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This portfolio traces the conception, project, and shows the gallery view for "A Soul Platter."
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A Soul Platter:
conceptual
art project
- C. Shoup
“So I moved from rural Bonfield to urban Chicago. What I immediately
realized was: “Man, the world contains a lot of variations of people.”
“My youth involved immersion in monoculture. The people surrounding
me had the same primary skin color. They shared the same primary
thoughts. They believed the same basic doctrines. They feared the
same variables that existed outside the same small geographic area.
“My college years involved immersion in diversity. Chicago was a
cornucopia of skin colors. People produced different thoughts. They
believed different things—some believed what they brought from their
origin cultures—others adopted beliefs to fit their needs. Variables were
everywhere—yet in Chicago the variables did not arouse an immediate
climate of fear.
“It was in the midst of this great exposure and budding enlightenment
that I began to devour books of literature and poetry; anthropology and
science; philosophy and religion. And the influx of new information
caused me to ask a lot of questions...”
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“I frequented used bookstores. Once at Powell’s on Lincoln, I purchased
a copy of Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. I cannot
remember how far I made it into the text, because near the beginning
one line was waiting for me, and the very second that line entered my
brain, a lock was opened, and a flood was unleashed.
“Descartes discoursed about the human soul. He asked pointed
questions about such an object, especially wondering where it might
come from.
“It’s too much to go into, the tracing of how this lead to that. It’s suffice
to say that a stew of questions concerning the soul brewed in me.
“Then one winter evening, while looking out a bedroom window that
rattled when the El passed through Uptown, I saw a strange image in
the glass—an elusive, effervescent shape of light and shadow that
floated across the pane. And suddenly I was stunned with a big
revelation! I grabbed my sketchbook and outlined the following idea…”
A Soul Platter
“A SOUL PLATTER traveled through the universe with ten
souls. It was looking to fertilize a life form acceptable to its
needs.”
A Soul Platter
“50,000 YEARS AGO this soul platter detected life on our
planet. It pinpointed an upright walking mammal that
possessed a disposition towards tool making and a brain
able to process rapid growth.”
A Soul Platter
“THE TEN SOULS carried in the Petri dish of the soul platter
descended onto the continent of Africa, where the upright
walking mammal was located. Those ten original souls
entered ten of those hairy mammals.”
A Soul Platter
A Soul Platter
“LIKE A WHALE that returns to its birthing ground, the soul
platter returned to our planet, and found it had deposited
its ten original souls in a fertile garden. It harvested what
was now ten billion souls.”
A Soul Platter
“AND THEN ITS full self continued on into the universe.”
Gallery view for A Soul Platter