Progress Report :-)

Hello!  I have not written for a while because I had nothing to say I suppose.  I am still working on my final project.  I believe they are due on Tuesday , I still have to look it up on the sheet.  I made the fox I planned on making and so far I really like it.  In addition to the fox, I made a dead goose.  My favorite part of the song is when the fox sneaks into the farmer's pen and grabs the goose by neck.  The only bad thing so far:  I made a goose like I saw it in my mind.  I did make it gray, but only because it's a gray goose in the song.  But other than that, I did not create the goose with the intention of making it super realistic.  Today, I looked up a picture of a real gray goose.  They have orange beaks and legs.  I made my goose with a black beak and legs.  Probably because that's how canadian geese look and those are the kind of geese I'm used to seeing.  So I thought it was a bit unfortunate that my gray goose is not really a proper gray goose.  I'm kind of glad I waited till now to look up a picture of what it really looks like.  I feel like what I created is really what my vision was.  Had I looked up a picture of a gray goose before I started, I would have been conflicted as to whether or not I should follow my vision exactly or make it look realistic.  So I have a gray goose with a black beak and black legs.  I suppose it doesn't really matter because the fox and his family are going to eat the goose regardless of what color his beak and legs are.

I have enjoyed this project so much! This is my first time (other than 103) working with fabric.  I find it to be most frustrating and stress-inducing at times, though I like everything about the process.  I love picking out fabrics, sketching the creatures, making up the patterns as I go, having things line up nearly straight on, yet off enough that one can tell it's handmade.  And it's imperfections only add to my love for it because I then see the fox as I see myself: imperfect, yet trying to do its best to help those it loves.

One last note:  I named the fox Aloysha.  This is the name of a character in a book I'm reading called The Brothers Karamosov.  Aloysha is the youngest of three with two older brothers, just like me.  He is quiet, observant, and seems to be the wisest of the three siblings, just like me :-)     I feel I can relate to this character a lot so the name seemed fitting.  I think it's best to not name the goose.  Becoming attached only makes it more difficult emotionally when the time comes to eat it.

Crazy like a Fox...

My mum used to sing me a folk song about a fox when she tucked me in at night.  I really love this song because it brings back a lot of memories and it's funny!

The Fox

The fox went out for a chase one night
prayed to the moon to give him light
for he had many a mile to go that night
before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o
he had many a mile to go that night
before he reached the town-o


He ran right up to the farmers pen
ducks and the geese were kept therein
he said "A couple of you gonna grease my chin
before I leave this town-o, town-o, town-o
A couple of you gonna grease my chin
before I leave this town-o."

He grabbed the grey goose by the neck
slung the little one over his back
he didn't mind the quack quack quack
and the legs all dangling down-o, down-o, down-o
he didn't mind the quack quack quack
and the legs all dangling down-o.

Old Mother Pitter Patter jumped out of bed
out of the window she popped her head yelling
"John, John the grey goose is gone!
and the fox is on the town-o, town-o, town-o
John, John the grey goose is gone!
and the fox is on the town-o."

John he ran to the top of the hill
blew his horn both loud and shrill
the fox said "I'd better flee with my kill
for he'll soon be on my trail-o, trail-o, trail-o"
the fox said "I'd better flee with my kill
for he'll soon be on my trail-o."

He ran right up to his cozy den
there were his little ones eight nine ten
they said "Daddy won't you please go back again
for it must be a mighty fine town-o, town-o, town-o
Daddy wont you please go back again
for it must be a mighty fine town-o."

The fox and his wife without any strife
cut up the goose with a fork and knife
they'd never had such a supper in their life
and the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o
They never had such a supper in their life
and the little ones chewed on the bones-o



I'm gonna go look at fabric tomorrow after classes.  Hopefully I'll find something that is homologous with my vision.

finally....

STUFFED ANIMAL!!!!

humor;
the nature of children;
family;
narrative, epic stories;
happy endings.

I am getting a degree in Fine Arts because I want to learn as much about art, about techniques, styles, and media as possible.  Besides the most obvious reason for this desire (I love art!), I want to study art so someday I can translate it into a book.  It is my ultimate dream to write and illustrate children's books someday.  I will constuct a stuffed animal, or a series of stuffed animals for my final project. 

Questions, Comments, Insults

I have not yet started my final project, though I have come very very close to deciding exactly what I want to do, which makes me feel relieved.  I know I want to do a narrative.  A narrative in its most definitive and literal definition (side note: I realize that to tell a story to my viewer I do not have to literally "tell a story")  I want to produce a series of forms, perhaps 4 or 5 depending on time and my concept.  Each of these forms will represent the same being, just in different phases of an event.  I do want to include an anthropomorphic element to it so next I will need to decide on a figure to be my muse.  If I wanted an animal, it is likely that I would choose a mountain goat (I am very fond of mountain goats).  If I chose a mountain goat, it is also likely that the story told would mirror a story of my own life.  Because I associate myself closely with mountain goats, it would be nearly impossible for me to use them as the avatar for a story about someone or anything else.  So shall I do a story about myself using a mountain goat as my main character?  This is a leading possibility.  I am waiting for something amazing to strike me like it always does when I am stuck as to what to do for a project.  I wait until everything feels right and I know this is what I should do.  I have not felt that yet but I really do like where I am going with this. 

