Well here it is...

Tomorrow is my last day of my undergraduate career. My book worked. Only it moved from being about nothingness to the ideas of absence and presence and how you can play with imagery using white on white or black on black to show this supposed absence. I am really quite pleased with it. Here's a few pictures I took...

So tomorrow I finish up with my Lithography class and then for whatever reason I have to go to Modern Architecture at 6 EVEN though we already took our test.

The big question everyone keeps asking me:

"So what are you going to do now?"

Well let me just assure/reassure you, I will continue to make things. I am still working for the mosaic artist I have been working for since April, I just started a new job at a stationary store, AND she wants to carry some of my stuff that I make. Also my friend Chuck Howard and I are starting up a small screen printing company!! We have the means to get the equipment from a couple of friends, so we are.

Also I am applying for the Dean's Council Residency. I hope I get it. That will let me go back into the school to use the facilities! That would be sweet.

Anyway, I'm graduating. Eventually, there will be Grad School. But for now, I need to make some money!

Maybe this might work...

Looking steadily, seeing nothing

It resonates in the soul,

Unanswerable questions forming unreliable thoughts.

A constant force pushing

Further and further into this void.

Hazing over, covering all vision

Soon lost in this empty place.

Everything becomes the same as the thing before it

Nothing the same as the last.

This void overwhelming,

This unending emptiness,

This uncontrollable feeling,

Eating at my soul.

Here's what I'm thinking....

We all have a voice. Whether our voice is expressed in the written word, song, art, dance, or some form of speech, we all have a chance to say something.

So who is listening? Who is looking at how you express yourself? What does it really mean to them? Is it possible when for instance, since I create visual images, that when someone looks at a work of art that I have created that they see the same things in it that I see? Is it possible that they know exactly what I mean and the passion with which I express these things?

It's not likely.

I've really been giving this some thought lately. I know that when we perceive art we do it in such a way (generally) that we relate the images of what we see to the things that we are familiar with. We may resonate on the ideas of the artist, catching glimpses into their meaning, but still unless it is spelled out for us, we can really only guess at the true meaning behind these peoples thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

So what my art really means to me is probably really different from what it means to you.

So why do I make art? Is what I often find myself asking myself. If the meaning and intention that I have created means little to nothing to people outside of my own person then what is the point?

I don't know. I'm looking into that.

But still I am driven to express myself in such ways as to try to make others better understand me, relate to me, take issue with me, or just flat out deny that what I have to say is valid. Here's where it gets tricky in my head. Is it valid? Do my opinions matter? I'm not sure. Do yours?

So, I think as a result this idea of making art about nothing has really struck me. It fulfills this idea in my head that nothing I have to say is of consequence to anyone but myself, so even if you don't understand what it is I am trying to say here, because it is likely that I am talking circles around myself, then it's likely that you won't understand what I am saying with my art about nothing. All these likelihoods have the potential to add up to be SOMETHING, but its still probably NOTHING.

Here's the point....

Even when you are talking about nothing, whether that nothing is the inadequacy of your opinions meaning nothing to anyone else, or just plain old nothing, once you began to think about nothing, whatever that nothing is, you give it characteristics, and then nothing has suddenly become something. Because nothing will always be something to the person that the nothing belongs to.

For your consideration...and mine

I've been thinking on the idea of my BFA project, which I mentioned momentarily in a post before.

Let me catch you up....

I want to make a book of nothing.

There now you are caught up. But seriously, I want to create this large scale book, around 18hx24w when opened. Obviously 18x12 when closed. Or there abouts in the dimensions. I see it as being elaborately decorated on the outside of the book, and some kind of elaborate pedestal for it to rest upon. But when viewed, the pages are blank. Seemingly. I think it would be possible to create images within the paper using the watermarking process and embossing text, just not using any ink, so the images are there but hidden. I have a few concepts I am tossing around for the creation of this imagery. I also feel that this could be done in such a way that the majority of the pages have nothing on them, and only in maybe one corner next to the interior of the pages one visible thing...

I'm not sure really. It's a fresh development. I've much to consider. My Art History teacher also suggested yesterday not actually making anything. ha!

My response to this was, "But it's my BFA show, I have to make SOMETHING."

To which he responded with "no you could actually go through all of the processes, like running the letterpress, but not actually printing anything."

