Thinking Skill: Analyzing Perspectives Progress Update

This is what I started my painting with. I started to paint 4 pillars representing different platforms, not just from social media. I choose to use this columns to represent a pedestal to be above all of the other perspectives. The left, rainbow ombre  pillar is representing Instagram. On that one I am gonna use that to represent the points of view of a feminist since thats where I thin I see them the most.   

This part of my painting I am showing a cave carved out of a hill. This Cave is located on the bottom right of the painting and the reason I put it so low on the painting is to show how people towards the top of the painting are shown more and have issues equal or are shown as more important not only to themselves but other Americans. This specific part I wanted to paint a small child crawling out of a Cobalt mine in Congo. Kindergarten age children in Congo are being forced into child labor working in bad and harmful conditions. April 16, 2018, Financial Times wrote, 'Glencore warns on child labour in Congo’s cobalt mining', a European article about the issues in Congo. They talk about Glencore, the largest producer of cobalt. They work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amnesty International reported that children 7 and up can be found mining cobalt by hand, this is exposing them to harmful toxic dust. The kicker for this is that cobalt is used in making lithium ion batteries that Americans everyday use in the phones, and electric cars. These children are shown so little in media and Americans don't really even think about them but they literally harvest materials that we need in order to have the media access every single day.https://www.ft.com/content/dbf18e0e-416a-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b 

This Photo is from Sky News. http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-cobalt-mine-child-labor-2017-5?r=UK&IR=T This photo shows an 8 year old being threatened to be hit if he didn't do the job right. This shows how hard and sad the reality of where Americans get their resources from. They are deep in mud working like slaves in the rain. These kids are working to supply Apple with its much needed cobalt, So Apple is saying they want to try to get workers who are older.

          Here I painted a frail child crawling out of a cobalt mine opening. I tried to use perspective making the Childs body get smaller and disappear into the shadows of the mine. I made a large bucket and pickaxes to show just how young this child is, I tried to make the kid about 7 which is an age that children would be working in these mines.  I had also decided to remove the second child since it cluttered the area. I used skills like building from dark to light to create depth, this is a skill that I am starting to practice and use this year. I also put water on the dirt to try to make age ground there look muddy because they do work in pouring rain calf deep in mud. I was very happy with the results of the bucket because I layered starting from black to white and it actually made the bucket look like it was made from metal. The last part of this that I want to talk about is the white and grey patches inside the cave. What this is showing is not smoke but, static. I framed the cave in mood trying to make a rectangular or buy shaped opening to make it seem like static on a tv. Not a lot of people who don't follow world news don't know about what has been happening in Congo for years. This static represents the lack of these issues to being shown in any forms of media. Its like the children there can't be seen by Americans because they don't prioritize these issues above their own lesser issues.

           This is the start of one of my pillars. I painted it red to represent the youtube platform as a physical thing. I choose to use it because there is a lot of youtube drama all over social media and news talking about demonetization, and youtube general algorithm. I plan on painting a gold demonetization symbol because for a lot of people its literally life and death for some people. Recently in the news Nasim Aghdam, The 'YouTube Shooter' actually went to YouTube HQ and shot 3 people. She did this right after her videos were demonetized by YouTubes flagging algorithm. To be demonetized it means that your videos will no longer have adds played which means that the YouTuber will no longer make revenue off of their video. Although that could seem like no big deal, to Nasum Aghdam she thought that her life was over. For many big and small YouTubers like Onision, Pewdiepie, and Dextry, have publicly complained about how it is a really big deal in the Youtube community because these content creators cannot create videos because if they swear once their video will lose all its revenue. This is also very unfair because rappers like Nikki Minaj can rap about inappropriate topics, using foul and derogatory language, and have extremely inappropriate and sexual outfits and themes, including showing prostitution or drug use....But still they don't get demonetized.