As for the material, I think that it will strongly depend on the story.  However, I already have an idea in my mind that the final goat will be cast in metal.  This is because if the story is about me, it seems fitting that the end result will be something hard, static, and unyielding, yet shiny and welcoming.  For that goat I believe I will first do one in clay, then figure out the process with some help.  What story should I do? 

It was very helpful talking to turk (sp?) last thursday.  She had me write down all my favorite things in life.  What caught her eye was how everything I liked seemed to be threaded together with common themes:  humor, family, narratives, happy endings, epic stories.  This amazed me because I had honestly never consciously acknowledged that before.  But after I thought about it, the more true it became.  Pretty much everything I love in this world has some connection to a member of my family.  Even my possessions, for example, only mean something to me if they were gifts from a given family member.  I guess I am pretty into family, though I had never thought of myself like that.  Coming from a "broken" family with a pretty messed up childhood, I always thought that happy families are just something on tv, but do not exist in reality, not for me at least.  But I guess I have come to terms with my situation after years of hell I now feel like I have a better relationship with either of my parents, and either of my brothers, than many of my friends who come from those tv "happy families" do.  I would like to incorporate this into my project.  A story about my family?  I like that idea. 

The Proposal (sorry no Ryan Reynolds in this version)

I think I want to work more with traditional sculpture.  I really enjoyed working with food and I think it would be fun to work with more types of food.  I don't have any specific conceptual ideas yet, though.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about decisions, paths, the stepping stones of life basically.  One decision leads to another decision, which leads to another, which leads to another.  One of the fundamental beliefs I hold is that good short term decisions will lead you down a path that will ultimately bring you happiness and success.  For example, I don't do drugs, but have had the opportunity to many times.  Each time, I think, "this will not affect the rest of my life.  This one act now will probably have nothing to do with what happens to me or where I'll end up in ten years so I should just do it."  But that is just a thought that crosses my mind momentarily.  I remind myself of the fundamental value I believe in and easily say no.  I have never said, "I will never do drugs," because never doing drugs is not the point.  I don't know who I'm gonna be in five years, I don't even know who I'm gonna be tomorrow.  Nobody does.  All I know is that at that particular moment, doing the drug was not gonna be beneficial to me.  But who knows, maybe someday it will be.  Again, I don't know and nobody else can either.  Getting back to the project, I guess what all of this is about is that I would like to do something exploring the choices people make, life paths, directions, regrets because of action, regrets because of a lack of action, and the idea of an finish line.  Not everything that I believe in, but what I in addition to other people believe in.  For example, I don't believe that happiness is a finish line, I believe it is a lifestyle.  Others might disagree and I would like to explore all perspectives if possible.

I have no idea at the moment what kind of sculpture would embody all of this the best.

Technically speaking, I really enjoyed the wood carving.  I could do a series of small wooden sculptures of a person at different stages of life.  Maybe just shown in different positions representing different stages in life.  Or I could do an animal instead a human and give anthropomorphic element to it. I like that.  It is done a lot, however.  But that's okay. It's not like the peeps at Disney said, "No we can't make a movie about talking lions, we already used the talking animal idea." 

Okay after getting all of these thoughts out I feel better.  I think I will further explore the wooden sculpture idea.  A series of figures would best represent my concept I think.  I'll think about other materials I could use as well.  I could make the figures in clay and then cast them in aluminum or something.  I don't know.  I don't want anything about the sculptures to be arbitrary.

I am excited for class tomorrow.  I would really like to learn how to make casts of the body, hands in particular.

plastic bag stories :-)

The premise of my zip lock bag project:


I was the one with the balloon.  The zip lock bag was actually one my friend gave me for my birthday (at one point in time it was filled with cookies), and it said, "Yay 20 years old!" on it.  Inside the bag were 3 items.  One was a dream catcher earring my dad bought for me from our favorite place on earth, Glacier National Park. Another item was a keychain with a few dog charms on it that my mum bought for me.  And the third item was a piece of a earring I used to wear.  It was a seattle mariners logo, but the needle part broke off so I know I just keep the little trinket.  And my oldest brother gave me those mariners earrings.  I guess you could say the bag represented myself.  Those things inside were representations of not only my favorite things (Glacier, Mariners, my dog, my native american heritage), but also the relationships I have had throughout my life which have shaped me and made me who I am.  And I decide to tie a birthday balloon to it as a means of transportation.  I realize that if I really want to accomplish my goals in life, I cannot stay 19 forever.  The balloon (aka getting older) is a way of taking me to different parts of the worlds and enabling me to experience new things I have never experienced.  Another element to the whole thing was the idea of conceptual balance.  The balloon will not be able to take the plastic bag anywhere if it is too full of heavy things.  Just like I cannot not move forward in life if I am caught up in destructive relationships with others.  Things will go in the bag and out of the bag as it moves around and follows an unpaved "path."

