Façades

Vatican - 030811

A few nights ago I had a dream where I noticed my world was falling apart around me.  All the balls I juggled were crashing down and I  couldn't keep up.  At one point I heard in the dream my wife tell me:

I am not going to help you clean up the façades you built around yourself.

That startling statement woke me up.  It kept me up thinking about all the façades I put up so people only see a version of me I think I can control and project. 

A facade or façade (pronounced /fəˈsɑːd/) is generally one side of the exterior of a building, especially the front, but also sometimes the sides and rear. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face".
In architecture, the facade of a building is often the most important from a design standpoint, as it sets the tone for the rest of the building. Many facades are historic, and local zoning regulations or other laws greatly restrict or even forbid their alteration.           - Wikipedia

I believe we all wear *brilliant disguises  at times.  They are different than the **façades we build around ourselves.  The disguises hide something and the façades create "truths" and perceptions about what is inside.

This dream quote, "I am not going to help you clean up the façades you built around yourself!",  told me that I have to quit trying to be so many different "me's" for others.  I am getting worn out and just need to be Me.  Just Karl.

This new blog is an effort for me to become more WYSIWYG (pronounced whizzeeewig) which stands for What You See Is What You Get.  This includes sharing my warts, wrinkles, gray, thinning hair, and hazel eyes.  It also makes me own up to all the brilliant disguises and façades I've worn or built up.  I am not offering total transparency into all of my life.  Honestly, do you really need to know if I pee standing or sitting?  I am not aiming to be like Charlie Sheen and self-implode by sharing all my lunacy.  I don't have enough vices or money to reach his level of new "transparency".  I also don't have "Adonis DNA and tiger blood" in me.  I've just got Karl DNA and Karl blood in me and guess what - that is good enough.  

*One of my favorite songs by Bruce Springsteen (watch and listen below).
** I know I can spell it "facade", but the cool little  "ç" makes it much richer.

Take a look about

NYC - 030611

Hi.  My name is Karl Sutphin and I am a blogger.  I am also a photographer, artist, and a middle-aged, slightly balding, over weight white guy.  This is a blog about me and what I see, think and learn.  It will be lofty, liminal and low down*.   It will have lots of my photography and a bit about art.  This blog will also have a smattering of other stuff I run across

The name of the blog comes from an answer I commonly give to the question, "Whatya doin'? "  My reply, "Looking about."  I am fascinated by what I see and find meaning, joy, anger, love, sorrow, passion, lust, beauty, ugliness, and every other aspect of the human, inhuman, and non human condition out there.

I can photograph almost anything, but prefer having a person in front of the camera.  I am a sensualist.  My primary sense is sight.  I am very visually oriented. My other senses also appreciate being challenged, but I will always look first.

You may know me from my old blog, which shall not be named.  At that blog, I first went by SB, for Side B, my alias.  At one point I decided to give out my first name.  During the two years I wrote that blog, I felt I needed to be anonymous.  This perceived need to be masked had both real and assumed reasons behind it.  Toward the end I was fighting a personal battle over not being able to be myself and take personal accountability and ownership over my creations and life.  I ended that blog because I felt I couldn't be me.  Now, I can.  I will write more about the struggle in future posts. 

I am pleading guilty to future thievery.  My old blog is part of my past and will soon be removed, but I will recycle some of my favorite old posts.    I downloaded all my posts from it and reread every one of them.  I deleted over 90% of them, but I wrote some good stuff back then and don't want them to disappear.  I plan to give them a few updates, edits, and blatantly reuse them.  I also want to take ownership of that good stuff and stamp it with my name.

I encourage and appreciate comments.  Please share what you think.

So, with out any more fanfare, let us start looking about.

*Terms I learned to describe elements of Renaissance art.