Since the theme for my third project is reasoning, I took my project in the direction of domestic abusive relationships since there is always a question that has'nt been answered - why? That's where reason comes into my project. Everyone has heard about abuse relationships, wether it be physical or emotional, everyone is aware that these things happen, so why do they continue to happen? Since relationships have been established there has always been a thing revolving around abuse against one another while being in a relationship, wether it be for lack of control or power, there has never been a single answer as to why these people do what they do, Domestic abusive relationships is not only a serious situation for the two involved, but also for the families surrounding them and if children are in the home, it surely has a impact on them wether it be verbal abuse or physical. Children raised in homes where domestic abuse has became a routine in their daily lives it normalizes the dysfunction of the family, and the cycle of domestic abuse continued through these children to their partners and their own children. It is a cycle of events seen everywhere that is on a endless rollercoaster ride.
For my art portion of my third project, I drew a granite drawing of a asymmetrical shampoo bottle to represent a specific detail out of a story I read during research. A main point of research in my project was reading detailed stories of different abusive relationships told from the perspective of the victim, in different scenarios of each individual story as not a single one is alike. Through reading pages of endless stories I ran across one that stood out to me for some reason, and it was told from a females perspective about how she gotten herself into a terrible situation with her now stalker. He story began with her taking interest in a man who was locked up for reasons she didn't know of,all she knew was she felt attraction and interest in this man. She didn't specify how long he was locked up for yet as soon as he got out everything seemed so perfect and she felt she had finally got a taste of the fairytale romance she craved so deeply. Out of nowhere her once so close fairytale began to fall apart, her partner calling her names and slowly becoming obsessive over things as small as what she wore and as big as even controlling what people of her family she could have contact with. One thing led to another and the controlling ways only got worse and worse until there was a point in the story which made this one seem different to me. Her and her boyfriend were taking a innocent shower together, no arguing had previously taken action but mid shower he picked up a shampoo and started beating the woman with it, without mercy until she was bleeding then got out, and left her with nothing but what had just happened to her. From that moment forward, things had only gotten more and more tragic for her. He seemed to invent invisible barriers to not let her leave his sight, which dramatically turned to injecting her forcefully with heroin for a week straight, at first allowing her to run to the woods to get sick but the next day forcing her to stay in his car and get sick in the backseat each time this happened. Towards the end of her story she revealed he use to take her to the woods to beat her with belts and whips so nobody could hear her cries, then she took action. I took a lot of inspiration from this story in the sense of what to use for my art. I selected the shampoo bottle out of this story to represent what this woman, and though possibly not this exact situation but other victims of abuse have dealt with. I took something that when someone looks at it would think nothing other than what they saw and turned it into a symbolic piece to represent what this woman had went though, Through my process of creating my piece I developed a technique used by artist Jim Dine, and my product is the outcome.
For my social studies portion I decided to research a couple very well in the spotlight that was undeniably abusive to each other. Thinking of this very idea, I chose Whintey Houston and Bobby Brown to analyze not only their relationship but their patterns of abuse through out their relationship together and individual careers. Through lot of research on both Houston and Browns behavior and decisions on their own individual part, I came to. create a mind map of what has caused abusers to act out with examples such as being raised in a abusive relationship between their parents to substance issues. Another mind map of mind covered a timeline of Houston and Browns relationship and how and when things began to fall downhill. I researched interviews between Whitney and Bobby to understand their perspective.
For my English portion I kept the theme reasoning in mind while I went in the direction of writing a poem and a short story, one from the perspective of just a average human in a relationship that has just began to fall downhill, the other from a blurb of a day in the life of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. The reasoning aspect came into play in my writing was by sampling tones in the way they are suppose to be portrayed within my project. I fused very descriptive words into my poems to capture the innocence of a pure relationship that seems to turn toxic quicker than light, as it is so uncalled for and happened while both partners can be so unaware. The short story was meant to capture the feeling of uncertainty and lost of power through out the relationship. It is meant to show that despite them being captured constantly in the spotlight, there are still flaws in every relationship, not just "normal"ones.