My other bag was a bag full of "garbage," but really they were all things that could be recycled.  There was an aluminum can, some cardboard, and a plastic bag.  On the bag I wrote, "HIDE IT IN HERE NOBODY WILL SEE IT."  I don't really want to say what this means to me, because I think it can mean different things to different people and I don't want to take that meaning away from them.

side note:  I just realized that this bag is sitting on my desk, will probably be discarded of in the next week when I clean my room, and the chance of any human other than me seeing it is pretty much zero.  Yet I still think of it as if something that can, "mean different things to different people."  Funny how these imaginary people exist in my head, yet they still exist enough for me to feel uncomfortable with the idea of taking something away from them.

Back on track: I found it really amusing that it was one of two or three bags that no one spoke of in our critique.  The idea of hiding something, or itself, translated into practice I guess.  But it could have just been a coincidence who knows!

Installation

For my installation project, I decided to work out of my bathroom.  People use this room, come and go, and I feel like it is really under appreciated.  I think many of us do our best thinking in the bathroom and I'm sure a large number of geniuses have had their "breakthrough" while showering, washing their hands, or doing some other necessary physiological activity.  So to show my appreciation for the bathroom, which is usually neglected at every party, I decided to throw it a party in a sense.  I hoped to engage the space that is usually not given a second thought as people did their thing in there.  I pinned up balloons all over the walls and had balloons covering the floor.  To add an extra element, I stuck my stereo system under the sink and had speakers playing Lil' Wayne on the back of the toilet.  I set this up around 4 pm and left there, music playing, till 1 am. 

My roommates' reactions to this were the best part.  One of them heard the music in the bathroom and kept asking me if it was okay to go in there cause she really suspected that there were people in there having a party.  Then she later told me that she looked forward to going to the bathroom.  My other roommate was scared to go in because she was so clueless and fearful about what she might find.  When either of them asked me what was going on in an attempt to find out what was inside the room before they entered themselves, all I would say was, "It's just a little party."

The space actually began to transform gradually.  At one point as I was using the bathroom, I felt a little self-conscious.  The party-ness of the room definitely affected me.

Quote from my roommate's facebook: "...thanks to one of my roommates, a trip to the bathroom is like a party..."

Goofy String

I feel like balloons lately.  I get into these phases where I only want to draw cartoons of wolves or .  And right now I feel drawn to balloons beaucoup.  I love balloons because they are universally happy.  I love making people happy and no other object, excepting money, has the power to put a smile on so many people's faces.

Barry Johnson didn't respond yet.  Hope he still will!

I have really enjoyed this class more and more as I got into it.  I felt very constricted at first, all starting with the clay.  I chose sculpture over ceramics because I really don't enjoy working with clay all that much.  On the first day when we were told we'd need to go buy clay, I felt quite dismayed.  But I am glad now that I chose sculpture because I am learning so much more than just how to do a wax mold (this isn't to dis the importance of wax molds at all).  Now I feel the freedom to do what I want that I could compare to breathing.  It was hard at first because my brain is so wired to look for an A.  Get assignments, do assignments, get grade, move on.  This class is really a release from that and I'm trying really hard to not limit myself by what I "think" you want us to do or what I should do.

Under the Hill

On turning 20:  all of my memories feel the same (memories from when I was 5 do not feel any further away than my memories of when I was 15).  And they all feel like they happened yesterday.

I left a comment on Barry Johnson's blog.  I am anxious to see what he thinks.

Not many...

There's a light over at the Frankenstein's place.  That is all I can think of right now.  I am ready for the critique tomorrow, though not excited.  I cannot remember when the next plastic bag project is due.  Not tomorrow hopefully.  Today was one of those days that make me feel like, what did I do to deserve such a great life.  I found a peace in running around from place to place today.  I looked everywhere I went.  I don't even know what I'm looking for.  I guess I'm just looking for ideas, inspiration, anything I can use for a future project.  But sometimes I find things that I don't think I would ever use for a project, but it's still interesting.  I like training myself to be open like this. 

Bullshit Project

I have not written in a while because I was feeling dismayed about how my last project turned out and I feel little inspiration about which to write.

But things are much better today!

In psychology "gender constancy" is the moment or stage of life when a young child realizes that his/her gender is concrete, permanent and that he/she will remain that gender for the rest of his/her life.  This usually happens around the age of 4.  This idea has been floating around in my head for while now and it is what I would like to do my bullshit project on.  Our culture puts a huge emphasis on gender and it starts at infancy.  Parents (for the most part) dress girls in pink and boys in blue.  We are obsessed with putting males and females in their places from the first breath!  When someone walks up to a parent with a baby, they feel that they should instantly be able to tell whether it is a boy or a girl.  And if they cannot tell, they'll ask the parent.  Is it a boy or a girl?  It is as if they cannot go on with their day without knowing what gender that baby is.  And no, you cannot just accept that it is a baby, a new life, a wonderful creation in itself.  Knowledge of gender is indispensable to some.

