Happy Sunday to all of you. I know I had mentioned posting on Fridays, but this lack of schedule due to a break from school is really messing with me. I hope you will forgive me this time!

I have been reading for my Teaching Art class next semester and I came across something that struck me as insightful when considering any type of change. The book is called Engaging Visual Culture by Karen Keifer-Boyd and Jane Maitland-Gholson and this is what they say:

“Meanings derived from images are built on both past and current interpretations of images. For example, why does the cowboy archetype continue as a cultural mythology? Because the meanings associated with those images – power, assertiveness, and violence as the solutions to conflict – still persist as a shared cultural consciousness.

Meanings absorbed from images are part of the present, since they refer to what we know at this moment. Ubiquitous in many homes are images from television news coverage. The news reports are secondary and often interpret the journalists’ photographs in only one way, planting the seeds for how we are to see news images.

Further, meanings we make from visual information are foundational to future understandings Images that communicate their very identity to young people today impact who and what they will become as adults.”

It’s a longer excerpt, but I feel like it gives a great perspective on our social and visual society. Think of where we are today and how integral the ever-present moving messages and poster boards are to our daily lives. Our contextual existence runs off of what we have perceived and digested over the years of decoding messages sent to us by marketing managers. And how could it not? We, as humans, are communicators and social creatures that need to relay our messages, have them listened to, and receive feedback to those that we communicate with. However, when the communication occurs from people trying to make money to people who are not only gullible, but also interested in money, the lines become blurred and the honesty and genuine messages we are looking for get lost. Throughout our lives that is part of what we search for, right? Honest and genuine people to walk along with us bring us home.

If the images we see and the messages we accept from our surrounding worlds dictate feelings of racism, discrimination, doubt, shame, and superiority complexes then what type of society does that propagate? How are we to break out of the mold and communicate messages of change if we have been suppressed our whole lives and given validation for our cowardice or self-esteem issues? Is this the point of it all or just a happy accident by billionaires?

At this time, it is our duty to decode these messages and understand that as verbal and communicative creatures, we have the power to raise our voices and speak for the change that we wish to see. We can provide the framework to an open discussion about what we need in our communities and our world in order to feel safe, supported, and loved. Everyone needs that to live and to this point, we have given nothing but judgement, shame, doubt, and scrutiny towards people who are trying their hardest to feel safe, supported, and loved. If we don’t adjust the conversation and talk about this with others, nothing will ever change. Those billionaires will continue to facilitate our train of thought by the images they put out there and eventually make things worse by alienating individuals who are giving all they have to be a part of humanity. This isn’t to say that everyone follows this status quo, it is a suggestion to the masses that we need to engage in the conversations that we have to the extent where change talk is possible. We can make positive change in our every day lives, so let’s do it!

Question for the week: How can you switch your conversations to include meaningful and important messages on a regular basis?

Task for the week: On a piece of paper or electronic device, write down sources of images that you decode daily. How does it effect the way that you live your life? How does it effect your perception of being who you are? What could you do to make these messages more positive?

Until next time, with love,

Krysta