Fragments and Details, (part 2)

fragments2
Originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

I finally wrote the review of 'Fragments and Details' (mainly due to needing to work up some more appropriate writing samples for my attempt to get a position writing about art for an alternative weekly, since it's been so long since the show closed now and I might have otherwise just let it slide)

With their Bemis Underground show, Fragments and Details, Matt Walker and Matt Orand have solved the major failing that haunted their respective BFA Thesis showings last year—the interaction of art with the space around it and how the lack of consideration for that relationship can cripple an otherwise compelling work. Walker’s installations suffered from a lack of breathing room crowded into the available space in the UNO Gallery and while Orand’s Target Market had a solid concept and the decision to drag it out of UNO and exhibit it at Crossroads was fitting, but the result was dwarfed by the mall and looked less than impressive as a result.
The current show was built directly into the Underground and their consideration of the gallery space as an organic extension of the works not only shows, but ultimately makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. It also doesn’t hurt that the Bemis Underground’s layout and construction perfectly compliment the air of abandonment and age the artists were working to create.
From the minute you enter the gallery door you are drawn into a relationship with the show and its pieces. As you descend the stairs you are surrounded by the jarring, mournful wail of a pipe organ’s lone chord while a stark white floodlight illuminates the pale branches of a tree suspended from the ceiling over the rusting skeleton of a wrought-iron crib and its love-eaten stuffed bear occupant.
The crib, and many of the pieces further in replicate the accidental art found in roadside dumpsites and like the myriad of questions and imagined explanations we ponder stumbling over an old pair of dentures on a deserted railroad track, the carefully arranged objects in Fragments & Details hint at the personal histories of their former owners and probe the viewer to consider how their own personal effects become imbued with their own stories.
Walker and Orand have constructed an environment where abandonment, decay and the gleam of nostalgia wander like ghosts in the shadows, created by exposed incandescent bulbs and a swirling collection of discarded spoons; the whispering of fan-blown leaves of old textbooks; the howl of the organ; the soft, musty smells of fresh-dug earth and rotting leaves. It’s this permeating mood, this created atmosphere that lifts the show as a whole above the successes or failures of its individual pieces; muting the heavy-handed contrivance of some arrangements like an enormous piles of clothes heaped on an old TV in front of which is the fishbowl and pennies that earlier featured in one of Walker’s thesis works and a junked car with a women’s nightgown strung up on its frame; strengthening the sense of quiet discovery in others like the window with a heavy muslin curtain that must be peered through to see the worn carousel horse hidden within.
Some of the stronger pieces include a worn mid-century parlor chair in front of a television with a silhouette scene of cowboys and Indians inside and a tree sitting inside an old deep freezer in an alcove made of candle-lit stained glass windows, which recall’s Yoko Ono’s trees growing from wooden caskets.
The most powerful piece is a carefully constructed broken-down porch with a ruined wicker loveseat and a battered, rusted screen door onto and through which is projected a photograph of a man at a front door. The piece is evocative, emotional, heavy with a life story and hauntingly beautiful.
Fragments & Details is one of the better shows to be housed at the Bemis Underground in its short history and is well worth making a point to check out. Should any of the donated abandoned items that make up the show’s raw materials speak to you, you could even bid on them at the auction scheduled as the closing event.

sport

It's always the goalies fault isn't it? I'll just come out and say that I think it's unadulterated bullshit for commentators to phrase the scoring of a goal in such a way, that if one hadn't watched the game, one might be led to believe was due to the error of the goalie. It's totally unfair, especially when the goalie had been nothing short of spectacular for the entire match, including the fact that the team was a man down for the last 15 minutes of the second half.

If you're wondering, I'm refering to the Germany-Poland football match. I was, I confess, sort of rooting for Poland, at least to keep it a scoreless tie, and it was because the goaltending was so good. I have a soft spot for good goaltending. I think it's part of the international brotherhood of goaltenders, it doesn't matter which sport it is, we can all appreciate the position since we understand all that goes with it and that's why I think it's reprehensible in post game analysis for the commentators (OK so ESPN never has anything but shite commentary regardless of the sport involved, so one shouldn't expect less, I guess) to say that Boruc allowed the goal, as opposed to something that better reflected the fact that the goal was the result of a defensive lapse right in front of him and he didn't have much of a chance on. If it were a hockey game, my D would be getting some very black looks from me over letting a pretty fresh substitute set up mostly unguarded like that right in front.

Ah well, it's not like Germany didn't deserve to win the match, they spent almost the entire game in Poland's end, missed 2 empty nets in the first and not all that long before they finally scored in stoppage time were robbed by the crossbar twice in a row in rather amazing fashion.

