.stop the traffic.

Lately I have been burdened about women who are forced into sex trafficking and also those working in the porn industry.

I recently found out that a young girl I knew a few years ago dropped out of high school during her senior year to become an amateur porn star. For her, like many, this industry gives them a sense of power. I don't want to make too many assumptions since I have no experience in this realm and don't know her history or story, but things like this cause my mind to wonder. What lead her to want this lifestyle? Is it born out of a need that wasn't met somewhere along the way? What leads a woman to desire to bare her body and sell herself? I'm not sure, so I again won't make assumptions, but it is heart breaking to me. 

On the flip side of this are women who are forced into prostitution and are victims of sex traffickers daily. These women range from young tourists in foreign countries to foreign exchange students unknowingly walking into the hands up pimps to young girls being lured by total strangers right near their own homes. 

This is happening all the time. Every day. Right now, someone is being sold, degraded, and making money for sick, selfish people. Their innocence is being sold at a high price, but even once they are found and rescued, that innocence can never be bought or returned to them.

Well, I don't have much else to say right now. I would ramble, but don't want to over-do it. Just know that sex trafficking is a reality. It could be happening right next door. Make yourself aware. More to come later. I will be reading up on this subject more. For now, here is a heart wrenching story that I read tonight about teen that have become victims of this horrific industry. Let's leave it at that. Read here.

Until next time.

...animation!...

Hello friends :)



I've been busy working away at final projects of the semester.. it's crazy how fast it is going!! Just thought I'd make a quick post of my most recent drawing project. We had to create a simple animation (atleast 10 secs.) of anything we wanted as long as it related to ideas of happiness or utopias... Here is what I came up with! Enjoy :) Oh! And it's called "Winter Dreaming" and the music is by "Skating" by Vince Guaraldi

.Community Arts.

Hello all!

As promised, here are some pics from last week's CREATE event:

The set up :) I drew out a grid with highlighters! 

 The numbers on the grid corresponded with numbered paintbrushes and cups (this was to help keep the painting random and the image a secret from participants).

Detail

Participants were instructed to pick a number on the grid and paint it in with the corresponding paint brush.

First few squares!

A little drip :)

The finished product!!

So, I'm not sure if I explained this project before, but I'll explain it now :) My boyfriend and I (Jay is pictured above holding the painting.) co-run an arthouse/coffeehouse event once every few months. We usually call in visual artists and bands to come play. For myself, I just love creating an atmosphere of inspiration and also an atmosphere of learning for those not familiar with the art world. This event has grown over the past few months, but I've always wanted a way to get everyone involved. So many times people come in, they see the artwork, and they appreciate it, but never get involved or go any deeper than a visual appreciation. A friend of ours had us over for dinner and told us about this project and I thought it would be perfect for our crowd! Basically, the message behind the piece was about building a better city and community. If we all just focus in one area of service that we are passionate about, it will in turn better our community and build a better city of Tampa. Many of us don't know how to work together either. It just takes finding a place where you can serve and plugging in and then supporting each other in our service. It was so great to get everyone involved and I learned a lot by watching the participants! Thanks so much to those who were involved!

..Happenings..

Hello! Life has been crazy, as usual, as the semester is in full swing! All of my classes are really pushing and competing for my time and energy as we are past midterm and hopefully rolling quickly to the end of this crazy semester I am in! Since my last post, I have been involved in two pretty awesome events! Last Saturday I was in a show called the Indie Craft Show run by a fellow friend! I'm not much of a crafter, but it was great to be involved in this show to see everyone's creative gifts! Here is a picture of my booth!:

The lovely girl sitting next to the booth is my dear friend, Sara! She helped out by making some jewelry to sit at our booth :)

And here's a better picture of the booth itself :)

I have had a lot of fun stuff going on. Last night we had one of our most successful CREATE coffeehouses yet! My friend Jay Aden's band did a live recording and we also had lovely art there! Both of my friend, Femke Jenkins and Amy Menendez brought original art work :) It was so nice! To spice things up a bit, we also did a community art project to get everyone involved! I will post pictures later... I can't seem to find my camera cord at the moment :(

On top of all of these fun things, school has been super stressful. I understand that once I'm out of school, I will miss these days! I will definitely miss the community that I feel in school. There's nothing like having constant input on your work and where you are going in your ideas. I have grown so much over the past couple of years while attending college and wouldn't trade it for anything... except maybe sleep and more money haha!

