sjemcee
Sewn together from balloons in hospitals, always wanting to fly...
I’m Sidney. The first question commonly asked is if I’m Jewish or Dutch; I’m never asked what I like to do and what I hope to achieve. That’s precisely who I am, in those unspoken questions. I love art, and I’ve planned on being a costume designer for years now. My career plan is practically mapped out in my mind, and I’m set on achieving the goals I’ve set for myself. I love psychology and media studies. I’m fascinated with history, but I can barely do two-digit number multiplication. My brain is full of pointless statistics and random assortments of memories. I have excessive déjà vu and my dreams come often and come gory. When I was small, my dad called me Morticia after the women from the Addam’s family for my morbid interests. If I’d changed my mind and chose to be confirmed, I’d have taken the name Dymphna for the patron saint of insanity. As you can see, I’m fascinated by the brain and its functions, and most of all art. I’m as complex as anyone else is, but it’s your definition of complex that will define whether I come off obscure or perfectly normal to you.
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” These are the words of the poem Desiderata, which I can practically quote from memory. I’ve lived by this general philosophy for years now, striving every day to just make it a good one. It’s the bad days you remember most, so if you have very few bad days, then what is left? The good ones. You’ll start to remember the good things everyday rather than the bad ones. Yes, the world is terrible – get over it. While there is all that bad out there in the world, there is still so much good it has to offer.
I always wonder what it’s like seeing life through other people’s eyes. People fascinate me, especially the particularly peculiar ones. People like Lady Gaga, for example, with seemingly absurd thoughts and actions, are people that captivate me. Tim Burton is someone I absolutely adore. The stories of his works and the darkness they evoke have always been things I loved. From the moment I was nicknamed Morticia I was morbid. Finding someone so successful and artistic with the same macabre mind as I seemed like a rarity to me; and yet, here he was. I wanted to recreate Burton’s works, only use the same emotions I felt with each piece I’ve seen. I wanted to capture how awe-struck I am when I watch his films, and hopefully show people that just because it’s dark doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful. I edited a ton in Photoshop; just like Burton’s stop-motion productions, my photography, my camera, was just another instrument of the orchestra. I wanted to push my Photoshop skills to the limit. Films such as Beetlejuice didn’t have Photoshop to use to edit a sandworm in, and now with Photoshop I wanted to see how it would look. This final project is a portfolio dedicated to Burton, but with my own twists and turns.
Sewn together from balloons in hospitals, always wanting to fly...
I’m Sidney. The first question commonly asked is if I’m Jewish or Dutch; I’m never asked what I like to do and what I hope to achieve. That’s precisely who I am, in those unspoken questions. I love art, and I’ve planned on being a costume designer for years now. My career plan is practically mapped out in my mind, and I’m set on achieving the goals I’ve set for myself. I love psychology and media studies. I’m fascinated with history, but I can barely do two-digit number multiplication. My brain is full of pointless statistics and random assortments of memories. I have excessive déjà vu and my dreams come often and come gory. When I was small, my dad called me Morticia after the women from the Addam’s family for my morbid interests. If I’d changed my mind and chose to be confirmed, I’d have taken the name Dymphna for the patron saint of insanity. As you can see, I’m fascinated by the brain and its functions, and most of all art. I’m as complex as anyone else is, but it’s your definition of complex that will define whether I come off obscure or perfectly normal to you.
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” These are the words of the poem Desiderata, which I can practically quote from memory. I’ve lived by this general philosophy for years now, striving every day to just make it a good one. It’s the bad days you remember most, so if you have very few bad days, then what is left? The good ones. You’ll start to remember the good things everyday rather than the bad ones. Yes, the world is terrible – get over it. While there is all that bad out there in the world, there is still so much good it has to offer.
I always wonder what it’s like seeing life through other people’s eyes. People fascinate me, especially the particularly peculiar ones. People like Lady Gaga, for example, with seemingly absurd thoughts and actions, are people that captivate me. Tim Burton is someone I absolutely adore. The stories of his works and the darkness they evoke have always been things I loved. From the moment I was nicknamed Morticia I was morbid. Finding someone so successful and artistic with the same macabre mind as I seemed like a rarity to me; and yet, here he was. I wanted to recreate Burton’s works, only use the same emotions I felt with each piece I’ve seen. I wanted to capture how awe-struck I am when I watch his films, and hopefully show people that just because it’s dark doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful. I edited a ton in Photoshop; just like Burton’s stop-motion productions, my photography, my camera, was just another instrument of the orchestra. I wanted to push my Photoshop skills to the limit. Films such as Beetlejuice didn’t have Photoshop to use to edit a sandworm in, and now with Photoshop I wanted to see how it would look. This final project is a portfolio dedicated to Burton, but with my own twists and turns.