This continues heavily though the ages of toddlers and preschool (2-5).  I work at the WSU Children's Center in a preschool room.  There are boys and girls ages 3 and 4.  They are really great to talk to about things like this.  As one would expect, nearly all the girls wear pink on a regular basis (I used the work "nearly" so as to not be absolute though I cannot think of an exception).  I often ask girls and boys about color.  What is your favorite color?  Do you like this particular color, why or why not?  Girls often respond that their favorite color is pink, or they say pink along with other colors they name (i.e. blue, green, yellow, etc.).  Boys never say pink.  Boys say blue, green, red, black, orange.  I enjoy these conversations, though I do not push very hard because I don't want to take advantage of my position by interrogating the children in hopes of gaining some bit of psychological insight.

Sometimes I really want to just yell, What is the big deal about liking pink???  Because that is how I feel.  Not that there is anything wrong with pink.  I love it just as much as every other color in the rainbow.  But I know what they would say.  "Pink is a girl color."  This is what they, and most other people in our society have been conditioned to believe.  From birth, girls wear pink.  How can I expect a 4 year old girl to understand that the only reason she claims pink as her favorite color is because she has been conditioned to?  I don't know that I can.  I feel that children are really missing out when we raise them to believe that this is a boy activity, this is a girl activity, boys: don't play with those dolls, those are for girls only; girls: don't play with those G.I joes, those are for boys.  They are missing out on new experiences, new ways to think about the world, new ways to learn.

This is what my bullshit project will be about.  I would also like to incorporate the double standard of gender roles in my project.  Boys are held in a much tighter box of what is socially acceptable that girls are.  Girls can play with almost any toy they want.  But if a boy plays dress-up and wants to wear a pink dress up then typically he will be discouraged immediately.  It blows my mind that there are parents out there (I really know some first hand) whom I have seen make a 3 year old boy take off a play-dress.  Are they afraid that the dress will turn their son gay?  Wow.  So getting back on track with the project, I want there to be a blue box.  Completely sealed, representing boys.  There will also be a pink sphere-shaped open form representing girls. 

My thoughts, these are.  (said in a Yoda voice)

A Beautiful Failure

I will tell of my adventure attempting a mold made purely of marshmallow creme.  I started out optimistic.  My plan was this:  line the inside of my plaster mold with plastic, pour marshmallow creme in, let it set, easily slide giant marshmallow out of mold, remove plastic, bask in the gloriousness that is me for creating such a wonderful sculpture.  It's not hard to pin point exactly where this plan went horribly wrong.  Lining the inside of the plaster mold with plastic just sounded so much easier in my head.  My first attempt of simply placing a bag in the mold failed epicly.  First, the marshmallow creme was not in an easily pourable liquid state I imagined, (this was my first contact with marshmallow creme and I wrongly assumed its properties).  So I tried my best to fill the plastic bag with the fluffy creme.  But the bag was not in the form of the mold obviously so this was not going to work.  I solved this problem momentarily by redoing the plastic.  Only this time, I used double stick duck tape and duck tape to the max to get the plastic bag to keep the form of the mold.  But it was not happenin I tell ya what! So I thought and thought about what I could use in between the creme and the plaster.  I assumed that if the creme hit the plaster directly it would most definitely stick.  I resolved to use Petroleum Jelly as my releasing agent.  Yes, this was my full proof plan.  I was very excited to use food coloring and make it all cool crazy colors.  Let me just say, it was absolutely perfect in my mind.  So I melted the creme a little in the microwave to get it more liquid and dolloped it in.  I let it sit for a few hours, but it was not becoming very hard so I transported it to the freezer.  After a couple hours in there, I figured it would not get much harder.  So I took it out and very carefully removed the plaster mold.  And.... wait for it..... moment of truth...... unfortunately the creme came with it.  It all pulled apart and at that moment my sank a little bit.  All this time and effort for this?  I big pile of mush???

In short, I was a tad bit stressed.  It is my style to wait till the last minute to do these things.  I feel like I have my best ideas in crunch time.  So the moment of stress was intense, but was just that: a moment.  I looked at my mush and smiled.  Though it was just a pile of nothing, it was my nothing that I had created.  And it was really quite beautiful.  I decided that since my sculpture had been far from an intended success, I would document its welcomed failure.  Dyes mixing together created a landscape of color that I felt I had never seen before.  The Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds came to mind immediately.  The more I examined the creme left on the three plaster pieces, the more I started to fall in love with it.  I do declare that the forms (including the texture, shape, dialogue, and ESPECIALLY color) might be the most beautiful things I have ever created.  These are my photographs documenting the creme's evanescent existence in my shared kitchen in Pullman Washington.

