Opposing Shores

On opposing shores he stands watching the same island, a year apart in time. A close subject, he now watches so jealously, the line where the forest meets the shore. And, on the other side, he sees two gentle cliffs, longing to ascend. All the while, the rivers flow and the mountains survive in their distinct and special shape.


Chance, in summer, it found me near my home.
With friend, I hiked; we moved to find some joy.
To make a meal for others was our ploy
So ready, I should hope to always come.

First sight was lightly carved, not deep as guessed.
It was a sketch of some passing daydream.
To smile at this bright face it was my scheme.
This mask grows fixed to face its landmark blessed.

In hopes to meet those eyes or even more,
And hold hostage. Found, though they tend to sway.
Lacking resource, I bound to myself to stay.
In grace, the ocean reached out toward the shore.

Our common friend, by luck, was steering true.
He owned a fine ship, and also quite unique.
(But, dawn at once the light it was a trick-
Should make you think those jewels were made for you.)

Careful to my watch, for a short tour.
And stray not far the safety of the ship.
To echo off these cliffs would prove me fit,
Our friend reminds we dine at such an hour.

Back home I thought naught save for what I left,
I fixed my chores swiftly through their habit.
Time passed, with haste, as fate would have it.
The others were dumb weight for me to heft.

I hover while those others take their seat,
So I could have my place adjacent flames,
Which flickered back and forth as if to tame.
I breathed its smoke, as though it was a treat.

I marked a place sheltered from the weather.
Hoping to build upon my design, and mark,
Make it deeper and finish every arc.
However, it did not belong to me this treasure.

While building I often lost my traction,
But I still I hoped to feat accomplish.
Unlike destiny, I had no promise,
Instead I called it my distraction.

The view was fine, for me, whatever the excuse,
I made my circle walk, just like a ring.
Witness an eclipse, one summer evening,
All the season it would my mind seduce.

One night in winter, I look out toward the isle,
And at last it seemed to call me back.
To lose my map was such a rare mishap!
I tore my home apart, with taste of bile.

I left my door to sulk beneath the sky.
Yet, somehow was I at my one desire?
A moment with the ghost and then retire,
I all alone, but first, a myth to try:

Eat a token from a foreign land you must,
And also buy your meal with suited flag,
So in this way you'd both be duly tagged.
And one day you will, indeed, return in trust.

Errant rays of sun serve only to reveal,
How dark my dwelling had become in shade.
So generous moments in the clouds, made
Not cruel to bring me back to daily trial.

I set my mind to build a solid way,
And find a purchase nearer to my home.
My chosen setting, it would now become,
Where I build a path it should ever stay.

Handsome landscape did welcome and surprise,
With novelty, helped make bright my mood.
This fresh earth where man did not intrude,
It yielded to my tools easily, besides.

Though I might, I did not make it mine,
While the island's heat seemed to match my mood,
Harsh winds came from pleasant altitudes.
Here, stable was the climate all the time.

It seemed a sin for wasting fertile pastures,
To fallow soil, so willing roots to bear.
No apparition appeared anywhere,
It seemed only superstition after.

I set out for distant lands that I might uncover,
And release my claim until I should return.
A month would last before my heart would yearn,
This lack of need began to give me comfort.

I relished my journey, mores for the trouble.
My departure left me ill, but for an instant.
The East revealed itself in every minute,
Weird rites freed my mind from mundane bubble.

The island I missed more than any else,
But, my eyes were full of novelties.
The journey back arrived with quiet ease,
Held breath, my life had sat upon the shelf.

Now I had acquired my own vessel,
For the place I could see with both eyes closed.
I wished to find my island in repose,
But had the violent waves all died as well?

Time divided half for Heaven and for here,
Yet, now my stairs held firm or only swayed,
Instead of crushing under its own weight.
I had no ambition, save to luck, revere.

I watched the tide rise lower than before,
My name in sand would only last so long,
The pull of gravity would be too strong,
It would obey as often as ignore.




I looked for branches that I might make a fire,
Too amused by fortune to seek more.
Busy, I looked in awe to see a shelter,
Such sites! My doubt attempted to deny her.

The warmth inside would keep me from the cold,
To which I'd grown accustomed on the shore.
My noble self took stock of what I saw,
While my instinct demanded I be bold.

"If I close this door I might forever lose,
This handle in the night which is so black,"
I could no doubt return and find my track,
But then will ever waste this chance to choose.

A slim excuse I had to close the door,
It shut out all, and I was warm and safe.
I knew, at heart, it was not mine to take,
Yet, my need was greater than all others.

Thus my preferred destination came to be.
Though the details should have mattered some,
Months of worry would be soon undone.
That cold night would finally prove the key.

To close old haunts and the pull those stakes,
In other lands would happen in their course.
For now, good times would only be the worst,
Our life would be sweet dreams for me to make.

