paper match

Farewell.

2010-03-02T02:25:00.000-08:00

Little blogspot, you've served me well. I will miss you.

http://sydneyskim.com

2010-01-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Jenevive and me

Photobooth can be genius

2009-12-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

Every Little Thing/An Other Object

2009-12-01T20:28:00.000-08:00

Possible pages from an in progress book project. Tentatively titled Every Little Thing/An Other Object. A bunch of stuff, scanned in under a layer of Pictorico film, then futzed with on Photoshop. A great deal more thingies to go.

2009-11-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

My bunny, Sean, died today, and I'm just really sad and will be for a while, even if it's on and off.

Going through old photographs ...

2009-11-25T01:03:00.000-08:00

this is one of the only ones where I'm even remotely recognizable. Panarchy, 2007.

Surrender drawings

2009-11-23T20:25:00.000-08:00

Drawings from summer/fall of this year. Made after my earlier Surrender photographs and videos. Currently planning on making a book to bring the project to a close. The image above is just a rough mock-up/draft of what I may want the cover to look like.

Bird bone

2009-11-21T17:22:00.001-08:00

Tree bark found up in Scappoose. Could be the start of something. Or not.

Thanks, I think.

2009-11-19T01:15:00.000-08:00

Even though I've finally come to a place in my life where I can be grateful for what I've been given, I still sometimes question why I, specifically, was bestowed this vast capacity to feel.

Suddenly, the sponges hold water and I realize my smallness. Still, I marvel at my every single bone. I just wish it wasn't such a surprise each time.

Vaguely Love (Vague Poems)

2009-11-18T16:58:00.000-08:00

On-going series of drawings (dual portraits, vaguely). Here are the first drafts. See the poem below.

Vague poem (Vaguely love poem)

2009-11-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Vague Poem (Vaguely love poem)
by Elizabeth Bishop

The trip west –
-- I think I dreamed that trip.
They talked a lot of “rose rocks”
or maybe “rock roses”
-- I’m not sure now, but someone tried to get me some.
(And two or three students had.)

She said she had some at her house.
They were by the back door, she said.
-- A ramshackle house.
And army house? No, “a Navy house.” Yes,
that far inland.
There was nothing by the back door but dirt
or that same dry, monochrome, sepia straw I’d seen everywhere.
Oh she said the dog has carried them off.
(A big black dog, female, was dancing around us.)

Later, as we drank tea from mugs, she found one,
“a sort of one.” “This one is just beginning. See –
you can see here, it’s beginning to look like a rose.
It’s – well, a crystal, crystals form –
I don’t know any geology myself …”
(Neither did I.)
Faintly, I could make out – perhaps – in the dull,
rose-red lump of, apparently, soil
a rose-like shape; faint glitters … Yes, perhaps
there was a secret, powerful crystal at work inside.

I almost saw it: turning into a rose
without any of the intervening
roots, stem, buds, and so on; just
earth to rose and back again.
Crystallography and its laws:
something I once wanted badly to study,
until I learned that it would involve a lot of arithmetic,
that is, mathematics.

Just now, when I saw you naked again,
I thought the same words: rose-rock, rock-rose …
Rose, trying, working, to show itself,
forming, folding over,
unimaginable connections, unseen, shining edges.
Rose-rock, unformed, flesh beginning, crystal by crystal,
clear pink breasts and darker, crystalline nipples,
rose-rock, rose-quartz, roses, roses, roses,
exacting roses from the body,
and the ever darker, accurate, rose of sex –

Lovely people

2009-11-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

Lots of lovely people in my life, lately.

Jay

Allison

Delaney and Allison

Delaney

Craig

Jenevive

Halloween

2009-11-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

Allison as Carrie. Rest of them are up on flickr.

Shiny, happy _______

2009-11-14T23:35:00.000-08:00

This past Friday, Jenevive and I visited the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals out in Hillsboro. Here are some gems (oh ho ho!). The rest of the set is available on my flickr.

Untitled

2009-11-11T23:07:00.000-08:00

Digital drawing on digital photograph. I see it as a drawing, but the ground/photograph I worked off of is my scanned face through a sheet of Pictorico transparency film. I think it's still in progress.

