Food for soul. [TW]

Portrait of pain - Self portrait, Adolfo Widt, 1868/1931



"This piece is very interesting indeed. It is titled both 'Portrait of pain' and 'Self portrait,' implying that it is a depiction of the artist's own internal struggle. The expression on the man's face truly says it all, in this case. He is horribly distressed, and sees no end in sight. The only thing he can really do is express his pain with his face. He could be crying out, but I doubt it. It seems to me to be much more likely that his pain has finally reached the point where all he can manage to do is let it permeate throughout every fiber of his body, and so he cannot help but show it on his face. Look at the vacant holes where his eyes should be: to me, that is where the real power of this piece is. It adds an even larger sense of hopelessness to his plight."

Sadness, Julia Margaret Cameron (British, born India, 1815 - 1879), 1864



"This piece, while rather plain, contains so much more emotion that I typically think of as being captured in such a static photograph. Our beautiful subject here appears to be longing for someone who has disappeared, perhaps a lover, her parents, or maybe even a child. She cannot manage to do anything but think about her sadness, which inevitably makes it worse, although we always continue to do it anyway, on the off chance that the situation will improve, through some sort of magic insight into life that we're going to somehow find by moping around. Another thing that strikes me about this piece is that it is from 1864, a time when photography's only real practical purpose was for portraits, yet here is a shot done not to be a straight ahead portrait of this woman, but rather to show a feeling, something that I find simply remarkable for a piece from this medium that is this old."

I believe that miracles dont always look miraculous.

You know you are with someone or anyone and you don't know if something is just out of place or its all wrong, but the right things seem to be said and happen and the other person confirms it too. But you don't feel it's right so you ask them if they are ok with things and with how you are, and they confirm its ok.

So what do you do ? It's difficult to know what to believe in, but it's simple. What's simple is that we can fit sometimes in places where we don't belong, and that is what makes us feel out of place even though we fit there, but we don't belong there or feel it's right.

So it's important both to have the right things and also to feel right. Without one or another it's not a happy place, so if it doesn't feel right, it's maybe not. Leave and find a place which is for you, or make it, or dream it if you have to.

I didnt expect to be alive to see this new year and I cant say I am happy that I have. Its indescribable and messy and i cant tell how it looks or smells and sounds like, but it all is painful, the pain is a lot, and I dont see a way out and I know there isnt but to hope maybe for a better life after this one, which i have to believe is there because i need something to hope for and make myself believe that there is more, that there is a way out.

It hurts a lot. and it isnt stopping

"I have got a war in my mind by Danielle"

God. I feel terrible.

Pain

Wojtek Babski

(Removed by River for being graphic)

Susan Gofstein

Chicago, Illinois

"Resonance: Erasure"

oil and collage on MRI

" Pain is a solitary truth that defies communication, Â maddeningly subjective and resistant to language and measurement. To live in pain is to live in isolation.

In the absence of speech, a visual language of metaphor is a constructive tool, creating artifacts that can function as the speaking self.

In RESONANCE, the MRI grids of the brain document both the origin of pain and the concept of a self. Their altered surface is wrought with physical struggle: opaque paint obscures the film, scratched drawing removes its surface, collage both asserts and denies a third dimension. These tensions embody the eloquent communication of the visual metaphor."