Late, I let my boat to break and bend,
My shame should likewise warp me too.
Despite my loss, it was never true,
While still the island stays, as lovely when-

I think, the moment I did live upon sand,
So much like paradise, it was enough,
That I remained glad even in the rough,
The memory was writ by expert hand.

Resume Again

After graduating with a BFA in Digital Media, I was hired by BASELINE SPORTS MEDIA a premier design firm with clients across the nation n the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NCAA. Understanding the needs of major sports franchises to both grow their image and adhere to legal trademarks was a key part of every project I executed. I began by producing posters, trading cards, brochures, and other print media for almost every competitive sport including but not limited to: football, basketball, hockey, soccer, track and field, equestrian, tennis, volleyball, baseball, softball, cheerleading and golf.

I was hired for my talent as an illustrator and visual designer, but my fluency in web design and video quickly caused my job description to evolve. I was not only in charge of updating samples for our company's website, but I designed flash web portals for our clients to improve the consumer's experience. In this particular case, a large portion of our business revolved around fan photography at major sporting events such as the World Series. As an on site manager I acquired experience dealing with all levels of the sport media environment, which complements my experience with their advertising departments and distributors (TV, billboards, web ads, and related media).

In fact, my previous position working with Ideas United gave me the video and web design experience necessary for me to bring web advertisements into the available services my company could provide our clients. In one case, I created motion graphics for flash advertisements for CSS. As a visual designer, I often worked with other companies' programmers to execute concepts in a way that only someone with web design knowledge can facilitate. In other words, my experience as a sports media designer required that I fulfill a variety of needs including management, copy writing, and communicating with clients in a way that was not always clearly defined or expected before the project was assigned.

In March of 2009 I was recognized as an expert in the field of new media through my presentation at Wake Forest University's Creativity: Worlds in the Making, a national symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. My personal interest in interactive media such as video games and video arrays makes me especially useful to clients who require cutting edge and innovative implementation of their products.










Sean Mills

2094 Melissa Court
Marietta, GA 30062
404.630.9678
mediartassociation@gmail.com

EDUCATION

The University of Georgia
B.F.A. Fine Arts
Digital Media Major


TECHNICAL SKILLS
Adobe Creative Suite
Photoshop
InDesign (and Quark)
Illustrator
Flash (Actionscript 2.0 learning 3.0)
Dreamweaver

Final Cut Pro (but proficient with most non-linear editing programs including Premier.)
Office Software: Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint


EXPERIENCE

2008
Art Director
AI TU MEDIA
Athens, GA
Beijing, China


2008
Fabric Design
Galatin Designs
Madison, GA

2008
Photography
Gameday Shots
Atlanta, GA
Athens, GA
Denver, Colorado

2007-Present
Designer
Baseline Sports Media
Athens, GA

2007
Private Tutor
The University of Georgia, Athletic Department
Athens, GA

2006

Free Lance Designer/ Illustrator
Expansion Squad
Athens, Georgia

2002-2007

Program Coordinator and Video Editor
Ideas United's "Campus Moviefest,"
The World's Largest Student Film Festival


2006

Student Advisor
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
The University of Georgia

2004-2007

Laboratory Monitor
Digital Media Area
Lamar Dodd School of Art
The University of Georgia

2004

Intern,
Public Relations
Georgia Museum of Art
Athens, Georgia





RELATED EXPERIENCE

2009
Presented a Paper on Tooled Education
Creativity Symposium
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC

Iran

Two Images Intersect in Iran


The website "boston.com" the internet presence of an American newspaper supplements their hardcopy with the publication of large, high quality photographs online. This feature is called, "Big Picture," which carries a double entendre: The formal description is an accurate way to describe the suites of 15 or more photographs posted online with a brief explanation dwarfed beneath each of the 1000 pixel wide images. They are displayed against a white background that scrolls vertically in an html page. However, the second meaning is its assessment of purpose, to provide a context for events around the world through the free resource of timely documentation.

At the permalink, "boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/a-troubled-week-iran.hml" you can currently find the following headline and this excerpt from the introductory paragraph:

"A Troubled Week in Iran

In the ten days since Iran's disputed presidential election street demonstrations have taken place everyday... Iranian officials maintain their stance that Mahmoud Ahmadinejand was the undisputed winner..."

Boston's "big picture" of Iran is typical of contemporary photojournalism in many respects, both in execution and in public reception. Execution is a grim pun in this case, as protesters are shown bloody and in some cases mortally wounded in these photographs. There are familiar scenes of government men easily identifiable in their military camouflage pointing guns at a motley crew of young and old people. If there is a difference between these images and those taken in Vietnam decades earlier, they are mostly cosmetic. This is photojournalism nowadays, a vocabulary of violent images that gets restaged again, and again. On this particular site there is a similarity between these images from Iran and those taken at the protest of the World Trade Organization in the U.S. posted earlier this year. Earlier this month, BOSTON.COM posted images of Tiananmen Square in China, remembered on the anniversary of another protest anxiously witnessed by the world.

