Erica profile picture

Erica

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Questioning authority, not just to question it, but to maintain my ability to think independently and to make my own decisions, not to be unique, but because I am hearing the beat from a drum that won't be silenced just because most people can't hear it. One of my most potent childhood memories comes from a day when I decided that dancing around a chair with a bunch of other four years olds singing silly childrens songs was, well, kind of dumb and a waste of my time. I never went back (to pre-school, that is) and spent my days chasing butterflies, watching bees land on flowers and gathering different types of moss - I was amazed by moss. And I still believe that too many people are ignoring that drum beat deep inside their souls and are wasting their time trying to conform . . . (and the capitalist machine loves them that way . . . with quieted drums):"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it . . .Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many . . .Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders . . .Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations . . .But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." -- Buddha I usually have my camera with me . . . I take pictures primarily as painting studies . . . my camera is a digital sketch book . . . I was born in Nicosia, Cyprus; lived in a few other cities in the world - Tokyo,Japan; Tunis,Tunisia; Caracas,Venezuela - - but home is always Philadelphia, even when I am not there, like now. PHILADELPHIA..I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4

My Interests

Painting, particularly in oils. . .I am intrigued by natural structure and elemental form as subject matter and the ways I might be able to abstract that in the visual images I create, using different methods of photography as a starting point (well, actually, the starting point is in my mind, and photography is a bridge between my mind and the canvas)"Since existence is prior to essence, the existential individual at every moment confronts the nothingness of existence. TRANSCENDENCE OCCURS WHEN THE INDIVIDUAL UNDERTAKES A PROJECT THAT WILL GIVE MEANING TO HIS OR HER LIFE. While such acts are individually subjective, they are intertwined with everyone else's reality. NO ACT, OR FAILURE TO ACT, IS WITHOUT LARGER MEANING AND CONTEXT. Most individuals are afraid to confront the responsibility entailed by radical freedom. Existentialism, initiated with the subjective despair of the individual, ends with an ethic founded upon the shared goal of human solidarity."Poetry, Edward Gorey, snow storms, Alphonse Mucha, Frank Lloyd Wright, very large drops of rain, collaboration between like minded individuals, words like "sublingual" and Tappanzee,Archaeology, the sound of the ocean, stimulating and even animated discussion, Philosophy, visiting Art Museums, laughing out loud, Photography, good friends, telescopes, microscopes, Foreign Travel, Genealogy

I'd like to meet:

But also creative, open-minded people willing to share the colors between the black and white . . .ARISTOTLE, Buddha ~ any and all amoungst us, Mother Nature, Andrew Wyeth, Ernest Hemingway, Christopher Walken, the lyrical genius Bob Dylan, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gloria Steinem . . . Jung, Joseph Campbell, Sartre and Simone, Foucault, Thomas Aquinas, but especially Joseph Campbell . . . anyone who worked at Zanzibar Blue in the early 90's - before the move to Broad Street . . . anyone else who grew up overseas in a diplomatic environment . . .

Music:

I appreciate her healing power in multiple and various forms . . .

Movies:

"The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism. Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images" ~Camille Paglia

Television:

same as above :)

Books:

Joseph Campbell: The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the Masks of God Series, the Power of Myth; Julia Cameron: "Vein of Gold" and "The Artist's Way", Sophie's World, Arisotle's Ethics, Karl Marx, The Feminine in Fairytales (von Franz), Tulku: Gesture of Balance and Dynamics of Time and Space, War and Peace (Tolstoy), Finnegan's Wake (James Joyce), ANYTHING by Hemingway, Doctor Zhivago (Pasternack), Bob Dylan Lyrics, Georgia O'Keeffe biographies, Sylvia Plath poetry - as well as anything by T.S. Eliot, Le Carre, Agatha Christie . . . books by James A. Michener . . . Art Books, I love Art Books, especially with respect to museum collections and exhibitions . . .

Heroes:

Gloria Rocks. "Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry" . . .People who are honest - everyday - which is not always easy, I know . . . anyone who stands up for what they believe in with a logical argument . . . And Kids - it takes some courage to get through being a kid sometimes, it's all new and unknown, sometimes scary . . . remember?

My Blog

The solitude of Alone

Now an Absence of AcumenMy heart dissolves, as a sleeping tablet does,In the acid of solitude's abdomen;Before my eyes, a wasteland where beauty was,And a soothsayer hints at grave omens;This acrid ba...
Posted by Erica on Thu, 31 May 2007 09:42:00 PST

fellow PA expatriots unite

Once a Pennsylvanian, ALWAYS a Pennsylvanian!  We've never referred to Philadelphia as anything but "Philly" and New Jersey has always been " Jersey" (well, we do have a few other names for both,...
Posted by Erica on Sat, 19 May 2007 10:59:00 PST

Until You Are Dead

Until You Are Dead   The City is calling, And the Girl is, too; Pulling upon your heart strings And the veins within you;   Behind your eyes, a vision, Of where you belong; Beneath your skin...
Posted by Erica on Wed, 28 Feb 2007 08:07:00 PST

sanguine igneous music

Sanguine Igneous Music   The perculating passion Brewing beneath my skin, Sanguine igneous music Flowing through veins within,   Suffused with molten juice And intertwined, Like vines, Nour...
Posted by Erica on Sat, 27 Jan 2007 07:21:00 PST

What Good Am I? ~Bob Dylan

What Good Am I? What good am I if I'm like all the rest,If I just turned away, when I see how you're dressed,If I shut myself off so I can't hear you cry,What good am I?What good am I if I know and do...
Posted by Erica on Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:39:00 PST

Eternally Wound

Eternally Wound   Vines, like veins, Have intertwined The cardinal carmine round;   A spiral rendered From the heart Within the dark and fertile ground;   Brilliant and green Interludes...
Posted by Erica on Tue, 19 Dec 2006 03:22:00 PST

Again, For the First Time

Again, For the First Time   Once, when I was very young, I thought another was the only one,   But such a vow, it could not hold, When upon heart's door true love knocks bold;   For wha...
Posted by Erica on Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:04:00 PST

"Biological Memory" 24" x 36" Oil Painting

"Biological Memory" 24" x 36" Oil Painting This painting of two soul mates finds its inspiration in a poem I wrote a while ago . . . I am still working, but it is almost finished . . . oh, ...
Posted by Erica on Mon, 04 Dec 2006 05:49:00 PST

Men Like These

Men Like These Out of conflict'sBlackAnd internal churningsOf blood And flesh And bone,History's narrative again puts forthMonitions that we already have known;Where enemy and ally are pawns in t...
Posted by Erica on Sat, 15 Jul 2006 07:27:00 PST

Flicker of the Interval

Flicker of the Interval   The cord Around my heart so tight The beating becomes forced; The blood Is now black and clotted, Where sanguine once freely coursed;   Unanswered questions ...
Posted by Erica on Mon, 23 Oct 2006 06:09:00 PST