So that could also be kind of cool. A photo documentation of me "making" this book, but not actually making a book. Interesting. I have a lot of reading and research ahead of me. But I'm pretty excited about this. I think it has the potential to be great.

The recipe for a successful party...

When you wake up the next morning and you don't remember most of the night.

It's that time again...You know. For school...

First of all I would like to note that this picture makes Metz look WAY cooler than it actually is. I've never lived there but yeah, I have rarely seen it looking this cool. I mean yes, as a building, great, but in real life, I don't know that I've ever seen it like this. Apparently you should look at it when it has just rained and is all aglow. And when the sky is an unnatural shade of blue. Keep that in mind.

School starts on Monday. Yippy. I am almost done. This is my last semester, which is exciting and daunting. I need a concept for my BFA, and QUICK! I will not be left holding nothing again at the end of the semester like I was last semester. There will be something to show for all my hard work. Anyway, MCA....

There it is. Thanks to the flickr account I took that from. I don't know who took it, but it was the best one I could find. I have a feeling that despite my best efforts, I am going to have a lot of sleepless nights. Good thing for coffee and my favorite coffee shop that stays open until one AM so that I can get coffee at any time, as long as I am in the school building before midnight.

My plan for my BFA project is a huge book. I have all of the materials, since I bought them last semester but my attempts at completing my project a semester early failed miserably thanks to someone who didn't make xerox copies for my XEROX transfers. Go figure. But yeah, huge book, sitting on a pedestal, but what is it going to be about you say? Well I would answer with that is a very good question. I don't know. Maybe it will be a book with no images, or words. Then it could mean anything that you want it to...

A beautifully, elaborately constructed book of nothing, it's intriguing.

I'm going to think on this.

It's a trap

It's amazing the effect that people have on you. The way that someone you used to love, and maybe part of you still does and always will, makes you feel. It's excruciating. It's the forbidden thing that you want so badly, but know that if you even taste it, just a little bite, will again spoil you and set you back in so many ways. It can be unfortunate, but also liberating. When you have the ability to say no I can't do that. I can't go there again, its saddening because of the love you still have, but good because you know that you have grown and changed and moved on. But it will always be a trap. It will always set your heart back. Even when you know you shouldn't feel that way...

You can't help but to.

But moving on is what is most important. There are bigger and better things out there.

Sometimes it's just difficult to remember that.

Day and Night

Most of what I have to say is of little consequence. Today anyway. Probably most days. Today was pretty alright as far as Monday's go. I got to sleep until 10. That almost never happens, so that was enjoyable. Then I went to work and sat in the sun for three and a half hours sticking tiles onto a wall. Its coming along nicely though.

I'm excited to see it finished. When I finish it that is. (well when my boss and Shea and I finish it. But I think it is safe to say that I have worked on it the most.)

What is probably the strangest thing about working on the front of this studio, or just mosaicing in general is that I dream about mosaicing as well. I have very vivid dreams of placing tiles and thinking about the patterning and whatnot. Obsessed? Or just crazy?

Making a House a Home

After working for several hours, and falling halfway down the attic stairs before catching myself, my house is nearing a home. I have so much crap, just stuff. A lot of it, I must admit, are things that I use for school or various other art things, but a lot of it is just stuff. I'm trying to purge. All the furniture is placed, and paintings are being hung up on the walls. It is becoming dangerously close to being finished. But for now...I'm done. My shoulder hurts from catching myself for falling all the way down the steps. And Rivers would prefer if I didn't use the vacuum cleaner anymore today. He doesn't enjoy it.

damn I'm so hood.... (Title recommendation by benjamin wald...don't blame me!)

This is my "thinking hood" it helps me to focus while working.

Wonder what I'm doing wrong....

The Free Will Astrology for Aries.... (which is me)

"Are you a gelatinous pool of longing yet? Are you a perfumed garden of madly blooming purple explosions? Are you throbbing and gooey and half-nauseous with that delicious sickness some people called love? If not, I don't know what to tell you. By all astrological reckoning your gut should be swarming with drunk butterflies and the clouds should be taking on the shapes of mating horses. If you're not half-drowning in these symptoms, I implore you to find a way to pry open the floodgates."

I feel like I'm missing out

A carnival

a painting that i'm working on...

The first thing...

It's always a bit un-nerving to sit down and think of clever titles and things to say. Makes you wonder why you would want to write these things down anyway. BUT, you still do.