"Remix Exquisite Engendering"

An avatar is an alter ego or representation of ones self, making that “character” two dimensional in a setting of ones choice. It takes on the role of a fantasy world of what “someone” wishes or visualizes him or herself as. The importance of what their life revolves around or is a part of becomes part of that characters setting. Sometimes gender has no involvement in the making of this digital representation, however it can if wanted. It allows the avatar to become very personable. The expression of one creating this realistic or unrealistic being is completely up to that artist.

The understanding of making an avatar took some time for me since, I found the readings to be interesting, and however I felt I still needed to explore the internet to fully engage with the learning of an avatar before creating my own. I looked at sites that you can create your own, similar to a computer game, which I included. However, ultimately I enjoyed making my “somewhat” realistic avatar in a setting of my dream and with people of love in my life. I am an art history teacher; I am constantly living and breathing in and through art. Teaching art history involves me to understand and feel as though I know the artist I am teaching, not just what they produced as a final product. With that being said, I included artists in this setting that mean sometime to me and that I would love to have in my “unrealistic setting.” The painting of “The Roses of Heliogabalus,” created by: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema has been my favorite painting since I was about 15 years old. It would only be appropriate for this to be my setting and landmark. The photorealistic roses that he creates have always been my favorite. The flow of the way the roses make my eye circulate is in an incredible feature that Alma-Tadema deliberated did to the viewer.

The added images in the painting that I created for my fantasy setting, I ended up making in Photoshop are as follows from left to right in the background of the painting: Louvre pyramid, the artist Vermeer, my son Andrew, the artist Klimt, my husband Luke, the artist Van Gogh, in the center my favorite Buddha and finally in the foreground myself. The positioning of the woman I placed my head on was picked on purpose because of the clothing. I envision myself in this classical roman drapery with the roses falling onto myself. The reasoning for including those specific artists, the style and what they created has always been something that I been drawn to. I incorporated my son and husband because they are my life. These two male figures in my life make everything complete. My husband and I have been together since we were 16 years old, that is 18 years together and my son who is 2.5 years old is our everything. He lights up my life when of the darkest days. My son was born in 2013, which was a happy yet horrible year for me. My father, Dennis passed away three months after my son was born. My father was my best friend, we did everything together. He passed from bile-duct cancer; the process of seeing your best friend die from a horrible disease was so exhausting and mentally destructive. If it weren’t for my son being born when he was, I would have had serious depression issues I am sure. However, everything happens for a reason and I have been nothing by overjoyed since Andrew has been brought into our lives. So I felt it was necessary to have my husband and son in my “avatar world.”

The Louvre pyramid located in the back left is a landmark of what houses a tremendous amount of artwork that is so relevant in my life as an art history teacher. The columns that are in this painting are landmarks as well with them being art museums, like The Metropolitian Museum of Art in New York City. I frequent that museum all the time with my students and personally, since it is so close to my house.

I enjoyed this assignment, it allowed me to step back from my ultra busy life and view and also to think about what is important to me and what I would like in my “imaginary world” to be like. The control of this reality was great, since in life you only have some much control over things. My avatar would physically be the same, since I don’t think I would change anything about my body, however my reality of the world would include some different (artists) people into it than it currently does have!