HISTORY DISENTANGLED: The Flying Dutchman (The African Colonial Generation)

in #steemstem7 years ago


"Whilst watching 'The Crown', the Flying Dutchman was mentioned, which triggered my #ketamine fuelled mind into curiosity, so I googled! And i read Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Dutchman

The image strongly haunted my mind! Like, I've seen it before, in fact! I know I have drawn this before in pastels, when I was 11 years old at school, weird dream memories came flooding back, like the thoughts that the 11 year old me was thinking at the time of drawing.

I remembered it was the first time that I ever attempted an art piece using pastels, being able to smudge colours in any directions i wanted...AND WITH MY FINGERS! :D Messy, colourful #art, I loved the idea of it! So I just picked up some colours and went with the flow.

I guess I was thinking of ships because my Grandad, who was an amazing artist, was always painting ships and oceans, and imagery from his WW2 Navy days.

At the time I had produced myself a master piece, my personal best at the time i thought!

A ship sailing on angry sea's with all of its souls reflecting belowing the surface, the pressure of being stuck underneath the angry emotional waters trying to get out, the ship is sailing with a guide, towards the orange sunset and calm oceans.

When i wiki'd #TheFlyingDutchman my mind swarmed with my pastel art from many years ago.
Luckily! my Mum had ensured to copy it, she always loved this picture. So much so, that she had my drawing copied onto a mug, and she also made some 6x4 photo copies too. THIS is what was in my head. I had to see if I was going insane. Why am i feeling such random and strong emotional tugs towards my 11 year old drawing whilst looking at wikipedia after randomly googling something the tv "told" me to.

I actually have a 6x4 copy of my pastel ship which my mother had gifted me, it's stuck on the corner of my bedroom mirror! So I grabbed it, scanned it, and on my computer screen I aligned the two pieces of art.... SO SIMILAR!!

Even the shading feels right.... coincidences or not, this was cool! The emotions and thoughts stemming from this were mostly inexplicabley complex and personal, so even if noone ever believes my tale, it doesn't matter. Seeing The Flying Dutchman painting by Albert Pinkham Ryder (1887) had already unlocked so many weird thoughts and memories that I was happily enjoying thinking to myself.

Of course when anyone gets a sign, the first thing to do should be to figure out it's history, look for clues as to why you have been given this sign.

This led to me spending the next 48 hours, using nothing but wikipedia and natural earworms, to design a short music mix to which I would begin to structure words and images around - all just using #moviemaker.

(#Ketamine really does help for focused endurance tasks!)

48 hours later i had finished phase 1 of this now called, History project.

I made a rule to myself to avoid using my own words at all costs. I had to rely on information that is already out there (then I cannot be claimed for any mis-truths), I used multiple #wikipedia pages and gathered lots of data, trying to structure it in order on a word doc as i kept delving deeper into this history lesson.

I had to find out what this Flying Dutchman was about, why so many claim to have seen it, what it could represent metaphorically, and when did it become a "thing"...

This ocurred a couple of weeks ago. I have been occupied with other things since.
But tonight, once again with the fuel of Ketamine, I have managed to complete my story....

And not only that, it was the first time I have really been bothered to make efforts and practice with timings and imagery, it's not the best in the world perhaps, but one can only improve as one tries! And this experience has led me to developing more creative ideas for which i could attempt to display information amusingly in the future thanks to #steemit and #dtube :D"

I hope you enjoy your journey through my eyes of history.

Big Loves

#SoundSightProductionzzz


▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
Sort:  

This is a test comment, notify @kryzsec on discord if there are any errors please.


GuidelinesProject Update

Being A SteemStem Member

Is this good enough for a bit of @ocd, @originalworks or @steemitboard support? :D

you should just use the ocd-resteem tag, steemitboard and original works aren't upvote services

Haha oooh never mind then :D