http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:lovina&section=today deviantART RSS for by:lovina en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:10:18 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/29015886/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/29015886/ Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:16:54 PST
ignore this "face seen as art" line... journal glitch. this entry starts below:

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if you really want to know me... know someone... anyone...
(on this site anyway)... look at their favorites. i think it speaks a bit about someone... what they are drawn to, what attracts them (to a certain piece of art)... an insight into who they are and what turns them on about the world.

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28715351/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28715351/ Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:42:05 PST
that line is not supposed to be here... real entry starts below!
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so last month i went through my gallery and took down some deviations. there were several reasons why...

i want to have the best possible art posted and i was just not 100% happy with the outcome of some of my work (alot of recent stuff). i was trying to look at my art from an outside perspective, how someone else might see me (through my work) when looking at it for the first time, how someone who might "know me" in daily life might see it and what they might think. there of course is the issue of nudes. i'm fine with them, but i suspect there are people that "know me" who don't know that i do that type of art who might not be. honestly, it's not so much i care what people think as it is that i want to have work that i'm 100% proud of and can defend if necessary. i felt that my nudes from 10 years ago had much more depth and purpose, a meaning or theme behind the images, and my more recent work had a lack of any real purpose other than just on-the-surface aesthetics.

i was also getting a little bored with doing nudes, so i think i'll be taking a break from that for a while. when i do start shooting them again, they will have more depth, meaning and substance. i'm going to strive to do better!

another thing that's been bothering me for quite some time is (how unjustified and i put it) paying the "pervert tax" on dA. if you've done or posted nude artwork before, you probably know what i'm referring to. it means having to put up with "deviants" with who fave your work and/or watch you who you find, when you visit their page to thank them, that they have zero deviations and a favorites gallery full of nudes (usually women). and you realize they are faving or watching you and all these other people basically for free porn. it disturbs me (especially when the first time this happened to me, i checked the guy's favs and there were pictures of nude women spread eagle right next to pictures of pretty smiling little girls). now i have nothing against porn or people who enjoy it. and i can appreciate that getting a strong physical, emotional or sexual reaction from a piece of artwork is a powerful and amazing thing and in some cases speaks to the power of the art to elicit such a reaction in its viewers. but come on, some things are just not acceptable. some of my art has dealt with sexuality and feelings regarding sexual longing, frustration, confusion, etc. i guess i just prefer, as an artist and a human being, to have my images seen as art first where the viewer understands the meaning behind the artwork first and foremost in the process of enjoying the work, then have whatever reaction they are going to have to it. (if i was trying to seduce the viewer in the camera, and i do, i can't say that the meaning was lost! and perhaps understood (on a very basic primal level). i guess i want the understanding... i want the love before the sex, so to speak. i don't mind that people like my art AND that it turns them on BUT i want them to appreciate the art and the person behind it and what it means NOT just see what's on the surface and get off there (literally). i enjoy when people view my art and have conversations with me about it through comments or notes. i like getting to know people and understand their motives and have them understand mine. there is meaning behind everything i do, a reason for everything. i guess from my "appreciators", my watchers, my friends, i expect that. i would hope deviantArt could be that kind of place, for artists and art appreciators, not for unappreciative silent favers jerking off in the shadows. it was starting to make posting nudes feel dirty, knowing the distasteful barage was going to come (pun not intended).

i mean i'm what most people (including those aforementioned who "know" me... who don't actually know me that well at all) would think of as a pervert myself. because i enjoy viewing nude art as well. and i can't say i haven't been turned on by and image or two before, though very rarely. maybe it's my romantic mind, but what turns me on most is substance. what's the point of a pretty picture that means nothing? it looks nice but that's it. i feel the same about people. i gravitate toward depth of character, soulfulness, good conversation, looking for meaning in things. my personal definition of art (and this is something i've thought alot about and wrote a paper on in college) is: something that is pleasant to look at (or enjoy with other senses) AND/OR has a meanin... ]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28342937/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28342937/ Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:05:44 PST
eh... if you notice work dissappearing. several reasons why. in a weird mood tonight and it had to be done

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28103884/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28103884/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:34:31 PST
that line is not supposed to be here! real entry starts below!
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thank you!

...to all who responded to my entry "seeking collaborators", who offered their suggestions and their collaborative services! i was overwhelmed with the response, many from people i didn't expect (or even know!) which was refreshing. thank you to you all!

since time (and creative energy) are factors, i had to choose just one avenue to explore, and chose the candidate most suited for my current idea.

i'll be working on a collaborative series with my good friend whose thinking on this project seems to really be in sync with my ideas. i'm much looking forward to working with him! please visit his gallery. he does some amazing work.

i expect this project will take some time, so stay posted!

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28009571/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/28009571/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:20:25 PDT
this line is not supposed to be here! real entry starts below!