The Stanley Cup finals are on tonight. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for though. I feel awfully at Edmonton's woes because it's a shame their loss of their go to goalie means that the finals haven't anywhere near the good fight they would otherwise have been, and it would be nice for a Canadian team to get the cup for once, though I don't particularly like the Oilers at least they aren't Toronto. On the other hand, I've always been a big fan of Mark Recchi and so even though I have a snobbish opinion of hockey in such tropical climates as Carolina I'd like to see him win the cup. It always seems like the cup finals end up being anti-climactic and nowhere near as good a battle as the previous rounds usually becuase of injury or because one conference is far stronger than the other. Or maybe it's because the biggest rivalries are always between teams within the conference and therefore the teams and everyone else cares more about winning the conference final than they do about the actual final.

It's that way in other sports too. I mean take a look at the (ironically named) World Series, the whole thing was about the Red Sox beating the Yankees, no one really cared so much about them winning the championship. The riots were for the defeat of New York. (Though of course the Subway Series should have been great if the Mets hadn't sunk into their usual under-achieving right at the wrong moment, but I'm a Mets fan, I'm used to the losing.) Maybe the major leagues should revamp the playoff set ups so that the two best teams have a chance to play for the championship rather than the 'best' from each conference, so there'd be a chance for those epic Detroit-Colorado series of the 90s to have been for the cup rather than just the conference championships. I mean everyone remembers those games, but who remembers Colorado-Florida in the finals? Exactly. (it's true I am so wildly eclectic as to love sports as much as artsy cultural things :) )

Edit: So, I was quite wrong about the Finals not being as exciting and hard-fought as they could be. In fact, they turned out to be one of the best Cup finals I've seen in over a decade. I was still glad Carolina won, but I'll concede that Edmonton probably deserved to win more and if it weren't for the fact that I really wanted Brindamour and Wesley and Dougie Weight to finally win a Cup, I would have been rooting for the Oilers.

books and things

I've been on an 18th Century literature kick it seems. First Tristam Shandy (which I see has now been made into a film. I really wish I was still living in Boston right now, so I could see it. Given that it played briefly at, I think it was, Coolidge Corner, I don't think it's likely to be gracing any screens in this place ever, let alone soon. I think I'd want to see it even if it were supposed to be awful, just because I'm dying to see how one attempted to adapt such a practically non-adaptable work.) I was planning to tackle my aversion to Brontes by actually reading Jane Eyre, I decided it wasn't fair of me to be prejudiced against Charlotte just because I hated Wuthering Heights with a passion (and unfortunately through out various levels of education had to hate it 3 separate times)after I finish Tom Jones, but I may just stick with the 1700s and dig up some Swift or Dafoe.

Speaking of books, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with mine. I've already faced up to the fact that there is no way I can take my ever growing library with me when I move. It's just not practical, both in terms of shipping costs and space. CDs aren't such a problem because I can just convert the ones I don't want to leave behind to MP3 and burn them to dvds as data files. My art stuff is going to be a painful process, I don't really want to face up to that yet (and I've still got months so I don't think I shall) I've already figured out that I'm going to sparate my books into the categories of essential, would like, and can get rid of. I'm definitely going to have to hit that task when I'm in a purging mood :) What I can't decide is how I want to go about getting rid of the ones that are going. I'd like to sell them and get at least a little cash if I could do it without a lot of hassle, but I have a feeling I'll end up donating them somewhere, and if I do I want them to go to the most good use.

the desert island five and smoking

I'm slacking in the proper post about the Matts' show even though I have my photos, and also on the BFA show, instead I bring you topics of cinema.

I was asked last night, during a serious-minded discussion about film, what my desert island five films were. I blame High Fidelity for this cultural obsession with narrowing everything down to five, I mean if you're really passionate about something, say film, how the hell do you narrow all the amazing things you seen over the years into five? and this question is really case in point. What's being asked is what films do you consider your all time favourites, the best, but what does that mean? The best what? Favourite what? It's a question asked in the middle of a serious discussion about film films, how well is it going to go over to say Revenge of the Nerds and still have people listen to you? I hedged, The films that I would want to have with me if I were stuck on a deserted island and could only have 5 films ever for the rest of my life are frankly not the same films I think are the greatest pieces of cinema ever made; they're the escapist, the funny, the movies. I mean if I'm stuck on a desert isle I probably don't want to be watching films about death and existenial crises no matter how brilliant they are, it's just not a desert isley kind of topic.

