Revisting Childhood

(Cross-posted to my Myspace blog, but I thought this was just so cool...)

For years and years, I have had the mental image or concept of babies hatching out of eggshells in my head, and I had NO idea where it came from or what it meant. I could have sworn I'd seen it in a painting, but I didn't know what it was, and everyone I'd talked to thought I was nuts.
Well, lo and behold, when my 6-year-old nephew visited my parents this summer, he pulled out all of my old children's books. And what was in one of them? Babies hatching out of eggshells!

'Outside Over There' is by far one of the most surreal and slightly disturbing children's books ever, and always scared me a little when I was a child. It looks NOTHING like what you'd expect a Maurice Sendak book to look like, and it's really just odd and dreamlike– which is possibly why I never remembered it was actually a book, just some vague images I somehow had in my mind. The babies in the eggshells, the goblins, Ida's French horn and yellow raincoat, and the terrifying-looking Ice Baby (which REALLY frightened me when I was little) are some of the most amazing art I've ever seen and clearly stuck with me for years. I think I remember my parents telling me that I looked like Ida (the girl in blue) and that's why they got the book.
I've been looking at children's books, the ones I remember reading when I was little, and I find it really interesting to go back and see where I might have gotten some of my inspiration from. It's like finding an old toy or piece of clothing that you've completely forgotten, and the moment you see it again all the memories and feelings you had about it suddenly come back. It's kind of overwhelming.

The Old Folks at Home, part 2

Things I had forgotten about living in Florida:

1) The water is so sulphuric that you have to keep your mouth closed in the shower, and your laundry smells like you washed it in brimstone.

2) The day after Thanksgiving is the start of hunting season. Do not be alarmed when you hear gunshots in your neighborhood.

3) Everybody on the local news channel looks deformed.

4) Football Is Life.

5) Bugs, reptiles, and birds are sizes generally associated with the Mesozaic Era.

6) My parents' response to the housing slump is to perform a voodoo ritual.

Man, I missed the South.

The Old Folks at Home

I got to go back home to Florida four days earlier than was planned thanks to my schools perfectly insane Thanksgiving week schedule– WAHOO!
For comparison:
This is my roommate in New York a couple of weeks ago. This is not a simulation– we both really were dressed like this, and not just for fun, either.






and THIS is a shot a took a couple of minutes ago off my parent's back porch.

It was almost 75 degrees yesterday. I haven't worn a jacket in two days. I've been called "Miss" half a dozen times already. People in stores are telling me to have a good day, and they mean it. It's quiet. I'm looking out the kitchen window and seeing blue herons and egrets flying over the lake. We have a dirt road, more trees than neighbors, and the neighbors that we do have wave to you when they drive past.
And, we have cute dogs.

The little one is Sophie, my parents new puppy. We've all decided she looks like a goat, and she wags her tail so much and so enthusiastically that she nearly throws herself into spasms. We're teaching her to play fetch, and she's disgustingly adorable. Max (the big one) has been having a look of woebegone on his face since she came.


Between all that, there is no one in the world that can convince me New York City is better than this.

Flikr etc

I'm mostly out of my funk, but I'm more sure than ever that I need a break. There's few things less productive than depression or anxiety (well, that and hangovers) so it's especially bad to get either one during senior year. One more week and I get to go back home. Cripes, this has all felt like a prison sentence for the past month or so.
I set up an account on Flikr, basically just a place where I can dump my photos and be self-indulgent (as if I'm not already). I really want to get into photography a bit more, just for its own sake. I'm sick of doing purely digital images (I mean basically Photoshop from start-to-finish) but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop using them. I just don't want to end up basically being a photo retoucher.
Speaking of which...

Ta dah!
Yes, I finally got a copy of my VERY FIRST PUBLISHED PIECE! (Cue the parade) Only took me a couple of weeks. So I'm slow. It's in Paracinema Magazine, a mag devoted to b-and-cult movies and things of that nature. Check it out! Buy a copy (look on the site for places you can get it or order it online)! If it takes off, we might all actually make money on the next one!
Stringing up colored Christmas lights in my room. My room now resembles a horribly tacky LA Mexican and/or Italian restaurant. Peeeeerfect.

Non-Thesis, Anxiety, and other Crap

This is gonna be loooong...sorry.
I'm constantly convinced that my actual artistic output is nearly nil. I feel like I should have a lot more to show for my time in school, or personal time, or whatever, and that I'm always coming up short. There isn't a lot of work I can think of that I've done that I'm really psyched over, and there's maybe only one or two pieces I can think of that I felt I "got right" ("getting it right" it a hard thing to describe, but it's more or less, for me, when I look at something I did and think I just nailed it). All my friends seem to have so much work they can stand behind and be proud of, and I don't know what the Heck I have to stand behind.
Part of this anxiety, I know, is stemming from the fact that I've opted out of Senior Thesis– that is, I'm not going to submit my thesis work to the final show. I'll DO the work, since my class grade depends on it, but I'm not going to go in front of the jury and try to get it in. I really don't feel like the topic– "Global Warning"– represents me and what I want to do at all. I just can't make myself give a crap about the work, and I know it shows in my art. If people are going to come and see my work, why would I want them to see half-assed art that I don't care about and don't have any conviction about?
So, I'm submitting to the non-thesis section of the show, the more portfolio-based part of the show. This is where I'm choking up, since I don't know what I want to show. I feel like everyone wants me to draw in 1000 different ways, and now I'm totally confused about what I want to do and how I want to create art. I don't want to have a set "style", but I don't want to look completely sporadic either. Le sigh.
A problem I think I'm having is essentially burnout, at least temporary burnout. I really need to finish school and get the holy Hell out of NYC because this city just drains me. I'm going back home (Florida) for Thanksgiving and I need the break. I haven't been out of the city since March. I can't take much more without screaming. I just want to find a quiet peaceful place, with no people, no subways, no noise, nature, trees, birds, POLITENESS AND COMMON COURTESY, and then maybe I'll get recharged.

Prints Gone Wild 2!

I went to Prints Gone Wild 2, the (apparently now annual) cheap print fair hosted by Cannonball Press, a Brooklyn-based printing company run in part by a former teacher and friend of mine, Martin Mazorra. SO...MUCH...FUN. I must have blown about 120 bucks there (the point of the fair being that it's the cheapest you're going to get prints for quite awhile), but oh man, it was worth it.
Got some from Yee-Haw Industries (including Dad's Christmas present), Evil Prints, the aforementioned Martin Mazorra, and some more demolition derby posters from Triangle Poster. (I already have three from them. You can never have too many demolition derby posters).
I took some pictures, but they all came out super blurry (I was holding a crapload of prints and a PBR and trying to take pictures at the same time):

Yee-Haw Industries took up an entire wall. My friend Shanna was there and said that she'd thought, "Susana would really be into this stuff."

Sean Starwars' wall. Yes, that's his name. Really nice guy. Printmakers are generally kind of odd people, but cool and harmless.





One of the bands that was playing. The giant Devil's head was made by, I believe, Howlin' Wolf Press.


And, just because I thought it was pretty:
Taken from the roof of my building. Craphole apartment as it is (and trust me, it is), it's got one Helluva view.