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seeking collaborators...


i've been coming up with some ideas for images that would involve collaboration. i guess i feel like having a little company in my self-portraits!

a collaboration would involve something like...

"you" providing me with your self-portraits of poses/themes (to be planned in advance) that i would meld together in photoshop for a final, realistic-looking piece that would appear as if we were actually together in the "reality" of the photo. (male volunteers preferred, but i will not exclude females!)

if interested in joining me in the created reality of a photograph, send me a note and we'll shoot some ideas around.

thanks!

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/27941976/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/27941976/ Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:27:08 PDT
this line is not supposed to be here! real entry starts below!
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too much talent... too few page views!

i decided to make a journal featuring a few of my dear friends who have amazing talent, great potential and far too few page views, in my opinion!
not only are they promising artists, but they are amazing people to talk to. please visit their pages, see their work & say hello... i'm sure they will appreciate your support!

much love to all my friends! (you should love them too, they so deserve it!)


Dead Impulse




DeLaUnicaAlma93




Voffko

*lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/27494559/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/27494559/ Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:27:18 PDT
...How Many Have You Read?

Each year, the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom records hundreds of attempts by individuals and groups to have books removed from libraries shelves and from classrooms. [link]
At least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century [link] have been the target of ban attempts.

If you want your friends to know more about this, copy this journal into a new one on your front page. Mark the banned books you've read. Then, tag some friends and pass it on. (Remember to tag the person who tagged you.)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (read)
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (read)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (read)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Ulysses by James Joyce
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (just bought!)
1984 by George Orwell (read, one of my favorites)
Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov (read, love this book)
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (read)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (read, another favorite)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Native Son by Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Why they were banned: [link]

copied from 's journal.
my list of "books to read" is ever-growing... will include these that i haven't read!

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26910075/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26910075/ Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:23:50 PDT
that line is not supposed to be here! real entry starts below

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so i did end up getting the Nikon D90. it's an amazing camera. i've been shooting like crazy. i've done a lot of landscapes and some skyscapes (which are not my usual forté ) but i enjoy hiking, so taking the camera along lends to a lot of landscapes. i may post some of those soon. i've shot so much in the past few weeks since i've had the camera that it's going to take quite some time for me to just sort through everything, so it may take a while.

i did the first "photoshoot" of self-portraits with the D90 last week. this was also the first serious self-portrait shoot i've done in a while (with lighting, props and a concept). it involves capturing movement and actions in a long exposure (1 second each). i ended up shooting 170 frames. i call them frames because shortly into the shoot i realized that upon reviewing them in camera, when i went through them fast, they appeared to animate the motion like stills in a flipbook, so i went with it from there and intentionally created motions and actions with the intent of making an animation as the final result. that will also take some time ... especially since i need to figure out just HOW i'm going to animate 170 frames (probably really small). my computer is old and so are my programs. so, i'm not sure they can handle it!

i will definately be posting some single frames from this shoot very soon as a "taste" of what's to come

i was looking on my computer for a photo and stumbled across some older ones (from june and november). a few jumped out at me that i had overlooked before. somehow after some time has gone by, i looked at them with new eyes (even with the "blue dress" shoot which i originally thought hadn't yielded any great shots) and was like "how could i have overlooked these?" i think it's probably a good practice to look back at older stuff with fresh eyes later on. so i will also be looking through older shoots and posting shots i find from that. (the older ones were pre-D90 remember, so the quality is not as good).

i hope you all enjoy!

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26294716/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26294716/ Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:06:25 PDT
this line is not supposed to be here! journal entry starts below
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so my camera sh*t the bed on me. (all my photos have vertical lines through them.)

sooo... now in need of a new camera i've almost 100% convinced myself that investing in a serious D-SLR is a good idea. i'm very excited at the thought, and i think i can justify spending a good amount of money for a really good camera, because i haven't had anything decent and new since my view camera.

dreaming about doing some night photography and multiple exposures on bulb setting! *sigh*
i can't wait to do more of that kind of photography like i used to

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26115565/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/26115565/ Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:13:30 PDT
this journal entry (and the last one have a glitch. the line above is not supposed to be there but i can't delete it! pissing me off...) the real entry begins below:
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watch me go by. again and again.
animated on your screen.
written on your page.
emitting light in your eyes.
i'm in you now.
digital pollution.
i hate writing with periods
why am i doing that?

will i ever infect his eyes,
the only two i long to see
and that i long to see me


damn it, i was listening to this music to try and NOT think of you
and i hate writing with capitols

