how much worse could it get

I. hate. the. ice. Hate it hate it hate it. The snow has moved into that stage of never melting ice that coats the roads and makes it a real pain to drive through and on. Bugger! Made it back safely from Chris' but that was only a couple miles away; normally a 5 minute drive. It took me easily fifteen minutes to get home. Real slow driving and a wee bit dangerous. I felt less in control on the main road than on the iced over driveways.

Hung out with Chris today. He has been my friend for years and years. We always hang out when we get the chance. We sat about and surfed the net on our adjacent laptops. Talked at great length about school and people and whats going on (Cheryl Christy is engaged? what?). General catching up really. I miss having a friend about that I am totally comfortable with and don't have to worry about what they will think of me; someone I have that bond with. Portland is a fresh start but it is also a start from square one pretty much (with the exception of Sean who I knew before).

After watching some Wild Zero clips we decided to watch Tideland. That movie was horrible. Not a bad movie just really sad. Combining her imagination in the simple childlike way and not utilizing it as a coping mechanism it just amplified the sorrow. Horrible thing after horrible thing kept happening to the poor little girl (and her accent was all over the place). In the end we just wished she would die so she could be in a happier place. Damn you Terry Gilliam and your ability to make horror out of reality.

Left from Chris' very late but I think even if I had left earlier it would have still been a bother to drive and there might have been more people on the road.

Before I left for his place I halfway bound a book while watching Twin Peaks. Now that they have "solved" it and know what Bob "is", the story is going to get more intense and weird. Wooooah!

Leonard Baskin Study

Leonard Baskin study made during a class trip to the Portland Art Museum.

I'm a whole town!

Slept in till 1pm.

I helped dad make the frame I need for book binding. While we were working in the garage it started to snow again. It didn't really stick but still...more snow. After helping him in the garage that was pretty much it for the days activities.

I have no will or energy to do anything. Haven't started on any of my vacation goals. Well...it has just been a week since I've been off. I haven't had a break longer than two weeks in well over a year.

Time to watch another episode of Twin Peaks and go to bed. Plan to meet up with Chris tomorrow and I have another rendezvous later in the week. So that should be fun (gets me out of the house at least).

this isn't root beer

I planned to wake up early today and get a jump on things and hang out with Peeler later. But I fell asleep after I turned off my alarm and didn't wake up till noon. Oh well.

Mum, Dad and I went into town for a movie and errands. We saw Juno. It was okay, it might have been better a few years ago when all the hipster indie movies were just starting to hit mainstream. The cast was excellent. The soundtrack was really annoying; all the sounds sounded the same and didn't fit the lead characters that much. Some of the teen speak was very forced sounding. I give it a maybe DVD rental.

After than we went to Artist's Edge and I used my gift certificate to buy some art supplies. Art supplies cost so much. Booo for art supplies costing so much.

We hit up the mall next. All the teens look exactly the same and all walk around in same-looking lame little packs. Hanging around with artists and art school students sort of makes the rest of the people look the same. When I visited Seattle all the UW students looked the same. There isn't as many generic flat-hair-with-piercings scenester kids at PNCA. There are some sceney people, and tight pants are everywhere, but no one really seems to force who they are or how they dress. It is very refreshing. I'm really glad to be there; I never fit in here.

We ate at the Mongolian Grill where you select the food and they cook it up for you. When we were finishing up our meal and assembling all our food trash mom dumped the soy sauce into the soda cup for some reason. Dad was unaware of this and, much to our horror, took a drink. He promptly spit it out and we had a good chuckle at his expense.

I was so tired all day. From the instant I got up all I wanted to do was climb back into bed. Now I am in bed and it is GREAT!

never too young to sled off the road into the ditch

Well Mom and I were planning to go out to Silverdale today but it was snowing something fierce (well it was rather gentle actually) and we were trapped. By the end of the day we had 4 1/2 inches! A nice constant down-float of white misery.



At some point in the day Mom yelled at me for sitting about doing nothing for days on end so I put on some boots, jacket, gloves, scarf and hat and we went out to hit trees with sticks (to vanquish the snow from them).