1992. What do roses have on bruises? A prologue to the epilogue. Thorns to ruptured blood vessels isn’t a very fair comparison. Wedding bands and white doves; hidden lies concealed by vows taken escape promises at the hand of white feathers. “I do.” We planted fields of flowers together, stitching the stems together in unison; in sun or rain, life or death, mended as one; one love. How did bottles of champagne twist into spilt liquor and shattered glass upon a marble floor? I saw you. Slowly, you tore up the roots of our fields with your bare hands forgetting the thorns, stomping the leaves off the stems onto the cold, cold ground, killing them without a chance. You held life in the palm of your hand, It didn’t seem to move you. It was the love of us, And yet you pulled off petal by petal, until it was just the seed left burrowed into the lines of your palm. I know you heard the screaming, screaming as life was ripped out of complete reach; maybe I was too naive to think it could ever be me. It couldn’t be me. It became me. You planted me in your palm, nourished me to a blossom, promised to nurture me eternally, yet as soon as the red petals began to bend with age, they were pulled. You locked me up inside you; where everything dies. Killing me so softly, that not even I realized the roses began to wilt inside me.
This poem represents how an abusive relationship progresses, through the story of a newly married couple, where flaws begin to show within the (abuser) in subtle but obvious ways. At the wedding day, vows were made to love, cherish, protect, nurture each other and follow their parts in a relationship, yet the abuser lacked and began to manifest himself within unhealthy addictions portrayed as “killing flowers.” I took inspiration from many abusive relationships stories and almost all of them started off with happy beginnings, and I addressed this through them planting flowers together in the first place, as it was a sign of their love; full of life. I started the poem off with a comparison of a red rose and a bruise, as if foreshadowing the physical altercations that would become present later in the relationship. I wrote the poem thinking of a naive person in the position of a victim who had heard all the stories of domestic abuse in others stories but felt reassured by the fact they told themselves it would never be them in those same positions. Knowing this, the victim decided to overlook the unhealthy desires and designs to “kill innocent flowers” despite them being planted to symbolize their love for each other. Toward the end of the poem I made the victim take the role of a seed of a flower, being planted in her abusers palm, as if giving her complete will to him, not only in marriage but as well in general. I did this because all of the stories I read about situations of abuse they all had the theme of control in common. Most abusers crave control over their victim, wether it be holding them back from seeing family or wearing what they want, its a aspect of control they feel they need to have over someone. The poem ends with the sentences “You locked me up inside you; where everything dies. Killing me so softly, that not even I realized the roses began to wilt inside me,” meaning the abuser is toxic to her, took control over her and infected her with their toxicity. This could be taken in several ways, one being she is realizing he took advantage of her, and took over control without her even realizing it.
It was beautifully tragic, misery loved their company. The empty remains of white powder was sprawled across a glass topped coffee table while a hot bath bubbled away to the rim, almost over flooding onto the marble tile floor. A brown beauty queen with bruises along her arms sat on the edge of a white set bed, her hands resting against her hollow, rosy cheeks; distress stained across her facial features. “I will always love you,” muffled sobs escaped through a rouge torn pair lips, and dazed drizzling amber eyes. Things were like a staircase; spiraling downward quicker than the speed of light, untwisting the seams of what use to be and promises that were once made. “Bobby, we can’t keep doing this,” her fragile figure was swallowed around twisted dollar bills and flicked out blunt buds, none of her previous tactics helped anymore to keep her mind away from the hits. The strikes came with carnage, brutality and selfishness, yet nothing compared to the shame of masking the inflictions behind light toned foundation. Time was spinning like broken clocks, the busted glass splattered everywhere, and it hurt to walk across. It sliced like a metal razor blades against bottoms of exposed feet, and that was exactly how their love was, stained of blood and ruins, their romance was fueled with nothing but toxicity. “Don’t tell me what we can’t keep doing, Houston.” A deepen voice sunken in with self assurance bounced off each and every wall near, claiming the upper hand of the situation, while his actual hand was taken up by the space of a bottle of vodka. Heavy destructive footsteps pondered the wooden floorboard with a purpose, a free hand swiped backwards and forward with one motive, a turbulent crack of sound pierced the air followed by a damaged howl of terror, and sheer pain. It was relentless with no shame whatsoever behind closed doors, yet as soon as the shine of the outside world shown through, masked perfections were placed on, and nobody had a single clue of what happened within the cornered hotel rooms. But, what those walls saw are the exact things nobody would ever know, or uncover. “Stop! I’m over it!” Louder now, the malicious tone rose above the wails of pure pain, emotional and physical. A set of lighter toned amber eyes glanced up, crystalline tears stained the distress onto the once blank canvas of a face; now settled bruises along her predominate cheekbones, it was a cynical situation, none the less. Through a agonized body propelled on the bitter tile floor caged away now by sharp glades of a liquor bottle, it felt as if the world was in turbulence; plummeting down and down without any relent. “They’ll find out one day,” the shunned body’s voice let out, full of shame and disbelief, but a tone of self reassurance growling from the soil planted within those five words. Those five words grew flowers of the outside, soon, everyone knew her pain. Everyone.