...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 :)