About the Art
Ahhh.. people keys! How cute. The idea behind this one is actually pretty simple compared to the other works... Basically, the people are keys, who can unlock the gates of their somewhat dull confinement to reach things such as music, logic, animals, nature... all things that may connect them with some larger whole, the "thermosphere" (which literally means the highest layer of the atmosphere--I mean it symbolically, as usual). I'll admit I used Adobe's shape tool to create the "trinkets," which is why I resorted to weird things like a fish and an envelope. As a quick runthrough, here's what everything is supposed to stand for... Jigsaw piece: puzzles and logic, snowflake: seasons, light bulb: invention, sun: lightness and cheerfulness, hourglass: time (as it heals and smoothes, we hope), fish: ...swimming? (haha!), moon: darkness and sadness (beauty, for some), envelope: writing and connections with others, bird: flying (if only I was a bird...), and notes: music. There are so many (healthy, and lifelong!) things we can reach out to, to find ourselves and a deeper understanding of the world around us, things that may allow us to break free of whatever rings we are bound to, so that we may float into the thermosphere.

Oh, oh! And the fact that the people-keys are glowing... is supposed to point out that perhaps they don't belong in that metallic, industrial cage... they belong out where the light it, where the outlets may lead them...

More on the theme of Outlets
Ahhh... the thermosphere. How may we reach such a glorious place? It's already been somewhat established that we are somehow bound to the world we've created for ourselves. But, there is more than what we have created... there will always be what has always been, and anything stemming from this primal essence can help set us free.

"The thing that affected me the most about being with her was seeing her in the audience during the show and watching her unbridled enthusiasm and happiness in participating and being one with the whole experience. When prompted with "Please yell if you are paying attention" instead of giving a self-aware, halfhearted little yelp she would stand up and give a full, wide-eyed, gleeful scream with everything her 7-year old vocal cords had in them. It made me think about how as we get older we condition ourselves to be spectators to life instead of fully participating in it."
-Dave Steele, Blue Man Group musician, on his niece seeing the Complex tour show

Ah, how true. As children, we aren't quite so self-conscious and withdrawn (or at least this is the trend with most of us, I think). Granted, this slight lack of caution allows for many mistakes, but it also allows us to really live, and really enjoy the world for what it is. The joy of a child may be one of the most powerful emotions within the range of human feeling. They get so happy that they can hardly contain themselves, whether they get this feeling from running and playing, mastering a skill, or being with others. But as we grow older this unbridled happiness fades quite a bit, as we don't want to come off looking foolish, or *gasp* childlike. After all, such uninhibited enthusiasm could cause us to take a misstep! Oh no! Sorry, I just have a thing with vegetative human beings...

But we can never do nothing" (396).
-Garrett Hardin

There IS something we can do to avoid this increasingly mundane existence. I'm not even going to try to put this in my own words, so here--marvel at the genius that is Dave S. (oh, and speaking of him, he totally rules because he has the time of his life onstage, and probably reaches that level of joy that a child may feel...):

"The pursuit of happiness has been replaced by the pursuit of comfort. Guy DeBord and the Situationist movement explored all these themes extensively in the 50's and 60's best defined in DeBord's book and film, "The Society of the Spectacle". The Situationists were a group of artists, writers and intellectuals, descendants of the Dadaists and Surrealists, who sought to fuse art and music into everyday life as opposed to keeping it separate and elite. They also railed against capitalism as a state of mind that stifles creativity and embraces boredom. They said that modern society had become divided into actors and spectators, producers and consumers, with nothing in between. People have become accustomed to preferring the representation to reality, the appearance to the essence, the copy to the original, the illusion to the truth. ...But all of this is just in our heads. We can be free by refusing to participate in the culture of consumption and comfort and instead choose to participate in a culture of experience, truth and creativity."
-Dave Steele, Blue Man Group musician

However you reach this feeling you once had... grasp it. Whether it be anything from music to stamp collecting to soccer, do it. It's good for your sanity (not that I know anything about sanity, haha!). It's that simple! It really, really is. Find something you love to do, that feeds your mind, body, and/or soul, and embrace it... It can lift you out of the glooms of seemingly dark reality. I see these Outlets as a counter to the Vices... I'm thinking of things that aren't temporary fixes, that have "long-lasting relief" and often, benefits on the side.
Here's an interesting take on one of my loves:

"But whatever the source of this sense of being unwedded to the universe, I think that one’s art is just one’s effort to wed oneself to the universe, to unify oneself through union. What new kind of mystique is this, one might ask. For make no mistake, abstract art is a form of mysticism.
...Abstract art is a true mysticism—I dislike the word—or rather a series of mysticisms that grew up in the historical circumstance that all mysticisms do, from a primary sense of gulf, an abyss, a void between one’s lonely self and the world. Abstract art is an effort to close the void that modern people feel" (Motherwell).
-Robert Motherwell

Ah, to close the void... So we approach some suggestions for closing that void of isolation and conformity, for allowing ourselves to really live and break free of the confines. In whatever small ways we can do it, we should cherish it... Ah, so. Outlets. One way to cope with the current human situation. And on to the next (and broader) topic...