Well, that's all for now! More pictures to come :)

.do you copy?.

Hey friends!! I am sorry I haven't blogged in a long time! I am totally buried in a pile of homework that will never end... But I thought I'd blog since a lot has happened! Here are some photos of what I've been doing the past few weeks since my last post:

So, this image above is my latest printmaking project. Didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, but it was fun to experiment! This one is titled "Lady Liberation"

This is the first drawing from my intermediate drawing project. The project is called Copy, Synth, Morph. We have to copy two artists works, then synthesize their style for the third drawing and then morph their styles into our own personal style. This first image is by Shahzia Sikander, titled "Fleshy Weapons". I learned how to tea stain paper :)

This is the second copy I had to create. This was made from a piece by Wangechi Mutu. I learned lots about collaging and working on Mylar! Fun!

And here is my third Copy (This is for the second group of the project). This is from a section of a work my Neo Rauch. It's really not finished yet, but after putting tons of hours in, this will do for my first deadline.

So, that's pretty much it. My brain feels like it's going to explode right now from all of these projects!!! Started a new printmaking plate today, using color reduction theory, so we'll see how that plays out! I will also post pics of the Synth and Morph images from round one of the project later... I'm tired of taking pictures! 

Oh, and here's my other copy.. utter fail... hah!

from a work by Jesse Bransford... this is terrible and I am embarassed!

.definitely not in kansas.

So, I just have to get this out in writing. Weird fact about me, I am both totally enamored by and scared to death by tornadoes... They are the most magnificent, powerful, and also destructive, terrifying forces of nature... I keep having these recurring dreams about storms. I've had them since I can remember. I always have these dreams where a tornado is coming and I can't escape it. I can never remember how these dreams begin, but the feeling of being totally helpless is engrained in my mind. These dreams are always dark and gray. Sometimes I am surrounded by storms and multiple tornadoes and sometimes I have a bird's eye view and am flying over all of the destruction. I am alone and frazzled. I've tried to look into what these could mean... some people think dreams about storms could symbolize frustration and emotional conflict or uncertainty. That's kind of scary... but these dreams do seem to correlate to specific events.. whether I am totally stressed or emotionally overwhelmed. Maybe I should make some art about this...

Crazy Tornado I found while Googling...

.9.11.

Well, friends.. it is now 11:26 PM on September 11th, 2010. 9 years ago something happened that will shake our history and our generation forever. September 11th, 2001 will be in my children's History textbooks and I will tell them about it... every year we will see footage of two American flights crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City. The day that shook America will be burned into my memory forever. I will remember walking into the my 8th grade History class and hearing students yelling in the hall that something bad was happening... and then going home to seeing those two planes crash into the towers over and over and over... I remember my History teacher telling us that we should not live in fear.. even though these acts were committed out of a dark anger and hate towards Americans, life would have to go on... we had to move forward. My teacher reminded us that heinous acts against our country have happened before and will continue to happen, but we still had to step out of our homes and continue living life... terrorists would want us to live in fear, but living in fear is not living at all. I know there is a lot of controversy swirling around that day of whether it could have been stopped or handled better, it still does not change the fact that it happened... it was significant and had purpose. So looking ahead to the years to come, we must always remember this part of our history, but try to gain something from it... maybe an appreciation for what we have, for the ones we love, for the freedom we love. I know for me, watching these documentaries today of everyday people... students from NYU watching the events occur... one minute those towers were there, one minute those people were breathing and the next, they were burned up in airplane fuel or crushed in debris.

