Inside the Junk Drawer

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Feb
18

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Spring Term So Far

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It’s been a long time! Classes have been pretty hectic this spring term so I haven’t been able to keep up with this. I’m taking English Literature II, Western Art II, and Social Ethics this term, so it’s been very heavy on the reading assignments. Luckily, Drawing Structure and Expression II and Advanced Painting have been far more relaxing. I’ve also continued dividing my work hours between the library and the front desk as well. Recently, the project I’ve been assigned for the later is scanning slides for Professor Brus.

The second half of Drawing Structure and expression is pretty much like the first. We’re still drawing from the model using pastels. There have been some differences. Gabe let us experiment with other mediums for the last two weeks. Some people tried out water color and other kinds of washes. This week we’re in the middle of a long pose. My drawing is a bit strange because I decided to do my sketch with a neutral color, so my color palette is extremely bizarre.

At first, I thought Advanced Painting was going to be a pain because it meets from 10 and officially ends at 4:40. Basically, it’s an all day class which takes place on Fridays. This really bummed me out, but it was the only class offered that semester, so I took it. I ended up being really surprised. It’s turned out to be my favorite class. Linda Brown’s teaching the five of us (yeah there are only five of us, awesome huh?), and been guiding more than lecturing: she’ll introduce us to artists, give us a task, then leave us be for the rest of the day to muddle through on our own. If we’re really stuck, she’s close by, but I find it very nice to be left alone like this. The idea scared me at first, but I’m really enjoying it now. Tomorrow, we’re making about twenty postcard sized collages for our next painting. With our first painting, we abstracted a still life with a specific color palette. On our second painting, we drew using our first as a base. The third was less strict and required an additional color. So far, all three of my paintings look related to each other, so changing to collage should help me not be so dependent on previous objects.

In Western Art II, we’ve started at the fourteen century and progressed to the sixteenth. We’re studying High Renaissance and touching upon Mannerism now. Professor Bokhari has also assigned a research project to complete for the class, so I’ve also visited the first of four museums last week with Pearla. We went to the Harvard Art Museum and I definitely recommend going if you have some time. The collection isn’t as extensive as the Museum of Fine Arts, but the pieces (jems) they do have are definitely worth looking at.

In English, we’ve finished up Romantic Poetry and moving into Victorian Prose. I turned in my first essay today. He assigns in class writing assignments at random. We’ve had two and both of them I did pretty well on, but I still get nervous. I’m finding it difficult to pull the deeper meaning out of the poetry we’ve read so far, which is a bit embarrassing considering I’m thinking about minoring in creative writing.

Social Ethics is probably my biggest class. It meets once a week on Tuesdays. We’ve been reading from two texts, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, both written by Aristotle. Our first reading was hard, but once you get use to the mathematical way Aristotle things, the concepts become much easier to understand. This class has also forced me to pay more attention to the news of late, though I’m finding it extremely difficult to make this into habit. As an Artist and image maker, it’s extremely important to know the news. Pretty much essential. I just find it hard to get into because I can’t really do anything with it and I generally don’t have time to read the paper or watch the news.

As for work study, I’m still stumbling over stuff, but the library work has become much more fluid. I also started getting to know my peers better that work there. The front desk, Molly handed out this handbook which has pretty much helped me stop so many mistakes. I feel like superwoman, lol. Now, I’m just waiting to continue scanning slides. After that, I have to read The Case of Jekyll and Hide and Life of Lycurgus. Then, this weekend I’ll be going home to celebrate my sister’s birthday. It’s crafty, but I can’t tell you what it is because I think she might read this. I’ll let you know next week.

Dec
4

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Oncoming Exams: Two Week Maddness (Not to mention Christmas on top of that)

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Drawing: We had another two session drawing. I’m still struggling pretty hard. I’m debating whether or not to do another self portrait in an attempt to boost my grade, but I have no idea if I’ll have the time. The modeling session being held on tomorrow is pretty much a no go because I have to finish constructing my Processfolio for Matt’s class. Plus, it’s going to snow tomorrow and I’d rather not be out in that. Later in the week will probably be better. The final crit is on Monday morning on the 14th, so I’ve got a little time.

