The National Portrait Gallery

Seeing the hide and seek show was quite the experience. I was surprised to see the names of artists I recognized like Susan Sontag, Georgia O'Keefe, Andy Warhol. I even went to see the video which was banned out front of the museum. I found it silly; almost as if whomever proposed the video should be banned was simply looking for a reason to ban something in the gallery. Art shouldn't be banned! FREEDOM OF SPEECH MAN!

But I'm not going to start getting too political.

I wandered around the gallery with my friends and my parents and even went beyond the hide/seek show. Looking at the pictures with my parents and my friends made it a different experience. They each told me how they viewed the picture and it made me look at each image differently.

As for myself the pictures that moved me the most were pictures like this...



Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC
By Nan Goldin



Shapes of Fear
by Maynard Dixon

There are two others I'd like to include but I cannot find.

These pictures are extremely simple yet very emotional. "Misty's" and "Jimmy's" stares are almost dead, as if there is nothing left to them anymore... The picture itself is nothing more than a snapshot. I could have quickly taken it with my low quality camera. Despite it's simplicity, it has an entire story behind it.

Shapes of Fear was even more moving to me. I remember the exact moment I walked into the room and laid eyes on this picture. As soon as I looked at it goosebumps crawled up my spine. It was so frightening to me, with just a simple glance. It sucked me in... And for some reason, when I look at it again online it is not as powerful. It's almost boring now. I noticed the same thing with our own digital pictures. On the computer they were nice, but when they were printed out and hung up on the wall they suddenly had so much more prescence to them.

There is certainly a lot more prescence when hung up on a wall.

I think it's because the colors are so simple and it is ovious they are human figures but they are completely covered and in an empty almost colorless plain. They are human figures but they are not human.

What I have learned from these pictures is techniques to put into my art to make more emotion. How to use colors and images to create the meaning I want. A picture with a more powerful meaning because a more powerful picture. A picture with power won't just be looked past, but will sink inside of you and will not be forgotten. Like Shapes of Fear is to me.

Also, if I am to a be digital artist, I'll have to make sure that my pictures get printed out! There is certainly a lot more power to something when it is printed out and seen in it's entirety than when it is on your little computer screen.