Luster print, 24" x 32."

Open Studios announcement

2009-10-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

For our (MFA candidates at PNCA) upcoming Open Studios event this December.

In Progress

2009-10-27T18:38:00.001-07:00

More digital drawing. Just beginning -- nose blobs will be edited out, eventually.

A Polite Distance

2009-10-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

A Polite Distance

Digital drawing on found (given) photograph (by Delaney Allen).

Sunday funday

2009-10-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Delaney and I went to help classmate and friend, Cathy Cleaver, document a new piece of hers, up on a hill in Scappoose. It was a lot warmer than we had anticipated, and a lot lovelier than I had, in any case. Delaney took these photos.

I found this great piece of bark that looked like a bird's skull, or the façade of a woodpecker's nest, depending on the angle. I'm not flexing.

Theme of the month:

2009-09-30T21:04:00.001-07:00

seems to be Nostalgia. Fuck everyone else, I miss all of you guys so much. It's so hard to not run away to a warm, familiar place.

Old hat

2009-09-18T04:18:00.001-07:00

Old scans of an even older parts poem. Shelter, written in 2007, during another lifetime.

Blood in the Ambulance

2009-09-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

Higher quality photos and detail shots.

Follow the Rainbow

2009-09-01T23:03:00.001-07:00

More in the same vein as yesterday's foray into drawing on digital photographs. Photograph by Delaney Allen. The thumbnail resolution sucks -- you really have to click and zoom in to see the drawings.

Follow the Rainbow - layer 1

Follow the Rainbow - layer 2

Follow the Rainbow - layers 1 & 2, combined

Experimenting

2009-08-31T21:57:00.001-07:00

Messing about with my wacom tablet again. Digital drawing on found photograph.

Even Oceans Hide Mountains

Disjecta, "Egocentric"

2009-07-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

My drawing from the PNCA 1st year MFA group exhibition at Disjecta. Photos from Open Wide PDX. I'll get around to taking higher resolution photos of my drawing. Largest drawing yet, and with the most colors. Baby steps?

Blood in the Ambulance
colored pencil on paper, 3' x 6'

Nate by my drawing!

List of my classmates who were in the show: Delaney Allen, Wayne Bund, Cathy Cleaver, Ben Ediger, Matthew Gruber, Allison Halter, Laura Hughes, Sydney S. Kim, Nathan Langner, Ruth Lantz, Mindy McGovern, Nicole Milchak, Zack Rau, Jane Schiffhauer, Nashoba Temperly.

Old old old

2009-06-06T21:31:00.000-07:00

I just found this on my computer. Painting I did in 2004, hahahaha.

Untitled project in progress

2009-05-14T00:33:00.000-07:00

Trouble with titles, again, but as this project is unresolved, that's okay.

Title?

2009-05-14T00:17:00.000-07:00

Title still in the works for these. Went from Shelter to Lovesong (Elegy) ... possibly either just Lovesong or Elegy. No one liked the 2nd title, but I chalk that up to the fact that no one reads poetry anymore.

Worst Historian ... EVER

2009-04-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

I like to think that I'm terrible at documenting my work because it's so difficult to capture on camera that I just give up. The truth is yes, that may be true, but really, I'm just lazy.

Anyway, a Portland art blog was kind enough to snap a photo of my work from my First Thursday, February opening with Chelsea Heffner at Igloo Gallery. Once I (finally) pick them up, I'll scan the drawings in. The photo is worth it for the band of blue paint I used to visually unify the five drawings, which work best as a "horizon line."

Surrender, clips 3 and 4

2009-03-11T00:29:00.000-07:00

The first of these two, I feel, is more successful. This and the very first I posted yesterday work the best.

Surrender, clip 2

2009-03-10T02:20:00.000-07:00

I'm still figuring out exporting and compression, so this one is a bit stretched from its normal tv format size.

Surrender, clip 1

2009-03-10T01:03:00.000-07:00

The first out of four clips.