Printmaking: I have six of my twenty-five prints done. I also haven’t constructed the box yet either. Our final crit is also on Monday 14th (I think). He said something about switching to Wednesday. I really hope we do that because I have an exam on the hill happening about an hour after Printmaking starts. It shouldn’t take too long; we exchanging prints.

Western Art 1: We’re studying Islamic art. I have to get the reading and questions done by this coming Tuesday morning. We’ve got a museum trip planned for Thursday and then the Exam the Tuesday after that. The paper for the museum will probably be due the same day as the exam. There’s always this mad rush right after Thanksgiving…

Intro to Sociology: We finished going over our six cases. This should give us plenty of time to review for the exam on Monday. Yeah, Monday. I have class on Tuesday at 11ish and they schedule the test for Monday 3pm I swear just to confuse us. I’m slacking off something fierce on my case paper. It’s just making me really nervous. I’m afraid I’m going to write it wrong or something. Maybe I should look up sociology papers…

 Imaging: We passed in our Homage. I fixed Ueda’s and Kandinsky’s at the last minute. I hate my Klimt rendition. The Processfolio is due this Tuesday, so I’m scrambling to get that assembled. Mine is a box with different compartments inside. At first, I was wrapping the inner boxes with drawings I did by hand. Then, about two days ago, I figured out that I could make the equivalent of wrapping paper with all the scanned work I did this year from all my classes.

  

Tuesday is the last day we’re meeting, so I’m toying with the idea of making a cake for us to eat Monday night. The Thursday after that, we’re to pass in photographs of it to Matt’s mail box with a written evaluation of the course. Due to the fact that our projects are only worth 10% and we acted as guinea pigs, the final evaluations the administration has the students fill out for their classes can’t really apply to us, hence why Matt’s having us write our own.

Work: Molly took pictures of student work today, so I helped out a little bit. I’ve also got my hours picked out for spring term. I’m working at the Library on Wednesday and the Front Desk on Thursday. I may also be working a couple of days during Winter vacation in January, so that’s really awesome too. I want to spend some time at home, but not to go stir-crazy like I did this summer.

Gallery: Yeah, I bet you just did a double take. We have a new gallery exhibit up with Resa Blatman’s work up which is pretty much indescribable. She uses a lot of intense color and liner patterns with extremely realistic animals and insects. I walked up the stairs while Jeff, our curator, was still putting up the work and it was like Christmas morning. It is so gorgeous.  She’s coming to give a talk on Tuesday which I’m looking forward to.

Christmas: I have some Christmas shopping to do. I made some presents already and have to wrap them up.  I’m also trying to figure out if I want to decorate my apartment with something. Small tree or a wreath…I’m not sure yet.

 

Nov
24

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Make Up For Lost Time

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I missed last week’s post; I was archiving with Molly and simply didn’t have time. I probably should have realized; it’s always really busy before vacations of any sort, Thanksgiving included.

Drawing: We took two classes for little sketches and such. No giant drawings. I liked going back to gestures again; it feels less stressful. Or at least it did before Gabe had us do an exercise focusing more on form than line. My brain pretty much crashed and I wasted two sheets of paper and got extremely frustrated before I got a result I could live with. I usually draw very systematically first because proportion is one of my greatest weaknesses. However, focusing on form made that technique pretty much impossible, so I was dead in the water for a while. This week we’re working on self portraits. It’s different than anything I’ve done before because we’re incorporating pieces of shredded brown paper to make the drawing look more like a collage. I work pretty slowly. As contrast, Katia, one of my class’s drawing geniuses, already finished. I look to her partly as a role model and a rival. Rival in a good way, I mean, like someone to compete with (Tangent: when I think of ‘rival’ I think of Kenshin and Shingen and the salt episode: rather, compete through honorable engagements and without spite). I’m hoping it will drive me to produce better work. So far it’s been so-so.

