crazy days.

I have so so much to put up here. my life has been consumed with finishing the semester, making christmas presents, and getting justin ready for japan! I will put up many things soon!

paint.

the progression of my self portrait. slow and steady... but im getting excited because it finally feels like it's starting to come together... can't wait til it's finished.

a greeting from heaven, or space?

i was waiting for my friend Rebecca to come out of her apartment building so I could give her a little gift i had for her so i decided to lay on the grass because it is a beautiful autumn sunday and it's not too cold and it's not too hot. so i laid there resting with my eyes closed for a while then i opened them to look at the sky. i saw some planes glistening by and then i noticed an oddly sparkling plane. i shielded my eyes and studied for awhile, very curious indeed. i began to realize it wasn't a plane at all but a wandering aluminum balloon high high up in the atmosphere. it had a lavender glow around it and sometimes it was dark and sometimes it was blinding. i watched it for a long time. it made me realize the beauty in slowing down, being patient, and being observant of those little things that can easily slip by.

caesura.

At UD we publish a literary and art annual that is an 80 page collection of student poetry, prose, and photography. I resurfaced some pictures of my sister from last spring and submitted them for the book. I also submitted a short poem that I wrote...

rainbow lines to blind my eyes

plums and clouds and peace of mind

speech of green bees just in time

i'm fine.

CocoRosie

what I have been filling my ears with lately. they are a musical group of two sisters - bianca "coco" and sierra "rosie" casady. they mix pop, blues, opera, electronica, and hip hop to create an eclectic and unique sound some people refer to as freak folk. I think it's great. the lyrics are just so honest and exact. they are really beautiful and magical and seem really painfully raw. I am really inspired by their live performance and dress. i don't know how i didn't hear of them til a few days ago.

Watch werewolf live.

my lovely friends.

Grace made me this wonderful bow! I adore it and I got many compliments on it, thanks Grace!

i need to stop sleeping through my 9 am.

thoughts and reactions...

Tibetan Nomads

I am taking art of Tibet this semester. One of my recent lecture was all about the lifestyle of the Tibetan nomads. They are such a unique people group and what really amazes me is their style. They always look totally decked out even while working and cooking. They dress in so many layers to keep warm, but it ends up creating a fabulous eclectic visual experience.

mirrored headdresses = form generation

Rebecca and I took a photobooth series of mirrored headdresses. It created some pretty wonderful shapes and compositions. They make me think a lot about graphic design. There is nothing I cherish more than spontaneous creativity with friends!

waaa!!

So I am obsessive about woodgrain pattern. I came across this most amazing bag from Reloadbags.com beautiful!

print. print. print.

the dress.

unfortunate.

There are so many good shows coming through this area during the fall that I am missing for lack of money and inability to be in two places at once, tragedies for sure. Asobi Seksu was here on Sunday and Dirty Projectors will be playing on Wednesday in Philly, of course, during my type class. All I can do is use them for poster projects in class and wish I could be there.

oishi!

I have been in the mood lately to experiment with cooking. I don't really have a way to at school because I have no time, not to mention our basement kitchen is far below par. I was at home this afternoon and jumped on my chance to play in the kitchen. I want to reinvent the typical junky comfort foods so they can be enjoyed with a much clearer conscience. Today's menu set by my father was to be grilled cheese and tomato soup. I offered to make it and got to brainstorming. Instead of packing butter on each side of the bread I spread a mixture of olive oil, salt, and pepper. I layered fresh tomato and basil down on the bread and shook some parmesan cheese on top. on the other slice of bread I spread a thin layer of cream cheese. (my dad got one slice of american for extra love) ....ba boom! so delicious! it had a light, fresh taste that was a little sharp with the parmesan. I think I'm sold on my new regular grilled cheese sandwich. Wish I had a picture of this, it was glorious. 

the conclusions I can't always reach on my own.

Creativity as eliminating all social norms and expectations that become obstacles to your ability to fully be yourself. 

Stop thinking so much, live in the now and produce.

Wisdom from a coffee session with a dear professor and mentor Ashley Pigford. 

This is a small start but a nevertheless, a creation: in the moment with no planning. Wearing it out to go see "Where The Wild Things Are" now.

new.

Here I go being overly ambitious with my next painting. I am going to do my first self portrait. I had this strange complex in which I felt it was self-centered to do a self portrait so I would feel so weird doing one. I realize that everyone addresses this and probably does one or even many, and that it is a completely valid way to express your view of yourself or a way to discuss your view about something going on around you. Nevertheless mine will be a life size depiction of myself nested in a cocoon of fur, wearing a huge indian head dress, and surrounded by really long hair and animals. I am going to try something new with my painting style. I want to restrict myself to not reverting to my comfort zone of outlines. While that is no doubt a part of my style I really want to try a variety of stroke and paint application for this one. This also means that to prepare I have been working on value sketches rather than line drawings.... there is a big margin for frustration but I think I will be able to pull off something really new for me.

spring 2008.

The brief for our current Illustration project is to choose a song that has no lyrics and illustrate the experience of the sound, beat, rhythm etc. My song of choice is "Spring 2008" by Architecture in Helsinki. It's a pretty magical song, like your are hopping from tree to tree in an enchanted forest. My current challenge is to figure out how to make something look sequential but not flat, how can you make the viewer enter the dimension of your song and transcend through the flat painting/drawing, and what is between 2D and 3D? It's gonna take some working out... but I have great inspiration from their album work and photoshoots. I am simultaneously thinking about candy, Never Never Land, tribal beats and dances, Fantasia, The Land Before Time, Bambi, rainbows, and woodgrain.

current.

Here is a glimpse of what is going on in my studio right now... The painting is an experimentation with the oils, and the smaller illustrations are something that I want to have constantly going on the side. It helps me work through my ideas. Oh I love what painting can teach you.

Popsicled!

I think it is important to be creating separate from class while you are going through school. Your mind and ideas will just get stale if you are only thinking projects. For me, I really want to start learning about motion and sound. The easiest way I can be doing that on my own without further instruction is to make stop motions. I kinda threw this one together in 2 days just to keep myself going on something. Thanks to Andrew Larason for helping me put it together and add the sound. Pretty cheesy plot I know, but I made it as a silly suprise for Justin and he liked it. Hey, at least I'm the girlfriend making him corny little videos and not really embarrasing nicknames and imaginary families..... eek.

overload.

No, I haven't posted in what feels like forever, but yes, I have been keeping myself busy and producing a fair amount of work. My class line up is Painting III, Typography III, Illustration, Print Making, Art of Tibet, So as you can imagine my life has been more or less consumed. But let's try to catch up. ATP. Amazing. So worth all the money. Kutsher's Country Club was this wonderful place hidden in a secret New York forest. It's architecture and interior design is stuck in the 50's and doesn't look a day older, besides the fact that young hipster kids are running around rather than the expected 60 year olds in Lacoste. The band list was unbelievable and it was almost tragedy to be so close to all this talent and know you are only experiencing one of three days. I am definitely doing the whole deal next year. Not only did they have great music constantly going, there were films being shown, visiting artists with work up, a lake, an arcade, playground, everything delightful. I stuck to the music for the most part. I experienced Sufjan Stevens, Grouper, Atlas Sound, Akron/Family, Antipop Consortium, EL-P, Shellac, Deer Hunter, closing the night off with Animal Collective. I could die pretty happy after all that.