One salient detail that helps clarify this protest from the others, is the burquas an item of traditional clothing worn by Muslim women. The burqua is featured prominently in the most famous image; it adorns the head of a woman who was shot in the chest and lies dying in the arms of a fellow protester. Otherwise, you will see other women wearing burquas in addition to stickers that read in two languages: "Where is my vote?" Some women are wearing burquas, stickers, and forming a symbolic "V" with the fingers of both hands just like Richard Nixon did when he got off of Air Force One. These two images encapsulate the story for viewers. Two pictures of women, one a famous martyr to her cause lying still and one anonymously waving the symbols of peace and victory that have been adopted by people around the globe at different times for different reasons.

The victim of violence, an unarmed woman, is haunting before you hear any of the details. The snapshot of a woman making a peace sign is meaningful only in its proper context. The traditional Arab world, what we think of as collectively as, "The Middle East" despite all of its nuanced history and varied cultures, is represented iconically by the burqua for its unique custom of covering women in public. For some in the western world it represents repression of women as it literally masks their identity and individuality. Iran is not unusual in the Middle East for being a patriarchal culture with fewer rights for women in both policy and practice. The burqua is a decidedly Middle Eastern tradition. Meanwhile, the hand gesture of making a "V" with your index finger and the finger adjacent while balling the remaining thumb and other two fingers is a historically western custom.

The "V" of victory or the "peace symbol" as it is alternatively known, originates from a premodern era, but is contemporary usage can be most likely traced to the allies Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson shooting the symbol out to the crowds and photographers of World War II. Victory meant peace in that incident, and so both Vietnam War President Richard Nixon and the peace idolaters of the American youth adopted it in the 1970’s. There is even a rumor that an Olympic Figure Skater who graciously fell in competition and ironically flashed the victory symbol helped popularize the hand gesture for Japanese amateur photographers. The hand symbol also has a connotation of contempt when displayed palm inward by users in Great Britain. As the 2009 Iranian presidential election protesters use it, the "V" is meaningful once again. The "V" is both an adopted symbol of peace as well as a pointed use of western language.

For the western world and the United States, in particular, these images of Iran represent clear battle lines being drawn in the sand by protesters. First of all, the results of an election are at the heart of what it means O jI I asdf asfadsfct of war. However, the subversion of a democratic election especially if the result favors a notoriously anti-American and repressive tyrant is worth starting a war for some people. To further complicate this picture, Americans, like President Obama are still shy of seeming to "meddle" in the middle east due to the previous administration's actions in Iraq and the continuing presence in Afghanistan. To history, protests become either symbolic rallying cries or empty acts of desperation.

Certainly, the United States, home of BOSTON.COM is sympathetic to the interests of the protesters, brave in the face of destruction, but a coup d'etat of Ahmadinejand's administration is as unlikely as any overt action from any other nation. For now, at least, it seems true that the world is watching.

Week 4 Invincible

I boiled some water for some hot tea, made my breakfast, ate my breakfast and then went about my day.

Later, at lunchtime I saw my tea, now fully brewed, now fully luke warm- I tried to drink it. If I didn't see the cup, by accident, I might have never realized that I forgot something.

Fuck.

Ok, shit.

I think my biggest problem is that I am invincible. That is going to be interpreted as sarcasm, and no matter how much your mental defense mechanisms are going to be screaming at you, please hear me out.

My concern is that I was given just the right ingredients to become unstoppable. My genes, emotional guidance, and education were perfect. Right now, you might be looking at my clothes as I say this, noticing my glasses, or looking in my bank account and forming a strong case for "irony." Your still treating my premise: "I am invincible," as if it is a challenge instead of simply accepting it as a given an allowing me to move on to the implications.

Fine, You're right that I am frail in the physical sense, this is the most obvious proof that I am in fact very "vincible." That I can't see well, can't breathe well, and I am over weight are pretty good indicators that like you I can bleed when I am cut and I am scared of falling off things. If that is your definition of "vulnerable" than, you win, I am not invincible.

So, I drink the cup of tea with some brown sugar, because I couldn't find the regular stuff and because I am a hero. I could have given up because it was cold, or because I couldn't find the sugar or honey, but I kept going and forced myself to drink this old leaf water. But, wait, am I a hero? This is a key responsibility of the mighty, to humble one's self and question your own timeless motives. I am wondering if maybe, just maybe, I am only placating my own guilt at wasting a tea packet instead of enjoying the bounty of God's Earth and the scarcity that makes such things so special.

Like a child brought up during the great depression I am constantly leveraging my current happiness against what could be terrible sadness in the future: if I eat a big bowl of cereal maybe I won't have enough left in the box to last until my next paycheck? How little do I have to have left, before I can say, "Don't worry, and no one will care either way."