One last note.  My housemate inquired as to what the substance was.  She said it looked like marble or plastic.  I disclosed that it was purely marshmallow creme and she asked if she could eat some.  I recorded it here:

For my second mold I had really wanted to make rice crispy treats.  I went ahead and did it.  Though I only have one mold to present in class tomorrow, I am not worried.  After watching the creme ooze and change for upwards of an hour, I feel that what I got out of this project is much more than a simple form that I have constructed in a traceable fashion.  Like the Navajo sand paintings, this was all about the process for me.

Tomorrow May Rain, So I'll Follow the Sun

I try to live in the present.  Our whole society is very futuristic.  These are the questions we answer:  high school-where are you gonna go to college?  college-are you gonna go to grad school?  grad school-where are you gonna work?  once we've found a job-when are you gonna find a spouse?  married-when are you gonna have kids? 

is it so wrong to just want to live for today and not tomorrow once in a while?  I don't think so.  We should not sacrafice our present for our "future present."  The present we have now is just as important as our present will be in ten years.  Every second is the same and will be the same.  We stress out so much over doing things now to guarantee a happy future.  But first of all, it is not possible to plan a happy future.  We have very little control over the future, only over ourselves.  Secondly, happiness should not be a destination, but rather a lifestyle.  I choose to live with joy, a lifestyle that I have not always had, but now am very grateful for.  Sure my pants just got drenched in dirty street water when the bus drove by and splashed them, but one could say I just became better off than those who didn't get splashed.  There is some aspect of life, something to sense with smell, touch, sight, hearing, (hopefully not taste), that I now understand a little better than everyone else.  My mind becomes that much more well-rounded.  There are certainly times when I don't feel happy and I have learned to accept those times.  I don't pretend to be happy when I'm not.  But I have realized that it all starts with baby steps.  If something good happens to you, don't just let it pass by with indifference.  Shout for joy when you get a good grade on a test, or when you splurge and buy the fance kind of pesto, or when, in my case, you find a quarter on the ground!  Appreciating the small things is a big part of my lifestyle. 

Don't live your life now just being anxious for the future to arrive.  I tell myself, the future doesn't exist.  Only today.  And possibly tomorrow (so I should probably do my homework just in case).

bonne nuit

Love the feeling of being prepared. 

can the child within my hear rise above?

I spent the weekend at a Monastery of St. Gertrude.  I went on a retreat there with a group of people from the interfaith house.  It was so cool!  I loved hanging out with the nuns.  I paid special attention to the art in the monastery and boy was it impressive!  There were statues, paintings, and even needle-work hangings everywhere.  In one addition on the complex called the Spirit Center there were a lot of pieces made from recycled materials.  The building was built on a slope and they had to cut down some trees in the process of the construction.  So they took one of the trees that had to die to a local artist and he made it into a lovely sculpture.  It appeared to be shaped somewhat like a dog bone, but curvier; and it was about 7 or 8 feet high.  Anyways, I loved how they took something that was old and going to become sawdust and turned it into a welcoming and approachable sculpture.  The wooden sculpture especially fit in this building because the building's theme was nature.  The walls and ceiling were a soft green, the floor was stone tile.  So I really got the feeling of nature and the once-a-tree wooden sculpture really helped.  I wish I had taken a picture, but I did not bring my camera. 

observation:  i have 42 photographs (some are pictures I took, most are postcards) hanging on my wall.  I face them when I sit at my desk.  I have never counted them before.  Now that I have, I don't like that I know how many there are.

Great Day For Ice Cream!

I like my idea for the totem project.  It is going to be a dog collar that looks like a ring.  It's kind of my view on relationships and marriage right now haha.  I love my dog so much cause she's absolutely perfect and wouldn't it be nice if you could transform your dog into a human because I know we would get along so swell!  That's kind of weird, but oh well.  I worked with poplar wood today, but I found it to be too soft.  I'm a little nervous because the collar in my mind doesn't have too many intricate details, but it is quite small so I foresee some problems.  Towards the end of the day I switched to oak.  It is a harder material.  Hopefully it will be better for purposes. 

observation: in children's books, there are often small animals hidden in the pictures such as ladybugs and mice.  These animals have nothing to do with the story line. But today as I was reading stories to the children, they became very excited as they spotted the tiny ladybug on each page.  I doubt they were even paying attention to the story line.  Interesting how they get excited over the smallest things.

Reality Revealed

I so enjoyed the discussion in class today.  You know when you're really young and you think about college in the future, you think about all those wonderful philosophical conversations you'll have and how you're mind will change without you even realizing it?  I feel like today was one of those days.  Reality is so strange was I start thinking about it.  These are my thoughts:

In high school, my friends and I used to discuss how we understood color.  Red has a meaning to me, but it is not necessarily the same as how one of my friends might understand it.  Also, how do we know that when we say "red" we are even talking about the same color?  There is really no way to prove that so do we just have to accept that our belief in what "red" is is the same so that we may move on with the discussion?  But then isn't any point reached in that discussion up for debate as well because its foundation is fundamentally fractured since we have failed to define the term "red?"

