Resting.

Sorry blogging has been so spotty lately but after some life craziness and finals, I've been doing some hard core resting and relaxation to gear up for the next big step in my life (but more on that later). I'll be back to my regular blogging pace in a couple of weeks. Have a great new year!

Image found via Flickr's Explore.

Review Preview

So I'm sittin' around waiting for my final review to start and I decided to go ahead and post a few pics. More on flickr.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

At this time tomorrow, I'll be done for the semester! Whoot!

Elizabeth Osborne

I'm really drawn to these painting by Elizabeth Osborne. Maybe because my life right now is so frenetic and there's something really peaceful about them. Maybe it's because I'm feeling washed out and faded like a watercolor.

Quote of the Week

"Chill the f*ck out!"

That's right folks, it's finals time. . .

Quote of the Week

"All actual life is encounter."
~Martin Buber

Giving Thanks...

For:
- Friends
- Family
- My dog
- Friends who let me pet their dogs
- NPR
- Printmaking
- My computer lab privileges
- The new computer in the MFA office
- My more reliable car
- Gmail and Google Reader
- Graphite (powder and ink)
- Books by Anne Lamott
- Zuda and the Zuda community (even though they're not reading this)
- Small birds that hop
- All the amazing opportunities I've had
- Pandora Radio

And for you my dear readers, for making me feel like there are people out there who are at least mildly interested in the work I make and the things I have to say. And thanks especially to those of you who comment, so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself quite so much.

And last but not least, the Internet for allowing me to execute that crazy amount of linkage.

Process Shot of the Week

It's a bit messy, but I'm all about the graphite lately. Nevermind the minor disators that occured to my studio space floor. As always, more on flickr.

Love Love

Don't you love it when two of your favorite things come together in an unexpected way? Like this week's podcast of This American Life, featuring an act by Anne Lamott. I seriously just read this essay of hers a few days ago. If you haven't noticed, my past couple quotes have been hers.

And later this week is the This American Life Annual Poultry Slam! Can't wait!

Feild Trip to the Walters

So yesterday I went to Bedazzled: 5000 Years of Jewelry at the Walter's Art Museum in Baltimore with Taylor, Amy and Dillon*. I also went to panel discussion between Betty Cooke, Joyce Scott, Helen Drutt and Shaina Kroix. It was really great, and afterward all four of us bought the $90 giant orange fuzzy book, catologing Helen Drutt's collection of art jewelry, and we each got it signed by Helen Drutt and Joyce Scott. That was kinda a big deal for me, because Joyce Scott is in a book called The New Beadwork. By some strange twist of fate, the little public library in my hometown has a copy, which I checked out, devoured and was a big catalyst for me making jewelry at all. If you would have told me a decade ago, that I would meet Joyce Scott and have her sign the page in Helen Drutt's book that has the same image of the same piece of work I first saw at 14 in The New Beadwork, I would have thought you were nuts.

Bedazzled was also great. Looking at all that history always blows my mind. Probably because I couldn't make that stuff if I tried, even with all my modern tools. When you think about what they were making with just a fire and a hammer, it's truly mind
boggling.





My favorite, was of course, the Lalique.

*Sorry Dillion, but I would have linked you, but I couldn't find your blog address. Meow.

Quote of the Week

"Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance. And there is only the dance."
~T.S. Elliot

Comic Relief for a Stressful Week

Domestic Abuse

Process Shot of the Week

Wow, these are some truly awful pictures. But I don't care, I effing love these prints. This was Friday night, I've since trimmed them into bleed prints.

Quote of the Week

"If I were God, I'd have the answers at the end of the workbook, so you could check as you went along to see if you were on the right track. But nooooooo."
~Anne Lamott

Sketchbook Project

So I just signed up for the Sketchbook Project, Volume 3, over at Art House. Art House aims to build art projects and communities. For this project, they send you a small sketchbook, which you fill and send back to them. They then take the sketchbooks on a 6 city gallery/museum tour. The theme is "Everyone We Know".
It costs $18 to participate, which isn't too bad. And if you send a self addressed stamped envelope, they'll send you back your sketchbook.
Check out some of their other projects here.

Of Interest. . .

I find these necklaces of Lucy Sarneel's interesting. I like the collection of various elements. In this arrangement, could each of these elements represent a layer of strata? Could they indicate a moment in time, or a length of time? Could they represent an event, or what was happening during a length of time (thinking events in geologic time, how the time periods are determined).

It's about...

- geologic time
- geologic history
- personal history
- man's relationship to the earth
- how we got here/ all that came before us

Jewelry records our personal history. Jewelry objects become index fossils of our own personal time scale.

Printmaking (intaglio in particular) is making an imprint; a man made fossil. Lithography is using stone to make an image (a fossil bearing stone, I might add). That image is etched into the stone and then later eroded away, becoming part of that stone's missing history. In strata it would show up as an unconformity. In print we have the image, but can we date it to the stone?

It's about an appreciation for something so unspectacular as the earth beneath our feet. It's easy to love trees and flowers and birds and mammals. It's harder to love a hard, unfeeling mass of elements in precise structures, the story of their history out in the open for anyone who cares to take the time to read it. But where would all our pretty flowers and mammals be without the foundations of the earth itself?

There's a billion years of history lying at your feet.

But so what?

I Like. . .

This brooch by Cathy Chotard. It reminds me of when mud dries out and cracks, even though the geometry is wrong. Makes me wonder if a piece can convey a scientific idea without being totally scientifically accurate.