What if you, like me, get bored sometimes. Sometimes, even when I am enjoying what I am reading, my eyes cross and I end up skimming a paragraph. I am not going to change you by begging, the best thing I can do is make sure the beginning and ending make sense and that the middle stuff carries enough redundant messages so that my point survives.

Despite the fact that I doubt myself and no one has given me a reason not to doubt myself I still dream of a better world that is built in my image. Its as if all data points to failure, but probabilities don't matter. Probabilities don't really matter to the sample, think about it. If you heard a statistic that only 1 in 10 rabbits survive in the wild, do you think that is because 9 rabbits throw down their bodies in a fit of Zen understanding? No, every baby rabbit fights for every minute of their life until sickness, predators, and accidents prove that they are a statistic.

So, am I saying that this is my strength? That I will go down swinging until asthma and debt collectors physically stop me from moving forward?

Well, "strength" is a pretty strong word. Instead, let's just say, I care too much to stop working. If that still sounds too congratulatory maybe we can agree that I enjoy complaining too much to allow the voices of reason and empathy to stop me from building idols in my own image. Maybe that is a little unfair though, because what I really want to is to live in a world where creating things and appreciating things is natural instead of miraculous.

This realization that come what may, I am still going to keep going is pretty troubling.

I mean, its hard enough to spend your mental energy to try to do something without having to budget the mental energy to try to do something, fail, try again, fail, try again, fail, investigate the entire history of both every success and every failure, their design plans and the social currents that caused them to be successes and failures, and then, try again, and to your great surprise- fail harder.

Now, as the sun sets I sip my tea and I toast myself, invincible.



[Text transcribed from the eulogy read at the funeral, which was scheduled shortly after the body was found. Cause of death was a poisoning from debris in the victim's home made ceramic cup.]




I don't want to have to talk about Sean Mills, like this, and I don't consider it an honor. I do, however, consider it a responsibility, which is something Sean would respect.

I knew Sean almost all his life, since he was four. I don't want to talk about myself, but the important thing to know is that we grew up with the same background and we stayed in touch throughout his life- more or less.

Depending when you caught him, Sean was either a really nice guy or a pretty curt asshole. Either way he was always treated you fairly. "Fair" was an important concept for Sean. I don't know what combination of things happened to him as a kid, but his triumphs and failures always stemmed around his vision of right and wrong.

To those who knew him casually, this might sound confusing, because I know he tried to be generally agreeable. He wouldn't force his point of view down your throat all the time, but that didn't mean he didn't have one- he always had one.

So, I think this is why he had such a hard time getting along sometimes, he had very little patience for people he cared about acting in ways he didn't approve, and no patience for people he didn't care for at all. This is what made his true friends respond to him… [sic]

Poems By Myron Natwick

I've broken my friendship with Babbitt
Because of his slovenly habit
Of eating out loud
And I've never been proud
Of his nibbling bones like a rabbit!

"It's true!" said the painter to the prude
"I sketch all my ladies in the nude
A dress is OK
For a window display
But on my girls, it wouldn't improve."

A nail sitting Hindoo said "I
Have perched here and gazed at the sky
Till I've punctured my hide
Fillagreed my back side
I'm damned if I've ever known why!"

O:

I got to sleep in today, waking up mid-dream from going over to a barbecue with a bearded and cheerful Josh Brolin. His pops had just called and asked us to bring some cabbage- I guess we never made it because I woke up.

Vague plan is to eat half of the eggs my sister cooks and then finish cleaning the "game room" which is going to be my "studio" when I finish it.

I spent a good 4-4.5 hours on it yesterday and had to quit due to all the dust giving my asthma trouble and all the despair giving my mind trouble. Whenever Katie and Helen came around I forgot to be miserable and we watched, "Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem" and "ROck N Rolla." The first was a boring mess and the second was a Guy Ritchie film which means it was great if you like those films and only if you do.

Funny that Katie had heard about "Requiem" months ago and held off seeing it until she saw every film in both the ALIEN and PREDATOR series including the first VS. We both agreed that REQUIEM was by far the worst offering, which brings to mind some sort of, "Its the journey not the destination," metaphor.



W:

I wake up twisted on the couch with the same dirty clothes from all the moving days earlier, its fairer to say filthy clothes not dirty. Itchy eyes, runny nose, achy back, its hard not to just sit and hate between sneezes. We make swine flu jokes to pass the time, and sink deep, deep into self-pity.

I thought I had already passed the worst phase of my life 3 times already, and I keep getting new contenders make a bloody good shot at the title.

Stale air, garbage and mess everywhere, gray light coming in through the windows, and elevator jazz coming from the neighbor's house. Sometimes the g.pig whines sometimes I do.

Abstraction by population