this is halloween

This is SO me.

http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/outside.html

From Trash to Fashion

For ADP 3 we're taking things we would throw away (or things we found in the trash) and making wearable clothing out of it. I found one of those hanging canvas shelving units for closets in a dumpster (the hanger was broken) and I am making a halter dress out of it. So far it's the best thing I've done without a pattern. I have the top to just below the boobs done and it's all I want to work on these days. I'll update pics as I make progress.

Woodcut #2-Head for an Exquisite Corpse

EDIT: I printed 4 prints of this woodcut today after class (and it only took me 2.5 hours to do + cleanup!) and they turned out really well. I did two black on white, one black on an orangey color (I think I'm going to scrap that one), and a black on green. I will post pictures as soon as I've taken some. I thought it would be safer to let them dry fully on the rack then to try and take pictures while they're still wet and my hands were inky. I'm very happy, but I need to get working on my suicide board hybrid image b/c it's supposed to be transferred and it's nowhere close!

2ND EDIT: Endi didn't like my background. He said it was beautifully cut and that the worms would have popped better if I'd left the background black. I liked how busy it was. I wouldn't listen to him except that before I cut the background he said it was one of his favorite designs and I'm open to crit. I made a mylar stencil though so I'm going to ink a field everywhere except where the worms are and make a black field over my orange-y one and one of the b&w ones (to see if he's right). I am also going to do a color field and then use the other half of the stencil to just ink the worms and have a solid color background with a much smaller black field. I don't really want to cut my block any more. Ana also suggested using thin Japanese paper to stencil and then it would take some of the ink and I could use it to collage later so I may try that too.

vegetarian organic vegetable soup

I have abandoned my ability to write lately. This summer I conceived a wonderful idea for a story and I have yet to really work on it, which I find sad. I am feeling somewhat sick and very tired and I have no interest in doing work right now. What I would really like is some soup actually. So I think I will heat up some soup, bring it back to my laptop and write something...

Vegetarian Organic Vegetable. Oh Meijer.

I feel as though studying in a manner that is primarily about producing work absent of words or explanation has made me less articulate of a person, well at least in the use of prose. I have become infinitely more able to express myself by visual means. I could tell you how I'm feeling through movement or a photograph much more easily than if words were my medium of choice in that moment. I think that with my loss of using the written language to express myself the intellectual standard of my work has faltered.

My emotions hit more high and low peaks because my attempts to talk about things feel inexpressive or lost. I have constantly felt on the verge of tears at the smallest things I hear or see or feel. I feel as though I have to go back and reread passages more than I used to in order to absorb the meaning. Am I reading more complex writings?

I'm not sure who I am anymore, but I know that I am not who I was nor will I ever return down that path. When I look ahead though I am confused by my future. I know I shouldn't understand it, but it makes me question the present and my present actions. For some reason everything feels like a waste of time. It's as if there is a clock I know is ticking down, moving backwards, and I have to hurry so that I can get where I'm going before the time all winds out of it. The problem seems to be that I do not have any idea where it is that I'm headed or when said clock will tick its last moment away. No one is supposed to know that.

My real problem then becomes that my parents are spending upwards of $40,000 a year for me to study at a prestigious school and I would rather go dumpster diving and make clothes out of what I find than go to class. I do like the majority of my classes, but I want the freedom to work on things as I am inspired. Due dates have become eternally frustrating. At the same time, I doubt I'd ever finish anything without them. I have enough different things going on to hold my interest, but there isn't enough time to finish all of them the way I'd like to within the parameters of other people's time.

The other paradox is that once I finally reach a break or the summer I am so worn out that I need a break from constantly doing and when I do have total creative freedom, I don't create nearly as much. What am I doing?

TMP 3 Audio Clips-Found Sound

This piece was about taking found sounds and putting them together in an unexpected way. Included in this little snippet is: Aldous Huxley talking, a guitar, my Spanish teacher, someone blowing into a bottle, my friend buzzing her lips, window blinds...I think that's everything. I don't feel like it's very finished but it was my first foray into garage band and there are some cool moments.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO DOWNLOAD THE PIECE.

TMP 3 Audio Clips-Eleven Memories

This is a piece that is about the large memories in my life that were turning points. All I want to really say to comment about it is that I definitely obscured the real point of the memory in some of them so they sound like they're not as big of a deal as they truly were. Also, I feel there are a lot of memories I have purposefully blocked out that may be more serious, but they aren't things I want to remember so they are not present here.

CLICK ON THE TITLE TO DOWNLOAD PIECE.

Do I look 20?

Farmer's Market

cee-ef-cee-too

So clearly I have no life. I'm sitting in the Beanster's in the League researching world religions over a cup 'o skim chai. It's pretty interesting. It's for my stranger project for CFC 2. Basically I'm attending a Baptist church situated near my apartment. My plan is to record a series of interviews I have with people who are at all different points in their faith and then to use that and recordings of the music at the services as the soundtrack for video footage of different images. I think the video will be of things and not people (possibly a graveyard and some other images). It all depends on what people say I guess. Should be a really interesting piece.

This is how my life feels.

BACKTRACK: Saturday Apple Adventures.

My parents and I went to Saline, MI to pick apples at Lutz Orchard. We talked to the owner, Bill Lutz, and I learned all about apples. This particular orchard has actually been around since 1927 when his father started planting apple trees. It was a bit late in the season to pick, but it was still really fun :)

When we got home my mom and I made a bunch of applesauce for my ADP 3 project. I have another batch to make and some labels to design and I'll be well on my way to having one of the many projects checked off my list (thankfully).

CFC Toilet Booook.

Urban Red Riding Hood?

Each day I spend it with you now. All my time I spend it with you now.

"Estoy estudiano" para mi traducción de la clase de español 275.

Mis padres irán a Ann Arbor para la fin de semana. Vamos al campo para las manzanas :) Tengo mucha tarea de mis clases del arte. Hace dos años que cosió la falda en el foto. Fue para una clase de Vogue Fabrics en Evanston, Illinois. No llevo mucho porque es más rosado como la ropa que llevo normalmente. En realidad la falda empiezo a mis caderas pero uso un cinturón.

I am going to make some late night oatmeal.

ADP 3 is killing me with it's bullcrap busy work. The topics are interesting, but IT'S NOT A FREAKING STUDIO CLASS! Do you hear me??

Volunteered at Alpha House.

Woooooooodcuuuuutttttttiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnng galore.

I need to get my grubby little paws on a tape recorder and a camera.





Life cannot continue in this manner. I have had ENOUGH.

Printmaking.

My woodcut thus far...


Monotypes:




Yeah, so those are the monotypes I did, good and bad. I included ghost prints too...I really like where I was going with some of it and it's a process I should remember to return to over other kinds of prints.



In other news, I got my hair cut today and I regret it. I don't have any hair anymore. I think a part of it is that it feels so STYLED right now. Erghhhh. Must unstraighten and grow it out. I don't know why I let her talk me into chopping it all off!