Printmaking: We learned how to mat and matted a few of our earlier prints. For those of you not familiar with matting, it’s basically a frame made out of mat board-hence ‘matting’. After that, we produced a piece with three of the processes we learned this year. I used gum Arabic transfer, an acid transfer, and monoprinting. I produced two prints with the same subject matter. One boarder was produced with a ghost of a stencil and the other was a direct print, produced simply by drawing on an inked plate with a cuetip. After vacation we’re going to do our final project-create twenty five prints-and pass them out to the class as mementos.

Western Art 1: I passed in my paper. I didn’t get a grade on it yet. I’m less worried, which is probably jinxing me (oh well). We’ve moved from Christian Byzantine Art to Medieval and Romanesque. I have no idea why we jumped over Islamic. Afsan said we’re going to backtrack, but still it’s a bit weird. I’m glad I held off on the reading.

Sociology: The usual hat: we’re going through cases. I posted my homework on blackboard and wrote a rough draft for the paper. It’s not due until the tenth, but I’d rather get it down while it’s fresh in my head.

Imaging: We finished up scale and moved ahead to Homage. Basically, you pick three famous artists and produce like theirs while also sticking to your big idea. The object of the game is to produce artwork that is convincing enough to look like it was commissioned by the three famous artists we chose. I picked Gustav Klimt, Kako Ueda, and Wassily Kandinsky. Since my big idea is Unwrapping, or hiding things, I changed the composition of a Klimt piece and merged Tim Curry’s face from Rocky Horror over the original woman’s profile. Julie suggested it because they looked alike, so I ran with the idea. Kako Ueda incorporates cut paper, but I completed my homage with Photoshop and using threshold and the cut out filter. Kandinsky was giving me the hardest time-but then Matt suggested I include some history into my work. John then suggested floor plans because Kandinsky’s work is very geometrical, so I hid floor plans of the Bauhaus inside my piece. The worked on them all weekend, thinking we’d look over them one last time, but Matt cancelled class tonight because not enough people were coming. They’re not due on Tuesday, but I’d have rather not worked on them during vacation. (I have a feeling I will because I’m a workaholic like that). This is what I’ve got so far for my Ueda Homage.

Roommate Situation: A lot happened. I chose the guy from MIT instead of the girl. Looking at her facebook page, I didn’t think we would get along. So, MIT guy signed the lease and spent his first night yesterday. We’re still walking on eggshells around each other, but it will take a bit of time to get comfortable. I’m planning on leaving for Thanksgiving vacation tomorrow after my Drawing class and work, so that should give him a couple of days to settle in.

 

Nov
13

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Watching the Hourglass

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Time’s going too fast for my liking. I’m going to make this short in an attempt to catch up with everything else that’s going on. Bullet time:

Drawing: We had one class this week due to Veteran’s day. I managed to salvage most of the drawing by doing some research on pastel techniques. Nesad Library saves the day again! I’m not sure what we’re doing next week, but Thanksgiving is fast approaching.

Printmaking: We went over our prints. I’m still being skeptical about my print. Randal and Perla are telling me it’s great. When I look at it I still feel its flawed because it didn’t satisfy the person who commissioned it. I think I just need some emotional distance or something.

Sociology: I did worse on my second test. I passed, so no alarm bells, but I’ll have to study harder on the next test. Each of us also has to pick a case, identify three sociological concepts in it, and write a paper about it. My case is next week.

Western Art 1: I was twenty minutes late to our museum trip. Wednesday screwed me up and I forgot to leave my Sociology class fifteen minutes early. If I had been by myself, it would have been very bad. However, there were a bunch of us who were late due to classes and registration times. I’ve a paper due next Thursday. I’ve written a rough draft by hand and have to type it out and edit.