As for my real desert isle five (not demured so I don't look like a cinema philistine) they're all comedies by the way, it's probably the only category I could narrow down into 5 on the fly or at all even. I've watched all of these films a minimum of 20 times and never got sick of them so I think that's a good sign I could be trapped with only them on Tiki Tiki.
1. Ghostbusters
2. The Ref
3. The Life of Brian
4. Office Space
5. Revenge of the Nerds

In other cinema news .... oh dear, in imdb linking those movies, it has just come to my attention that someone is planning to do a remake of Revenge of the Nerds to be released next year. For the love of all that's good in the world, can we fucking stop making shitty remakes of movies? Also shitty big screen versions of shitty 70s tv shows that were only thought to be good in our memories becuase we were kids and hadn't developed actual taste yet? Seriously!

OK back to cinema that doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out, I'm just back from seeing thank you for smoking which is easily one of the funniest and wittiest comedies that I've seen in years. It's one of those movies where practically every line is highly quotable and perfectly written and delivered. I miss those types of movies, maybe this will start a mini trend of smart comedy. Instead of 30 biracial buddy cop movies or neo-teen sex comedies or Will Ferrell vehicles where he plays the same dense kind of drunken slapstick punchline (and don't get me wrong Old School is great and Elf is probably the best film he'll ever do, but let's be honest for every one really funny film he or Vince Vaughn or even Ben Stiller these days makes there are 7 that suck) there can be 30 really well-written dark comedies that don't revolve around seeing someone hairy running naked. I also consider this movie ground-breaking in that the presence of Katie Holmes did not bother me, and she actually appeared to be holding her own, for the most part. I've always liked Aaron Eckhart, he always puts in a good performance and he's nothing short of perfect in this role.

jun kaneko's Beyond Butterfly and Kent Bellows at the Bemis Center

untitled cast glass
Originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

I'm thinking about using flickr to host my photos so this is a bit of a test post here. I hadn't been to the current offerings at the Bemis Center yet so when I went to revisit the Underground to take some photos I decided to stop in upstairs and check them out. Kent Bellows and Jun Kaneko have seperate shows both running until 28 May.

Kaneko's show is titled 'Beyond Butterfly' which, if you ask me, has nothing to do with anything at all other than Opera Omaha was putting on Madama Butterfly yet again this month (I have my own bone to pick about the recycle rate on the 'crowd pleasers' at Opera Omaha, but this isn't the time to do it)and the Opera commissioned Kaneko to design the sets and costumes (actually the one thing about the Opera that I'm impressed with is their willingness to take risks with the design and staging elements of their selections, even though the traditionalists that make up the critic's circle here rarely have anything positive to say about decisions like minimalist modern art Carmen sets) and I've never see so much high culture cross-marketing in my life: Sushi restaurants and Japanese Steakhouses creating Madama Butterfly 'inspired' signature dishes, a Madama Butterfly Saki shot/cocktail contest, all that's missing are plastic Pinkerton collector toys.

The works here are simple and clean. What makes the works so impressive are their giant scale. From an amazing 114x370.5 inch painting of straight and angled lines that covers an entire wall to 7 foot tall ceramic vases, to a pair of massive ceramic heads that sit in the gallery hall facing each other. In the back room are only three pieces made of stacked cast glass (one red, one yellow and one blue) sitting in their own pools of light and glowing with their colours (that's one of them in the photo there) They are my favourite pieces because they're more than just large, they're also intimate, they change based on how you approach them, where you stand and getting close to their heroic scale gives you more than just a good look at brush strokes.

The other gallery featured Kent Bellows, it's not really my kind of art. He's a painter and pencil artist (there were also a few lithographs of trees and roots which I was the most interested in of any of the numerous pieces on display) Bellows displays the kind of amazing talent at hyperrealism that I'm always left in awe of his skills if not excited by the finished pieces. His black and white pencil portraits are so expertly rendered that it's literally hard to tell they aren't photographs (and one of them is so perfect that if it weren't for the detail on the hair I would probably argue that it was a photo) Other than wishing I could draw half that well when it comes to trying to render something realistically, I didn't get much out of it. I don't really like hyper-realism when it comes to painting and drawing I'd rather just see a photograph.

Fragments and details (part one)

Sometimes I think I spend more time worrying over the content of my sidebar than over the content in my actual entries, well no more, I think I've got it down now.

Friday was the opening of Fragments and Details; the bitter and the sweet at the Bemis Underground and I was quite pleasantly surprised by it, not only because I've been very under-impressed with most of the shows in the BU's short history, but because it was unlike what I would expect from Orand given the content of his thesis show last spring and because it really showed a vast improvement in execution.