Surrender

2009-02-24T22:51:00.001-08:00

Some more Surrender photos/drafts taken at Cannon Beach this past weekend. The colors don't look right in jpeg form; the blues are a tad more brilliant in tiff and psd. Gonna go out again and shoot some more photographs and video. Working out clothing issues in terms of wearing something nondescript, but also not too casual. Whatever. Clothes.

Surrender Video

2009-02-19T19:23:00.000-08:00

The first draft of in-progress video and photography project, Surrender. Having a bit of trouble with the editing ... particularly with pacing. Sound hasn't been figured out yet, either.

A Noble Birth

2009-02-15T04:29:00.000-08:00

On-going concept, A Noble Birth. What started out as a character portrayal ended up gelling into a form of self-portraiture. I'm still formulating the concept, but what I envision is a series of linked photographs and video pieces, possibly culminating in installation. The first three are digital, last two are film. I couldn't decide on which version of the Disneyland photograph to stick with, but the latter, more saturated one will be shown.

This Thursday ...

2009-02-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

Come see my joint show with Chelsea Heffner, Seeing, distilled., at Igloo gallery. Opening is from 6-10pm. Igloo gallery is located at: 325 NW 6th #102. There will be new drawings up (by me), as well as beautiful prints (by Chelsea).

Ah, and I made the postcard announcement below.

1st semester, over!

2008-12-20T04:56:00.000-08:00

My best drawings made during my first semester at PNCA. The scan quality bothers me in most of them, especially the first. They were made on bristol board, 22" x 16", and since digital cameras cannot seem to capture the detail quite to my liking, I decided to scan them in, fraction by fraction. This made for a lot of issues with white balance consistency. I'll get around to scanning them in better next year. I didn't bother including drawings I felt were incomplete.

Shelter, Pt. 1
Graphite, colored pencil, acrylic paint pen on bristol.

Shelter, Pt. 2
Graphite, colored pencil on bristol.

Shelter, Pt. 3
Ink, graphite, colored pencil on bristol.

1 (out of 9) Attempts to Get Close To You
Graphite, colored pencil on bristol.

Leftovers

2008-12-20T04:54:00.000-08:00

From Oberlin, home, and the trip to Portland. I have two more rolls from Oberlin back at home, which will be developed and uploaded soon.

Dad

On the way to PDX

Meagan

LC-A

2008-12-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

Lomography are such jerks. I've wanted an LC-A Kompakt Automat for six years and counting, now, but in that time, they bumped the price $100, even when the camera itself is not worth $5. Anyway, Delaney was generous enough to let me borrow his, and 80% of the roll turned out to be a failure. Here are a few decent ones, however.

Delaney & Allison

My Place

2008-12-11T01:50:00.000-08:00

Carina, in my apartment. Disposable camera.

Extraneous Publicity

2008-11-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

The Future Is Now

2008-10-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

PNCA upperclassmate and friend, Paige Saez, asked me to start posting on her media findings website, ppppretty.

Times already gone by

2008-10-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

Photos from this past spring/winter that I never got around to scanning. I'll get around to updating with work that I've been making since entering PNCA. Eventually.

Rena's couch

Close up

Rena

Aza in my old room

Oh do not fly away

2008-10-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

Starting this year, I am being given more proof that nothing ever lasts.

Not even the water in the ocean. Yes, it's accumulating now more than ever, but every droplet that enters the sea must eventually return to the sky. "The air you breathe is full of ghosts" -- phantom water, dust made of the dead, once whole earth.

I love you, I love you, please do not go away.

Yes, I am scared of death, but not in the way you think.

Bicurious

2008-09-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Looking at some of my photographs, even the extraneous, throwaway snapshots, confirmed for me the necessity of creating a new alias. In high school, I was obsessed with a particularly astute Plath quote which likened her own volatile disposition to that of the nature of ocean waves. She saw herself as caught between the two violent tides of her own making, suffering through each opposing extremity. I can't recall the actual quote.

The only paper I ever enjoyed writing was one I wrote my freshman fall for my seminar class. There's one part where I talk about the Freudian theory behind the child's "Fort-Da" game; it is quite literally a game of push and pull involving a wooden ball which represents the mother as the present/absent symbol.