Imaging: We moved from Texture to Scale. The point of the project is to take something out of scale. I did three: Huge chess pieces behind a city, babies playing with a bathtub with a ship with tiny people on it, and a gingerbread house hidden in with the rest of a neighborhood. I thought the last one was the worse, but Matt told me it was my best. Something has got to be wrong with the way I’m looking at things.

Roommate Situation: I’ve got a girl and a guy that want to rent the room. The guy is from MIT and is willing to pay more for the room, but I already gave the girl, who is out of the country, contact information and she’s supposively filling out the paperwork. I don’t know if that’s the truth or if she told me that to keep me from renting to the guy from MIT Maybe I should contact the realty company and ask if they spoke to her. It was so hard for me to contact them that I’m surprised she got through to them so quick…

Nov
6

By

[Insert Epic Title Here]

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       On Wednesday, I pretty much ruined my structural drawing. Gabe says it’s going to be okay, but I don’t really believe her right now. I’m extremely frustrated and panicky when I think about it. I took out three pastel books from the library and did a small self portrait to try and boost my confidence level. I just felt incredibly lost with the colors and type of mark making…part of me wishes she’d write all the colors down instead of just showing us for a couple of minutes. The self portrait needs a bit of work (my clothing seems to be floating), but I think I can fix it. The next one I’ll do on larger paper.

        I’d have probably gone to the model session we’re having on Saturday, but my sister ‘wanted to get away from Western Mass’. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but part of me thinks it’s to make me feel better. It hasn’t been a good week at all and I guess she can tell. She also keeps referring to herself in the singular, so I think she’s leaving her boyfriend at home. This, in itself is bizarre; the two of them are normally joined at the hip.

Randal wanted to test how neat we could be, so he gave us specific requirements for printing our etchings. One had to be printed in just black ink and the other had to be altered on specific sized paper and borders. I used my oil pencils my second print. Since the prints due at the end of class on Monday, I think I’m going to print a third in either different ink or bring in my water colors. Though, a lot of people are using watercolors. I’ll try to think of something else.

            Yesterday, I got my Western Art 1 test back. I did pretty well so there was no reason to worry. Afsan did say she was pretty lenient on us though, so next time I have to make sure to memorize centuries. Our second trip to the Museum of Fine Arts is scheduled on the same day I have to register of spring and summer classes (they assign the day and time you register for classes). During trip days you don’t have to come to class at 8:30 in the morning, but meet at the museum at 1. I thought that was great because my registration time is at 8am, which is when I would normally leave for my morning class to get there on time.

         I thought everything would be fine.

        However, on this trip we were supposed to look at Islamic art. Considering that’s a section ahead of where we are, I have a feeling we’re going to reschedule and I’ll be in trouble again. It’s not a big deal, but I’ve been going through so many ill-timed events lately that I’m sick of it. Still, worse comes to worse, I’ll just tell her I’ll be a couple minutes late.

       We passed in our texture projects in last night and had a crit. Matt decided we needed to be very critical with each other on our work, so not a lot of praise went around. All of us have revisions to do. I was last again, so I got to be the guinea pig for rapid fire criticism. There was a similar experiment done in Bebe’s class last year, so I went with the usual response: all grins and invitations for people to do their worst. In crits, you generally learn how to defend your work; in this you couldn’t. It forces the subject to listen to what their peers are saying: sometimes their completely right despite how much you want to argue.

          Anyway, the negative feedback is only going to help me in the end. Going in, I knew there was something wrong with each one but didn’t know what. Now I do. Most of them were quick fixes, which was better than the three extra hours I spent trying to figure out what. Brutal honesty has its place.

As for the roommate situation, the girl from Paris signed a two month loan with somebody else. I’m toying with the idea of trying to rent the room to an international student that’s also interested, but I don’t know if I want to go through the trouble anymore.