(This blog doesn't go back far enough for an account of the thesis shows, but allow for this slight summary. Walker's was quite unmemorable, in fact I was only able to determine which pieces were his by process of which ones they weren't in thinking back over the Spring BFA show, though to be fair I was thoroughly not excited by that whole BFA class. Orand's was probably the most ambitious and interesting in concept, mostly video installations dealing with marketing and consumer culture exhibited in a declining shopping mall. The biggest issue for me with his thesis is that while he had a concept and a really decent piece or two, there was a total lack of actual interaction with the space in which it was installed and the space had an effect of making the viewer think 'is this all?' There was also an interesting incident at his thesis talk where he made comments to the effect of digital mediums are what art is now and everyone else was just making crafts, which I didn't hear first hand, but only in the recounting of the talk from the professor who had argued with him about the comments)

Given the installations in Orand's previous show and the alleged comments, I was really not expecting to walk down the stairs into the gallery to find a show devoid of video installations (the closest being a tv under a desk buried by a mountain of discarded clothes playing a calming blizzard of white noise snow and another piece projecting a vintage photograph of a man onto a battered rusting screendoor, very analog indeed) So I'm rather inclined to attribute the pieces in the show to Walker's aesthetic, but I really wish there was a show catalog to give me both names of the pieces and whose they are, somehow I can't imagine that every piece was a collaboration.

I always write about shows in my notebook before I start trying to write about them online, it helps me think and distill what I liked and didn't and what I've learned from an artist's standpoint from going to a show, but I've had to try to stop myself from writing about this one, it's like verbal dysentery because the longer I examine the show or its pieces the more totally confused I become about what the intentions were and whether it's good. In a way I think that that alone makes it a success, after all art is supposed to make you think even if it wasn't meant to make you ponder whether the sheer amount of contrivance and heavy-handedness in a good number of the installations was an almost Brechtian device or just the work of a pair of artists who are far too caught up in art-theory.

Overall I thought the leaps and bounds made in really considering how the environment of the gallery affects the experience of seeing the piece demonstrated the growth of both Walker and Orand as artists. While my own inner debate about how I personally interacted with each piece has sort of made me unable to decide whether they lived up to their concept or intent, I was rather taken by a few of the pieces and I think they did a bang up job creating an ambiance and a mood throughout the entire galleryspace. (I'll probably give a more indepth critique of individual pieces another day, I forgot to bring my camera with me to the gallery, so I don't have any photos, which I'd like to illustrate what I mean, so it shall have to wait)

So, if you're in the Omaha area, I suggest catching the show which runs until the 22nd 11am-5pm on fridays and saturdays (I think I'll be stopping by tomorrow with my camera. Also tomorrow is the opening of this semester's BFA Thesis show, which I'm expecting to be good (of course my friend Frances is Thesising so I'm excited for her).

but, it's not funny enough to fight for

So last week NBC threw a bitch-fit over youtube (which has become one of my favourite time-wasters in the last 2 weeks) providing a clip of Natalie Portman's rap video on SNL, serving a cease and desist nastygram and giving way more attention to its hasn't-been-funny-since-1985 programme than it deserves. The clip is now found on the SNL website so at least their totally behind the curve staff tried to meet a demand half a week after the demand was there.
coverage via boingboing

My favourite part of the whole subject was probably the comment on the BoingBoing story from an anonymous reader who I hope never has any connections to intellectual property law:

I have to point out the irony of the NBC nastygram to youtube over the Natalie Portman video. From the moment I saw it, I knew the video was cribbed directly from Eazy-E -- the reference is made explicit in Natlie's closing line "no more quesitons." The song also cops a line from Sir Mix-A-Lot's song "Posse on Broadway" ("I got a def posse, you got a bunch of dudes..."). Apparently, profiting from this uncredited appropriation is completely fine when NBC does it, but when youtube chooses to post and credit SNL's work, making it a viral hit and perhaps getting some actual viewers for a faltering show, NBC releases the hounds. Nice, NBC, real nice. If I didn't love ths video so much, I would say Eazy-E's estate should nastygram NBC, just to bring the world full circle.

Anonymous is apparently behind the curve on what parody is. Cribbing lines from the source you are parodying is not in any way related to showing someone's copyrighted work without permission.

Should NBC have thrown a bitch-fit over youtube's providing of a clip to the public? Probably not, youtube was essentially providing their show with free publicity and if NBC wishes in the future to be the main host of viral clips, perhaps they should do a better job of anticipating the public's desires and providing a better selection so that people don't have to go elsewhere first.

Plus, the video doesn't deserve all this fuss anyway, it's not particularly funny. The only thing it really has going for it in terms of humour is 'Oh look, there's sweet little Natalie Portman acting like a gangsta rappa' The lyrics aren't that well put together and the videowork isn't all that strong. If this passes for the best of parodist humour, our standards have fallen quite low indeed. (and I suppose somewhere the Scary Movie franchise is at the forefront of the blame)

it's about damn time someone considered subtitles

So I went to see Nochnoi Dozor, (Night Watch for the non russian speakers) mainly because I've been waiting to see some Russian cinema that was actually visually exciting (I don't think the foreign film pipeline has put out any really exciting Russian cinematagraphy since Tarkovsky died, though there have been a few well written dramas) even though I heard that Fox butchered the original cut to make it more 'palatable' for American audiences. (no shocker there, Hollywood never trusts Americans to be able to appreciate a different aesthetic.)