Let's live as though tomorrow is not a promise and love as though our time is short. Don't wait to live out your dreams until it is too late... don't leave your loved ones with an unkind word.

.empowered.

Hello friends! As promised, I am posting pictures TONIGHT! Yay! Not much to blog about really... My first critique went well in printmaking, so I am happy... now I just have to start brainstorming my next project. Well, here are the photos! Enjoy and good night :)

.masterpiece.

So, prints are all finished and laying on the drying rack in the printmaking studio! Phew! Our professor gave out enough paper to make 8 prints, so I took advantage of all the paper and made all 8 (our project requires 4 finished, final prints). The first two prints were strictly collage and then I went back into the plate and added wet media (mostly glue drawing). I took two more prints with the wet media and still felt like I needed more contrast... the image I worked from was super high contrast and dramatic, so that's the effect I wanted on the plate. FINALLY, for my last four final prints, I decided to tint my ink with red. I also decided the best way to get the contrast I wanted was to manually draw the highlights in on the plate while inking it. The result was pretty good! Of course, I have no pictures to show what I am talking about, but I will be bringing my camera into the critique tomorrow to show you what I'm talking about!

Right now I'm struggling between work and school. It's so hard to balance the two... right now I just want to be working on my projects and really growing in my art... however, realistically, I have to work a good amount to pay for these classes! What a pickle! I recently looked back at my goals that I set for this year... I don't need to stress, right? I need to look at the positive...

1. I have a supportive family! My parents have been so great and have supported me throughout my college career. They have taken so much extra stress from me, which is such a blessing. Many of my friends are not only dealing with the stress of school work and paying for school and working, they are having to pay rent, cook all their own food, and worry about dirty roommates... It's so amazing how much more stable I feel living at home.

2. I have my health... obviously, I should always be thankful for life. I am blessed everyday to wake up and see a new day. Just waking up everyday gives us new opportunities... we have a new choice everyday to be positive or negative, be optimistic or pessimistic, or looking for new opportunities versus stressing over failures or short comings.

3. I have gifts... This might sound strange... it felt weird typing it... but it's true... we all have gifts in some area! Some of us are gifted musically, some artistically, some are expert communicators, some are good at making money, and others are great at just drawing people in. We are all gifted and that includes me. I was created with an artistic mind and creativity... I believe that the reason God made me this way is for me to better understand Him, since He of course, is the great Creator of all we see. I've always felt special in this way... I was created in His image to create! I love this fact about me!

4. I am a hard-worker! Even though I have my occasional waves of laziness, I always desire to work hard for what I have. I work hard at my job, school, and art work. Although this gets me in trouble a lot since I work myself until I am overwhelmed, I know this is an important trait to have... it was instilled in me by my parents and I am so grateful for it!

5. God loves me. He wants to know me. He reveals Himself to me daily (if I let myself see it). The Creator of the Universe calls me His Masterpiece... Now that, my friends, is something to be thankful for.

6. I have a boyfriend who really loves me... you might be thinking "well, I would hope he loves you, he's dating you" but really... it's so great to be with someone who really supports you and loves you for who you are. He encourages me everyday to be a better person and artist. He inspires me by how he follows what he loves (he's a musician) and dedicates himself to getting better at what he does everyday.

Wow, I really encourage everyone to talk about positive things when you are stressing! I already feel better. As promised, print photos will be up tomorrow night or Friday!

Here's a picture of my and Jay :)

.eggs and oranges.

Hello everyone! So, I guess this is the start of week three of school! The busyness has begun! As promised... I pulled my first print and took a quick snapshot! (Don't judge me, I took it with my phone and it's terrible):

So, this is the first print! I constructed my plate with masking tape and craft paper from Joann's Fabrics. This is just one of those projects that comes together easily... Making the plate was effortless and I really enjoyed it! My next step is to go back into the face and add more depth using glue and different variations of modeling and molding pastes. Glue bottle drawings are my favorite because they are so painterly in the prints. More photos to come here!