This is not a trash can! Everyone has said that this orange column looked like a trash can. It is not, I am saying right now that it doesn't look like a trash can because it was intended to be. I was trying to create a fiery orange that looked very saturated but then it kept fading as it dried. I wanted to pull in elements that were very dark and dry  like the into my painting in all parts because I was looking at the artist James Ensor. I admire the textures in his paintings, it looks like he does very small strokes and it looks like he doesn't blend but uses layering. I tried to layer starting with a black outline of pillars and then I coated it in red and then orange and then I mixed white and yellow in to make the lightest parts. I am happy that the structure looks like it is actually rounded.

Here I did paint a dog on a pedestal because in America people love dogs so much that they literally would run into a burning home to save one. I choose the orange and grey colors to represent the ASPCA. On their website I found many compelling facts supporting that humans prioritize these pets and see them above all else happening in the world. According to the ASPCA website:
- Approximately 3.2 million shelter animals are adopted each year (1.6 million dogs and 1.6 million cats).
-It's estimated that 78 million dogs and 85.8 million cats are owned in the United States. Approximately 44% of all households in the United States have a dog, and 35% have a cat. (Source: American Pet Products Association 2015-2016 (APPA))

To further explain, CBS Money Watch has done a study about 'Charities Faking Their Numbers to Look Good'https://www.cbsnews.com/news/charities-fake-their-numbers-to-look-good/ The Feed The Children charity program lies by saying that charity's claim that it spends 91% of donations on programs (this is a link to the actual charity site) That would mean theoretically that that for each dollar raised they would donate 91 cents of food. The American Institute of Philanthropy analyzed the actual numbers, they actually spend less than 25 cents of each dollar...Thats angering thats misleading af(Air Force). Where does the rest of that money go? Well we would like to guess on advertising...Unfortunately this is completely legal to lie about your charities worth as a way to get around taxes. So yes, we do care more about dogs than other people.


Right here I painted an ombre rainbow pedestal to represent the Instagram social media platform. I used this one because it particularly is an app that is an app that almost everyone has now with 500 million active users daily according to Omnicore https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/ . This is a place where people go on daily to see what people are posting, I am a user, all of my friends are, and even some of my teachers have accounts. The reason I used it in particular is because I see a lot of feminists ranting constantly especially on international Women's day March 8th, of this year. A lot of the ones represented on social media and very over bearing and forceful and abusive to men. A lot of them I see are giving strait out hate speech to any males even to transgender people and that is widely offensive. But with them their drama sparks a lot of talk and reshares for comical effect, this makes them money because a lot of them have large followings because people want to know what the 'Feminazi's' have to say next. I can't even remember a time when people were taking about slaverey in Libya or other issues that could influence someone to step up and help third world countries.

Over here I made a painting inspired by survivor of the Nepal India Sex Trafficking. Although she is not known her art is found on the 3 Angles Nepal Website https://3angelsnepal.com/human-trafficking/ Please click here if you want to help. Every single day 54 young girls are trafficked out of Nepal and into India for the purpose of sex slaverey. This is very sad mostly because these girls are tricked by handlers to willingly cross the checkpoints between Nepal and India. They do this by appearing to be rich and asking the girl for her hand in marriage or by offering her a job that would giver her a lot of money to support her family, of course these are just their tricks and unfortunately an effective way they lure young girls. By clicking that link above you can find more information on how to help, donating would contribute money to building more security checkpoints at the boarders of Nepal and India to intercept the young girls making mistakes.
Below I put one of the actual paintings done by this unknown artist. I really admired soft strokes of the hair and fields and tried to make the hair in my painting appear more fluffy. I also wanted to paint very dark clothing and capture the abuse that they go through without actually showing violence. I opted for painting these girls smiling and going over the boarder in chains. I choose them smiling because they don't know that they are about to be captured into sex slavery. The chains are leading off the page almost as if someone was leading them into their unknown fate. I also tried to use the yellow sashes and bright red dress because I really liked the contrast of their cultures colors.