Anyway, this isn't about my cinemaphile bitterness towards Hollywood, it's about film typography, specifically subtitle design. I guess this was the second movie (the first being Man on Fire, which I've actually not seen) to design the subtitles dynamically. I can't say that I'd like the approach in all foreign films, but for a highly visual action film, I thought the design was brilliant. (for those who haven't seen and don't know what the hell I'm talking about, the titles were not relegated to the bottom of the screen at all times, sometimes they were in different colours, sometimes they moved or dissipated or other such things) I've seen the film's approach to subtitling referred to as 'mildly irritating' or 'annoying' several times and I don't really get it because it seems to me like the choice to in keys places incorporate the subs into the visual frame of the movie actually solves one of the major problems of subtitling as we know it, which is that your eye locks onto reading the text at the expense of really taking in the image on the screen and appreciating the filmmaking.

great design

I've been meaning to post this radiator for ages, it's not new of course, but I restumbled over it during my continued spring cleaning of my del.icio.us bookmarks. I've always preferred the efficiency of steam heat. Its only drawbacks are the abuse it wreaks on art and other papers nearby, and the big bulky shape of the radiator itself, but Joris Laarman has created the solution, at least to the blah design.

it's made of concrete and the radiant tubing of floor heating. I could totally see myself having some kind of industrial loft apartment with these on the walls.

spring is here stop time to clean stop

It's so spring, at least it feels like spring and that's what matters to me. It was 22 today! Not only 22, but 22 and I had the day off which makes it extra special. I know, I know tomorrow it's to drop back down to 8, but still 8 isn't too shabby and there were those last three days in the double digits so that's nothing to bite your thumb at.

It's put me in a mood for spring cleaning. My desk will be thrilled when it gets its turn. I didn't do much spring cleaning today because, well, it was too nice to stay inside and clean (why is it spring cleaning anyway, when clearly winter is the month more suited to schlepping around inside? I know it's because spring makes us long to get all organised and buy stylish patio plates for all these garden parties we swear we're going to have until the bugs come out and it gets too hot and we just want to stay inside in the air conditioning til fall.)My spring cleaning start is of the digital variety. I've started going through the 1100 links I have on del.icio.us adding notes on what they are and deleting the dead or no longer interesting to me ones. It's turning out to be a major bit of work. Though not as big as my next order of business is going to be: cleaning up my hard drives, and that means the holy terror of my music collection. It's gotten enormous and there's a lot of stuff in there that's utter crap and I'll never listen to. I really need to back up my whole computer onto dvds, especially in advance of my move, so it's something that really needs to get done, but the idea of sifting through some 90 gigs of music is kind of unappealing.

Going through links I found the most brilliant stationary that is now so on my 'must have' list. I've always wanted to send people telegrams, it always seemed like such a fun way to communicate stop but, alas the age of telegram is quite dead. However 16 sparrows has provided a way to still achieve the aura just buy some of their telegram stationary and an old underwood and type up your own urgent missage. Only $8 for a set of six

bento-mania

I think somewhere along the line I became one of those Japanophiles (or would the proper term for that be Nipponophile?) I'm note sure whether it is the insidious cuteness of consumer goods or the simple elegance of the more grown up design that's done me in. I like clean simplicity and minimalism, also cute renderings of furry creatures, it's well documented.

Anyway, lately I've been trying to find the perfect bento box. I wouldn't eat traditional bento lunches from it because I really just don't like sushi. I've tried, but just can't seem to like it. The eel was the only one I've ever had that didn't palatially gross me out, but eel is treyf and despite my quite lackadasical adherence to Jewish law, I do at least try to eat things that are kosher (ok if I do eat chicken, though these days I'm still almost entirely vegetarian, I won't avoid dairy, but I firmly maintain that I'm still technically correct because the letter of the Torah is that you can't eat an animal boiled in its mother's milk and since chickens don't produce milk it's a-ok to slap some cheese on them.) I want one because they seem like an efficient all in one lunch box. I'm having trouble finding one that is both microwave safe and aesthetically pleasing to me. So far all the microwave safe ones have been either too plain or full out cartoon-mania, I'm not so oppsed to cartoons, but I'd prefer something less in your face and less common than hello kitty. I want cute but grown up, I'm too near to 30 for a hello kitty lunch box since lunch boxes are definitely a work sort of thing.

