by Blogbot

Artist / SG Member Name: Dylan Borgman / Seahorse

Mission Statement: I decided on portraiture a long time ago at an art museum. I realized how every time I’d look at a painting the first thing I’d ask myself is who is this person and why did someone take the time to paint them? People are fascinated by each other. What are they doing? Why are they doing that? The answer to that can often be found in the person’s face.

That’s how I fell down the rabbit hole. I started painting large oil paintings of people caught in the middle of awkward expressions. My paintings were imposing and bizarre, and while I liked the darkness and the strangeness I could convey with paint, it also dragged me down emotionally. Eventually, I decided that my scope was too narrow and that I wanted to try depicting other emotions you don’t see every day like arousal. So my work suddenly took a turn into photographing Suicide Girls.

It’s not such a strange transition. I’ve always also been a professional photographer. I base my paintings on photography, and ever since I began painting, I’ve been working with real people in uncomfortable situations. What I like about working with Suicide Girls in comparison to most of the so-called “erotic” models is that most of them have no formal modeling training and unlike most gigs, SG lets the community voice their opinions before a model is accepted so you end up with a lot of very motivated, courageous, and unique individuals.

A few months ago, an illustrator and friend of mine, Steve Curucu, who does a lot of nudes, even some with SG’s, inspired me to try another stab at painting. So that’s what I’ve been experimenting with the past few months with some very interesting results.

Medium: I started in oils working on a large scale. Most of my paintings are six feet wide or larger. Then later I got used to a Wacom tablet. Now I use both. My digital artwork is a blend of photography, illustration, and painting, but I don’t limit myself by medium either. I weld, I work with beads, wire, rope, origami, I sculpt in clay, I program, I sew, I develop, I write – the list goes on. And of course I’m a photographer, that’s the other side of my creative life.

Aesthetic: My painting aesthetics tend toward Joseph Turner, Vincent Van Gogh, Chuck Close, and Rembrandt. It’s worth mentioning that they all share the virtue of being incredible color theorists, which is something I aspire to be. CF Payne was a local artist where I grew up and he was a big inspiration for me. His work is photographically based, and he works with multiple mediums layered one on top of another to create beautiful portraits. Illustrators also play a big part of my aesthetic. People like Bill Watterson, Ralph Steadman, and of course my father who is a cartoonist as well, all played a seminal role in getting me interested in art in the first place.

Notable Achievements: My work has been shown at the Cincinnati Museum of Art and the Montgomery Art Center in Claremont, and I received the Golden Galaxy Award in 2001. Articles about me and my work have appeared in The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati Magazine, and Fixie Magazine.

Why We Should Care: I think people intrinsically care about art. You don’t have to tell someone to appreciate a beautiful painting; they do it on their own. I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, art is about communicating to others the emotional energy of a moment that I have experienced. That’s why I use strong colors and iconic expressions. If I’ve done this successfully then others will care because it reminds them of their own feelings or experiences. It’s also why I like SuicideGirls. It’s a community of extremely creative people communicating with one another visually as I do.

I Want Me Some: If you’re interested in prints or originals contact dylan@dylanborgman.com or go to my web site DylanBorgman.com and click “contact.”

[..]

by Laurelin

There are a lot of things I remember about certain people, and a lot of things I’m sure I forget. A lot of the things I remember I wish I didn’t, some things make me smile, things remind me that I’m human, that things change, people change. I remember tracing outlines, wanting my fingertips to remember every dimple, every muscle line, every tattoo. I remember smells, sounds, songs playing before I drift off to sleep, songs playing in clubs when our eyes meet across the dance floor and I can just breathe in a beat. But always with these memories, I remember that things change.

I feel like I have already lived a lifetime of change when it comes to my friend Ben. I remember the first time I ever saw him, a fleeting moment of eye contact in a filthy frat house and I thought, “who is THAT…” and he was gone, and it didn’t matter because whoever he was, this was my boyfriend’s frat house. Ben and I wouldn’t talk much that summer, but I always remembered him.

Fast-forward to a year later, long after my boyfriend and I had broken up, and I was turning 21. It was a Tuesday night, and as the lights flashed for last call at my first bar my best friend Lisa ran up to me. I was drunker than I’d ever been before, and she was smiling as she gestured towards the door.

“I found him,” she said, “for your birthday. I found him, that guy from the frat house.” And there he was, she had found him somehow, and that was the beginning. It was a fairy tale in a sense, a sorority girl in a pink lettered sweatshirt and a smirking sarcastic guy with tattoos, something that didn’t make such sense but would be all and none of the sense I knew from then on.