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/25576532/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/25576532/ Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:29:07 PDT
i'm worried that i look too old and he won't love me
the lines on my face that weren't there before
and my eyes a bit sunken
but this is who i am
and inside i haven't changed
i am still that girl
...sexy, soulful, dark, sad, yearning, incomplete,
grounded, floating, silent, laughing...
i've always been
and if i know it, then it's true
and confidence is the most attractive feature one can have

and not being afraid is the most important thing

because a missed opportunity becomes only a temptation for the future
so never miss an opportunity or it will come back to haunt you

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21753115/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21753115/ Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:03:46 PST
...held up to the judges of symmetry.

is she "the girl next door", average features put together in a pleasing-to-the-eye way? does she have fine, elegant features?

is she "exotic"? big eyes, shapely, shifting lips, high cheekbones, slightly sunken cheeks. is there something native and animal-like about her?

what is beauty? is she pretty? if so, why?

so The Great Artist was asked, and answered all these questions in creating the face you see. my face, your face, every face. now you may not believe in this Great Creator, artist, sculpter, God, what have you. but just

imagine that there is an artist out there somewhere constantly creating and recreating your face.

you can never look in the mirror and say to yourself, "that is what i look like!" with a smile and be content with yourself. no, can never do that.

because you don't ever look like "you." your face is always changing, the changes are just so slight that you don't notice everyday.

ever see someone you haven't seen in a long time (say 10 years, if you've lived long enough that you can say that's happened to you) and in the instant you see them your eyes take in and your brain processes all the changes you see between the friend standing before you and that mental picture you have of how they looked the last time you saw them (10 years ago)?


THAT is what i want to capture in self-portraits.


what's changed? what do i look like now? then?

in the future i will look at this photo and see the friend i haven't seen in a very long time.

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21713770/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21713770/ Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:00:12 PST
for those of you who didn't know i do self-portraits and nudes and may be surprised to find out (in case you are one of those based-in-reality not-accustomed-to-art types).

why i do them?

it's not why you think (you know who you are). it's not narcissism (though that's a great word). it's about finding out who i am. looking at myself in every sense. why nude sometimes? well, when you have nothing hiding you from the camera, no clothes, there is nothing holding you back from revealing absolutely everything about yourself to the camera... mind, soul and body. to be truly "naked." (look up "naked" in the dictionary, it's really quite interesting)

My view camera professor from MassArt, Nick Nixon, one of the most talented and masterful photographers of the 8"x10" view camera and just a great guy to have as a teacher... always said (to paraphrase him) when you're taking someone's portrait and they're not revealing themselves to you. they're not telling you anything (or everything?) about who they are (by their expression, mood or poise), tell them to take their shirt off. ...his point was that if someone wasn't giving you their all, do something to shake things up and make them reveal themselves (and sometimes taking off the shirt really did help) as he demonstrated in a class test-photo we did i remember.

that is not where i began doing self-portraits or nudes but my thinking is definately in line with that. of course when you go to art school like i did, seeing a nude drawing or photo, even of your fellow classmates wasn't even something to turn your head about, societally speaking. if someone sees a nude photo pinned up somewhere on the street it's a crime. if someone sees ones pinned up on a gallery wall, it's someone's version of art and can be appreciated and recognized as such.

so here are my pictures.... telling me, telling the viewer, who i am. pinned on my wall. consider them as art (i hope) and a window (or mirror) into who i am.

the nude figure has been the subject of art since its inception (dawn of time?) and if you don't know that by now, maybe you should have gone to art school.

anyways, i want to have something to look at when i'm old and all of my youth has been drawn away, and maybe then say, "you know i was quite a dish." (like Rose looking at her drawing in Titanic) with only fond memories and no shame.

i hope my introspective study that is the subject of my life (literally) perhaps as a not-so-unpleasant by-product of itself, creates art that can hopefully be viewed and appreciated by someone else (the viewer) who maybe can also find meaning in one certain photograph, or in my life-long pursuit of myself and the never-answered, always-evolving question:

who am i?

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21705190/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21705190/ Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:16:19 PST
i'm doing art again, muthafuckahs!



]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21637095/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/21637095/ Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:00:11 PST
]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/16211552/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/16211552/ Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:46:15 PST
1. Do more art.

]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/15126787/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/15126787/ Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:39:39 PDT
]]> *lovina http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/11681883/ http://lovina.deviantart.com/journal/11681883/ Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:37:42 PST look Again.
cropping is a sin.
i don't feel the need to fill every inch of the page.
why? because i felt like it!
white space is not illegal.
let the edges fade.
experiment.
do it for fun, not to be a masterpiece.
when the concept outweighs the result, try again.
don't be intimidated by the blank page!
i get first-page anxiety (so i leave that one blank, takes the pressure off!)
i'm a procrastinator.
i'm a pessimist.
i don't always "finish" what i start.
(how can you say "it's finished" anyway?)... art is never done.
remember negative space.
be the pen.
if you think about it, do it.

DRAW from the soul.

]]> *lovina