On the other side of the spectrum, I am struggling in my drawing class. I just can't seem to get it. It's hard for me not to outline things... in real life, people don't have outlines, we don't walk around with big black lines dividing us from the space around us.. our bodies are visually divided from the space around us by our mass. But how do you capture that with a stick of charcoal or a pencil? I don't know.. I guess it's pure magic... My drawing teacher wants us to pick a master to copy. So, here are just a few painters/drawers that I admire and aspire to be like...

Albrecht Durer. I think this man rocked my world when one of my drawing class saw a series of his prints at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts. It was so fun to go around with the little magnifying glasses and look at all the details in the prints, but my favorite part was drawing the compositions of his prints and drawings. Durer to me was a master in the art of creating compositions that convey depth and space. In the particular print, I feel the man's knee coming towards me and can relate with the way his body is contorting to look at the small figure above his head. 

Mary Cassatt. Okay, so I'm not sure if she is what they call a classic master, but I think she's a master painter. I have always loved looking at Cassatt's intimate spaces and figures. Her paintings portray women and I just love the way she displays the female figure. She has such a way of bringing the viewer in and making them a vital part of her spaces. She is another master of composition. If I could combine her way of creating intimate spaces and Durer's masterful way of portraying space and depth in his compositions, I would be in heaven!

Well, that's it for now, I think. I am sitting in Einstein's waiting for the line to go down to get some of their Vanilla Hazelnut coffee.. deeelish!

Oh, and I had to draw eggs and oranges for my drawing class this weekend.. not my finest homework assignment... 

.testing, testing.

Hello everyone! It's finally Thursday! I am currently sitting in the printmaking studio getting ready to pull my first test print of my new collagraph plate! I am so excited :) We've definitely had some problems getting the plate sealed and ready, but today is the day for a test run!

Things have been going pretty well, minus the lack of sleep... but here is a quick picture of my plate before the inking...

So, we'll see how it goes! Been keeping super busy getting this plate ready for today. And by the way, for those of you not familiar with collagraph printmaking. it's amazing! Dickblick.com has a good little section on Collagraph where they teach you how to make your own plates :)

.the late nights.

Hello all!

Thought I'd write a quick blog before bed today. The semester is already getting into full swing and I have already been pulling some late nights working on projects.

My big project right now is my first printmaking project of the semester. In my paintings during last spring, I really focused more on self-portraits. The fun thing about taking lots of different classes is that you can transfer ideas into other mediums and see what they convey. We'll see how it turns out. Recently I've been really inspired by

Alphonse Muchas' way of portraying the female figure:

 and also the structure of Constructivist Posters:

Hopefully I will be pulling a print later this week so I can post photos! 

Good night :)

.source.influence.style.

Alright, so first day of school. Almost over. Just one more class to go. I have extremely long breaks today between classes with nothing to do.. oh wait! I have a blog! So, recap thus far... went to my Printmaking class today... it was good to be back in the printmaking world.. and I also went to my drawing class right after that. Nothing unusual. Just the regular, here's the syllabus, don't be late, here's your mile long list of supplies... but my drawing class really got me to thinking...

The first exercise we did in class today was to start with three sheets of paper. The instructions given for the first sheet of paper were to draw an object in class.. any object we wanted for 10 minutes. I feverishly drew a wooden step stool (when I say feverishly, I mean I was stressed... my brain was firing so many instructions: remember how to measure your angles! remember how to calculate proportion! watch the clock! keep moving! it doesn't have to be perfect! make this look three-dimensional! but I was ok... it looked half descent). We were then instructed to pass this image we masterfully copied down to one of our neighbors to copy. The goal was to copy the image already drawn, not the object itself. This continued one last time to make three images. This exercise was used to show us three main ideas: what is a source? what is an influence? what is style? These three ideas are what our class will be pondering the whole semester.