Everyone says that despite the variance in subject matter and medium across a single artist's work, it all is related somehow on a deeper subconscious level and should be viewed together, not separately. I don't think this necessarily is the case. When two siblings fight, it may be wise to send them off to different corners of a shared room. In my case, they are bisected, diverging aesthetic principles.

Introducing ...

2008-09-27T04:59:00.001-07:00

Slam. More to come soon. Watch out for TIGER FIGHT! and my work as Slam in it. This allows me a legitimate outlet for my pent-up street art influence/obsession without obfuscating my "fine" arts work constant.

Russian Tattoo Inspiration

2008-09-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

Below is a Russian prison tattoo meaning "[I] always remember" and/or "Thrown overboard from life."

I've decided on the next issue of TIGER FIGHT!: Tiger vs. Elephant. The theme will be memory.

TIGER FIGHT! ZINE

2008-08-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

I am trying to start a zine. TIGER FIGHT! zine needs contributers. Interested in contributing? E-mail: tigerfightzine@gmail.com

Illustration/drawing/photography/comics

TIGER FIGHT!

First Book Binding

2008-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

I needed an address book, so I made one. It's a little sloppy, but I'm still happy with it. Materials used: found illustrations in a children's book, ribbon, manila envelope, glue, typewriter, found prints/drawings.

Front cover

Back cover

Inside cover, pt. 1

Inside cover, pt. 2

The End

2008-06-01T04:59:00.001-07:00

I'm so glad it's over. So glad. The caesura in my life that felt like forever.

During one recess in sixth grade, my friend's little brother tripped me down a hill and I landed stomach-first into a raised asphalt divider -- it knocked the wind out of me. I somehow lost my ability to see, while all my other senses remained intact. My friends had to lead me to the nurse's office while the school bell rang, my hands in their hands, their hands on my arms. I could hear footsteps, doors opening, doors closing, and the crinkle of paper as my hands felt for a place to sit on the doctor's bed. Soon, I regained my sight. They said that my face had turned green while I was half-fainted.

This is what it feels like. To lose sight of my life, to stumble through a dark place and wake up someplace new, eyes hurting from its glare. Except, I don't know when the darkness began. I lost track. All I know is that it's ended.

I go home this upcoming Tuesday and Portland, Oregon soon thereafter. Updates will start again.

Not really an update,

2008-04-14T01:42:00.000-07:00

but the future, nonetheless. I'll be attending Pacific Northwest College of Art this upcoming fall, under the school's MFA program.

I'm excited. I've been talking about Portland, OR for so long, and finally, I'll be there.

In other news, I have no work to update with. There are five-ish rolls of undeveloped film lying around somewhere that I haven't gotten around to getting processed. Okay, bye!

Fools

2008-03-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

Who are you? What are you, more importantly, and why haven't you figured it out yet?

Cold ... cold ... cool ... getting warmer ... lukewarm ... no, freezing cold.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled

2008-03-02T23:20:00.001-08:00

Oh yeah, and my friends' bands played at Bones Gate fraternity. Elks and Graphics.

Elks

Sean in Graphics
America.

Elks shirts only $15!
Oh my gawww.

Gemstar

2008-03-02T23:07:00.001-08:00

Dulce and the lady who works at the Claflin Jewelry Studio were nice enough to take me to this ... ridiculous gemstone/mineral/jewelry supply emporium in Enfield, VT. It's called Gemstar and is kind of a rainbow of all things anyone attracted to shine and shimmer will drool over.

I wanted to buy all of the quartz crystals, but figured it would be too New Age.

Sunday

2008-03-02T22:48:00.000-08:00

Left over from last weekend. Lazy Sunday with mimosas and television at Adam's.

Don and Courtney

Jon and Sean
Devin
Mimosa making
Mimosas
Sean and his Tropicana orange juice
Sean, Caroline , and Don
Caroline wiping up a spilt mimosa

New Project

2008-02-28T23:39:00.000-08:00

New project. I've had a bajillion half-baked ideas that I haven't followed through on since the beginning of this academic year. Must bring these projects to life; they've already been conceived.

Outta town, pt. 4

2008-02-27T15:58:00.001-08:00

Taken at a Williamsburg vintage store. Typical, yeah. The blood red walls really got to me, though. Hello, Eggleston. I used Vivid Color film for these.

