pyrostone

[pyrostone]

David Chatt: Cast Installation, Temporary installation of sand cast glass in Dunn Gardens, Seattle Washington (2006)

[pyrostone]

instant manifestation is completely natural

spawning things in real life is completely natural

manifesting things out of thin air is completely natural

changing the past is completely natural

molding reality like it's a piece of clay is completely natural

being able to shift realities as an instant is completely natural

going back in time is completely natural

walking on water is completely natural

raising from the dead is also completely natural

you can do all of this effortlessly because this is your NATURE.

YOU ARE GOD.

don't be afraid of the illogical, the physical substance holds no power against you, you will always be greater than everything.

if you are ever afraid to dream big or manifest things that go against the laws of nature, read this post again and again and ask yourself: is it worth it to worry about things that I could reach easily if I believed in myself a bit more? because the ability to mold reality is GIVEN to you, you were born with it, you don't have to fight for it, you just have to accept that this is who you are

(corrected the typos so it won't damage your eyes lmao)

[pyrostone]

I drenched my pillow with tears every night, silently. I buried my feelings inside as a kid because I didn't know what else to do with them.

As I grew up, I thought I had let go of my past. Those memories vanished. My brain tried to forget them to defend myself. It worked for me, but soon enough, it turned into an enemy

I could find history repeating itself, bruising my already wrecked heart. Damage was added to damage. The agony was all I knew.

I tried to survive the only way I knew. Swallowing the pain again, until my insides were hollow. Misery ate them.

I moved on, expecting my hollowness to leave me numb and apathetic. Yet, it did not happen. I could feel everything, maybe even more. My feelings were magnified.

Perhaps these are my repressed emotions that are exhibiting themselves. I wish to implore them to defer their arrival, just for some more time. I am not strong enough, yet.

[pyrostone]

- A.R Asher

[pyrostone]

24/11/2022

I don’t like the person I became while being with you and I want to be angry at you for that but deep down I know it’s not your fault. I simply became what I have always been and I despise it, myself, so much I want to believe it’s not true. I want to believe in evil fate, in evil people, in evil you, in foredoomed circumstances. In anything other than the truth, that this disgusting creature is in fact myself and no one is there to be blamed for it’s creation. How can I be so ugly?

[pyrostone]

If returning to tumblr after a long hiatus should be meangful then let it be a repost of this amazing work. I was searching through Foam Talent shortlisted artists this year and was so captivated by this work I searched and searched for it and ended up, well, here again :) Wonderful work. Makes me think of industrial anthropology and many things surrounding it.

TO DESTROY IS TO BUILD Czar Kristoff 2020-2021, Self-published, First Edition, 500 Copies Offset, 40 pages, 21.6 x 16.5 cm Printed in Muntinlupa, Philippines In recent years, Instagram has been a platform for many of us to disseminate our personal and collective luxuries through still and moving images. If we were to see documentation as a form of honoring time and memory like erecting monuments, the act of sharing the documentation online somehow resembles a (public) ceremony, an inauguration of sorts, to celebrate such monuments. To Destroy Is To Build is an examination of a series of videos of building demolitions found on Instagram. Buildings are generally made to shelter people. Seeing it as a man-made entity created from concrete, metal and/or glass, all of which came from the earth asserts its identity as a monument of humanity’s power over the world we live in. It is possible that through the documentation, distribution, and reproduction of its collapse, we can preserve its destruction with the purpose of making an event of taking down symbols of power, greed, displacement, and violence, further monumentalizing the destruction as a form of celebration, as form of reclamation of power and redefinition space. This project is not just about the reclamation of power through the act of replacing a monument with another monument, but it is also a proposition that monuments could as well be temporary. Material doesn’t make a monument. It can be made of paper instead of concrete; it can be folded and opened at will instead of it remaining stationary on a site; it can be brought to any destination, perhaps in the form of a book. No matter what form, it is the impetus that makes a monument. Text co-written with Marionne Contreras.

Available at bookdummypress New York, PrintRoom Rotterdam, Pon Ding Taipei and Artbooks.ph Manila. 

[pyrostone]

So relatable. I keep whining about hating uni and while it is still true, I miss it dearly during summer.

