Artistic Footprint

Alright so this is… my blog. The official artistic footprint.com! If you’re looking for my photos, check out the albums on the first column to your right. Let me know what you think or feel!

Now I know what you’re thinking. Oh Brother, “not another one of those bloggy things” because everyone and their dog has one. I hope to do my best to make this one different.

I only recently asked myself a pretty important question. Why the hell do I write? and not only that, Why the hell do I think my thoughts are important enough to advertise to my friends, as if I am an all-knowing egotistical prick? Pretty arrogant I thought, and it made me come up with this: When I was growing up, I was an idiot. My thought process stretched no further than the walls of whatever room I was in. That’s not to say I’m not an idiot now, it’s just that… now I know that being intelligent or ignorant is subjective, that I am not alone, and also that an education doesn’t actually mean you’re smart. I’ve learned that simple-mindedness and ignorance annoys me, and motivates me to fix it in myself, and promote awareness in others. This challenge is intruiging and inspiring, and is literally an endless pursuit of truth, fact, and supporting evidence.

You may think of me as someone trying to persuade or project some sort of psychological prowess and that irritates you. But I have one rebuttal. I have the balls to say something. I may not be right in what I write, but at least I’m willing to think for myself, to gather the evidence, hypothesize, and allow myself to be wrong. And that is what this is all about. It’s about not listening to the social norms, not believing the blind bullshit, but accepting the logical fact that I have senses to experience my tiny, limited environment, and this is the result.

I don’t know what inspired my hunger for knowledge, it certainly wasn’t my education, but I do feel empty without a good book in my hands, or without a controversial lecture or speech to watch. So really, this website is for the people just like me. The people who have been disappointed by their education system, who were born without direction, and who absorb every inkling of information around them. The people who are scared by where our species is headed. This is why I think my writing is unique. It’s not in some Ivy-league jibberish nor conventionally written to some international standard. The information I get is not from a university auditorium or library, but a collection of street material, experiences, stories, and word-of mouth. Hardly credible I know, but I believe it is far more understandable to us lacking post secondary education, and an opportunity for people to get out of this robotic, monotonous prison that decides for us.

I turn my visual world into text by jotting windows of clarity onto napkins, fingering epiphanies on misted windows, or scribbling eye-openers on anything that’ll take ink. I have embraced the evolution and spread of self-replicating memes and have exploited your addiction to widespread multimedia (if you wanna be a dick about it.) Or perhaps this is just a light and simple exchange of thoughts and ideas from my mind to yours, through this magnificent invention called language.

But there are also many other things to find along the way; tolerance and compromise, good vs bad,  justice, truth, and lies, hatred and love, adventure and appreciation. I’m writing from the perspective not of education, but experience. I’ve spent 3 years in the Canadian Forces, 1 year treeplanting in the middle of nowhere, travelled to the South Pacific, 2 years as a forest firefighter, and another year as a mountain patroller. I have been infected by the travel bug and am awaiting my next adventure. This website is not a compilation of my stories, (although that’s something I might look into further down the road) but more of a sociological eye on the world. Through my photos and my writings I try to pick an objective, impossibly unbiased perspective so that people can see the same image, be it a photo or an adjective, and have it be untainted or construed.

Of course that may not always be the case, I do become quite passionate about my ideas and tend to stray from what is acceptable or factually true despite my best efforts. I rarely edit or redo because I enjoy the “raw” feeling of a piece that wasn’t formulated or meditated. But whether I believe in a perspective or not, I understand its value and am intruiged by its merit. What I’m saying is that I’m sure you can find something I’ve written here that can offend you. But take it as me being a devils advocate. I’m trying to persuade you to be fully passionate about your side so that you can write against me in an effort to find truth and compromise. Like the new trend of satirical comedy such as Family Guy or South Park, They “hold a mirror up to society” so that we can see ourselves with our own eyes.

Most importantly, you shouldn’t be here to learn anything. That’s what books are for. This is just a perspective. However, If you’re simply here to impose an ignorant reitterated phrase from your most recent issue of Access Hollywood, then this is not the place for you. If you disagree with what is said, I whole-heartedly welcome you to educate us with your two cents and enlighten us with your opinion.

anyways I hope you like it, and please, continue the thought!

Jamie