          And Friday morning (or afternoon now, I was typing this earlier :P), here I am. I talked to Tim and he made sure to stop by the window to do a force smile by pushing the corners of his lips up. That got me to laugh. Just when I think nobody can surprise me anymore, I get one of those moments. I have to clean up my room and have some kind of event planned before my sister arrives tomorrow morning (actually, it would be cool to go out shopping or go out to dinner I also need to work on the structure of my process folio. The idea is for it to be a box with a lot of different compartments for journals, schedules, finished works, etc. I need to start to assemble it before the end of term-see if there are any major problems. Talking to Riana has also lifted my spirits somewhat. I’ll try to stay hopeful.

Nov
3

By

November Starts

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Here’s the weekly update:

Halloween proved to be a stay home and watch horror movies occasion. I saw Salem’s Lot (2004 version) and Dracula, the one with Gary Oldman in it. I was a bit exhausted from putting up New York trip posters on the main campus on Friday, so I decided to stay in. I guess I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I volunteered, but I don’t regret it. Part of me wants to ask Paul if anybody else as signed up a.k.a, if the notices worked.

(Okay, I just did this and it’s looking kind of slim. Oh well. On a completely different note: we’re going to have a model coming in on Saturday to help students who have missed a drawing class or just want to improve. It’s going to be happening for the rest of the month. I should probably go to get some practice.)

Sunday, I took Josh’s shift. He’s a graduate student that works at the front desk (he’s like Molly’s second in command, Molly being the my boss). The day was pretty calm (it usually is on Sunday), so I got some work done and goofed off reading a book.

Monday, we started a new portrait. This is one will be three classes long. I’ve decided to try a frontal view instead of a profile to add some variety to my work. Gabe let us do some warm ups before starting the real thing, which got mixed results. On one hand, this actually helped me out a lot. I made most of my mistakes first then knew what to do when I hit the original. Still, it looks like her face may be too wide (I always draw people heavier than they look for some reason), so I’ll have to try and correct that tomorrow. For a couple of other people, they had a harder time starting when it came to the real piece after the warm up. I’m talking about peers that are better than me and get this stuff intuitively. Then again, I could only think I’m getting it. All the more reason to look it over Wednesday morning and see. Drawings have a tendency to blind-side you if you don’t take a break and review them.

In Printmaking, we did our etching. Randal walked us through that step-by-step to make sure everybody had a print they could work with. The process needs lights to work. Basically you take an image, photo copy it on to miliare [not sure about that spelling; I’ll have to ask him], place that ink down on the plate, put a sheet of glass on top of both of these to flatten the image out, and expose it to light. The light shines through everywhere the image isn’t and leaves an impression where the light can’t penetrate. My floaral design came out very well. Floral designs aren’t what I generally do so this is a learning experience. On Thursday we’ll be looking at how to change our images (a.k.a introduce them in color or print on some kind of pattern, etc).

In Western Art one, we’re talking about Roman art work from around the beginning of the Common Era. Most of it is political work though we explored the architecture a lot. Talking about it is better than reading about it for me (I have a hard time staying interested and picturing what their saying when an author writes about any kind of architecture). When someone’s talking about it, its more engaging. I think I’ve said this before-I love reading and I’m looking to minor in creative writing, but history texts bore me.

We reviewed for our test in Sociology. I made arrangements to study with Alison at 11 o’ clock on Thursday. Class doesn’t start until 11:30, so that gives us a thirty minute window to check over what we know. She wanted to do something Wednesday, but I have no time whatever so ever tomorrow. That’s the last marathon day because its my last defense class. We’ll be running simulations. I practiced for a while in a spare room this morning, but I have to do a bit more before I got to bed. Some of the moves just feel really awkward when I’m trying to do them…

For Imaging tonight, we’re working on our texture projects and turning in what we have of our processfolio so far. I scanned my old schedules, notes, grabbed my final projects, and some of my collection of images together and put them on a CD (that was all I could fit). I’ve just realized I could point Matt in the direction of this blog, too (its accounting for my daily activities, which is extremely important when it comes to process. Maybe I should write the web address on the CD front.)