What sources do I draw from in my art? What are some of my influences? And in the end, how does this all effect my style or "hand" in my creating as an artist?

By the end of the semester, I must answer this (or get some sort of answer or get some direction toward an answer).

So, we'll see how the semester goes! These two classes will be the meat of my work and energy, so I will post mostly about these two classes and my progress... until my next post, here are some influences or sources of mine.

Wayne Thiebaud. 

Jenny Saville. 

Giorgio Morandi.

Alfred Hitchcock.

I'm sure this list will grow and become more refined as time passes, but here are my thoughts. Happy Tuesday!

.goals.

At the beginning of new things (New years, new jobs, new projects) I love to sit down and think about my goals. Well, this is the start of a brand new school year, and my last, at that. So, what would I like to accomplish this year? Well, here are some thoughts on some goals I am setting for myself (academic or otherwise)..

1. Be involved - It's been hard for me to be involved since I currently do not live on campus and am a commuter. However, I do have a flexible job this year and have the ability to volunteer at campus galleries and the big museum on campus.

2. Focus - So many times when school starts, I get super flustered and when projects are thrown at me, I cringe. This year, I believe it is my time as an artist to really flourish, try new things, and yes I will say it: FAIL. I don't want to be afraid to fail.. I want to focus on something I want and go for it.

3. Relax - I guess this goes with my failing thought.. I become very uptight when school whips through. This is my last year. These are my last two semesters. Enjoy the ride.

4. Take advantage of resources - I've been privileged to attend a university where my teachers are active members of the art community. They are vast resources for us as students. As students, we have tons of brains to pick as far as the art world goes. I want to take advantage of the teachers I have around me during this year.

5. Take care - I really need to learn how to take care of myself - mentally, physically and spiritually. If not, I am useless to the world. This means exercise, rest when I can, and do enjoyable activities. Look for the simple things in life that make us smile. There are lots of little things out there...

6. Paint sunset clouds - Random, I know, but sunset clouds are my favorite thing. The sky is the most vibrant, electrifying, bursting thing I've ever seen... during the day, the sky is bright, neon blue and when the sun is setting, the event causes the clouds to take on this sort of bubble gum, cotton candy pink quality.

Alright, here's to a new school year! I'm sure I won't always be so focused on these goals, but they will be here to remind me...

Here are some clouds I found while Googling clouds. Enjoy!

.new adventures.

So, this has kind of become a forgotten blog for me. It actually started as a class project in college and after the class, I let it go... Well, not anymore! I am now currently in my last year of college and have decided this blog will be a great way to kind of work through my ideas and inspirations and especially challenges. I currently don't have a way to upload images easily, but once school starts I will have a better computer and will be regularly updating here with sketches and notes.

This summer I had the wonderful chance to go to New York for the first time and see the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, and I also visited the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Of course, the New York museums were wonderful, and I must say too much to take in for just ONE DAY, however, the most remarkable "museum" that we had the chance to see was by far the Barnes Foundation. There is a lot of controversy flying around this landmark in Philadelphia, but I am so glad we had the chance to see it in its original state before it is moved into the city of Philadelphia. You can read more about the Barnes Foundation here. This entry would be too long if I explained all of the history behind this great place, but I will give a summary. All of the artwork in the building is arranged and best described as a "salon style". Paintings and drawings line the walls and the way up to the ceiling and are arranged around chairs, desks, and numerous other housewares. The founder, Albert C. Barnes established the Barnes Foundation to "promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts." We learned that both music and art classes were held in this building and the art the adorned the wall was organized to enhance these art classes. It was just a really cool experience!

Needless to say, I had a great summer and saw lots of great art! Tomorrow, the craziness of school begins once again! I am excited to be around my fellow classmates and artists once more as I begin my final two semesters. More to come!