It seems so far off now, but all those year ago I did love him, or I thought I did. We dated, we were inseparable, we would hit a rough patch and take a break. We would fight, like really fight; screaming and crying, nights where I would just want to die if he wouldn’t speak to me again. I did things that I haven’t done since and will never do again, things I can’t even say out loud let alone type. I am the most ambitious person I know, but I remember I wrote him a letter, saying that I could lay with him forever and be happy with everything I never did. Time stood still and moved like liquid at the same time. It wasn’t right, perfect to no one else but me. Then one day, he was gone.

When I say gone, I mean gone. Years together and then just gone, disappeared, fallen off the planet. It was one year almost to the day until I heard from him again. I can’t say what happened in that year; but finally, after indescribable hurt, I was eventually healing. Everything that’s happened to me since that moment has seemed like nothing I can’t conquer, every break up since then has been tough, but almost laughable. It was the longest year of my life, and then one day, it was over. 12 months later I looked down at the glow of my flip phone and recognized his number. I should have known better than to answer it I’m sure, but the apology on the other end of the phone was really a long time coming.

Add a few more years, a lot of bad choices (meeting his father for the first time while I was drunk at work at a strip club in a naughty nurse uniform), and a few good choices (endless concerts, dancing all night, swimming at the beach by moonlight, traveling to Ireland together) and we somehow found ourselves over the worst, over the on and off dating and finally, just plain friends. I don’t know when I stopped loving him, but somewhere along the line I finally found ME, and I realized that while I had always thought there was no me without him, that wasn’t the case at all.

Ten years later he would have the perfect description of what happened to us between now and then: “You moved to Boston, you found this life, this strong personality and you stopped being that small town girl from Rhode Island, that girl who just wanted someone to love her.” Our strong personalities clash, and one afternoon a few weeks ago I made a call, and he must have recognized my number. Ten years later, after yet another year of not speaking, I’m finally looking at him from across my bar. We’re both smirking with tattoos now, and I see our life together in a blur of colors, sounds, hurt feelings, songs and traced outlines. We order a round of shots and I rest my head on his shoulder, finally with my best friend again after all this time.

“How do you guys know each other?” my friend asks, pulling up a bar stool. Ben and I look at each other.

“It’s a long story,” I say, smiling.

[..]

by A.J. Focht

Many a rumor about the upcoming The Avengers film has been laid to rest. On January 31, the official Avengers Twitter had a chat with fans answering the most pressing questions. For a portion of the chat, Joss Whedon was on hand and the ‘For JW’ tag started trending. One of the rumors squashed was talk of an Amazing Spider-Man cameo. Whedon personally put this rumor down.

More information has come out about Arrow, the Green Arrow pilot in production by the CW. Instead of tying the show back to Smallville and trying to capture that audience, they have really reworked the Green Arrow’s story. Oliver Queen’s mother is still alive and he will have a little sister that seems to be a catalyst for most of the trouble he has to stop. Some DC characters will show up, such as Black Canary, but they will not play their superhero roles, at least not as of yet. The part of Oliver Queen aka the Green Arrow has been given to Stephen Amell.

Marvel’s major comic event this year, Avengers VS. X-Men will be starting this March. Marvel has released a sneak preview of the Avengers VS. X-Men #0 where all the problems will start. This first issue sets up the crucial roles of Scarlet Witch and Hope Summers. The two most powerful ladies in the Marvel universe will be going head-to-head, each with a super powered team to back them.

Speaking of new comics, IDW Publishing, will be starting a Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms comic series. D&D fans have a chance to have their characters featured in the comics. You can find all the rules for the character creation contest here.

One of the biggest names in comics, Stan Lee, is launching his own website. You can sign up for updates from the site and a chance to win autographed merchandise right now, but the full site won’t launch till February 8. On top of contests and games, the sites main function will be behind-the-scenes looks into Stan’s new projects.

Zoe Saldana talked Star Trek 2 in a recent interview. While she couldn’t say much, she all but told us that there is more to come between Spock and Uhura. Star Trek writer Robert Orci also came out with a few comments, these ones directed at fans. In a fan driven industry like Star Trek, the fans are the best and worst part of it, and Orci has had enough of them second guessing him. In short, Orci pointed out that they did well with the first remake and that success has earned them a lot of leeway with the studio. He doesn’t promise the movie will be good, but he does promise it will be exactly what they want it to be.

