goals

i want this to be short and sweet because i think goals should be kept that way.

in 5 years i want to be more confident in my own style and have had a major art show of my own.

in 10 years i want to be a published illustrator and possibly have my own art book.

in 20 years i want to teach.

.... and in other life goals: in the very near future i would like to have a successful business of my own and be comfortable enough to travel regularly. 

i will do these things.

copyright infringement

So I was standing in Walmart waiting for my boyfriend to come out of the restrooms.  I happen to be right next to a tall stand with keychains and magnets so I spun it around a couple of times to entertain myself.  And there it was... a small keychain with a white spotted puppy on it.  I thought it looked really familiar and then it ocurred to me......... "THAT'S MY DRAWING!!!!!"  Yeah, so I took a pic with my camera that I keep on my at all times for these very reasons.  A couple of days later I get the time to get the pic of my camera and do a side-by-side comparison on my computer.  "HOLY SHIT... I WAS RIPPED OFF!!!"  So, what the hell do I do now?  I was kind of at a loss for words and yet I wanted to tell everyone that I knew.  It was a little flattering but that was quickly overshadowed by confusion, anger, and greed.  Why should this company in Canada be making money off of me.  Fuck them!

Its probably not a good idea to give too much info right now, but I am currently in contact with a lawyer and my hopes are high.

Joshua's Challenge

I feel like a failure.  I was challenged to endure something that I hate for 20 minutes and then write about it.  The first layer of that challenge was to think of something that I hate.  I don't really consider myself a hateful person and I rarely banish things from my life as something that I dislike enough to never ever do.  In fact, I think if there was something that I may hate, I have probably never done it.  And then I wouldn't really be able to say that I hated it for having never tried it.  

So Josh, what am I to do?  I thought of the things that I might hate to endure.  I probably wouldn't like to sit in a church meeting with some crazy evangelicals.  I also wouldn't like to watch a puppy be beaten for 20 minutes, but there is no way I am going to find a place to watch that.  And I am not really aware of any open doors to cock fights or other illegal and horrendous activities.   Other options were sitting in a dying children's cancer ward or something else as depressing.  But then I thought, how dare I hate something that cannot be helped?!  I don't hate it, I am only saddened by it.  

Oh Josh, you have made this difficult.  But I see your point.  I see the need to make yourself do things against your own will.  We should want to make ourselves grow out of the bounds we set for ourselves.  We should wish to be better humans with less hate.  

Even without completing the challenge, I feel the end result.  I feel like a bigger person for having pondered as long as I have over that which I do hate..... and found that there is very little.

Potter-Belmar Labs Performance at Southwest School

On October 30th Leslie Raymond and Jason Jay Stevens, better known as Potter-Belmar Labs, had a VJ gig at an art opening for Travis Townsend and Holly Hanessian.  I have to admit that this was all pretty new to me.  I had never been to a real VJ gig before and I had also never been to a gallery opening at the Southwest School.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised on arrival.  On entering I was forced into the gallery space for Townsend's work.  I can only describe him and his work as that of Dr Seuss's carpentry student.  So after walking through the space I enter a smaller space where there is a food table to my left and a large video projection on a screen to my right.  There were about 5 rows of seats in front of the screen that hid the two VJs and their equipment.  It was actually a bit strange to know that there were video puppeteers on the other side but I had no way of seeing them.  I think it allowed for people in the room to assume that they were watching a recording, and having no idea that it was all live and unscripted.  As I sat and watched the video art unfold, I began to be inspired for future projects of my own.  The video seemed to fluid and symbolic.  It was rhythmic in tone and random in imagery.  I enjoyed the time very much and I found it wanting me to let my mind wander.

assignment

I challenge everyone to write a blog post about your artistic goals 5, 10, and 20 years from now. Where do you see yourself in your career? Will you be a fine artist or a commercial artist? Will you stay locally or live abroad? What do you want your artistic statement to reflect?

The purpose of this blog assignment is to allow you to think about your career as an artist in the long run. Although creativity is often spontaneous, your goals should be planned out and sought after. It is sometimes difficult to imagine yourself in the future, but you should at least have an idea of who you would like to be professionally. And more so, who you would like other people to see you as.

Good luck!

Ann Arbor Film Festival

On Friday night Taro and I went to the Ann Arbor Film Festival at the UTSA downtown campus. We walked in to the small theater and took two seats to the left. The first film, one of my favorites, was Chel White's “A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process”. I like it so much the first time I saw it that I ordered a copy of his DVD for my own collection.

Another favorite film of the night was “Spontaneous Generation” by Andrew Cahill. It was stop-motion style with play-doh and cardboard. I love his description: SPONTANEOUS GENERATION is a film about things that grow and collapse. It's about clay and cardboard. It's about sex. I definitely understand the sexual nature of the video. The organic shapes would stretch and melt and swirl into each other, mixing their colors and leaving traces on the floor as they passed. It was dirty and romantic. The stiff cardboard environment was a great backdrop to these soft creatures. Taro even pointed out the soundtrack of PopRocks. How clever.

One film that was very mesmerizing was “A Hundred Feet Universe” by Naoko Tasaka. Everything was bluish-green and black, like an x-ray. It had cross fades and brightness changes between slide-like images of cells and organisms. It all seemed very small on a large scale. They audio was calming and the images were rhythmic. It felt like watching a tide or a star flicker in the night sky. It was random and purposed, and it felt like being lost. I would like to take these techniques and apply them to my own work. I enjoyed the feeling of calm that the video created and it is something that I strive for in my pieces.

I can't say that there were any that I hated, but some did take some patience to watch. Without getting too critical, I felt like “My Croation Nose ” by Richard Dinter was a bit long. It seemed like he was trying to say something but had a difficult time really getting to it. The images were also sort of mismatched and randomly pieced together, like he really wanted to use a certain photo and was determined to stick it in their somewhere. Also, Kelly Sears' “The Drift ” was interesting and well thought out. I enjoyed the story, but it too seemed to drag. The concept was interesting and I appreciated the attempt at making still photos appear to be video, but it just went on a bit too long. It is always possible that my attention span for these things is short.

animation troubles

For some reason I am struggling with my animation idea. It seems like every idea that comes into my creative mind if struck down by reasoning in my rational mind. "You don't have time for such a task." "There is no way THAT can actually be asthetically pleasing." "Its been done a million times." "What makes you think that will even work?" ............

So I sit here watching YouTube videos for inspiration. And I found it! Watch this: its really awesome. I love that the animation is not limited by space. The characters and movement are all of the city, inside and out, concrete and dirt, light and dark. And the best part are the marks left behind. I love this video!

Check it out: MUTO by BLU


Back to my own issues.... I am going to try to embrace this concept of moving around without limiting myself by space or surface. Spoiler: bugs, paper bags, in and out.