S U M P I C T O R (i am painter)
I've been trying to paint more this year. Though I still have yet to completely fill a single sketchbook, it is a habit that I have been trying to develop. Technically speaking, as evidenced by the photographs above, I've been painting and making art since I was very little. But it wasn't until high school that I began to see art as anything except a means to an end. Previously, I would draw and paint things if they served a particular project I was working on (a game, video, poster, advertisement, etc), but found it difficult to do so if it didn't have a function. I still struggle with this, but I've realized how much fun I have making art, and that doing it and (hopefully) improving my skills over time is more than reason enough to justify the time spent.
Featured Sketch -- Jellyfish
Featured Artwork: Portrait of Bertrand Russell
I was first introduced to Bertrand Russell by my Latin tutor in high school, who gifted me a copy of the second volume of his autobiography, which details his extraordinary life from 1914 until the middle of the second World War. Later I watched some of the videos of him that are available on YouTube, including a radio-broadcast debate on Christianity from the 1920s and a 1953 television interview. The latter was especially fascinating to watch -- even then Russell felt very distantly removed from the time in which he belonged, having been born in the middle of the Victorian epoch and raised by his grandparents who grew up in the aftermath of the French Revolution. But after that interview was conducted (he was 80 at the time) he went on to live almost twenty more years until his death in 1970.
As I've begun to study philosophy a bit more (I've recently declared a minor in it), I've found his work both inspirational and very useful. One of the first books I ever read of philosophy was his History of Western Philosophy . As one of the foundational contributors to modern analytical philosophy, I'll be honest, I find him quite boring. It is in his double life as an activist for human rights and the common good that I am most interested. I agree fundamentally with his lifelong belief in the goodness of humanity and the responsibility that he felt for bringing about a better world. This portrait of him is dedicated to my appreciation of these good works of his.
A R T G A L L E R Y