On a final note, you can stop holding your breath waiting for Blizz Con 2012 to be announced, it’s not happening. Blizzard Entertainment would rather focus on releasing Diablo 3, Heart of the Swarm and Mists of Pandaria than wasting their time organizing another convention. This doesn’t mean they don’t love their fans and the convention will be back in 2013. As someone who has personally attended multiple Blizz Cons, they should take a break. Doing it yearly means they never have enough new news to justify bringing out thousands of fans from around the world. Hopefully, this way they will have something substantial to show us next time.

by David Seaman & Ashley Carey

DavidSeamanOnline contributor Ashley Carey wasn’t thrilled with President Obama’s recent YouTube/Google+ hangout on January 30th. Neither was I!

It was an epic fail, in my opinion.

But hey, this isn’t Google’s fault. They gave the President an awesome global platform, and his administration chose to use it to peddle the same old cult of personality, instead of allowing him to engage citizens — thousands asked about NDAA and marijuana policy, yet these two 600 gazillion ton elephants in the room were carefully sidestepped.

Positively Orwellian, if you ask me.

That’s not what social media is supposed to be about.

David Seaman is an independent journalist. He has been a lively guest on CNN Headline News, FOX News, ABC News Digital, among others, and on his humble YouTube channel, DavidSeamanOnline. Some say he was recently censored by a certain large media corporation for posting a little too much truth… For more, find him on G+ and Twitter.

Related Posts:

SG Political Contributor David Seaman Discusses Ron Paul/Mitt Romney Media Bias
Interview: Gov. Buddy Roemer on Barack Obama, NDAA, SOPA, Corruption, Ron Paul, and More
Is Obama Avoiding Awkward Questions About The NDAA?
Senator Rand Paul Detained by TSA Agents – Plus NDAA & ACTA Updates
SG Political Contributor David Seaman Discusses SOPA and NDAA
NDAA And Occupy Congress: What If You Now Live In A Dictatorship, And No One Told You?
NDAA 101: Fact Vs. Fiction

by Ackley Suicide

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.

This week Ackley dishes on the tasty truth behind SG’s Some Like It Raw group.

Members: 370 / Comments: 817

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: It’s a great place to get recipes and info on raw foods and see how it’s changed the lives of different SG Members.

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “Let Food Be Thy Medicine.”

MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: We are kind of “Anti Heat” when it comes to cooking, wink wink, but we eat more than twigs and berries – I promise.

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: I encourage anyone and everyone to join. Find out how you can add a little more life in your diet. See my before and after results here!!!

[..]

This past Sunday (January 30), SG radio presenters Nicole Powers (SG’s Managing Ed), Lacey Conner (all round rockstar and recovering VH1 reality TV star), and Darrah de jour (SG’s Red, White & Femme post-feminist sex and sensuality columnist) were joined in studio by actress turned lifestyle guru Mariel Hemingway and her partner, stuntman and fitness expert Bobby Williams. Together they have developed a holistic regimen, which they call The Willing Way.

The pair spent a full two hours in the SG Radio studio explaining their all-encompassing mind, body, and soul philosophy. Going from yin to yang, we discussed the importance of getting enough sunlight in your life (Mariel and Bobby like to watch the sun rise and set each day, though they avoid the burning midday rays), and how to keep darkness at bay. With her life having been touched by several suicides, Mariel spoke about how she battled her own depressive tendencies, and how she has empowered herself to find a sense of wellbeing.

This being SG Radio, there was also plenty of laughter, and lots of conversation on our favorite subject – sex. Thus, the first hour of our show was devoted to talk of orgasms – and the importance of having a healthy diet of them, in order to achieve a truly balanced life.

Tune in to SuicideGirlsRadio.Indie1031.com/ this Thursday, February 2, at 2 AM PST to hear a rebroadcast of the show.

For more information follow Mariel and Bobby / The Willing Way on Twitter.

Sash Suicide in Nirvana

• INTO: Movies, sex, being naked, lucky strikes, more sex….
• NOT INTO: Assholes.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Green tea and bubble gum ice cream, udon, driving, and being with my best friend and my boy.
• MAKES ME SAD: Being alone for long periods or time, not having sex, eating greasy foods.
• HOBBIES: Taking my clothes off.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Cell phone, cigarettes, black eyeliner, bracelets, and my tongue ring.
• VICES: Smoking and sex.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Naked.

Get to know Sash better over at SuicideGirls.com!