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.