Aubrey

Aubrey and her pretty feather hair accessory.

Me looking like a murderess, photo by Aubrey Stallard.

Outta town, pt. 3

2008-02-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

Neither Aubrey nor I cared particularly for the work shown at The New Museum, but we decided that it was all at least very consistently chosen, which we appreciated. The architecture was interesting (weird) and the skyroom up top was pretty nice. The insides of both elevators were a brilliant emerald Wizard of Oz green.

Aubrey in the Skyroom

Concession stand with $3 mini Vitamin Waters

Elevator ceiling

Aubrey in the elevator

Outta town, pt. 2

2008-02-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

At a chandelier store somewhat near The New Museum.

Outta town, pt. 1

2008-02-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

I left godforsaken Hanover for the big city this weekend, thank god. Celebrated properly. I think I'm getting a bit better acquainted with my SLR. I had a dream that someone had a Canon AE-1, like me, except theirs was higher end with luminous letters and dials.

There was a great moment where all of my best friends showed up at Graphics' show. Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures I snapped in Adam's apartment ended up severely underexposed due to their "mood lighting." I'm not so happy to be back in Hanover.

Brendon in Adam's kitchen

Pam

Me, photo by Aubrey Stallard

More :] :D

2008-02-21T16:19:00.001-08:00

I heard back from another school. I'm in.

Happy News

2008-02-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

3000+ hits!

And I heard back from a grad school! I have my first phone interview with them this Friday ... I'm psyched. As my friend Tiger pointed out, I see the door, it's slightly ajar, and I am glimpsing a peek of what's on the other side. Which makes me happy.

Because I'm tired of being here. More than that, I'm excited to be somewhere else.

More photos

2008-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Still playing with my SLR. Don't know what I'm doing, but getting a little better, I think. Took some photos at Pricechopper, inspired by Andreas Gursky and The Blow (hah). The others are of my friends Aza and Pat. The rest of the photos are here, but I hate Picasa due to the low quality of the pictures.

frozen foods aisle

detergents and cleaners aisle

meat section

Aza in my studio

Pat in his room

Photos

2008-02-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

Becca and I took some photos with my SLR at a parlor and in my studio. I projected The Passion of Joan of Arc while playing Bruce Springsteen. I'm currently working on a drawing using the projection. Becca took the majority of these photos.

Barricades

2008-02-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

While browsing through The Slade School's website, I stumbled across this beautiful drawing done by an MFA student, Christine Clemmesen. I did a few series of drawings for my final senior show project last spring that involved simply drawn "barricade" structures. They sort of looked like this, but far more two-dimensional and not aggregated and layered like her drawing. Also, hers is far better. And I'm not sure how I feel about that except maybe spurred to make better drawings.

Pretty Porcelain Things

2008-02-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

I sometimes follow this design website/blog, dezeen. It's pretty fantastic and posts about everything from well-designed lamps to architecture to furniture ... etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, here are some beautiful porcelain figurines by London designers Committee for the Spanish company, Lladró. The collection is called "Evolution of Love."

Picasa

2008-02-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

I started a Picasa account, which is the Google equivalent of Flickr. I posted all the best photos from the Mai Thai party, if you wish to see them.

And because I hate image-less posts, here are a couple great photos from Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Tod Papageorge.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Romance of Ambrose Bierce #3

Tod Papageorge, Central Park

Selling Out

2008-02-03T14:29:00.001-08:00

So, I was commissioned by my friend Anna to make a flyer for and photograph a party at Mai Thai this weekend, celebrating the birthdays of her and her friends Emma and Nichola. It was pretty fun.

My friend Annie.

Dulce and Sasha are both pretty and my friends.

Sasha took this one of me and Becca. We are not making out.

Au

2008-02-01T00:26:00.001-08:00

There is some kind of gold obsession that is spreading throughout the Studio Art department like wildfire. Feathers on postcards spraypainted gold, cut-out brass jewelry, decorative metallic gold tape, golden origami paper ... I'm not sure who or what started it, but I'm starting to become a believer in non-coincidental clusters of happenings. Or stopping my belief in coincidence. Birth months, exploration of similar thematic material, simultaneously experienced "bad weeks" ...