Pursuit of Perfection

So I spent my Saturday evening in the pursuit of the perfect shades of garnet for paper for chine colle, with the help of my friend and master printer, Mike. I believe this technique is called a rainbow roll, and it was seriously one of the coolest things I've seen. I know these look awfully pink (which was the problem with my first edition of these particular prints) but they're more red than they let on.

Quote of the Week

"Well, maybe your mind is lovely and pastoral and you do not suffer from paranoia, hypochondria, a bad attitude, and delusions of victimized grandeur. That is very nice, but we don't want you in our cave after the bombs fall, because you are going to annoy us to death."
~Anne Lamott

Process Shot of the Week

Talk about Your Big Jewelry. . .

. . .and your extreme body modification.
found via flickr

Spiny Mice in a Tree

I found this on flickr. The caption says "This is a Cairo Spiny Mouse. Left to its own desires it congregates in stupid huge numbers together in a tree."

Cool.

Found this ring by Alidra Alic through Panie Przodem the other day. It kinda reminds me of my rock forms, but more so of some rock forms that went awry, and became exploded egg forms. That was my first semester in grad school, and I never really did anything with them, so now they live in the big box 'o crap I made my first semester here. This is clearly much nicer.

China Paints!

So I spent the morning playing with my china paints I got on Friday. I'm super excited about them, even though these are just color tests, and I have minimal ideas of what I'm going to do with these. Oh, and I'm not really a painter. So clearly this was a good idea.

I ordered predominately browns and grays to start with. Typical rock colors. Maybe someday I'll move on to different subject matter where I can use blues and greens and colors other than gray and brown.

I have been thinking about minerals that come in more interesting colors (come on, who wants to enamel in brown all the time?) I'm rapidly becoming obsessed with garnet reds and olivine greens. I'm thinking about doing some forms in aquamarine blue and amethyst purple, and maybe something really crazy and orange/yellow like realgar, or orpiment. You know, something full of arsenic.

Quote of the Week.

"But then I turned back to the skies and forgot about you once more."
~John Hodgman

A Halloween Tale of Horror. . .

A few years ago, when I was an undergraduate, my art history professor made a little Halloween slide show of historic art for us. First he started off with a little Goya, like this:
And this.
Then we moved up through history and got to some Francis Bacon, like this:

And then (and here's the really scary part) he ended with this!:

Ok, maybe not this exact house, but let's face it, they're all pretty much the same.
Have a Happy Halloween!

Forms on My Floor

Blobs

Tasty Treat

Toast with peanut butter and chocolate jimmies. Gotta keep up with the Dutch.

Score!

So Jan and Heidi brought us grads gifts from their trip to Holland for Dutch Design Week! I got these sweet colored pencils that are made from Chinese newspapers!

And then later this morning I got a busted type case.

poop

Process Shot of the Week

So I spent practically the whole week working on a bunch of intaglio plates. A couple, like this one are meant to be a group of four prints with chine colle in four different, but coordinating colors. I'm having a bit of trouble with this color grouping, which I don't even want to get into. The other plates, I'll print and then enamel (champleve).

Here's me looking a little inky. This was about the cleanest I've been in the print studio since Thursday night. I've been using a graphite colored etching ink, which I'm pretty in love with.

Quote of the Week

"Participation in art is not simply one of many possible ways to make a living, an obsolete trade as we approach the year 2000. Participation in an art, at bottom has nothing to do with earning money. Participation in an art, although unrewarded by wealth and fame, and as the Middle West has encouraged so many of it's young people to discover for themselves so far, is a way to make one's soul grow."
~Kurt Vonnegut

Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger this week, I know. I swear I'll get caught up with it this weekend. I've actually been fairly productive this week. And I've got permanetly blue cuticles to prove it.

Observation.

Sometimes I look around and realize I know a lot of really awesome people.

Bonus Quote of the Week

'Cause I'm in the mood.

"A man who is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea..."
~Joseph Conrad

Process Shot of the Week

Flickr site has been updated with pics of my finished installation.

Rock Rings

Check out these awesome rings by Marta Sanchez. These are from her etsy shop, but she also runs the great blog 18k. If you've never checked it out, you should. I love the simplicity in these. I love that the minerals are well integrated into the ring shank, yet remain the main focus of the piece. The pyrite one is my favorite.

Quote of the Week

"'You go through it, you sort it out, you throw some of it away. Then you stack up the rest, nice and neat. Next time it won't be such a big deal.'
'I don't have the energy," he says.
'Kiddo, you got any idea how much energy it takes to hold the door closed like you do? That's power. Your own personal power and nobody else's."
'Sometimes, ' he says, 'When you let yourself feel, all you feel is lousy.'
Berger nods, 'Maybe, you gotta feel lousy sometimes in order to feel better. A little advice, kiddo, about feeling. Don't think too much about it. And don't expect it always to tickle.'"
~Ordinary People by Judith Guest

Opening Over

My opening in the installation space is over, thanks to everyone that came out and showed their support, I really appreciate it. I still have review though, in about 10 hours (yes, I know, I should be in bed!) I'll be posting pics soon, for all of you who missed it.

Mini "Opening"

I currently have work up in the small installation space on the 4th Floor of the Center for the Arts Building, and will be having a mini opening this Thursday, October 16th from 5-6:30pm. There will be candy. Hope to see you there!

Oh, and I got two images in the upcoming book 500 Enameled Objects, due out this spring!

Quote of the Week

" You know, I'm sick of followin' my dreams man. I'm just gonna ask where they're goin' and hook up with them later."
~Mitch Hedberg, Mitch All Together

Process Shot of the Week

So this week and next, I have the installation space to mess around in. I was going to take before shot, but I forgot my camera. So just imagine an empty space with white walls. As always, you can see more up on my flickr site.