unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected sexual activity.

· Disruption of normal growth and sexual development.

· Physical and sexual assault.

· Higher risk for suicide and homicide.

· Alcohol-related car crashes and other unintentional injuries, such as burns, falls, and drowning.

· Memory problems.

· Abuse of other drugs.

· Changes in brain development that may have life-long effects.

· Death from alcohol poisoning.

Why take the chance? That’s why the only thing in my cup is water.

The age is 21 for a reason.

Love,
Babs

WARHOL time

Hey Guys! Here are my Warhol impersonation photos! :) And a little on the man I'm being inspired by.

Andy Warhol

· Real name is Andrew Warhola (8/6/28-2/22/87) (Became Warhol after a misprint)

o Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Parents from Czechoslovakia (does not exist anymore)

o Father worked in a coal mine

· In High School, kicked out of art club because he was “too good”

· Graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Bachelor of Fine Arts)

· Graduated with degree for pictorial design & wanted to become a commercial illustrator

· Designed advertisements for women’s shoes

· Used Polaroid camera

· Fear of hospitals and doctors, hypochondriac

· Favorite print making technique was silk screening

· Friends & family described him as a workaholic

· His sexuality was speculated upon and how this influenced his relationship to art is “a major subject of scholarship on the artist”

· First solo expedition in 1952

· Coined the term “15 minutes of fame”

· 1960s: iconic American products (pop art)

· Created The Factory, his NYC studio from 1962-1968

· Celebrity portraits developed into one of the most important aspects of his career

· Made films (first one called Sleep – 6 hours of a man sleeping) (1963)

· 1965 said he was retiring from painting

o 1972 returned to painting

· Designed cover for the Rolling Stones’ album Sticky Fingers (cover made out of real jean material)

· Produced Velvet Underground’s first album

· Started a magazine called Interview, worked for Glamour Magazine, Vogue

· Shot by Valerie Solanas 3 times for being abusive and “too controlling” (6/3/68)

o Solanas authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist document

o "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."

· Marilyn Monroe = favorite model (not painted until after death)

· Wore silver wigs until he dyed his hair silver

· Practicing Ruthenian Rite Catholic who described himself as a religious person

· Died of a heart attack brought on by a gall bladder surgery and water intoxication

· $100,000,000 for one of his paintings (highest amount paid) (“Eight Elvises”)

· Referred to as the “Prince of Pop”

-Babs