I have never been into dark academia but after 6 months of non-stop lockdown and 13 months of zoom university I have started to romanticize a new type of university aesthetic which I call

Just Normal Academia:

The taste of cheap vending machine coffee. The dusty smell of your library seat. Clothes that are not remarkable in any way, but hey, you are wearing actual pants. Trying to read books that are relavant for your essay but getting distracted by your friend who wants to chat. The feeling of being cramped into public transport with hundreds of other tired students in the morning.

I never thought I'd be the type of person to have an academia aesthetic but I'd do almost anything to live the Just Normal Academia life right now

[pyrostone]

13/09/2021

So the university has officially started. I was thinking about turning this blog more into studyblr rather than just a personal diary. However, I have some important news! I did not talk about it the whole summer as I was just too worried something will slip up and it wouldn’t work out, but I got the place in the exhibition and it is with the respectable contemporary art institution.

I will share some updates about it on here a bit later, hopefully with the photos of my installation.

Thjs year is promising to be more fruitful than the last. At least, we have new teachers and Mr C. only teaches one class instead of two. However, I still cannot get it out of my head that I want to leave. Every time I come to this place and see my class I just want to leave. It is torturous and painfully hard to be around people who evidently don’t like you, who don’t inspire you to continue working and just be.

It could be bearable if the university was helpful but because it doesn’t help at all, I have evening classes at two different schools in order to gain the background knowledge and expertise that is supposed to be given here. Oh well. At least, the facilities are nice.

[pyrostone]

A reminder for next term 

Things I need to focus on for essays in the future:

+ Making sure I consider all interpretations of the question and address everything that it raises.

+ Be completely detailed when dealing with the texts, not only general points.

+ Apply critical frameworks and ideas more thoroughly to the texts.

+ Make sure that my point is clear. Some things need elucidation or modification.

+ Consider the broader implications of the questions.

+ Also consider contemporary readings and theories to give deeper and broader understanding.

+ Don’t use vague and sweeping statements.

+ Be wary of occasional syntax errors. Minor grammatical flaws.

+ Don’t let secondary material overwhelm the personal analysis and interpretation.

[pyrostone]

30/06/2021 - S. studies

So, I had a very important insight. A few days ago we had our diploma session and I had to go to the school and see my teachers who I honestly did not want to see. It is another photography school and for half a year they have been such a huge influence to me. They helped me evolve and I began seeing my photography practice from a completely different perspective. Yet in January we had a major fall out. It broke my heart and gave me so much anxiety. They refused to continue helping me with my project and I felt like I was a complete failure.

It made me question if I have any resources to continue. I had to get myself together and go to the last classes that we had, understanding that they outwardly and openly don’t like me and whatever I do, and that was really hard. They overstepped the boundaries between a student and a teacher and it affected me so much, my therapy sessions have been mainly about it and how I could live through those moments and not break as much as I did.

Since January I have been in a depression episode and now I am slowly starting to regain the control over my life and my feelings. I felt let down, I thought that I would never succeed as an artist, that whatever I do is worthless. I felt like a lost child that was rejected by its significant adults.

However, it was such a surprise to have such an amazing support system. So many friends came to my aide with my recent project and I really hope that it will be worth it. Actually, maybe I don’t even care about whether it is selected for the exhibition or not, as I regained my confidence for other projects as well. With friends like this I probably don’t even need those teachers.

So, a few days ago, as I came to one of the last sessions with them, K (one of the teachers) made a sly sarcastic comment about me losing them as curators in front of the entire class and for a moment I had to catch my breath as it felt like all my anxiety and issues returned at once. I guess maybe I wanted to cry but I am thankful that I didn’t.

Later that day V (she is also their student) and I went to the diploma exhibition where K installation is also exhibited and it was such a relieving experience, I never thought I would be able to feel such strong emotions of something so enormous being lifted of my chest.

I remembered all the criticism she gave me in regards to one of my potential projects at the time and while I am so thankful for them (yet not for the way they were delivered), I was absolutely astonished that she made all the “mistakes” she accused me of. She appropriated a severe illness without having much relationship to it and pretty much exploited people with said illness to gain sympathy and a strong reaction from the viewers, what is a cheating of sorts. I talked to many people about her work and all of them found it weak and not interesting.

