A collage I made in my Masks and Mirrors class. I really like how it turned out, seeing as it uses about 4 different images of women to make this one really bizaree but still attractive face. And yeah, I used a National Geographic.
Speaking of which (and because I told my brother I'd do it) I'm going to put a link in here for one of the topics in the latest National Geogrpahic. The Gospel of Judas, you should all go and check out this site. It doesn't have all the text of the document but it has beautiful hi-res images that you can zoom into along with the coptic text and english translation and information about the reconstruction prosess. Even though I don't consider myself Catholic or very religious for that matter I find this whole ordeal fascinating. A lot of shit has hit the fan because of this text, which says that Jesus told Judas he needed to turn him in so that Jesus could fufill his prophecy of being crucified. Apparently this pisses off a lot of people. The church is fond of keeping their Judas Iscariot as a red-headed, yellow-robed scapegoat of Jewish evil, and has since Jesus died. How can you tell which one is Judas in those images? He's the one with red hair, yellow robes and exageratedly stereotypical Jewish feature (ie: big nose). In that respect suppose it would be hard to learn that he was in on the plan. Along with this is the suggestion that Judas was the only apostle who truely understood Jesus' message, another factor that would piss the church off. Not only is their scapegoat a goodguy, but the smartest in the batch! Oh lordy!
The theory rings truest when you consider Christopher Moores satirical work Lamb. In his novel, he suggests that Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice to his father in order to cease the requirment of bloodshed and to demonstrate to mankind the unending love he had for everything, and that he wished on everyone.
But regardless of all this the docement has so far been proven to be genuine, whatever that means to you. It doesn't matter if any of this is true, or if Jesus in fact existed or not. Not even in the slightest. The important part is the message, wherever it's coming from, who ever wrote it. People have to stop getting wrapped up in the unimportant shit. And believe me, whether or not stuff like this actually happened is pretty unimportant. The concept of a Judas that understood what he was doing and willing accepted the stigma of what was required of him is much richer than pegging him as a greedy idiot. There are plenty of those in mythology, this text suggests a much more dynamic persona.
Composite Lady Collage 10" x 17" (c) 2006