On top of all this, my roommate search has gone totally haywire. I’ve been calling people left right up and down over the past couple of weeks and I’m tired of it. The only thing I’ve learned about this whole ordeal is not to deal with international roommates or rental companies when it comes to paperwork. Period. I’ve called my old landlord for a second time with no response. I’m going to wait another week then threaten to get a lawyer. I really don’t want to do that, but it’s money I need for groceries, you know? 

P.S. Why is this always a novel?! I’ve got to learn to cut back.

Oct
30

By

This is Not a Title Because I Can’t Think of One

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It’s the day before Halloween. Candy and cupcakes are sitting on the front desk for the students and faculty that pass by like clock work. Molly and Holly are awesome like that. I was surprised when I found out I like lemon frosting. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing tomorrow. I know my sister and her boyfriend are going to a party out in Northern Mass. I don’t want to travel out of the city because I have an eight hour shift on Sunday.

Work wise, its the usual hustle and bustle, until I offered to put up fliers for our New York trip. We’re a bit short on people. We were short on people last year too. I don’t know why. I went and it was really interesting, so I might go again if everything works out. I’m going to put fliers up on the main campus. It will be good to get some new faces in, I think.

For Printmaking, I’ve altered a floral design I made during the summer. My sister’s roommate wanted a design for a cabinet she wanted to make and tried to commission me to do it. I already knew walking into it that I wasn’t going to be able to make anything she wanted. I’m not a Graphic Design major; that’s not my thing. I made three different versions and none of them were good enough, so I considered them failures. Then Perla saw them on Wednesday when I was trying to pick a drawing for an etching and said they were good.  I didn’t believe her until Randal concurred. It’s a linear design, but didn’t have a lot of contrast, so I added a scribble effect in the background. I have to scan it again and take a second look at it to make sure all the lines are dark enough.

We finished the portrait drawing in Gabe’s class. Everybody was late because the trains were running slow and it was raining out; not a good way to start the day. Or you’d think that. Our models were missing for about twenty minutes, so Gabe had us model of each other. I like drawing my classmates. We did that in Drawing II in Neils Burger’s class last year and I found that to be a lot of fun. So, I modeled. It’s a bit difficult, staring at the same thing and trying to be perfectly still. It sounds easy just saying it, but seriously, try doing that for fifteen minutes and see. When I was done, Gabe said I had an interesting face and suggested I could model for portraits. Funny thing is I’m really starting to consider it.

We still haven’t gotten our grades back in Western Art 1. I still don’t feel good about it. I feel like if I think I did well, I’m going to jinx myself. There’s also a Sociology exam on Thursday that I have to start looking over my notes for. The last test we took, he said some of us did okay, so I got really nervous. My test was fine when he handed it back. Tests just make me really anxious…

In Imaging were dealing with texture. This is actually pretty funny because my Merging project had a lot to do with texture, so its a little weird doing the same kind of concept twice. I decided to show Slimy by taking a human brain and combining it with leeches, slugs, and worms. I got the effect I was looking for; Matt made this really disgusted face when he saw it. At first, I thought the idea might be too repulsive, but it was too good to pass up. I’ve never done anything like it before, so I figure why not? Not everything is nice and wonderful all the time; why should art be? I’m also going to do a few more: I’ve got another idea for describing sharp.

I had my advising meeting yesterday. I told Audrey I was thinking about minoring in creative writing. However, when we looked at the Fiction Workshops, we found there were a lot of prerequisites, so I’d have to take summer classes. I’m not sure I can. It’s pretty expensive, more than what my mom said we could handle financially. So, I might be here for an extra year. I’m going to sign up for Chemistry in the summer when I register for my Spring classes. Worse comes to worse, I’ll just have to drop it.

Last thing: this whole roommate situation is still pretty awful. My landlord said to call the realty company he usually uses for paperwork. I’ve tried calling them several times over the last couple of weeks, but I never get a response. I’m hoping they’ll reply to the email I sent last night, but part of me thinks I’m physically going to have to walk down there and figure out what the heck is going on. Also, my old landlord hasn’t called me back about the key deposit he owes me from last year, so I have to call him again. He’s the type of person that takes over a month to fix a broken dishwasher, even if you call him repetitively. Wish me luck on that.