Something that stood out to me when exploring the 3 Angels Nepal site

           I painted the typical white girl that rants on social media constantly. I painted her onto of a blue pillar that represents Facebook since Facebook is infamous for teenage girls to tell everyone their whole lives. I put her on top of this column because above everyone else these girls have huge followings and people usually react to all of their posts. I literally cannot go on social media without seeing at least 10 of my friends post an intentionally attractive photo and then comment, 'Im so ugly' And each and every time it ends with a hundred comments on their post telling them that they are gorgeous and even some people write out multiple paragraphs supporting these people. For Americans we always want to be apart of everyones lives on social media. For celebrities like Kim Kardashian millions of comments end on their posts and the general American public cares so deeply about the lives of others on social media that we constantly are checking their lives. But no one is checking up on a highway they adopted or a poor child in another country that they are sponsoring with only a few cents a day. There are countless articles on the psychology behind why social media is so addicting ti people and why they care so much about it. On the Association For PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
website (https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/social-media-likes-impact-teens-brains-and-behavior.html) I read a compelling article called, 'Social Media ‘Likes’ Impact Teens’ Brains and Behavior' It basically explains that teens actually have a physical reaction in their brain overtime they get likes on their social media posts. They made an experimental trial with 32 teenagers where they showed them their social media and analyzed their brain activity using fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging. Lauren Sherman, a researcher in the brain mapping center and the UCLA branch of the Children’s Digital Media Center, Los Angeles said, "When the teens saw their own photos with a large number of likes, we saw activity across a wide variety of regions in the brain,” This was discovered that when teens see more likes on their photos their striatum in their brains light up like a Christmas tree with pleasure. This is apart of their brains reward circuitry which means they get dopamine, the feel good chemical, released into their brains.


This part I had started the feminist portion and I included a sign that says, "Im a woman" because some of the extreme ones criticize every single word that includes any male pronouns in it. I also made her pretty obese because a lot of them are trying to make themselves fat to prove that they are not sexual objects and no offense but I would not choose that body as a sexual object. If whoever is reading this page is triggered you have every option to walk away since this is not hate speech or bullying. The press publishes offensive political cartoons every single day this can't be that different.







This is the beginning of a sad message I put into my painting. So far its the outline of a starving child in need, figuratively holding a cellphone that has no signal. This is representing their lost in connection with the rest of the world and shows that they are not making their way into Americans lives this also represents the perspective of Americans because they don't care about these topics and they don't look up posts or charity pages they don't show up in the medias algorithms, just the fact that you won't see any post pertaining to saving a starving child is because you didn't care enough to look it up and the general population didn't either so it is not a recommended result.

      I am extremely proud with the result of this part of my painting. I don't think I have ever freehanded a human so well. I am proud on how the highlighted areas came out especially on the eyes and the collar bone. I wish I could have done the fingers better but I am not very good at hands so I tried to just make it seem like they had some. I think I could have also done the feet better. I want to try to practice more painting hands and feet. 

          This is one of my favorite parts of this painting. Right here I painted a couple in Yemen in their common clothing. I researched the mens and women clothing. On this website it goes though the mens wear.https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94979969 They usually wear long tunics with a large belt holding their traditional ordinate sword. Every man there carry one and it is a symbol of their masculinity. They usually are made with a rhino sword that they are willing to spend thousands on in the black market for. In itself the outfit is a problem when it comes to promoting poaching. The women have many different styles that derive from quite literally a sheet. They actually used to wear sheets, not joking actually bed sheets. Some of them wear a veils with a mask but others just wear the head wrap which is the most common since they always cover their hair. The reason I painted these two is because in Yemen women are not allowed to be independent, they cannot marry, have custody of their children, divorce, or even receive health care unless her male guardian says so. In Yemen women have a male guardian, usually their father, make all of their decisions for them. On GlobalCitizen.org They said that there is no minimum age of marriage there and 52% of Yemen girls are married before age 18.“These Are the Worst Countries to Be a Woman.” Global Citizen, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/worst-places-woman-yemen-congo-saudi-arabia/.  This is shocking to me I cannot imagine living in a world where a man literally owns me. They must feel powerless, because they are.  I think that I can compare the perspectives of a women in Yemen and an American Feminist and I can guarantee that their point of view is similar although a typical American woman cannot be in the same situation. With a strong culture although these women are going through hardships and are literally being owned, they don't really think that and don't want to spark a change. these women have no access to the world looking at social media or even having tv access, they don't know that what is happening to them is anything other than normal. They are in a very different world it can be hard to relate. I wish that people in America knew more about these issues so their awareness can help out.