While I am in no way happy that she was not successful with her work, as it was her graduate exhibition and she probably worked long and hard on it, I feel liberated from her image as a God, an idol. I learned that she is just another artist who is also struggling, who perhaps sometimes takes wrong decisions and is not very successful. It is life. It is normal and many artists experience it, so I don’t feel like a complete idiot and failure anymore.

Even though, I really need to work on stopping comparing myself to other artists, who especially have been in the industry working for much longer and have a longer experience. Its pretty toxic, but oh well, that’s where I am atm.

[pyrostone]

15/06/2021

So we got our results back and I have mixed feelings about it. I happily and finally reached the stage at which I don’t really care what grades I have. Took me a whole year to finally come to terms with my desire to be the best, to be exceptional.

As I did a degree in finance before coming to the art school, I got used to the idea that your grades correlate with how much effort you put into your work. The grading was rather transparent and I could easily predict what I will get based on my work approach. Yet in the art school grading is so different. I know that art is very difficult to grade, but this notion gives a lot of leeway to the teachers, especially considering how small our class is.

Everything, and I mean, everything is graded by Mr. C, and considering how biased he is, the grades represent that side of him too. Frankly, he makes a very toxic environment in class and in the whole department and achieving your best becomes a synonym to living through the semester trying to not get swallowed by depression. So, well, I was prepared for that. I accepted it as it came and thought that I am not going to argue on it, as the first year doesn’t count and considering Mr. C’s personality, for a fair grading I would have to enter a little war with him and perhaps uni management as well. I am not prepared emotionally for it, as I spent a month and a half resting from the awful semester with him.

Yet there is one mark that haunts me and it is for the group project. I specifically told Mr. C that I was the only one who did the project. My groupmates let me down and were very passive. The group was made of my friend, D. and me. Well, D. never showed up and put zero effort into helping us complete the project while my friend DL. Is just very naïve and lazy. I gave him the easiest part and he couldn’t even complete it. We both complained about D. not participating and I also specifically outlined that the project did not turn out amazing as I had to do the job of three people and physically did not have the time to do it perfectly. It is simply unfair for me to complete the work alone and for them to get the merit for it.

Eh, it seems that Mr. C completely ignored it and gave us all the same mark. I cannot say I want them to fail but I feel let down by Mr. C because I think that he, as a teacher and the head of the programme, should help me sort problems like this. He did nothing and ignored my emails and feedback forms. How should I protect myself from people that don’t do anything if the only way for me to do it through Mr. C is not working,

The saddest part of it is that I will not even complain and bring it up to the management because considering how draining it is to argue with Mr. C, my progress regarding my mental health will be destroyed. It makes me so incredibly sad that I cannot switch unis and have to endure this for another two years. Well, next year the marks will count so I need to embrace it and learn how to fight for them if I want to finish with a good degree.

[pyrostone]

These last days, weeks perhaps, I was forced to sit with my feelings of frustration. It’s painful to be bad when I crave perfection. It’s hard to let the idea that I am always gonna be somewhat wrong sink into my brain. It’s hard to go to bed with the proves of my humanity and fall asleep knowing that, actually, that stain is never going to leave, that the purity I persue is a fraud.

I am well aware of the importance of making mistakes, of the fact that that failing doesn’t make me automatically a failure. However, my mistakes do define me. They´re not the only thing, but they are part of it.  

I am always going to be a compilation of compliments and complaints, a mass made of the best and the worst and everything in between. 

I have heard way too many times that perfection isn’t achievable, but acceptance feels like giving up. 

These last days, weeks perhaps, I was forced to sit with my feelings of frustration. It’s hard to know that the thing I’m addicted to doesn’t exist.

[pyrostone]

06/06/2021

Problems with the art degrees.

In the past couple of days I had plenty of discussions about art education in general and UK education in particular. I have come to a daunting realisation that the main problem in fact is not Mr. C or toxic classmates but the system itself.

I can somewhat easily deal with unpleasant environment as long as I know that I am doing it for a reason, that it is useful and beneficial for me. However, the courses that qualify as an art degree are very standardised, otherwise they wouldn’t receive certification from the education department. Standardisation of the educational programme leads to the standard approach to students. While it works with for other courses such as finance and economics, the nature of developing art skills is completely different and does not benefit from such approach.