Oct
26

By

Nervous

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I’m writing tonight because I took Holly’s shift. She’s another work study student that works at the front desk. I’m a bit sad because I’ll be missing the new episode of House, but won’t say no to the hours.

I’m struggling in Drawing right now. We got our grades back today and I was a bit shocked. Worse, I’m scared of the drawing we’re doing right now in class. I’m having difficulty figuring out how to use the our limited color pallet. Usually, I’m operating intuitively, but on this I’m completely clueless. I really know I’m struggling because Gabe came over and told me to come get her if she doesn’t come around (I guess I was hiding behind John’s drawing board without being aware of it). I hate asking for help, but I think I’m going to have to. I need to improve.

In Printmaking, we’re moving on to etching. Randal gave a slide show on artists that he either hated or is inspired by because our class is a bit odd (we’re more concerned with content or what images we’re using is what he says). I was talking about copyright last week only because Matt brought it up a few weeks ago in imaging. I like the idea of an artwork being completely mine, that all. I have to make a drawing for my etching but I’m not sure what to draw. I just feel like I can’t draw today.

Perla and I studied for the art history exam tomorrow. I’m getting really nervous, which is bad because that probably means I’m going to have trouble sleeping. I had trouble sleeping last night, so I’m not looking forward to a repeat of that issue. 

Time for some good news: I think I might have a roommate. I’ve been without one since September and have been living in a two bedroom apartment. The rent is killing me. The moral of this story is not to get a two bedroom apartment unless you have a roommate first. It worked out last year; I found a two bedroom apartment and then found my roommate Ana. This year, however, the economy tanked and no body was interested in the place I found. I’ve been looking since the beginning of June-that’s about four months, which is pretty awful. Next year, I’m definitely getting a studio unless I meet someone who wants to room with me.

Oh and Halloween’s in a week. I have to think about a costume…

Oct
23

By

The Usual Chaos

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I’m going through the usual end-of-the-week chaos. I still have to finish both my symmetry and merge projects for Imaging, study my flash cards for Western Art, and practice some defensive stances.

The defense class was pretty cool. My class is a bit too small for my liking, but I;m getting a lot of individual attention. Which is good and bad. Good, considering I’m extremely clumsy when it comes to any kind physical movements (why I am not a dancer, lol). Bad, considering I don’t like to be singled out by people I’ve just met. There was plenty of time for me to flub up and for them to coach me. I read all the additional material already, so I should be good to go for Wednesday’s work out. Finding a time to eat dinner in between Printmaking and that class might be a bit fun because I’m cutting it so close. They’re twenty minutes apart and about fifteen minutes of that is commuting time.

As for work, I switched shifts with Riana, another girl who works at the front desk. She use to work in the library but switched. Instead of working 11-4ish, I’ve got the night shift. I don’t mind, tomorrow’s Saturday. I like the change of pace; keeps things interesting…

It’s quiet now-hence the writing. I should go back to my merge project. Basically, I’m taking a photograph of a snake and replacing its scales with pictures of beads. Easier said than done; I was messing with the tools for a while, until I figured it out about 90% of the work is dealing with the lighting and color adjustments. The trick is to make the entire picture completely fluid.

By the way, we finished replicating ducky:

Mine’s on the left but you probably could already tell.

Last tangent: My sister and her boyfriend are coming up to visit on Sunday (I think), so I get to play hostess (Yay!). I thought my friend Katie from high school might come up to celebrate her birthday, but she told me her parents didn’t want her to take the train by herself. I’m not sure if that was a cover or not. Her parents are a bit over protective, but part of me really thinks she was too scared to, poor girl. I can see why she might be nervous going by herself, especially to a place you’ve only been twice. Me: I think commuting to Worcester is scarier than taking a train to Boston, but then again I really hate driving.