When I ponder what my reality is, I think about my dog.  I love her more than anything and I feel that as long as she is with me I will be in my reality.  Some day, she won't be with me, though.  When that day comes will I enter a fantasy world?  I'm sure it will feel like a fantasy world.  But then maybe I'm in a fantasy world now and when she is gone I will wake up and reenter reality without her.  Je ne sais pas.

two can be as bad as one

Another student informed me what I missed on Thursday about the totem project.  I have a few ideas, but I still need to think about it more.

observation:  I watched pigeons on a rooftop today for an hour.  they came and went in groups of two.  At one point there were four in total.  Three were on the story below the rooftop and one was on the rooftop.  I wondered if that one felt lonely or freed because of its momentary isolation.

Limitless Undying Love

Wow it has been four days since I posted something.  Today I remembered that I had not written anything in a while and as I was brainstorming ideas I instantly felt apathetic.  I know the word "prison" is way over the top, but I definitely feel confined knowing that I have to write something.  I believe I heard someone tell me that people typically enjoy activities more when they are not forced to participate in the activity. But then again, there have been many times I did something I normally would not have because someone pushed me, and it was a good thing.  I will try to keep an open mind and try to not feel so trapped by this blog.

I am a little unsure what to do for the Whiteread project.  I don't understand how I can create a sculpture of void space without something to contain it like a bottle.  And I am trying to think of things on a small scale because I figure that will be easier plus I don't want to use a ton of plaster.  I wish this were due on thursday instead of tuesday because there are a couple objects in my house that I think I could do something with, but I don't know how I should approach it.  Hopefully I'll come up with something.

observation:  another crosswalk downtown has 9 white strips. also, 4 people sitting alone in church today; I was not one of them. 

I observed today for the first time this year, many of the leaves have turned yellow.  I am excited for fall.

I want to hold your hand

I really don't know what material to use for my sculpture.  I think I might just do paper.  I started learning the guitar this week so I have been spending all my free time practicing.  My finger tips are sore, that's a good sign.  Still need to find something red, but I will by tomorrow morning! 

While my guitar gently weeps

Another weekend has come and gone!  This was a great one!  So I didn't feel affected by Rachel Whitread's work as I was looking at it, but I think it caught up with me today.  It seems like every building I entered, I would imagine what a solid mold of any room there would look like.  I thought about hallways, the ventilation system, even the inside of the tunnel slide on the playground.  The slide mold would look like a giant worm I bet.  I found it kind of comical.  It kind of made me not take the building so seriously.  It's amazing that today I realized something I have been doing since I've been at WSU.  I subconsciously revere the buildings here simply because they are part of a university!  Though when a building is filled up with plaster or whatever material, they kind of lose their dignity.  They become just as functionless as an old abandoned barn.  I guess you never really know when something in art is going to hit you and suddenly hold value to you.  So unpredictable! I love it.

As for my mold, I have been thinking about what material to use to make a positive of the plaster mold and I am planning on using wax.  The way my sculpture looks makes me feel like it is not yet a cloud, but trying to become one.  It's on its way.  It's pushing really hard to break through and become what it is meant to be.  I want to do it in wax (first, at least) because wax is a very moldable material.  It is super easy to manipulate into becoming any shape one so chooses and its eagerness to form reminds me of my cloud.  Happy Monday!!!

If you ask me to, I will.

These are a couple drawing a sketched lately.  I love dinosaurs. And the other one is a bowling pin with the head of a man.  The man is wearing one of those sad hats women wear at funerals.  I think he is wearing it because he is mourning his own death which will come as soon as the bowling ball hits him.


Another thought on Rachel Whitread:  Her pieces are quite large.  By making lifesize replicas instead on miniatures or something else she provides almost a type of interpreter for the viewer.  With a size that people already understand and accept, the buildings themselves then become more acceptable as well.

Observation:  At least 7 people sitting alone in church today (i couldn't really see the people in front).  I was one of them.

House Party

I looked up Rachel Whiteread's work.  I think she has found a unique and successful way to investigate both space and mankind's relationship with space.  Her piece I liked the most was called Embankment.  She has piled many cardboard boxes to create "buildings," and has created spaces between them acting as roads or sidewalks.  To me, cardboard boxes represent industry, the economy, and "progress" in both of these.  Using these to erect an entire small city speaks a lot about the commercialization of art.  Art was once was a valued and treasured practice.  But now, it is perfectly acceptable to use art to brainwash children into desiring the latest toy, or to end relationships due to one partner overspending on fad items.  I feel like it is a betrayal and a tragedy that I only perpetuate because, once in a while, I too desire things I see on tv (definitely not the snuggie).  Her other sculptures I looked at were all pretty similar in technique. 

observation:  this morning, weather.com said it was going to rain today.  It did not rain all day. 

