The Magical Place

Welcome to the place where reality takes its leave, and soft light and music fill the atmosphere, the one place where I always feel like I belong. Affectionately dubbed "the Magical Place, " this small slice of campus seems mundane by day. Once darkness falls though, the stars dance across the velvety black sky and a sense of calmness and serenity prevails. Natural beauty reigns supreme here, and all of life's little problems cease to exist. With the whole of my heart, I love the Magical Place. It truly is aptly named.

Ye Olde Wall of Athens Music Posters

Well, ok. Technically, this isn't my art... However, I decided to do another joint picture post to show off the beginnings of my wall of Athens music posters. I feel like the pirate flag and the butterfly in the corner add a bit of personality to the white expanse, but the true stars are the posters themselves. I obtained each of them at a memorable concert where one of my top five favorite Athens bands performed. Soon, I hope to add a whole lot more posters to the wall including a few from Venice is Sinking, some from my two Atlanta favorites (Stellate and the Constellations), and several from other local bands that I enjoy. Maybe one day I'll truly have a whole wall of music!

To read about all of the bands mentioned on the posters, check out http://echoreynofathens.blogspot.com!

Dimensional Life

In order to apologize for my completely unacceptable month-long lack of posts and in order to celebrate back-to-school week, I give you one of my very favorite light creations. Like many of the others, this was derived from a small section of one of the pictures I took at Walt Disney World a few years ago. I love the way the light bends to make it look almost three-dimensional. It appears that the glowing strands are actively flowing through tubes of clear, tangible air. The colors, too, are so vivid that all of the other light pictures pale in comparison beside this creation. Ah, I love it so much, and I hope you will too!

P.S. If you're reading this, and your name is Sheila, please call me!

Silver Lining

Over the past weekend, while at Athfest in Athens, Georgia, I took a picture of a large sign with some gorgeous clouds in the background. On a whim, I decided to see if these clouds could be used to design another, quite unique patterned picture. Looking at it now, I'm very pleased with my success. Because of its soft and subtle light changes and colors, this is certainly the most original and quite possibly the most beautiful light pattern I've created. It makes me think of Heaven, endless and eternal.

40 Watt Lights

In anticipation of Athfest 2009, I decided to post a light pattern that I created from the colorful lights that hang in Athens' famous club, the 40 Watt. I took the original picture at the very first Venice is Sinking show that I attended, and then I edited my favorite section of the lights in Paint. I can't wait to see them again at Athfest this weekend!

Echoreyn of Athens logo

Once again, I've got a nonstandard art piece here. This time, I decided to post the new video logo I made for the Echoreyn of Athens YouTube channel. At first, I intended to just layer the dark red and the brick backgrounds and add the words in black with my picture nailed underneath. However, when I finished that, it looked too polished, too serious. My channel is about the downtown scene, the music scene, where eternal youth reigns supreme! I needed more.

I thought back to the last time I was in Athens, and a picture flashed in my mind. I remembered a wall beside a doorway just behind Tasty World with graffiti that read "Witch". Now that just wouldn't do, but the graffiti idea intrigued me. I began to think about the bathrooms in all of the clubs and bars I'd been to in Athens - their walls were covered in graffiti as well, and often times these words were about bands and songs and music. Perfect! As you can see, the idea solved my problem quite wonderfully. The graffitied brick wall looks just like something I might find in Athens, the famous music scene.

I chose the words specifically to convey positive messages about music. Also, all but one of the little sayings represents a favorite Athens or Atlanta band of mine. If you could guess which words refer to which band, I'd be incredibly impressed. If no one can, though, I'm content to keep it my little secret.

Basically, this is exactly the logo I was looking for.

The Whale and the Arches

In November of last year, three of my friends and I traveled to Atlanta to see a Crumbling Arches show. During the journey there and back, I filmed a four-part vlog series about our excitement at seeing them perform.

I created this little animated intro for the vlogs using the program Paint. It took me several days to perfect it, but I'm rather proud of the way it turned out. In the intro, I attempted to depict a whale submerging, representing the Whale of Time so often referred to in their music and their art. I also chose to use an anchor to pull the arches apart much like the anchor they mention in many of their lyrics. I drew the lettering in Paint as well based on the lettering shown on the cover of their CD, The Somnambulist. My favorite part of the intro, however, is the wave that crashes against the arches. It doesn't necessarily represent anything specific, but I love how it interrupts the steady stream of similar-looking waves hitting the shore.

I finished the intro by putting the track "Phantom" by Crumbling Arches over the video. Although the whole intro only lasts a few seconds, I certainly think it's one of my more creative artistic pieces.

Happily Listening

I have never simultaneously posted the same picture on both of my blogs, but I thought I'd try something new this time. Although this is not the run-of-the-mill art piece or even artistic photograph, I love it because it demonstrates the use of found objects and existing structures to reinforce an idea. In this instance, my goal was to take a picture of my friend Sheila in such a way that the photograph conveyed the idea that she was happily listening to music in downtown Athens. We discovered this cleverly designed fence during a spontaneous tour of the Athens area after a concert, and we both were enthralled by it. What a find! Then Sheila adopted her well-practiced "happily listening" face (an inside joke between us based on my first mention of her in my blog) and voilá! One of my favorite pictures of the semester was born.

