What is Self?

What is self?
Inwardly imagined
Outwardly projected
Recipient interpretation
Known and unknown
We remain our ‘self’
To be discovered again
And, again

SUE GRAUE – Visual artist

inspired by patterns and beauty
Photography is my passion
Capturing a moment in time, to share with others
Self-taught and professionally coached
My identity is not as a mother, sister or friend
But, an artist
This has been my transformation
I am grateful
To find my ’self’

(Sue participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)

Each person exists at each moment or day to day in one of five
centers: security, sensation, power, love, or transcendence.

From left to right, top to bottom:
- Homeless person, Battery and  Bush, San Francisco
- Protester and police officer, Market and 2nd, San Jose
- Private wine tasting, San Jose
- Stay single girl, How Weird Street Faire, San Francisco
- Performers and audience, Lost Vegas at CELLSpace, San Francisco
- Performance by Dept of Spontaneous Combustion, Fire Arts Festival, Oakland
- Vodka and propane
- Power buildings, Pine and Market, San Francisco
- Tight rope lesson, Dolores Park, San Francisco
- Friendship, San Jose
- Foggy morning, Guadalupe Creek, San Jose

TORROID – an alt living, working, and discovering art in the SF Bay Area

(Torroid participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)

Who do we choose to be?

Our actions, thoughts & feelings flow
like grains of wood in predictable patterns,
set by default or choice,
around the knotted events of our lives
sometimes we are surprised from our routine by fresh water drops
which magnify & reveal the myriad sparkling possibilities
hidden in each moment, awaiting our attention & intention
to bloom from the woodwork like a rose.

(Artwork and text by ELI JENKINS)

(Eli participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)