Idea Blog (9-16-09): Research Progress

Mental illness: psychological and behavioral problem that causes discomfort and problems in their every day life, disrupting their own life and/or those around them.

Common mental illnesses, I am possibly planning on researching:

1. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

2. Depression

3. Anxiety

4. Separation Anxiety disorder

5. Seasonal affective disorder

6. Paranoid personality disorder

7. Narcissitic personality disorder

8. Mood disorders

9. Insomnia

10. Dissociative Identity disorder

11. Avoidant Personality disorder

12. Derealization

14. Pica

After researching and sifting through hundreds of mental illnesses, these are the ones I found most intriguing and am planning on trying to illustrate.

I have also been looking at symbols and their meanings. Animal fur, for example, means protection from an undesirable social experience. That would be either entirely too obvious to illustrate or people would wonder "why is this person hiding under animal pelts?" Its obvious then that I am working too literally v. figuratively.

Images, objects relating to disorders that I have developed so far:

obsessive compulsive disorder: repeating, "revolving door"

depression: cave, seclusion, hibernating

seasonal affective disorder: covered in leaves, hibernation

pica: eating soil

I am still in the process of researching for my project. I am going to be honest and admit the fact that I have not produced anything I am happy with so far. I know what I want to create and have been working on creating a large amount of reference information when creating my images. Especially with my concept, I am having to sketch out how I want the image to look before I shoot and so far, everything I've sketched and started to create props for looks absurd. I am having difficulty coming up with imagery for my concept, which is why I hate making 'conceptual' based work. Ideally, I'd like to make what I want and then make up a concept that fits. Thats how I've always worked and its worked out for me this far. So I am stuck and am continuing to research until I find something worthwhile to make. So far, I have been printing on wood, which I am not thinking I am not going to incorporate but instead use wintergreen oil or acetone...maybe. It has worked with previous projects but not with this one, whatever this one is going to be. I am really worried I pigeon holed myself.