Thank you to everyone who followed along and supported my โsit here in this hurtโ series.
This whole process of the โsit here in this hurtโ series has helped me a lot, especially coming up to Christmas and during Lockdown, so thank you for following along with my creative journey.
โart speaks where words are unable to explainโ
Described by Taylor: โwillowโ is about intrigue, desire, and the complexity that goes into wanting someone. I think it sounds like casting a spell to make somebody fall in love with youโ
Willow also gives us a nod back to the โfolkloreโ album with the song August with the lyrics โIโd cancel my plans just in case you call.โ
The Lyrics โwreck my plans, thatโs my manโ really stuck out to me as my interpretation of these lyrics gives me an image of a toxic relationship where a person is proud of him wrecking their plans and will do anything just for him. The word โwreckโ sounds (to me) very aggressive, masculine and sexual which I wanted to covey in my piece with the rugged and ripped physical collage behind and the silhouette of a man with the willow tree projected on his torso.
โchampagne problems,โ tells the story of a woman who shocks her would-be fiancรฉ and their loved ones by turning down a marriage proposal right before Christmas. In a post about evermore, Taylor stated that the song depicts โlongtime college sweethearts who had very different plans for the same night, one to end it and one who brought a ring.โ
Champagne Problems is one of the best songs on the whole album, lyrically and poetically. I could have used so much imagery from the lyrics but the part which kept repeating in my head was โyour heart was glass, I dropped itโ I kept on thinking how I could create artwork for these lyrics, in the end, I found an old champagne glass wrapped it in a towel and smashed it. I took photos of the smashed glass and used the colour pallet to create an artwork in the same technique I have used for my new media artworks previously.
The blue colour pallet conveys the heartbreak and loss that the song creates๐ฅ
โgold rushโ is the third song on evermore, is a song depicting the jealousy she has because she is attracted to someone who everyone else is. Because of this, she has to stop picturing her life with them. ๐ซ
โโtis the damn seasonโ is the fourth track on evermore.
In the post prior to the release of the album, Taylor wrote that one of the song storylines on evermore was about โwhat happens when (Dorothea) comes back [from Hollywood] for the holidays and rediscovers an old flame.โ This likely refers to โโtis the damn seasonโ given the lyrical mentions of both Los Angeles and the winter holidays. Notably, evermore was released two weeks prior to Christmas.
I wanted to get the imagery of the Los Angeles skyline juxtaposed to an illustration of a warm cosy bed previously featured in my lockdown work 3:06 am, a similar work to Taylor releasing music during the lockdown. ๐
โTolerate Itโ is the fifth and most vulnerable song from evermore. This song is about the continuous struggle of wanting love from someone who isnโt even paying attention to anything you do for them. Again, this song lyrically is stunning and one of the songs I have on repeat. I used film photography for this piece as I wanted to get across an old feeling of an image, like an image which has been stuck in the drawer and forgotten about since the first date and now the people in the story are just โtoleratingโ each other and one wants it to work and try recreates the old love they used to have. ๐ฅ
โnobody, no crimeโ is an imaginative take on Swiftโs part on a true crime story, featuring HAIM band member Este Haim as the centre of a missing person case after being cheated on by her husband.
For this work, I took inspiration from postal censorship used during the world wars with key parts of the texts removed and only leaving the lyrics and words which mirror the song. I scanned and removed all the lettering and images from an article found in my local newspaper.
How can they prove it with nothing to back it up? ๐ฐ
Despite its name, โhappinessโ has a deceptive title. Itโs a track about moving on from a decaying relationship, but acknowledging the bits of joy that existed within a more destructive, hurtful context.
Behind the image I wanted to play with the context of acid rain but I just didnโt know how to execute it properly and after lots of brainstorming I wanted to have a figure crying, the acid rain tears as acid rain decays statues which is a metaphor for the relationship described in the song. I think this has to be one of my favourite pieces from the series, simple but so effective.