I did run across this site on cute bento lunches the other day. Japanese mothers must have a lot of time on their hands to spend so much time, effort and creativity on something that's just going to be scarfed down at lunch time, but damn they're cute


the site I presume tells you what each visage is made out of, but I don't know Japanese so I just look at the photoes and think how cool it would be to open my lunch to that if I were 5. I'm also a little frightened by the large presence of sculpted hot dogs featured in the designs. Somehow in my mental image of the cool, healthy, efficient world of the Japan of my mind, I never imagined something as gross as cold hot dogs featuring into the diet.

this time I promise I'm back

I disappeared again, I blame the fact that I'm actually keeping up on my new years resolution to get back in shape and going to the gym every night after work. (except friday and saturday when it closes before I get off) I haven't been doing a whole lot of crafty stuff, mainly just obsessing over working on my portfolio. I'm going to try to get back on the ball and do month of softies again in March. I fianlly got off my ass and took some photos of some of the books I bound this past semester, so to kick off my return to not slacking on this blg here are some photos:


3 different styles of japanese stab bindings



a couple of views of a field sketchjournal. that's a 3 section binding called 'the rope' The chunks of space between each signature are on purpose so that it lays open well and when you add things to the pockets it doesn't bow out. The brown tage board on the spine prevents the spine from getting crushed due to the open space.


and this is a long-stitch demonstrating my love of toptgraphic map prints :)

a day I actually did something

Today I was actually productive. i finished all the needed stuff on my passport application and it is now bound for the British Embassy; I got my alumni membership to the HPER building so I can start going to the gym; I finished distributing the last of my type for my projects last semester (now if I only get off my arse and start carving the lino for the title page and colophon and the folder so the collaboration project will be done.); I cleaned out my soulseek incoming folder so my music is all neatly categorised again, (for now)

My mother said my US Passport photo made me look like a terrorist. I wouldn't go that far, I do think it looks like on par with the Nick Nolte mug shot, so you can imagine that I don't want a repeat of that on my British Passport. I had to get 3 sets of passport photos before I got one that didn't look unreasonably bad, I mean I'm not expecting a good shot it is a passport after all, but seriously nick nolte mugshot and the second set I was orange, I looked Indian (and I am one of the whitest white girls, usually when I'm in flash photography I glow like a flourescent tube I'm so white and reflective) I know it'll be cut off when it's actually in the passport, but I was amused that I was wearing my new threadless 'Communist party' t-shirt and you can even see Lenin with his birthday party hat on the photo.

I decided I'm going to try to try to sew myself some skirts because I hate most of the ones I run across at the stores. Plus it will force me to learn the sewing machine instead of hand sewing everything. So I bought a pattern for a simple A line skirt and also this skirt since the vogue patterns were 75% off. It's probably going to end up being a skirt that looks good on anyone but my body type, but it's kind of simple yet quirky which is definitely my style.

I went to Taste for a belated lunch and had edamame and a really good coconut chicken salad.

3 feet from visionary brillinace

today was the opening of the museum show that one of my books appears in. The whole exhibit looks great and the space is so well designed it really surprised me to hear that Father William designed the gallery space himself. I never though of priests of being so in tune with good museum layout. You learn something new every day I guess. There was a really good turn out too, which I'm happy about becuase Frances, Tammy and Bonnie put in so much work on it so I'm glad it's a success for them.

The Joslyn loaned some pieces for the show, including an original William Blake piece. So I can actually say I've been in an exhibition with William Blake! the peice is actually like maybe 3 feet away from my book.

I decided that I want to try to go to a real restaurant once a week and have a nice meal, I eat so much cheap crap all the time, and it's so hard to cook when it's just me and I'm terrible about not eating leftovers. I pretty much just eat special K for breakfast and dinner and then something like cheese and crackers while at work. So I figure I can splurge on one good meal a week. I went to Jaipur today and had some good Indian food. I was going to have vindaloo to try to kill myself with spicyness, but the vindaloo has an onion base (and I was so impressed that my waiter actually took it upon himself to check with the cook to see if it was made with onions when I mentioned that I was allergic, I'm so used to finding out the hard and itchy way that something has onions in it. He got a 25% tip from me.) so I had something else that the waiter suggested that was totally onion free. I can't rememer what it was, but it was excellent also I had some naan bread with mint chutney.