When we returned from our walk we all sat about and drank cocoa. And I called it quits on the exercise for the rest of the day.

blue nude

Figure study from an open life drawing session on campus. Ink and bamboo stick pen.

relax mode: engage!

I did nothing today. Nothing nothing nothing.

Slept in. Sat about on my computer. Watched some Twin Peaks. Watched some Futurama.

Ate some chicken.

I think I'll watch some Tekkonkinkreet now.

Tomorrow I think I will actually venture outside.

I'm in deep relax and recovery mode right now. Been at the school thing full steam from September 4th (or close to that, whenever) up till December 20th. Nearly four solid months of work. Looking so forward to the next four but right now I need to just enjoy nothing.

snow, sardines, starships, straws, sugar, strategy

Well Christmas has come and gone.

Slept in a little more than usual for a Christmas day, my stocking was waiting for me all plump and full of goodies. We had cinnamon rolls, bacon and grapefruit halves for breakfast. Not the largest of gift exchanges we have had in the past but we are all to the point of wanting things we need and not wanting extra things.

I received from the family: crazy straws, sardines, socks, pringles, chocolate orange, bike fender, and sweets. Lots of sweets. Also Kirie and Mark sent me these VERY AWESOME snap closure leg warmers from Harlem. Very cool (and warm!).

I gave a Post Secret book to mum and dad, some skeleton stickers to mum, a treehouse making book and a PNCA tee to dad, and the Perry Bible Fellowship anthology to Nathan. Not the greatest amount of gifts but hey...I'm poor.

Rubie gave me these photo coasters that had photos of me, Nate and Basil in them. Sooo sweet! No photos of her and me so I'll just paste over Nathan's face with hers. Auntie Celia gave me some sweet art supplies.

We sort of chilled out for a while. Nathan got this game called Khet and wanted to play us. He beat dad and then I played Nate twice after that. I wasn't really paying that much attention and I beat Nathan at his own game. Hehehehe. That never happens. Dad beat me pretty quick after my two rounds with Nathan.

It had started snowing around Noon so we decided not to head out to the Grandparents right at that moment and see how the weather was going to shape up. We went outside and played in the snow a little bit.

I watched part of the first episode of the second season of Twin Peaks. That scene with Dale Cooper laying there on the floor after having been shot; EXCRUCIATING!! Oh my...I knew he would get help but when was just trying my nerves. Also around this time was when I started to "acquire" the new Christmas Special of Doctor Who. I don't like David Tennant but I do like Kylie Minogue. Ooohh I couldn't wait for it to finish...

About...ohh maybe three-ish we headed out for the Grandparents Spencer. The Seabeck roads were highly treacherous. Nathan wanted to play another game of Khet. He made a mistake in the middle of the game and I would have won but I let him have a redo so he ended up winning.

Grandma and Grandpa didn't have their Christmas Tree up but there WERE party poppers. Ohhh. They also didn't have their bouncing angel. Dad made an over sized red wagon for Grandpa and I brought along some of my peanut brittle. We threw a couple Christmas Pizza's in the oven and dad played Santa and handed out gifties.

Nate and Pa received matching flying helicopters. Those things didn't so much fly as go up really fast and all about randomly. Lots of fun. I received a gift certificate for Artist's Edge, my favorite little art store in Silverdale (Utrecht and Art Media are gougers). I think I will apply it towards book binding supplies, pen nibs, and nice paper. Auntie Joyce gave me the very awesome gift bag of uber hot cocoa mix, uber uber brownie mix in a snowman shaped glass, and a gift certificate for Bed Bath and Beyond. Whoo!! Nathan also received brownie mix, but mine was the only one shaped like a snowman. Yeah, I rock.

Our festive Pizza was delicious and thick. Take that Portland Pizza! Nathan and I played yet another game of Khet. I won. Or..wait I think he won. Uhh. Oh right yeah we played two games. I won the first rather sneakily and complexly (my earlier wins had been rather simple two laser bounce wins) and the second time we played, a freestyle set up, he won.