I love the feminist. I took inspiration from Fiona from Shrek because she kicks ass. Thats where I got the red hair and green top from. I took out the, "Im a" from the sign because I wanted to keep things simple.

I love how this came out, the Yemen man looks overbearing standing above his wife like that. I think I really did well incorporating the dark sad tone that I was going for. I can really feel it when I look at it. Im sure for people who don't know what it means would also think so too.

This is the completed demonetization symbol. It was pretty easy and simple.

Final Product: I had added black and white paint to represent the grey areas in how people perceive the world I think it gave a very dark element to the painting. I think there is a lot of grey area in America on what Americans perceive as important and what they think is more important depending on the individual. 

Artist Statement: Human behavior in what we prioritize

What issues do you prioritize? What is most important to you?

          My painting was about many different issues happening in other countries and how we influence the media bases on how we prioritize things as human beings. That was a mouthful let me break it down, my painting shows what people in America prioritize and see as most important, this plays into social media because what we see in the media is evidence of things that we actually care about because of certain algorithms and you follow only things that you care about. The aspect of what really is more important of an issue is up to the viewers interpretation. I used all acrylic paints on cardboard. My painting style was influenced by artists Steve Bell in the high contrast features and also a unknown by name artist, who's art is well known because is a survivor of human sex trafficking in Nepal. I like the very dark rich colors she used and the feelings and emotions she expressed in her paintings. In my research I actually learned a lot about Yemen, Nepal, India, Congo, and even types of charities. I channeled a lot of personal emotions about certain things that were happening in the world and how little people even cared. I use my painting to show a message that we only care about things closer to home, for example we would rather donate to animals in a shelter than to the construction of boarder checkpoints in Nepal that could stop young innocent girls being sold off as sex slaves. My painting isn't meant to show my opinion, in fact I tried to not show what I think is the most important issue I only placed my interpretation of what Americans see and care about most in the media. A real thought driver I included was putting a dog up on a pedal stool above people suffering in third world countries because people in America prioritize saving the dog up above all else.

This is my video going over the painting. https://youtu.be/cQiiplWKZd0 

Work Cited

Edwards, Jim. “This Child Being Abused in a Cobalt Mine Is Why Apple Is Trying to Fix the Mining      

          Business.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 14 May 2017, www.businessinsider.com/apple-

          cobalt-mine-child-labor-2017-5?r=UK&IR=T. 

“Human Trafficking Rescue Program.” 3Anglels Nepal, 3AnglesAustralia(Development)LTD, 

          3angelsnepal.com.

Kristof, Kathy. “Charities Fake Their Numbers to Look Good.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 14 Dec. 

          2009, www.cbsnews.com/news/charities-fake-their-numbers-to-look-good/.

“These Are the Worst Countries to Be a Woman.” Global Citizen,       

          www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/worst-places-woman-yemen-congo-saudi-arabia/.

Salman, Aslam, Mughal. “Instagram by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts.” • Instagram by 

          the Numbers (2018): Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts, 11 Feb. 2018, 

          www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/.

Watson, Ivan. “Ornate Yemeni Knives Mark Status, Masculinity.” NPR, NPR, 25 Sept. 2008, 

          www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94979969.

“Social Media 'Likes' Impact Teens' Brains and Behavior.” Association for Psychological Science, 

          www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/social-media-likes-impact-teens-brains-and-

          behavior.html.

\.     “Subscribe to the FT to Read: Financial Times Glencore Warns on Child Labour in Congo's Cobalt 

          Mining.” Financial Times, www.ft.com/content/dbf18e0e-416a-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b.