time for plan B

so vacation request formally denied. Time to come up with brilliant B plans. Right now I'm leaning toward just up and moving combined with vacation. There's something that seems pointless about shelling out for holiday compning back and then trying to save up for a move. Mainly because the time it will take to raise the relocation funds means that it's not like I can pin down a flat or job for myself while on holiday, so why not just go on holiday with no intention of coming back? I know it frustrates me greatly that it's going to be that much longer til I get to see Ben, but if it's meant to end up more than an internet friendship/mutual crush then a few more months shouldn't make us go off each other right? And if that dread fear happens and e meets some hot girl who actually lives in his postal code before I do then it's not like it will be the first time I've ever missed out on an amazing guy to someone else (not like that rationalisation will make it feel any less like a piledriver if it happens, but I like rationalising things til they look manageable)

So my B plan is to look into getting a job temping (because temps make more money than I do) and possibly doing one of those couple week bartending schools and getting a parttime job bartending. Then not only would I make the 6K I need faster, but I'd also get some office and bartending experience for the CV which should help get an interim pay-the-rent job while I try to get myself a advertising or design position once I've moved.

I need to do something creative soon, I'm boring myself. I'm thinking about joining the printmaker's guild and paying for usage of the facilities for a few months. (maybe I can even sneak in some time figuring out the litho press)

holidays are a nuisance

Every errand I need to run on my day off this week ahs been completely thwarted due to my day off being Monday rather than Tuesday, mainly because today is also another damn federal holiday. No post office. No UNO library to remove my last hold againt being mailed my diploma. No UNO offices to pay for an alumni membership to the HPER building so I can go to the gym. And the person I need to see so I can get the countersignatory signatures on my passport photos for my British passport so I can get the application mailed in is out sick today. (You see the British government is logical, unlike America who has a postal clerk countersign your idetification photo affirming that you are you by looking at your drivers license for a British passport the countersignatory has to be a person who has known you at elast 2 years and has a certain level of professional status, but is not related to you. So like a member of the clergy or a doctor or teacher or such. That's what my problem has been becuase I've moved around so much that finding someone who has a suitable profession and has known me at least 2 years has been problematic. I've tried to stick to finding someone who has one of the professions listed on the form instructions even though my father swears that they don't honestly pay attention to that, they're more concerned that someone's affirming you are you, but I'm already short of the 'person should be a British subject' instruction as the only British citizens I know available to sign the photos and document are related to me. )

frustration

Garrgh. I'm really frustrated today, actually I expect the frustration to go on for awhile. BasicallyI've been told that there's pretty much no way I'm going to get my vacation request. I knew that 3 weeks was going to be a bit of a problem with the stupid way we're staffed. I mean as is if a cashier gets sick or whatever you pretty much have to work anyway unless someone takes pity on you and works a double. He claims he's going to talk to the owners, but I think we all know they won't want to work out a solution, hell they've illegally taken money out of Mary's paycheque twice for credit card errors.

What frustrates me about it is it puts me in a position where I either have to delay my holiday until I've enough to be able to afford looking for a new job when I I get back or waiting until I've got enough to just combine holiday with move. I don't know whether I've mentioned it, but I'm planning to move to London now that I've got my degree. I'm a dual citizen so at it's heart it's kind of on par for me with movieng to New York, at least as far as the picking up and throwing myself into a swim or drown position. The only really annoying problem/difference being that in that initial relocating stage my money is only worth about half as much so it takes twice as long to raise the sums I need to secure that I'll have a place to live and the raw necessities whilst I find even the most temporary of jobs.

And I admit that what I find most frustrating of all is that it's going to mean further delay in getting to meet Ben face to face. At this rate even if I only put it off long enough for the find a new job here buffer cash option we'll have been talking to each other for more than a year before we meet.

why can't I ever just have a plan run smoothly?

back from end of semester insanity

Well I'm finally back. I really didn't mean to disappear for so long and desert this blog, but like I said I practically live in the art building at the end of a semester and being that this one was my final semester I was putting extra pressure on myself. But all of those 72 hours with no sleep stints and sleeping on the concrete floor in the storage closet for 3 hours here and there was worth it, after 10 and a half years I finally have my degree. Now comes the worst part; trying to turn that degree into a job in the design or advertising field. Not to mention that I want to move to London (which is not really any harder than say moving to New York in that I'm also a British citizen because my father is, so it's notexactly immigrating it's just relocating) Everytime I try to decide what my portfolio is going to need to have I feel sheer terror well up, I think that's why I stayed in academia so long I hate selling If I were a car or soft drink I could just come up with some funny idea for a commercial. I think it's a lot easier to fool somebody into choosing one brand of spaghetti over another than it is to sell yourself as an employee.

My edition book for this semester turned out amazing, even better I think than i had envisioned it. It's been curated into an exhibition on the history of bookarts that's going to be running in conjunction with a travelling exhibit of an Illuminated bible that's going on at the Joslyn museum later this month. I'm excited as hell about that. I need to figure out how to best photograph it so I can post it up here.