It makes me very sad and utterly disappointed but I must admit it. I attend many courses and classes outside of my uni not simply because I like studying and want to get a different opinion on my work but also and mainly because I do not receive enough useful information, opportunities to work on practical skills and tutors’ guidance and support in developing my work that I must go somewhere else as well, if I want my work to be of a high quality.

It is very sad but one 30 mins lecture at my additional classes is so much more packed with useful information then a whole week or two at uni. It is also way more contemporary in regards to the studies of art history and current visual trends, as for some reason Mr. C keeps on using examples with visual languages that are, well, too old. They are no longer appropriate for the art industry and they do not in any way help us develop a sense of good taste in visual arts. I will even not hesitate and go on saying that the examples that Mr. C uses are often the ones that are considered to be weak by my other courses and I agree with them on that.

It is not, however, because of Mr. C and his personal preferences, the problem lies within the educational system, because I witnessed similar patterns in many of my friends’ experiences with their unis and all of them study at different universities across the UK. Maybe the problem is that this system encourages self-studies for students but there really is a big difference between promoting students to do additional research and studies and not delivering a minimum base of information, hiding it under the “do it yourself” guise.

I am not sure what to do and how to challenge it and if I should even challenge it, the whole system, or just leave and suck it up. Yet any decision I will make is difficult and not ideal. For now I guess I will continue my studies, as a have the whole summer to mentally prepare myself for the new term, but I wish so much that people who make the programmes for art degrees would do a better job.

[pyrostone]

I am following this amazing page since I created this blog and this post right here, it resonates with me so much. It is odd and fascinating how complete strangers can put into words your feelings so well and understand what you are going through. Makes me feel less isolated and alone :') I really wish you luck with all your deadlines (well, they passed so with what comes after them), you are exceptional and you worked so hard to get to where you are and hopefully everything will be. just right and you will achieve first class or at least a very high upper second! Fingers crossed and much love to you <3

It’s 3 - 4 days until my final deadline for my last year of university and I’m getting sad because I don’t think I’m going to do as well as I want to.

As you guys probably saw I handed in my dissertation last week, and wish I’d had a couple more days to take a break from it then come back and make some improvements on how I handled my secondary sources to bump the grade up. I can’t change that now so I can’t worry it, but I don’t know if my essays are strong enough to get me the grade I want. I am putting my all into making them the best that they can be. I am trying to finish this one tonight, making sure I cross examine it with the marking criteria and assessment objectives. I want to feel confident about them. And I also know I shouldn’t let my grades define my self worth, but I really really want a first. I was super confident on my ability to get a 2:1 but I’ve taken a step back and thought, what if I don’t even get that? Or if I just barely scrape it? It’s not a judgement on anyone else by the way, this is just the standard I expect and want for myself. I know everyone will say “a 2:1 is a great grade” and “all that matters is you tried your hardest” but I want to try my hardest and be exceptional. I want to be the person who works hard and achieves the top scores. I don’t want to just be very good or great. I want to be exceptional. I feel like this especially because English Lit has always been my strength and talent, but maybe I’m just not that academically intelligent. I guess I’ll just have to swallow that when it comes. And I’m sick of having trauma and mental illness as an excuse and as something I can point to and say “yeah well if that hadn’t happened I could have done better”. Anyway, going to try and get this essay completed tonight, hopefully I’ll get to a point that I am comfortable with it.

[pyrostone]

29/05/2021

As we went on the summer break almost a month ago I did not update my page much as I am still trying to regain my emotional resources to continue doing art. To be honest, the fact that I still cannot fully get over uni even though almost a month has passed is not a good sign, as I initially hoped to be fully recovered from it by, ugh, I don’t know, perhaps, a week or two at max?

However, summer vacation means I have more time for my personal projects and this is precisely what I have been doing for the past month. I worked on my VS (code name) project that I have been developing for a year now and I also started to think more about project about Nine that I put on hold few months ago. I slowly returned to the realisation that proceeding with it will be beneficial for the unresolved feelings that I have.

