Consumption

This whole food journal thing isn't the first time I keep track of what I ate over a period of time...
Back in 2007, I participated in a basic drawing class homework exercise that I initially thought was bullshit.  It was early in the semester and I was still feeling out the teacher a little bit in terms of his methods, discussion tactics, and leniency in terms of interpretation/attendance.  I remember the class was a Monday/Wednesday-nights-from-6-9pm class.  He gave us the basic task of tracking everything that we ate or drank (as I took to mean consume in general) from the end of class one Wednesday night til the following Monday's class.  Five days.  I was pretty pissy about the assignment and used my frustration to spur a strange abstraction of what I really consumed that week.  The drawings are geometric deconstructions of everything that passed my lips during that 5 days.  Upon returning to class, I found I was one of the half in the class that actually accomplished the assignment and one of the very few who took it very seriously.  Like I said, my frustration with being assigned such a juvenile task drove me to invent a way to make it more interesting to me.  I feel it turned into playful depiction of a third-year art school student's diet.  Knowing what foods I consumed then makes me cringe now a little but really that's part of the college experience.  I mean, I'm pretty sure one of these drawings represents a strawberry strudel pastry and blazing buffalo Doritos!  At any rate, I rarely get to share the book that this project spawned one of my few prized artist books.
So here it is: Consumption

I miss art school.

I found this movie on TMC this morning that has made me severely miss being an integral part of a fine art community.  Don't get me wrong, I love the art that I am involved with now.  But I really want to be a part of something bigger and different.  I don't think I'm ever going to get the art community I'm looking for here in SoDak.  Too many people here only want to see art by commercial artists like Terry Redlin, John Crane, John Green, Mark Anderson, and Thomas Kincade.  Yawn.  Not that commercial art is bad.  I quite honestly might sell out a little in order to fund the art I'm really passionate about.  It's just that in this part of the country, most folks want to see pictures of wildlife and nature and the same old boring crap they see when they go outside.  I'd rather enjoy nature firsthand than second- or third-hand in a painting of nature or a print of a painting of nature.  That's just my preference.  But living here and working at a frame shop, most of the art I see is of nature.  I want to go to a gallery and see an artwork that doesn't make sense at first or that elicits some sort of response, be it physical, emotional, psychological.  I'm just bored I guess.  I think I need to visit more actual galleries.  I need some sort of artistic dialogue.  I need my artist friends to want to have an in depth art based conversation.  I just need more.  And what I really want is for my work to be in a gallery, even a commercial one.

The movie that prompted these strong feelings: (Untitled).

"Everyone has an opinion.  The artist must find meaning in the process."

Maybe my process of getting into a gallery includes working as a commercial framer, a children's art teacher and a crochet instructor.  I never thought I'd say this but I really enjoy sharing knowledge with anyone interested enough to listen.  When I was younger I told myself I never wanted to be a teacher.  Though it's not ultimately what I want for my life, I do like it.

Back to the movie: totally bizaaro ending, just exactly as it should be.   :)

Random Bit of the Day

I was just poking through my old sketchbooks and notebooks on my bookshelf (books, books, books...didn't think I said it enough times in that sentence).  I came across an idea notebook from high school and found this poem written inside:

Reflecting Beauty by Pamela Dugdale

Small Child, clear crystal

Bright and clear

Faceted as none before you

Catching the light from every lovely thing

and turning it to rainbow

Reflecting beauty back into the world

Making all things new

I know I liked it back when I jotted it down in my notebook but that's nothing compared to now.  Now, with a heavy anniversary looming ahead this weekend, I'm thinking about motherhood.  I've spent a huge amount of time with my nephew but he could never replace what I lost.  And I guess now that a year's gone by I can agree with Nature's assessment that 2010 was not the right time for me to become a mother.  With all I've experienced this past year I know that I can and will be a great mom...when the time is right.  Right now is the time to focus on kicking my career into the fast lane.  That's the really tricky part.  That and landing a Mr. Wonderful to father my babe(s).  But I digress...

I just read a little further along in the notebook and found that the notes carried over into early freshman year at SAIC (2004) including:

-detailed (yet cryptic) notes from a class trip to the Art Institute.

-a list of things for my family to bring out to me on their Thanksgiving trip to Chicago

-a Christmas list and shopping agenda

-the first 9 songs I emailed to my sister Jessica and her college roommate Tammy as the "Song of the Day"
-an AWFUL list of books to read, of which I've only read one. HAH!

Now if that's not a random post from beginning to end, I just don't know what is.

Astroarticle

I'm thinking the next few posts are going to seem like they should be the random bit of the day.  However, though they seem random, they are not.  These are some bookmarks in my bookmark bar.  I haven't looked at them in a while but I think they're particularly interesting (or else I wouldn't have bookmarked them).

The first is an article that someone sent to me around the time I took my Astronomy class in college (Fall semester 2008).  I remember my teacher talking about how scientists are finding planets around distant stars all the time.   But because the manner in which they find them is based on the 'wobble' they create in the light that we see from the star, the planets they've found have mostly been quite large and very close to their stars.  I think the nickname for them was 'Hot Jupiters' and the odds of life (let alone intelligent life) is highly unlikely.  Anyways, the article is available here:
Photo captures three planets by distant sun
I know it's a little old in terms of Astronomy, like how much and how quickly things are discovered these days, but like I said before, I like it.  So there ya have it.