Light was the most powerful and personal of Hopper's expressive means. Instead, he was interested in the forms and materials of the city's streets and buildings-stone, brick, asphalt, steel, and glass-and the effect of light falling upon them. He did not perceive New York astir with human activity, like Henri, admire the dynamism of its traffic and skyscrapers, like Marin, or distill its structures into abstract patterns, like the Precisionists. Returning to the United States in 1907 from his first trip to Paris, Hopper found it 'a chaos of ugliness' nevertheless, it was the contemporary American city that he was to make his particular theme. The latter is nearer reality although the former is a copy.' Night Windows is one among many of Hopper's paintings that show how thoroughly he had absorbed this precept. (I do not resent this form, but sometimes….I can’t help but wish it was something different altogether."At the New York School of Art, where Hopper was enrolled from 1900 to 1905, his teacher Robert Henri told his students: 'Low art is just telling things as, There is the night. Would you keep a lion in a kennel for a house-cat? I cannot explain properly that I do not wish to be left in a singular category, because that category does not do me any good. They do not see layers, they do not see depth, they do not understand that I am not her, I am me. Sometimes these faults cause me to become uncomfortable, frustrated that my house is not fit for my needs. Sometimes I have to cover up rooms because they are of no use to me. Sometimes the faucets leak, sometimes the floorboards crack, sometimes I have to repair the patches in the drywall. How does one explain such a feeling? I do not belong here. More than a binary, more than what is seen and heard. How does one prove that? That I am more than my flesh? More than ‘biology’. To assume so makes me feel as if I am suffocating. I am not limited to this current expression of flesh and bone. I am here, yes, and I have taken this form but it is not my only form. I see her as a house that I have taken rest in, a home that is warm.īut when others look at this body, they see and comprehend something that isn’t true. As someone who appreciates the female form, I find my reflection beautiful. As an artist, I feel the urge to shape her body in swift turns and rounded lines in my sketchbook. When I look at my body in the mirror, I can see her as kind. Sure, I was taught to dislike parts of it whether it is my weight or nose shape or expression or body hair or otherwise, society has always had a say in how I should view my flesh. I often struggle with this, because at my core, I do not hate the vessel I was given. What results from their interpretation does not resemble me. Attitude, personality, role, purpose, understanding. They see long hair, soft cheeks, round hips, feminine voice, and assign what other beliefs they may have about what comes with those things. They do not see the shore on the other side, they see ropes and wooden planks. That is where my day-dream breaks because I cannot simply exist as a bridge. And, when I enter the same here as everyone else, I do not enter as me, I enter as how they perceive me. In every day life, in my reality, I am often reminded of the fact that I am not the only one who experiences here. My flesh is a vessel for me to experience what surrounds me it is a bridge and nothing more. What I feel is here, in my chest, and here is what I experience. Leather bridles, dirty palms, the sound of dry grass whistling in the afternoon air. The one that settles into your soul and lets you breathe. My go-to happy place is a long day on the trail, with a dog and my horse and a soft sunrise. I like to think that if you left me alone, I wouldn’t think too much of my existence.
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