I've started making experimental pieces, incorporating square sheets of one-sided gold origami paper into sculptural drawing. I'm not exactly sure where I am going with this yet.

Silence is golden. Stay gold. Everything you touch. Make new friends but keep the old.

Brian Eno -- Golden Hours

Pavement -- Gold Soundz

The Blow -- Pile of Gold

Roni Horn, Gold Field

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Placebo-Landscape-for Roni)

I am so lame

2008-01-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

No, really, I really, really am. I'm making these and hopefully people will buy them. If not, I'll just gift them to friends.

Another one

2008-01-21T16:16:00.001-08:00

I haven't made a poster for Friday Night Rock for ... a really long time. Here's one for this Saturday's show, Dragons of Zynth (wtf).

Flyers

2008-01-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

For Untamed, the feminist publication on campus. Because I'm feeling nice lately. I wanted to use lesbian pulp fiction covers, but thought that it might be inappropriate.

AREA and Plath

2008-01-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

Rough draft for the upcoming AREA opening. Funny that they chose a Sylvia Plath fragment. It's from "Metaphor." We analyzed it during Honors American Literature (haha!) junior year of high school. It took the class a while to figure out the poem was about pregnancy.

C'mon, people.

I'm a riddle in nine syllables.
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.

Vincent Desiderio

2008-01-12T17:52:00.001-08:00

Poster for the artist-in-residence for Winter 2008 at Dartmouth College, Vincent Desiderio. His rich paintings remind me of James Jean's stuff.

Kill me ...

2008-01-10T01:28:00.002-08:00

before art school applications do. Please. Buckling under stress! Here are two brand new drawings that I have kept secret until now.

Brown Bear, Black Bear I

Brown Bear, Black Bear II

Good-bye, forever! Or at least until I'm done.

"Ice cream will save the day"

2007-12-31T03:36:00.000-08:00

Oh, it's cold outside. The only thing I miss about this past summer: getting $2 double scoops of peppermint and chocolate ice cream from the "Ice Cream Fore-U" stand in West Lebanon. That and this one time Dulce and I bicycled down the hill through pulsating greenery to draw at her house by the Connecticut River.

read: Ice Cream (Phaidon Press)

listen: Muscles - "Ice Cream"

watch: "The Life and Death of Ice Cream" (thanks, Jordan)

From The Bell Jar:

"In the hour before our luncheon at Ladies' Day -- the big women's magazine that features lush double-page spreads of Technicolor meals, with a different theme and locale each month -- we had been shown around the endless glossy kitchens and seen how difficult it is to photograph apple pie a la mode under bright lights because the ice cream keeps melting and has to be propped up from behind toothpicks and changed every time it starts looking too soppy."

Crystal Drawings + Misc.

2007-12-22T03:27:00.000-08:00

Newer drawings, the first two sprung from the concept of crystallization, specifically, twinning. They've all yet to be titled. Made using bristol board, graphite, and ink.

Drawings

2007-12-22T03:24:00.000-08:00

Collage-drawings that I made using vellum, acrylic paint, graphite, ink, and matte medium.

Ice/Land series

Roni Horn

2007-12-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

Roni Horn did an installation in the town of Stykkishólmur, Iceland, replacing books in a former library with water. I feel as though it encapsulates, quite literally, the essence of my dreams.

Vatnasafn ("Library of water")

Cry, wolf.

2007-12-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

I tried sleeping and could not. I woke back up (not truly) to make this. I think it's a mock-up for a series of tiny, tiny drawings. I'm not sure exactly what compelled me to make it, but it reminds me of this stupid "blather" site that I was introduced to in high school, where words link to words, and whomever can add whatever they like for new entries for new words. Back then, I thought it was the coolest thing ever until I realized that one can benefit greatly from restraint and that freedom is often overrated and abused.

A series of miniature drawings would seem fitting for this.

Anri Sala

2007-12-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I feel like this.

