20 October 2009

New Project

In Letterform Anatomy today Joe gave us all rolls of tuppence to work on. This was awesome (especially he gave me two extras to take home!). I decided to do some free writing and I ended up with a sweet little story/poem/rhyme - don't ask where it came from, it just did. Here are photos of the scroll, and below that is the edited/completed text that I finished tonight.





_____________________________________________

A nightingale once said to me,

“in time, my dear,
wait and you will see,
your heart will shine,
as once before,
and while I can not promise
nevermore, for a while
at least, your tears shall be cured.”

As time went by, my head hung low, I waited for a sign to show. A little key to prove her right, to bring her prophesy to light. I went about my daily tasks, doing my best to stay unmasked. For the nightingale, she also said,

“I know my dear,
as you do tend, to keep
your life up in your head.
Your face, it shows
contentment yes, while
really what you feel’s a mess.
Restless, darling, as you
may be, I think it’s time for
them to see, what’s in your head,
upon your face, and only then
may you find grace.”

And so I took her words to heart, believing if I did my part, keeping my face (heart) honest and true, that someday, oh, I would find you. And thus I went about my days, relating to people in different ways, taking comfort in honesty, letting myself, well, just be.

Quickly, though, it did not come, a change, a shift, had begun. Where once my days, they had been cold, a bright new warmth I now did hold. No longer did I feel the need, to find myself part of a ‘we’. Content I was, truly this time, on my own, for I did find, the nightingale, her words were true,

“the most important company to find is you.”

It was then, and only then, that I saw you there. You came to me as in a dream, for now I was prepared, to love someone as once before, no longer was I scared. For the nightingale, taught me she, in order to find your care, that I must find, for myself, that which must be bared. And as my eyes, open now, found your pensive gaze, I heard her words, so clearly now, over once again,

“And once he comes,
for you will know,
as if the world did bend,
to bring you two together then,
and draw you hand to hand.
Your love will grow with strength, with hope,
and with
honesty, for at this point,
you will have become
what you are meant to be.”

_____________________________________________


I think i'm going to keep working with this because I like the text and I think it'd be fun/good practice to write it out and sort of illuminate it. I'm going to keep working with the scroll because it's awesome, and I want to do really ornate initial letters and illuminated borders. I think it could be pretty awesome when I'm done - although I have very little idea how to do it all. Time to stick my nose back in those books about illuminated manuscripts...




23 September 2009

Lately





in class doodles






taking letterform anatomy, again



there are monsters among us
(unfinished)

08 September 2009

Benches, Benches, Benches

I want to buy a bench for my living room. Yesterday Anna, Jamie, Elliott and I all went to Ikea and I finally bought some stuff for the house I've been wanting, including some DVD racks. When we got back home we rearranged our living room into something not-so-bad and finally moved out our shitty ugly uncomfortable broken 'couch', moved in jamie's plush comfy love seat. Now, I want a bench to double as a seat and a coffee table. I started searching for some this morning, knowing that ideally I'd love a slat-stlye bench, but also knowing I may not be able to afford one. So far I've looked on Etsy and Ebay, and these are what I've found that I like.

03 September 2009

In Her Presence

School starts up again tuesday and while I haven't done much new work recently, I thought i'd post a project or two that I hope to finish up during this coming semester. If all works according to plan, this should be my last semester of my undergraduate career (WHAT?!? WOOP!!!), and after many long, painstaking, difficult (read, easy and willy nilly) years, I will be really glad to finally have my BFA.

Anyways, here's a project I started at least 2 years ago. A long time ago, I was hanging out on the internet and stumbled across this picture.


It's a photo of Bill Callahan and Joanna Newsom, taken while they were dating. This photo struck me for a bunch of reasons, but the two most prominent being: why would someone take a photo of these two? and, the chemistry between them is melting me. Yeah, to someone like me, seeing Bill Callahan and Joanna Newsom would be pretty wild and exciting, and I guess someone with a pap-sort of mind would snap this photo - but the fact that someone like that would stumble upon this couple and have the chance to take the photo just seems so unlikely. But more than anything, this picture made my heart beat fast and made me think of another photo I had seen of Bill Callahan, that was taken by Joanna Newsom. It's this one:


The first time I saw this picture, it also killed me. The look on his face is stunning; he's looking directly at her, enveloped in her shadow, the two of them trying to get some album photo out of the way, most likely not realizing how much emotion is conveyed through the snapshot they made.

So, I started searching for more photos of the two of them together, or that one took of the other. I understand that not everyone will see and feel what I do in these photos, and I know that my love for both of these musicians (especially Bill), and my heart-filled-dream-head that loves intense firey love is what draws me to these images and shows me what I want to see. But I saw it and I wanted more.

So, I started searching and found a bunch of photos - some more that Joanna had taken of Bill, but more than that, photos of the two of them playing together or photos of him playing while she was in the audience on backstage. I was interested in images of him primarily, for a thousand reasons (he's a hunk, i'm in musiclove with him, his music has governed/guided/soundtracked dozens of the most important interactions and experiences of my life, etc etc etc) Each photo I found made me feel the same way, and I realized I wanted to make a book based on them.