Title

I passed one of those paper tray drink holders from mcdonalds today on my way to class.  It made me smile.  I keep thinking of cool faces I could do with the paper trays.  I can't remember what I am supposed to be thinking about.  I know it was space, but then you added something to it?  I have the memory of a goldfish.  I heard once that they have 3-minute memories.  That's actually better than mine is.  And they have gills.  I was on the look out for something red today, but I never found anything that spoke my language so the search will continue tomorrow!

Burn much?

The only thoughts I have right now are:  I should have studying more for my psych exam tomorrow and I miss my dog.

observation:  counted the white strips today on a different crosswalk, also 9.  I will count them every time I use a crosswalk and see if they all have 9.  I doubt they would all have 9.

sorry this post is kind of lame.  I really enjoyed today's class!

Balloon Day

Beth's lecture tonight was so great!  I arrived at 5:15 and students were literally lining the hallway outside the room because it was so packed.  I tip-toed around a dozen or so legs and peered around the corner at the back of the classroom.  There was just enough room right there for me to sit criss-cross-apple-sauce, so I did.  I really enjoyed hearing her talk about her oeuvre and her life.  I wish she would have gone more in depth when she mentioned the stories or people that inspired the figures.  I loved the piece she did with the hare hanging off a cup stand.  I found it to be some type of rebellious comedy; it really sticks out in my memory when I think of the pieces she showed.  Overall I just love her work.  It's demented yet innocent.  I am excited to use my mold tomorrow to create a positive!  

observation:  there are 9 white strips on the crosswalk i walked across today

Beth, I hear you callin'

I really loved the artist we saw today, Beth.  I like her ideas and I feel like I can relate to her in some ways.  She mentioned that she has an instinct to immediately categorize people when she first meets them as a defense mechanism.  I find myself doing this quite a bit when I first meet someone.  I don't classify them as some type of animal like she does, but I do group them somehow.  Usually just by where they are from, which is so silly!  It reassures me that she waited four years to go to grad school.  I have been thinking about grad school lately, but it doesn't feel right when I think about going right away.  A few people have told me that if I want to go I should do it fairly quickly after I graduate, within a year or two, because if I wait then I will probably never go.  So I could go to grad school, and I can wait to do it if I so choose.  I find her work very fascinating.  I like how her figures are both extremely literal in the fact that it is a clear form of an animal (that cannot really be disputed),  and figurative because behind each figure is a complex meaning that I would never have been able to figure out without her telling us about the 4 Greek personality types and the organs which accompany each one.  I am looking forward to her lecture tomorrow!  I get off work at 5 so I will be a little late, but I will be there!  I thought it was funny how she just openly told us of her pathological fear that someday she'll have a lecture and no one will show up.  I have fears like that too.

Unexpected Feeling Happy Monday!

I am looking forward to class tomorrow.  Can't wait to move along through this process.  I went to the football game on saturday.  WOW! What a lot of people there were.  Before I got to the game I was thinking about how it would feel to be in the stadium with its vast spaces.  I thought I would feel very small.  However, I was wrong.  Surprisingly, in the mass of thousands of screaming fans, I didn't small at all.  Mentally, I felt much bigger and more important than I normally do.  My voice is so quiet there is virtually no chance of the players hearing me, I still felt the need, the DUTY, to yell as loud as possible because I felt so important among all those fans.  Mob mentality?

First Mold Successful

I made my mold today and it turned out just fine I believe.  It was supposed to be in 2 pieces.  Not surprisingly, one of the pieces broke so I now have a 3 piece mold, which is dandy as well.  I used the red coloring for the second half.  I liked using it, although I don't know how necessary it really was.  The process as a whole was not as scary as I had anticipated it being.  I found it to be relaxing actually.  

Thinking about space today:  Transportation had massively affected how we view the world.  A journey across america 100 years ago was cause for a novel.  Today, a trip across the country is no rarer than apple pie on Thanksgiving.  The distance seems so much smaller to us because of our remarkable resources.  Yet, it is the same. 

Observation:  new art show being put up in the cub gallery.

Space in Space

I was wondering how long it would take me to forget a day.  I lasted almost two weeks.  I looked up the definition of space.  This is my favorite one: 

the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur

 

The word that sticks out in my mind the most from that definition is "unlimited."  The universe is theoretically infinitely long, wide, and deep.  Some astronomers believe it goes on forever, while others believe that there are actually multiple universes.  It is so hard for me to fathom enormous the universe is.  And when I try, all I feel is small.  Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across.  And somehow within that space a tiny blue planet exists.  In the universe space does seem to be unlimited, but here on that tiny blue planet, space is one of the most controversial topics around.  Space for an increasing population, space for natural resources, space for another mouth to feed.  My conclusion: space is relative.

 

observation:  Yesterday I saw two trees side by side that appeared to be identical. 

I feel so much better about my project after today.  I felt like I was in the dark and now a light has been shed upon me and I can see the path.  And I'm almost on it. 