I also sold my first print at the student art show, so the end of this semester has been really great for me and ego rewarding.

I really want it to be March so I can go visit Ben and get some kind of concrete idea of whether we get on in real life and whether or not there might be a possibility of some kind of future for us. I think the thing is that I like him enough from our emails and our phone conversations that I sort of feel in a limbo about it all, it's weird.

must... stop... progress... of...time

We have officially entered the part of the semester where I spend every ounce of time not spent working or unconcious in the pressroom. hell this semester there's even a plan in place to spend the unconscious hours in the pressroom. Ashley, Frances and I are comandeering the storage closet as sleeping quarters.

I'm now 2/3 done with my 'he's the hammer' stationary project. The press I'm using has some kind of goo on it that's not allowing for proper ink cleanup so I'm worried that it's going to fuck my last run. I was hoping to get the last 250 or so sheets pressed tomorrow, but if the purple from this last run starts bleeding into the green I've got to pull tomorrow it might seriously set back my projection.

I might actually get 'celebrity wedding' done in time for the critique on Tuesday, I've managed never to miss a deadline this semester, but this one is pushing it, it's definitely the most hateful project this semester. I think I gave myself nerve damage cutting all those damn pages out of plexiglass. and I still haven't managed to find the caulk I need or to drill the holes for the string lights.

Definitely feeling the end of the semester stress. so many giant projects and so little time.

The student art show is next week and I still haven't settled on what pieces I'm putting in. I think the osteocyte painting and the print of the freedom fighters on horseback for sure but I'm not sure on what else. Can we just add like 3 more weeks to November?

swaps galore

okey dokey, here is where I catch up on talking about the swap stuff that I'm so woefully behind on talking on.

Blogging by Mail 2; the real reason I've been so behind on gushing about this is that I can't figure out where I put the damn postcards that included the idenity of my partner so I can't properly give thanks or credit until I find them. This is the curse of being a sometimes disorganised person living in too small an area in a house with a really really unorganised, messy and borderline hoarder person ( I have this theory that one day if I live either on my own in a place that has adequate storage and space for my possessions or with someone who is neat to a fault and have adequate storage I will actually be a very neat and organised person, because I was practically anal about things being where they belonged and in order in the various stores I worked in and in the shack at my current job. and though I've always had a messy room I still maintain that a very large reason for that is that I don't have adequate room to live and work and store things in a place that is just theirs and I end up feeling in the face of all that that I might as well just not care at all. I know I know excuses excuses) But anyway, my partner was from Georgia and he sent me some amazingly good chocolate mousse cookies and some gourmet chocolates from a local chocolatier and a couple jars of peach chutney and a bag of grits and recipes for said cookies and chutney. The theme was good stuff from Georgia. And when I find the damn postcards (depicting of course tourist shots from Georgia) then I will properly credit him and send him some thank yous.

Next on the agenda-- Backtack

I did actually finished by the 31st but I didn't get it mailed by then because I kept having to be at work or school during the hours the post office was open. But I went to school late on Thursday and mailed it


I think that my oliver octopus bag came out pretty close to how I envisioned it. I'll probably make a few tweaks to it if I decide to sell them if I ever get bonjour miette going. I'd like to make him more round so he doesn't look as much like a jellyfish. He was a big hit with the people in my bookbinding class where I spent a lot of time working on him (I have no workspace at home so if I ever have projects to do I always end up just going to the book lab where I spend half my life anyway for class at night to do them.)


so for the kit, my person mentioned embroidery so I got her a shit ton of floss, a hoop (I like that kind way better than the ones you have to tighten) a couple of iron on classic embroidery patterns of kittens and then because I'm not much of a traditional design person I got her some pattern transfer paper and some line drawings of cute animals and a couple of my own line drawings of sea creatures and of course dead guy becuase who doesn't want to embroider deadguy the lovable beret wearing skeleton on their tea towel? I also got her some floss bobbins, a pack of embroidery needles and one of those little wheels to use the transfer paper. Oh and also a blank book with a Japanese stab binding. Hopefully she likes it.

As for my backtack goodies, A Susi had me and she sent me a gorgeous tote bag full of roving and needles to start learning to needle felt.

that's her picture of what she sent I was lazy and just hosted a copy myself, since her photo looks nicer than the one I took. I'm quite glad I participated in backtack I had a lot of fun and it got me to get off my ass and make that bag.

I'd sworn I wasn't going to get into another swap until after the semester was done so I wouldn't over extend myself worrying about so many deadlines, but I've signed up for another one anyway at purple pink and orange for the november craft swap, but I figure I can send blank books, so it's already connected to what I'm doing in school anyway, I'll just make extras and it will be all good. but seriously no more until the semester is over. I really mean it this time.