No Barrágan No Cry

Fuera del Carrusel

Love & Space

2007-12-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

R*na Fri*d and Meli Garber had me and our friend Jordan model for their Women's and Gender Studies senior seminar project. The project explores "love and space" and each series of polaroids depicts various phases. I'm not sure I can articulate this as well as R*na or Meli, but the basic ideas (I think) were the states of desire (fantasy), reality, rebuilding, and desire (reality, cycle) in a female-female relationship. Most of them turned out quite beautifully, so I'm posting these, even though I did not take them. R*na Fri*d took them all -- well done!

Reality

Desire

Desire, pt. 2

Rebuilding

More publicity

2007-11-28T18:20:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, when I'm doing publicity work, I set visual goals for myself. This time, my goal was to incorporate plaid into both the Friday Night Rock Fall '07 staff mix "album" cover and the announcement for the upcoming Studio Art faculty's drawing exhibition.

Ryan Jacob Smith

2007-11-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

Ryan Jacob Smith

Twinned Crystals

2007-11-18T22:01:00.000-08:00

Real update soon to come. Here's something I've been obsessed with for the past three months now. Taken from Wikipedia.

"Crystal twinning occurs when two separate crystals share some of the same crystal lattice points in a symmetrical manner. The result is an intergrowth of two separate crystals in a variety of specific configurations. A twin boundary or composition surface separates the two crystals ...

Simple twinned crystals may be contact twins or penetration twins. Contact twins share a single composition surface often appearing as mirror images across the boundary ... In penetration twins the individual crystals have the appearance of passing through each other in a symmetrical manner ...

There are three modes of formation of twinned crystals. Growth twins are the result of an interruption or change in the lattice during formation or growth due to a possible deformation from a larger substituting ion. Annealing or Transformation twins are the result of a change in crystal system during cooling as one form becomes unstable and the crystal structure must re-organize or transform into another more stable form. Deformation or gliding twins are the result of stress on the crystal after the crystal has formed."

Roll Call

2007-11-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

I've been averaging over 30 hits per day on my blog, and as a result, I'm sincerely interested in who visits this thing. So, please, could I see a raise of hands?

Comment and leave your name, if you want, and tell me how you found my blog. What demographic am I reaching, besides my own mother and friends?

SIGN!

More Publicity

2007-11-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

For the upcoming Studio Art faculty show.

Hollow-weaned

2007-11-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

For Halloween, I dressed up as Bjork. I was pretty recognizable, but more than once (twice, thrice), people mispronounced her name. Bee-geork. Buh-geork.

I didn't even realize when I posted, but we are all musicians. Guess who's who?

This is what the dress looked like. It was made out of tulle, a thrift slip, two different types of feather boas, felt, thread, needle, and hot glue. Hayley helped me make the tulle tutu part at the bottom of the dress.

The Sound of Them

2007-10-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

A ginormous update. Sorry for the image overload, but this is my rotunda show, The Sound of Them, and is quite an involved installation. I took it down tonight and finally got around to documenting it before its dismantling. I used ivory soap, white christmas lights, all-surface pencils, my hands, dampened paper towels and an amazing sound file looped from within the space, sent to me by Meagan Day. If I ever figure out how to make mp3s available, I'll upload and link to it.

The installation looked best in the evening, especially with the glow of the lights. The music that Meagan sent me is of layered, aimless whistling, rattling, and other noises. Passers-by would notice it and turn their heads. A few people told me that it was unsettling and that at first, they couldn't determine the source of the music, that is, until they approached the rotunda. Success! Thanks again, Meagan.

On the soap film, I scratched in drawings and words. Outside on the surface of the glass, I drew with pencils, accompanying the 'inner' drawings with stronger lines. You could see glints of light through the drawings if looked at closely enough.

Those are my handprints. It says "THIS ISN'T A HANDS ON PROJECT" next to them, after noticing that people had touched some of my outside pencil drawings.

This glass panel only held the words "PERCHANCE PERHAPS" repeated in a varied pattern. I screwed up the 'N' multiple times, unfortunately, since I'm not used to writing backwards. This is my favorite part of the piece.

Here, it says "careful, are you sure?" with a wiped out rectangle, allowing the viewer to peer inside the rotunda.

This says "THIS WAS NEVER ABOUT YOU. NOW IT IS ABOUT HER."

