subtraction

i've been playing with cutting into my paintings instead of really adding to them. here, an example. i kinda like it.

oh, and yeah, i'm done with my bfa application. what a relief.

man eating chair and ponies

my roomate vanessa drew this for me about a year ago. i have a habit of collecting chairs with no seat and this one was particularly devilish in intentions, as depicted in the drawing above. vanessa loves ponies. i just got this drawing today. i don't know how i didn't notice ths on my facebook page before.

the first thing i hate about...

let me guess. the title track is "wassail for my horses"? or perhaps "beer for my reindeer"?

Holidays

I really don't like holidays. Which is odd because growing up I sure loved them. I was the first the claim rights to decorating our house (which was a treat with its truly southern nature of having both a sitting room and a piano room; hospitality always in mind) and was a strong advocate of only playing Christmas music during the season(I was dubbed the Christmas Nazi by my sister, Heidi). Christmas, nowadays is a chore, really. It has always been a surface holiday and will continue to be a surface holiday for me. I think as a child I really loved it because I felt that beautiful objects and settings transformed people, if only for a day. And, you know, it kind of does. But, it seems very surface or at best, transient. I prefer something real. Something that can happen without the sparkling provocation of house lights and Christmas trees. I like to give gifts, but not on Christmas. And its heartbreaking to see people get stressed and depressed over it all.

That said, I do like a few holidays: Thanksgiving, New Years and Anniversaries of your own choice-relationships, accomplishments, etc. I like special days that involve food, family and friends.

2nd runner up to Christmas? Valentines Day. That god-awful tacky red ruins January/Feb for me.

I found this photo today randomly-which is awesome because I was thinking about this movie all morning and how much I used to LOVE it. It spoke to me as an angsty middle schooler, quite aware that I was different from "those stupid airhead girls"-what with my freckles and wiry hair that I tried so desperately to tame . It was a tragic sight, I am sure, for those who watched me grow up. :) So tragic. Kat, my protagonist, at least, was a vintage chevy driving, letters to cleo listening, simone de beauvoir reading, sarah lawrence hopeful- who I had a heart attack crush on. I still get giddy when I think about this film. She was angry-I was angry! She read Shakespeare-I read Shakespeare! She liked Letters to Cleo-I loved them! It was a friendship meant to be.

So this morning, a series of essays I was reading led me to feminism, to french feminism, to simone de beauvoir and naturally to Kat Stratford from "10 Things I Hate About You."

And to find this photo while searching for an "I Hate Christmas" photo. Fate.

i need a new bed

so, come december 15th or so, I will be moving from various friends/family member's couches (4 mo w/o a bedroom or a bed! I'm going absolutely insane) to an apt of my own. and in light of this upcoming golden era (obama will save the world :), new bed, marc flies back to utah, BFA, installation class, less time until spring happens...), i want to kick it off with an awesome bed. i have ideas. mostly involving cardboard. my thoughts are to make a bed frame out of cardboard, but can't help but think that would either be a really tall bed or a very-not-ergonomic one. i found this bed online. a student at RISD (ny times did a photo essay of art students from yale, risd and nyu; you know the ones with bedrooms and flats that i want to make love to), made a frame out of honeycomb cardboard. looks cool. not that comfortable. i don't want to just set the mattress on the frame. i want it to sit in the frame, so it's not too tall but i can still have a box spring/mattress. if you have ideas...post. photos? post. or if you can think of better materials, i'm game.

the possibilities are endless, but not all welcome

oh and yeah. why the fishing pole? or better yet, why not the fishing pole?

unless you are a masochist, please never purchase one of these:

an epiphany

so, i was replacing my tail and low beam head lights this morning and ran into a slight problem. the screws holding in my light casing were corroded. i recalled some information i received a while back that coca-cola is great for cleaning battery acid. so, i tried it on the screws. and it worked. so, i'm never drinking coke. ever again. i want to keep my teeth.



also, it occurred to me today that all the money i spend on my car could be better used to make me look hot. :) and by hot, i mean make me look like i'm wearing this dress. as in, i should have this dress.

the menace to society

this is the print of the sketch i posted about 2 weeks ago.

warning signs

but even then, can you ever be sure? talk to your kids about tagging. they'll understand.

hobby and the most ridiculous cat

i need a hobby. as if i really had all the time right now to take up, yet, another passion to consume my sleeping hours. but, none the less, i'm finding my projects to be so mentally draining (i do like the work i am doing) that it would be nice to take up something where i can keep my hands busy but go into auto-pilot. like knitting. except even knitting is a little too much thinking sometimes...

this cat is a charm.

the sartorialist and the femme fatale

the sartorialist in new delhi: here, a product of his findings. for those of you not in the know (and frankly it's easy not to be with this one), "the sartorialist" scouts the streets of almost every major city taking photographs of great style.

now that the introductions have passed, i will now say this: she has to be one of the most beautiful women i have ever laid eyes on.



i've been working on a drawing for my lithography print. i'm working with ideas of female/nature, nudity and animals as menaces to society. we have built in systems to regulate these things that are really out of our control: birth control, feminine hygiene products, clothing (and dress codes to boot), domestication and the manufacturing of meat. Animals can exist either as our pets, amusement at the zoo or on the way to our dinner table. There's no place for them otherwise. The cycles of the earth and the unpredictable nature of woman as a link between earth/life (fertility, cycles,etc.) are factors we live in fear of: accidentally getting pregnant, hurricanes, snowstorms, earthquakes, etc. as far as nudity goes, it has no place in society: "NO Shirt, NO shoes, NO SERVICE." that's pretty extreme, don't you think? it's really no different than "NO PETS ALLOWED." you, in all your "not fully clothed" glory-are an animal. i mean, it's just barefeet and bare chest/back. this ties into a big question with the piece i'm working on: what defines a human being? do true humans have a place in society? is nudity human? is nudity animalistic? what's so wrong with being an animal? where's the distinction? there are primates that have many of the physical characteristics of a human. are advanced societal humans just clothed _____? (pick an animal to your liking)

that said, I find clothing absolutely fascinating and absurd. theatre is just life magnified, collaged, or shaped in a way to re-represent it. clothing is costume. clothing shows what part of society, or what level, if we are talking about hiearchy, you want to participate in. even a clothing counter-culture, in all its rebellion, is a socially acceptable way of defining who you are, via how you dress. the true counter to culture is nudity. but that's not even in the scope of society; not even part of the discussion.

lola

so back to early this summer: me and marc were sitting on my bed discussing the benefits and pitfalls of having no arms or no legs. at work, i made a drawing of lola, the no arm prostitute. in a way, she resembles the remnants of a grecian sculpture, devoid of limbs ,much too delicate to withstand the test of time. but lola isn't made of marble. so how did she lose her arms? and she's still at it, on the streets, working the oldest profession. has she gone vigilante now? working the corners until she finds the man/woman that cut off her arms? shot them off? and what will she do when she finds him/her?

tbc....