Power - Reflection - "Manos y Oídos"

When I think of power I think of the power we have over others. The power we have trapped inside our bodies that we can release through our own actions both physical and metaphorical. When you think about it, the five senses we have are the only way we can express ourselves in terms of showing others how we feel. 

I chose a hand and an ear as my subject matter because I thought they were both neutral senses with great power for good or bad. With your hands you can write someone a love note, embrace someone you haven't seen in a long time, high five a friend, play music, or make art. But there are also things you can do with your hands that aren't so loving. You can wield a knife against someone, punch, slap, shoot a gun at someone, sign an adoption form for your own child, or abort a baby. Likewise with your ears you can hear someone say, "I love you", hear your favorite song, a baby's first laugh, the leaves crunch beneath your feet during fall, a friend tell a story, or absolute, calming silence. But you can also hear somebody you love being hurt, tales of distress and agony, cursing, terrible news, doors slamming, screaming, or crying.

The eye would have played a key role in this project because of all the good and bad things you can see and or do with your eyes but I tried to stay away from cliché objects and for me, the eye is it. After hearing feedback from my classmates I realized that my works were more aesthetically pleasing to the eye rather than conceptually strong which did not come as much of a surprise to me. When Mrs. Rothrock said I could have put them in multiple gestures to get my point across I sort of understood as far as the hand went but that would have been literally impossible with the ear because.....ears don't move.

The hand, as I previously stated, was an older project that I felt fit into the prompt for this assignment. One of my toughest struggles during this project was trying to keep the style of the ear consistent with the precedent already set up by the hand. If possible I would have made them into actual prints like a woodblock or lithograph but I lack the resources and knowhow to do either of those so I went with an old-fashioned ink drawn print. I am pleased with the way these turned out and plan to continue this series in the future with my spare time.