Jen Ashmen

The internet is a big place. Social networking is a phenomenon. Everyone has a Facebook page. Friends, family, and strangers upload photos of each other with no regard for the individual’s rights to privacy. Once you post a picture on the internet, it is no longer yours. It is everyone’s.

Photos posted on Facebook can and will be used for every possible purpose: from keeping one from getting a desired job to prosecuting under aged drinkers to stalking. You do not know who is looking at your Facebook page right now. The internet is not private.

Please do not get me wrong. I am not opposed to social networking or having my photo posted online. I love twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Facebook. It’s just, I know I have no control over any  image I upload to a website. I understand the dangers involved in posting information on the internet. I do not like these dangers, but I am aware of and accept them.

I am not sure every person posting pictures and comments on Facebook understands the implications. There is no privacy; there is no control.  That is the main theme to my next body of work.

I am going to draw every “friend” I have on Facebook.  Many of these people I haven’t seen in years. Some I’ve never met. While I am doing my best to draw flattering portraits, I have not asked permission to draw these people.

The drawings will be made strictly from photographs I have found on Facebook. Every drawing will be tagged initially. Should the subjects of the drawing choose to untag themselves, that is their right. The point is, I drew them. Without the subject’s knowledge, I spent time looking at his/her photographs. Then, I thoroughly analyzed and drew his/her face. All while he/she was off living life.  An image posted simply to entertain was used in a way never intended. That photo is now a part of my art. It is now mine.

Enough jabber. Here is every Facebook friend I have whose name begins with the letter “A”.