The Photographic Looking Glass of Seattle

The home I came to love, the life I came to live, the people I came to call family. I am Seattle, I live in Mount Vernon and Bellingham but despite this I am still Seattle. This past election I voted on Seattle issues, I voted for a Governor concerning issues in regards to Bellingham, Mount Vernon, but mostly for Seattle. I have dreams of one day graduating and moving my life to Seattle, getting my art degree in Seattle and settling down in Seattle. It's not just the big buildings and busy streets that drive my love. It's the feeling of the place the smells and the imagery, its life in life, a pulsation of culture in a city. The life I have put on hold for a lifetime.

I am a photographer, but more than that I am alive. I capture the moments of my life that exhibit the great feelings and passions, the things I find beauty in. I am an artist that paints words and writes images, I live for the mind and the heart. I paste my soul into everything I do; whenever I do, whatever I do, wherever I do it. As an artist I take a special pride in this, like a great tapestry in which I am designing a great universe of impossible things simply so as someone else can feel an iota of whatever I happen to be feeling. I suffer from a great many things that make me experience things tenfold. I am Bipolar, with manic depression, and I have suffered my entire life with ADHD where I can hardly keep my mind on a single thing at a time, I tend to be everywhere at once and nowhere at the same time. I get lost in the great tapestry of mind, the tapestry of which I construct my art, my love.

The land of Seattle is so rampant with artists it is as if she has whored herself into the night to search out the brilliance of the tinny sound, or the luster of the glistening paints caressing her landscapes and reproducing the natural breath of life that is her womb. I will unashamedly admit to having paid her with my camera and utensils of illustration. I have caressed her in the quiet respite of the night, but it was in love and in passion that I worked over the buildings with my lens and I am proud to call her my home.

Art is in my blood my life and my soul. My mother went through art school to become an art teacher. My father went through school and is an artist. My grandparents were artists before they retired and my grandfather died. The feeling I get when I lay my hands on a brush or a pencil can only be likened to the rushing of warm water over the entirety of your body, it’s as though someone has warmed the sea near the beach and the tide is coming in. The brush passing over the curvature of the canvas, the pencil picking up every contour of the paper is a whole new experience. The production of art is in its self great beyond belief, the deep understanding and discipline one must go through to create truly good works of art is something to be appreciated if not admired. There is a very eastern feeling in the relationship with the artist and their canvas and the canvas with the muse almost as if a master were conducting a student on the ways of properly performing a tea ceremony or the proper ways of honing a blade.

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Deviations by Bogenengel (me)

http://fc41.deviantart.com/fs36/f/2008/263/b/6/Buss_Legs_by_bogenengel.jpg
http://fc76.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2006/363/f/f/Morning_Lights_3_by_bogenengel.jpg
http://fc90.deviantart.com/fs15/f/2006/363/b/9/City_in_Fog_by_bogenengel.jpg
http://fc32.deviantart.com/fs15/f/2006/363/3/0/Spyre_2_by_bogenengel.jpg
http://fc97.deviantart.com/fs37/f/2008/283/f/5/Seattle_Bansy_2_by_bogenengel.jpg

The Romani People

The Romani, the word isn't even found in my computer's dictionary, the people however can be evoked anywhere you look. When you look at the culture itself it's hard to see why, they keep mostly to themselves with their historically nomadic habits and their quiet nature. The way they have lived and died would almost be sure to have been rushed over by the sands of time and snuffed out, considering they were a large target for the Nazis in World War II. A personal hatred of Adolf Hitler's the Gypsy was so far spread and immersed in their culture that perhaps he found some personal threat by a culture so rich in it's own history and ways. An event of such horrific brutality that would make any Romani of age shudder and bless themselves is the occurrence of Porajmos or “The Devouring” in the Roma language. This event in and of itself had claimed over two-hundred thousand lives, enough to drive any population of any race down a considerable amount. The tragedy that befell the Romani people has been sadly hushed up and left for forgotten in comparison with the Holocaust which took more than six million European Jewish lives. In reverence of this horrendous event there were massacres all across Europe that made many orphans, widows and widowers and the tragedy lives on in the hearts of the world.

The gypsy is often seen as a whimsical creature of fantasy, thieves and rogues, historically speaking this is partly correct. Generally speaking however this is propaganda mostly started in World War II along with the rat-nosed illustrations of Jewish people like any other tasteless portrayal of bigoted hatred there was little to no truth in the pictations of race when the Nazi regime was concerned. The Roma people unfortunately have forever been thrown to the dogs yet still strive to exist, strive to forever remain who they are and their honor and pride is such that this wish has carried them for more than a thousand years. Their strength is such to be admired and respected from small caravans of migrants to large camps of Roma their past is as mysterious as the people, it is known however that they split into several directions when migrating around Europe. Originating from around South Asia; they migrated between England, Finland, France, Hungary, Turkey, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden ultimately migrating into the Americas and onward.

In the images accompanied is shown the progression of the Gypsy people, from a people of migratory nature to a people of prideful exhibition. Their history is one of intrigue for members of historical reenactment guilds, their dress and colorful spectrum of lives allow volumes to be spoken for them. Improvisational actors portray the lives and spirit of the Roma people, a very beautiful people intricate in every detail of their being, telling stories of what was once a great nation that was divided and spread into the very corners of the earth to be consumed by civilization. Like the Native American tribes their custom was a unique one that summons forth more fantastical imagery than realistic fact. The Gypsy is a creature of wondrous intent their mystery and solitude drives our imaginations to places of incredible fascination. Philosophically speaking the Roma are like Atlantians, spread out and populated the earth with their culture and stories but eventually enveloped by the general populous becoming nothing more than myth. So, the question is brought forth, if we are to glorify the image of the fantastical Gypsy does it become a creature of wonderment, or will it help preserve the image of the Roma people? The Romani? I suppose the best answer for this question is what is love? Truly why do we love, through this we realize that the Roma are a people of love. As long as the culture is loved and the culture loves back the Roma will never die.


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Images can be found at these sites.

southfloridadaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/gypsy.jpg
www.sacred-texts.com/neu/roma/img/roma.jpg
www.mlahanas.de/greece/history/images/romaaetolia.jpg
media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/15/90015-004-bf7ca0aa.jpg
www.serpukhov.su/museum/yarosh_gypsy.jpg