I was thinking about space today as I was walking down Stadium Way.  Modest trees take up about the same amount of space as human beings.  This interests me because I believe the amount of space something takes up dominantly helps determine how we will view it or feel about it.  When I am in the presence of a 400 year old red wood I feel humbled, and I even revere it a bit.  These emotions are felt subconsciously for sure because I know that the tree itself is unaware of its great triumph.  But nevertheless, its majestic branches reaching to the sky and its enormous trunk demand my respect.  I do not feel the same way about the normal sized trees I see as I walk down the sidewalk.  They seem more approachable, innocuous, even banal.  So my conclusion to this is that, in art, size definitely matters.

Observation:  there are three bowls sitting on my desk right now.  Two are dirty, one is unused.  One has a spoon it it.  All three are green.

Good Day

What a good day! I went to all my classes and word, then I cooked myself a yummy dinner.  I observed something about myself today.  When I start tapping a random beat in times of silence, my go-to beat is the cadence drumline from 8th grade band.  What a good beat that was.  The sunset was so beautiful tonight!  There was yellow, pink, and orange and the clouds reminded me of a disney movie. I didn't have a camera with me at the time, though, so I couldn't take a picture.  I am nervous for class tomorrow because I don't know what's going to happen.  I hope my clay sculpture will work.  If it won't, I'll just have to change it.

Hats Off

Observation:  Tonight I was at the rec.  In a line of about 20 ellipticals, every single user was wearing earphones.

Applying artistic elements and principles to fields that reach beyond the basics (drawing, painting, etc...) really interests me.  When I say this I am mostly thinking about clothing designers and cake artists.  I love art.  I love the freedom of the artist to create.  I love the endless possibilities that come to mind when looking at a blank canvas.  I love the idea of using art as a platform to reach an audience, to spread a message to them or to unite them.

So in all honesty I did pay very close attention to the clouds today.  But I was thinking about hats.  One designer in particular.  He is from Ireland and his name is Philip Treacy.  He makes the most amazing hats.  Here are a few of his designs.  I absolutely love how he applies the elements of art to design what he loves.  Though I will probably never see someone walking down the sidewalk nonchalantly wearing one of his hats (they are quite "expressive"), I still find his designs very inspiring.

Sight on Labor Day

I feel so lucky today, I cannot help but smile.  Lucky I have my father's eyes which able me to gaze at the sky for a good part of my day, everyday.  When I look at the sky, I feel inspired, humbled, grateful, mystified, and optimistic.  I feel the same way when I see van gogh's starry night.  It is a wonderful gift that I can see clouds, lightning, shooting stars, rainbows, the sun.  My favorite kinds of clouds are the bright, puffy, white ones that come to be on really sunny days.  They appear against bright blue skies.  And they make me feel like a child again.  Glad to be back in Pullman again!

Clouds

Today I saw the American flag waving in the wind with the blue sky behind it.  The clouds were kind of "spotty."  They looked liked they were spray painted on.  It's amazing to me how many different kinds of clouds there are.  The visible texture of a cloud could be so many different things.  It could be smooth like a stroke of paint; it could be rough like a cow's tongue; or it could be choppy like ocean waves.  Yet every cloud is composed of the same thing.  Reminds me of how appearances are only skin deep.  Genetically speaking, every race is the same. 

Cloud Haiku

Clouds in Ellensburg

Briefly in my eye

Fleeting ripples in the sky

Figures will linger

I love writing Haiku because I am all about word economy.  I had to look up the plural of Haiku on dictionary.com. 

Found Cloud Poem

The sky is so blue today! The only visible clouds are far away on the horizon.  I found this poem online.  I think it articulates the nature of clouds beautifully.  This is the first verse:

The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

Click here to read the full poem

I am going to Ellensburg for the weekend and I am excited to see the clouds there.  In my mind, they will be completely different from the clouds we have in the Palouse.

Just Another Day

There were whispy clouds covering the whole sky today.  They looked like runt clouds, like the little runt pig of the litter that never quite gets big enough to demand respect.  I could easily see the blue sky peaking out behind any cloud in my vision.  I was unable to look at the clouds that surrounded the sun, however, because the sun was too bright.  This was disappointing.  I could not help but wonder if that small secion of the sky, which I could not view contained not whispy, thin clouds, but perhaps the most majestic clouds that ever were.  I will never know, but the sun will.

observation:  16 plastic water bottles lying on the ground in front of a dumpster outside scott & coman.

Sky Smile

In the midst of 4 classes, work, study abroad fair, and an art student union meeting, all which combined took up my life from 8 to 6, a playful friend in the sky tells me, "Don't forget to smile!"

I have looked at clouds hoping to make out a figure dozens of times in my life.  But today was the first day I saw a figure with the negative space created by the clouds, rather than the positive space.

There were 3 ladybugs on the railing I walk by on my way to work.  One was a deep red with no black spots.  It made me nervous.

Ambiguous Puffballs

I drew this cloud in between thoughts.  One of my friends thought it was a bear.  Another friend thought it was a frog.  Because of thier ambiguous guesses, I consider this to be a successful drawing of a cloud.  Hurray!