Let's see how long it takes her to find this, shall we? :)

The Robots Are Taking Over

Here's another light pattern that I wanted to share with you. This one was created from a small bit of colored light bouncing off of a disco ball. To me, it looks to be some sort of harsh metallic wall. In my mind, it conjures up scenes of technologically-advanced robots battling for control of our precious planet Earth... Or maybe I've just been watching too many summer blockbusters! Either way, enjoy!

Light as a Patterned Cloth

Sometimes light ceases to look anything like light. This particular creation, in my opinion, more closely resembles an American Indian weaving pattern than a colored reflection from a disco ball. It's times like these that I learn to value the hidden beauty that exists, unseen, in our everyday world.

Corporate Gallows

I thought I'd take a break from light patterns this week to show off a bit of my less abstract artwork. This is one of the first pictures I've drawn in pencil that I consider to be a work of "art." Before this, I had never attempted shading on more than just a few shapes with clear light sources. Also, this is the first piece I've drawn that I believe accurately depicts what I see in my mind whenever I hear a song lyric. In this case, every time I hear the line in the Crumbling Arches song Mundane Patterns, "You saw us at the corporate gallows with ties around our necks," this picture appears in my mind. The image of the men in their business suits, hanging from their ties always haunted and fascinated me. I chose to shade the picture in grayscale in order to make the bloodred tie stand out more distinctly.

I spent several months perfecting this picture during my Risk Management class, the perfect place to draw a businessman at the end of his tether. Those who saw it were duly frightened, and I'm sure more than a few of them reported me to the respective authorities in fear that I would somehow become a dangerous criminal after drawing such a "graphic" picture. However, some praised me for my determination to draw something that evoked such a stong emotion, and several asked questions. The most popular question was: Did the boss hang him or did he hang himself? I think the answer to this question can be left up to the viewer. It's your choice. Was working until 4:22 A.M. the final straw in this man's quest for escape, or was it something more sinister? Another popular question was: How did the wall break away? I feel that it was just a natural occurence. As he hung himself, or was being hanged, the floor and the wall simply cracked away, and moonlight spilled in, lighting the way for his final release.

I'm more than just a little bit proud of this piece. Also, I can't wait to see my eighth Crumbling Arches show this Friday!

Lattice Flame

Over the weekend, I went to a club downtown and noticed this lonely little flame atop a tiki torch. With a bit of editing, I managed to make it look like fiery latticework. As I've said before, this "artwork" is all just in the experimental stages, but I loved the challenge of working with a different type of light.

The Semi-Weekly Picture of the Week

I enjoy experimenting with photographs of colored lights and reflective surfaces and creating unrecognizable artistic pieces with portions of these photos. As such, I've developed a talent for designing backgrounds and visually appealing pictures using the concepts of image transposition and reflection. I create all of my light pieces with the standard Paint program on Windows, and I use them for a variety of purposes. This particular picture was created from a section of lights at a Walt Disney World night parade. It currently exists as a header on my music myspace and has the potential to be a future CD cover assuming I ever actually develop my abilities enough to put the lyrics I've written to music. Stay tuned for more pictures next week!

Why Echoreyn? Where did that come from?

Several people have approached me about the name of my alter ego, my pseudonym if you will, Echoreyn. Where did it come from? Did I come up with it? And am I the only Echoreyn there is?

I thought I'd spare everyone the mystery and finally provide an explanation. Echoreyn is a name I came up with in early 2005 when I was brainstorming for character names to use in a novel I was writing at the time. Many of the names I invent for characters are combinations of two separate names that I adore, and this is no exception. Echo comes from the ancient Greek tale of Echo and Narcissus. Echo was a shy creature, cursed to only repeat the words that she heard others speak. She fell in love with the vain Narcissus, but, enthralled by his own reflection, he never even noticed her. Reyn comes from the name Reyna which is a Spanish name with royal connotations. Essentially, together, Echoreyn means "Queen of the echoes."

After giving this name to a character in a video game that I began to play in 2005, I started to feel a strong connection to it. Like Echo, I often felt like I was unable to speak to others. I've always been a bit of an introvert, and my feeling of invisibility was matched by Echo's own nonexistence. Also, I have always loved the name Reyna because of both its meaning and its similarity to the word rain. There is nothing I love more than dancing outside on a warm summer's day in the pouring rain.

As far as I know, I am currently the only Echoreyn in existence. Since late 2007 when I began to use this name for my internet persona, I've garnered an extremely extensive web presence. I'm quite sure, therefore, that any and all mentions of Echoreyn are references to my own alter ego.

So there you go! I am, and forever will be, Echoreyn.