For my last three pieces, that culminate into the completion of the project coursework and ‘pull it all together,’ I chose a hot-button topic. Gay Marriage.
For the first ‘issue’-themed project, module 3, I chose a relatively harmless issue, one that couldn’t really be argued against successfully. For this module, I had to push the issue. I know there are two sides to every argument, but with all due respect to anyone and everyone, if you don’t think people in love have the right to marry, you are wrong. I find it appalling that, if I so chose, I could divorce my husband tomorrow, go to Vegas and have a person dressed like Elvis marry me to a man I barely know, but true soul mates who happen to be homosexual, have no right to get married. My husband’s best friend is gay, and half of the people I know are bisexual, or gay. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they have constraints placed on their lives, during a time when approximately half of all [hetero]marriages end in divorce, and the "Sanctity of Marriage" can be stepped on and battered around by heterosexuals as much as they like, which leads me to my first piece.
This piece is all about the flash-in-the-pan 55 hour marriage Britney Spears went through, very publicy, making a mockery of the concept of marriage as sanctimonious, or the religious right between a man and a woman. Without actively engaging the religious right, I made this first piece to showcase how casual marriage is allowed to be treated by heterosexuals.
I used a quote from an article on the 55 hour marriage from here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=128102&page=1. The top and bottom text are stylized with stroke, outer glow, and bevel. The inner picture uses inner and outer glow, and stroke. The images of Britney on the side got a duplicate layer, which a filter of film grain was applied to, then the opacity was lowered. The original layers of the side circle pictures were then adjusted via hue/saturation to a purple/magenta. The banner was filled in using gradient. I used bright colors to really draw the audience in. I know this 55 hour marriage is old news, but it still demonstrates how moronic the issue is in 2011.
I used the following images for this piece:
The next piece was inspired by an article, which I found by clicking a link off of Gay Marriage for New York, a facebook page I am a ‘fan’ of. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gay-Marriage-for-New-York/78689587354 ; it linked to http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/27/local/la-me-adv-gay-marriage-stay-20110328 which is a compelling article about an old gay couple who have been together 40 years, but can’t get married, and they are running out of time since one of them has Alzheimer’s. I think I did a good job summing it up and making it poignant to the issue at hand.
For this piece, I started by creating the background. To do this, I picked two shades of violet and used the filter, render, clouds. From there, I made a new layer, and applied another filter, halftone paper, using black and white. I changed the opacity on that layer drastically, and came up with the background.
Next I copied the image of the elderly gay couple over, and applied a bevel to it. (http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-03/60455062.jpg)
I put in the rainbow down the side next, then put in all the text. I made a grey background for the pink text, then I applied ‘stroke’ to all the text. I left the composition simplistic, yet compelling.
My last piece had the least graphical elements to begin with so I had to make up for it with creative layout and backgrounds.
My inspiration was the very simple but effective image located here: http://i.imgur.com/WBcr4.jpg
To get the background effect, I picked two pastel pinks. I used a filter of Threads, then I used the modify/selection to get a border, which I played with a new layer. I used black and white and a filter of chalk&charcoal, then converted to smartobject, and lowered opacity. I used the shape tools to make the shapes, then added the text, all with black 2 pt stroke, and then finally, I used a new layer and a rectangle with the layer fx pattern overlay, overlaid the pattern and lowered the opacity. Not a ton of work, but some playing around, and it makes a better, cleaner, more engaging version and it still rings poignantly true.
My final culmination, three pieces using techniques learned and improved upon in this class, to support gay marriage,