Oct
20

By

Madien Voyage

Category: Uncategorized Tags: , Leave a Comment

Yup, first post and near the end of October too…I have no idea where the time goes anymore.

Here’s the quick explanation: I’m a sophomore (fine arts) attending New England School of Art and Design, Suffolk University. The university is located in Boston and its campus is pretty much the boston common. Unless you’re an art junkie like me-then you pretty much live in NESAD. They’re pretty much my second family now. ^_^

I’ve got five classes a week and a ten-hour work study, so I’m pretty busy. My classes this term are Drawing: Structure and Expression, Printmaking, Ideas of Western Art 1 (Art History), Imaging, and Intro to Sociology. For my work study, I’m working in two departments: the front desk and the NESAD library. I’m familiar with the front desk because I worked there during my freshman year. It helped introduce me to everyone, peers and professors, so I’d recomend that for incoming freshmen with work study.

Class wise, I have Drawing with Gabe at 9am and Printmaking with Randal at 2pm on Mondays and Wednesdays; Tuesday and Thursday is Art History with Afshan at 8:30am, Sociology at 11:30am, and Imaging at 6pm with Matt.

What’s going on right now:

In Drawing, I have a crit to prepare for. Crits (critics) are pretty much review sessions. You put your work up and review with the class, talk about your strengths and weakness. Drawing is mainly a studio class, so I’ve produced most of the work during class time. Gabe gave us a list of work to show, so I have to locate those out of storage drawer.

Printmaking: Randal is also having a crit (It’s almost mid term, so I guess its review time). We’re exploring transfer prints with gum arabic, so we’ll be taking a look at the pieces we’ve produced using that technique. I did a couple which were alright. The last one was probably the best-the black microscope with the purple text background. That took me practically no time at all and got the best results. If only everything came that easy.

Western Art 1: We’ve run through Stone age to Greece. Pretty much Stone age, Near East, Ancient Egyptian, and Greek art from 54000BCE- to about 31 BCE. Unlike the Drawing and Printmaking which are both studio classes, Western Art is a lot of lecture and note taking. You’re still oscillating from the left side of your brain to the right however doing analysis. My midterm is on the 27th so I made flash cards for that. There’s also an analytical paper due Thursday, which I had to fix. There’s still some editing that needs to be done on that…

Sociology: It’s another lecture that takes place on the Hill (Beacon Hill). I leave school and it takes about fifteen minutes on the T to ride up to Government Center and get to class. The subject matter is pretty interesting. Class attendance is crucial because he doesn’t give homework or require a text. If you miss class, you pretty much fail unless you can understand second hand notes. Attendance is never a problem for me (unless Afshan set up a trip to the Museum of Fine Art-then I miss the last fifteen minutes trying to get there for one). Even when it is, Alison, a girl in my class, lets me borrow her notes.

Imaging: For some reason this class is taking a forefront in my mind, hence why I saved it for last. Matt is being unorthodox this term. I had him before for Design Issues and Process in the Spring, but this class is different. Usually, all the classes focus on product instead of the process behind it. Matt’s decided it was more important for us, as students, to learn about ourselves, and therefore track our process. Our projects are not worth as much on the syllabus, but our Process Folio will be the main grade. It’s good because you learn about yourself, but it still makes me kind of nervous because you have to share it with other people and that’s a bit personal.

Right now Matt’s assigned a couple of different things. Due next Thursday are two pieces: one having to do with symmetry and the other merging two pictures together. The one due this Thursday is replicating a duck image with nothing but the eyedropper tool and paintbrush in Photoshop. His class in general has a lot to do with Photoshop. I’m generally a hands-on kind of person that gets confused with software easily, so its been educational to say the least.

Other than that, tomorrow night I’ve got Self Defense training. I meant to take it Freshman year, but never got a chance because I had two night classes and the homework was a bit heavy. This year, I actually have time, lol, so I’m looking forward to that.

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