I started doing tracings of the photos. So far, I've only done three. These are them:






I want to print the photos full bleed, double sided. Not sure how I want to bind it yet. SMFA has an incredible printer that can do exactly what I want it to do, and will allow me to print on all different types of papers. It'd be fun to print on tracing paper, to almost exactly recreate the originals, but tracing paper is so hard to work with when binding. I don't know how it'll all pan out, but I really want to get this project done before I leave school, so I can take advantage of the facilities there. The title of the book will be In Her Presence.

18 August 2009

THE FINK TAPES!

HEY! So I started a new mixtape blog, and everyone should check it out. I'm hoping to update it at least once a month with a new mix, if not twice. Right now there's one mix up there, and it's full of summer jams that you probably wish you were listening to. GO!!! LOOK AT IT!! LISTEN TO THE TAPE!! YEAH!!!!

12 August 2009

Purple Calligraphy, Broken Nib




I have a bunch of pen nibs for doing calligraphy, but there's only one I really use often. It's really broken in and has the perfect amount of give - keeps nice thick strong lines unbroken, and while it's uphill is a little difficult, it's worth the struggle. I sat down today to do some writing, wanted to practice for a bit and then maybe do some free-writing in calligraphy, but my nib broke. So I watched Wife Swap instead, and started knitting a pot holder.

31 July 2009

Today - Boxes!

The other day at work I found a copy of Books, Boxes, and Portfolios, which I've been searching for FOREVER (well, at a discounted price that is...). Anne used to bring this book into class when I TA'd for her and I would constantly be photocopying pages from it - it's got some of the clearest, most concise directions I've ever used.

I haven't done any work in a while but I felt like doing something fun and easy today just to get my hands busy, and so I decided to make the 3d shapes from the book. I scored some great books about bears too, and I cut them up and used some of the full bleed photos for the folding paper.






























17 July 2009

Apple Pie

So, I've got pie fever. Ever since I made the pie for our 4th party, all I can think about is making more pies. I haven't had a chance to do so until today, and so that's what I did today! I decided it'd be fun to do a step by step post about it:

Started off with apples (fuji and pink lady, my two favorites) as well as the nectarines, frozen mango and strawberries for the reduction.


I peeled and sliced 6 of the apples and put them in a large sauce pan


i then added cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla and honey to the apples,
and started to cook them over med-low heat


this time i ended up making my own crust because i forgot to buy some
i made it with butter, flour, salt and water, and it may suck, but this is it



next i popped the three nectarines into some boiling water to loosen the skins


then under cold water to peel


then chopped up the nectarines



and put them in a pot with the frozen strawberries and mangoes
(which had been defrosting)


i added a little vanilla to the fruit and covered the pot,
letting it cook down and eventually simmer



because i was having a hard time getting all the fruit mashed,
i poured it through a strainer and finished the sauce that way


meanwhile, the apples have been cooking on low heat


and i've rolled out the top crust and cut it into strips



then i filled the pie with the apples and some of the sauce


and then i covered it with the strips


and then painted some sauce on top and sprinkled a bit of cinnamon


baked it too high at 425 for 20 min, then 325 for 20ish
et, voila



Next up, banana bread!

10 July 2009

Good Morning, Spider





08 July 2009

Review Board Review, Months Late

So, in the spirit of updating this thing until it bursts, here's post #2 of the day. Months ago - May 7th or so - I had my review board. You'll remember, of course, when I posted the pre-review board lineup, and so here I am, months later, showing y'all what it really looked like. I made a cherry torte and fruit salad to munch on (I am a huge fan of food bribery!!!) and brought some lemonade and seltzer to drink. It took me about an hour to hang (all the time I had) and it ended up lasting about 2.5 hours. Because I didn't have the time, I was only able to take pictures after the board was over and had been gone through, so it's a little disheveled in these pics. But here they are!


anne pelikan, my favorite teacher ever, by the about mixtapes installation

i tried to hang all the doodles i'd done that year, and/or
during my time away from smfa


this is an installation i'll detail in another post, but
i had just finished it a few days before my board - i really
loved how it came out


a table with calligraphy, my icon, and some odds and ends


some of these little transparency guys i made a while ago

some photobooth shots from a year+ ago, pinned
to a prototype i made years ago

the cherry torte aftermath - it was sooo delish!



wall of calligraphy


one of my favorite text pieces

sample sheets



It was an amazing board, probably the best one I've ever had. Old loops came full circle, my eyes were opened, and I walked away from it feeling proud, accomplished, encouraged, and excited. I hadn't realized just how much I had made until the whole thing was hung - and I'll tell you that we didn't even get to look at all of it. My mentor and total inspiration, Anne Pelikan, was one of the faculty, and Kurt Ralske was the other. There were three student reviewers and they were all talkative and awesome - two of them really got my work and it was really wonderful to hear how they felt about the work and the inside the had to share. By the end of the board I started thinking about how much I love making work, and how important it is to me - and feeling encouraged enough to sort of maybe a teeny bit entertain the idea that maybe, maybe, maybe, it wouldn't be so bad to put myself out there more, to try and imagine going forward with art making, in a serious way, after graduating from smfa. We'll see what happens, but i'll tell you that it really made me think...

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LINKS: Eating A Hobo - Spool Spectrum - This Moi - Wasted Youth Sound System - Weekend Party Update - Besty Q. Bramble - Todo Mundo - Rogue Femme Art - Holy Craft! Fair
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