Yet now I am focusing on the open call with the deadline in the mid-June. I really want to get a spot because it will guarantee me a place in the exhibition in the actual museum. It is really a dream come true and I was working really hard on my concept for the show. The open call works in such a way that you apply with an idea and if they like it, you will be granted a budget and a green light. Your project also must include museum archive.

I was thinking that my concept is solid but yesterday I talked with Sofie and she said that my idea is pretty plain and straightforward. We discussed how our ex-teacher did a similar project with the same museum and its archive and now I am really doubting myself as her work was just so deep. I am afraid of the shortage of time. I am scared that I cannot produce a deep enough work not because I am still relatively young and new to the art industry compared to my ex-teacher and others, but because that is my limit and no matter how hard I work I will always stay at this level. I am not even sure if I will be able to produce any decent work under the time that is left.

I really became paranoid. I have so much anxiety I cannot think straight and help myself. I am afraid of so many things and I feel like a lost child. What direction should I follow? Am I doing the right thing? Is art truly for me or am I not good enough for it? So many questions that eat my soul.

Maybe this anxiety comes from my desire to get selected. For some reason, this open call is very important to me. I sent my work to so many grants, open calls and other awards so getting rejected is not new to me. I even came to being calm and reasonable about it, shutting down any desire to dwell and quit. Now, I want to do my best but I don’t know how. It is not that I didn’t do my best for any other awards, of course I did. But for some strange reason it did not affect me that much.

Perhaps, it can also come from increased knowledge. The more I study and know about contemporary art practices, the more flaws I see in my work and concepts. So, maybe in the past I simply did not have enough knowledge to fully understand how weak my work was and so was less affected emotionally.

I am very thankful for this space, this blog, because with such increased level of anxiety and self-doubt, this place is here for my to talk it out and analyse my feelings without boring my friends. I still talk to them and especially Sofie because she helps me so much and with her guidance I feel a little bit better, knowing that at least I have her impeccable taste and understanding of the concepts and philosophies on my side. She offered me to create a big mind-map and I made one that covers half of my room. I really wanted to create something big and dive into the analysis and thinking process.

Hopefully, it will help me. If I am successful with the open call, I will share the process of the project creation and photos from the exhibition : )

Please please please let my improve my work so that it is good enough to be selected :'( P.S. I took this photo at my friend's house few weeks back when I was visiting her

[pyrostone]

08/05/2021

So, it has been a week since we finished this semester and broke for summer. The whole week I was trying to grip the fading feeling of happiness that the university finally ended for, well, three and a half months.

And while taking some very needed time off from studies, stress and work, I started to analyse the whole year. It has been a whole academic year since we separated with Nine. I really needed time to reflect on our break up and process it within, but life has been so hectic that new things kept on coming up and I ended up being flooded with so many troubles, problems and pain that I did not from what to start and where to begin. At times I thought that it is just too much for me to handle, that I will not be able to work through all of this, but here I am. Slowly getting there.

It is the first time for me that the year has been so difficult, so intense and full of difficulties that I did not have time to catch my breath since September? At this point I don’t even know.

However, the university is finished for the year and my other courses will only resume in a week, so yay – a two week holiday, if I can call it that. At the very least, I finally have time to reflect on everything that happened and really think through all the events, how the happened, what went wrong and what I can do differently in the future if the need arises.

I have come to a realisation that both university and a major course that I did outside of the university that lasted for 6 months were and are toxic. I didn’t understand it initially as I am prone to finding flaws in myself, and I thought that it is simply me who cannot fit in. Yet now, the more I think about it, the more I realise that the art education, especially the one that is institutionalised through universities and colleges, are a very toxic atmosphere and the best the students can do is to withstand it and protect their love for art, as these institutions are prone to erasing it. I have a lot of thought on the matter but I don’t want to go into much details in this post, as I want to make another one concerning art education in particular.

I just really wanted to say that my mental health is getting better and I think that I am finally regaining my voice after being silenced and overpowered by the teachers and clogged with their often irrelevant opinion on my work and how the work should be done in general. Life is good. Or so I hope.

[pyrostone]

01/05/2021

And just when I think that my heart is slowly healing, I decide to develop old films and see this. Eh, I guess, I still cannot get over how it ended.