Arrows.

"PLEASE BE CAREFUL"

Closer photos of drawing details.

Aaaaaand, end.

I'd write more about my thoughts on the piece and space, successes and failures, but I'm currently too tired to do so.

The polaroids are back

2007-10-09T22:44:00.000-07:00

I'm taking polaroids again. Except I just ran out of film. Here are some new faces.

Meet Karima.

She dyed her hair a darker shade of brown.

She took this. I am on her carpeted floor.

This is Margaret, my roommate. That is our apartment.

||

2007-10-08T16:08:00.001-07:00

Found while stalking Kathy Grayson's Myspace.

More rotunda, boredom

2007-10-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

More pictures from my rotunda. It's pretty much finished, but I'll be going in from time to time to modify and add to the drawings. I'll be back with pictures from the outside and nightshots (it makes all the difference). Karima sat with me while I worked today.

Monitoring the print studio is a bore. My typewriter kept me company.

Christopher Cozier

2007-10-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

As a Studio Art intern, part of my job is to do publicity for the department. There's a new artist-in-residence this term, Christopher Cozier. He does incredible drawings and installation work that has to do with (broadly speaking) identity, language, social, race issues. Cozier is from Trinidad. A lot of his work is graphically driven with a strong sense of design, which made it a lot easier to for me to make decent posters out of the images.

Installation in progress

2007-10-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

No, still not finished. Coated all the glass walls of the Barrows Rotunda (in the Hopkins Center) with Ivory soap film. Worked for hours. More pictures to come soon. These were taken by my friend Dave on my cell phone.

Stones and bones

2007-10-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

Graphite and paper.

New drawings

2007-09-27T17:54:00.001-07:00

I did a few drawings over the past two months. All of these are incredibly small, about a few inches by a few inches ... Value and shadow were wholly absent from the drawings I had been making up until now (unless they were implied by form and line), so I've sort of tacked onto something new. Feedback is appreciated and wanted.

There is a Great Undergrowth

My Gay Version of Heaven

Far Away, Now

I Forgot the A in A+

Bleh

2007-09-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

End of spring at Panarchy. Margo and Hayley. Margo in her blue wig, Hayley in her hand-made fabric sculpture suit.

Announcement

2007-09-27T06:22:00.000-07:00

The front part of the announcement (re: postcard) for my upcoming rotunda show at the Hopkins Center. It's my first actual wacom drawing.

New video art

2007-08-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to filming an idea I've had for a while. My good friend Hero helped me a ton and is in it herself.

I'm a bit irritated by the table (which I've cropped out in the screencaps), but overall, pretty happy with the result.

It's up on youtube, but as a private video. If you're interested in watching it, let me know via comments or e-mail. The only reason it's privatized is because there is some nudity in it, and I don't feel very comfortable with the idea of 13-year-olds watching my body.

You'll have to start a youtube account and add me as a friend (username: bluepaperplane).

This piece is very important to me, as I've never included myself directly in my art. In fact, it was something I used to avoid. So, this is a very big step for me.

This Is Where It Hurts (a postlude to me)

Not a real update, but important thoughts, nonetheless

2007-08-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

I think that we're meant to nurture each another, as humans. "To each his own"* isn't really the truth, and I don't believe in it. This is the reason why I think creating art is one of the most responsible things a human being can do. It's a different kind of nurturing and reaching out, and though it can be a very solitary act and process, the end product can result in the destruction of the concept of "aloneness."

I can't really describe or attempt to replicate how it feels when I see bits of my life and experiences reflected in some form of art (literary, musical, visual, etc). I can try, however, to talk about it. What it does is make me feel less alone, because I become aware that someone else felt what I am feeling, and was also able to rebirth and transform that experience into something beautiful.

All I can say is that this is the best we can do. This is the best I can do.

- - - - -

I don't know ... I'm really happy right now. I keep turning over really important stones, and I want my life to be full and big and capable of holding all of these enormous feelings and thoughts because they define me as a person.

I don't want an empty life. I want to be allowed all of these things, I want to keep them.

*as Andy points out, this is incorrect, though I don't care. I suppose "every man is an island" works better.