Dessert was had, more games were played, lounging was enjoyed. At around 8:00ish we returned home and slacked for the rest of the night. My Doctor Who had some problems in its acquirement so I had to start fresh. Watched a little more Twin Peaks while waiting for it to meander its way onto my hard drive. Sooo worth the wait! Still don't like Tennant (teeth gnashing, etc.) but Kylie was so adorable. Nice little complete special with mostly good effects (great for Who).

So late. I least I have no plans for tomorrow and can sleep in.

how can I sleep?

Oh man oh man oh man oh man! I watched all of the first season of Twin Peaks. It is 12:36 am. That season finale cliffhanger!! I can't go to bed now...have to see what happens to Special Agent Dale Cooper!

Oh and it is Christmas Eve. How ever could I nod off on a night like this.

Lazy lazy day. Didn't have to be anywhere so I didn't go anywhere. Made some Peanut Brittle, ate some cookies, had a nice family dinner by candle light.

Sat about in front of the fire mostly. Big day tomorrow! Presents, food, candy, and the Grandparents! We are going to be eating Pizza. I. Can't. Wait.

fish coffee

I've been up watching Twin Peaks and I am only two episodes in and already I am a little scared. Just want to watch more now...

Today we went to Grandma and Grandpa Pedersen's for a pre-Christmas dinner.

I brought along my tube o' art to show Grandpa John and it was really well received. He showed me some of his work from the late 30's through the 50's; Cornish through when my mum was a child. Really amazing, the Cornish figure studies were exquisite (interesting how we work with nude male models at PNCA and they had underpants on at Cornish) in their attention to detail. His sketches from Mexico were great at capturing the people and scenes with fewer lines (and more in some of the longer market scenes). That is what I hope to be able to reach, that level of talent where you can capture something without having to go over it again and again fine tuning it.

Dinner was a tasty soup, even though I only got one shrimp.

After dinner I read the new David Sedaris story from the New Yorker out loud for everybody. A very thoughtful and poignant piece, it made me think about my own reaction to Tracey's death. I love Sedaris because he is very truthful about how selfish we are.

Showed Joe Z. and Celia my art. Wish I had more to show after a whole semesters worth of work.

We did some last minute shopping in Silverdale on the way home and then we chilled for the rest of the night. Whoo for being freaked out by TV that is older than me!

I miss...my bike

Left my heroic post up a little longer, to make sure everybody read it, for I am awesome.


Yesterday:

I barely made it to the train on time. I missed the Max closest to 2:00 and caught the 1:15 one and didn't arrive at the station until 2:40 for my 2:50 train. Had to lug my suitcase up into the train and find a spot for it; couldn't check it. Sat next to a nice enough guy who just watched skater videos on his Mac. I forgot my headphones so I couldn't watch anything from my laptop. Enjoyed a hot dog, soda and a cookie for my lunch and read some more of Rant.

Mom and Dad were waiting for me when I arrived in Tacoma. Yay! Dad! Haven't seen him since August, yaaay!

We went to Nathan and Rubie's new Tacoma apartment. Pretty nice, mine is bigger. Ate some more food and dismissed the offer of Oreo's. Mom doesn't like my Patrick-telling-off story. I think I was awesome.

Arrived home and revved up my computer to utilize the Internet. Watched the last half of Ratatouille with the parents. It didn't interest me enough to watch the first half. We watched an episode of Scrubs and then tucked in for the night.


Today:

Slept in nice and proper.

Mom stuffed some of the cookies she had made this morning in my mouth for breakfast. She gave me a glass of Emergen-C to balance it out.

Mum and I went to go see The Golden Compass. It was pretty good, it ended right where I am in the book so it is good that that part didn't get spoiled for me, not so good that it didn't get the full book stuffed into the adaptation and the ending is a little anti-climactic. It captures the energy of the book; which is to say that it shifts scenes really quickly without resting to long anywhere. The quick scene jumps are...quick. Still, sad that there won't be another adaptation because this one is totally failing in theatres.

We went home, relaxed a little and Mom, Dad and I swung by and picked up Joe Z. and Celia for Auntie C's Birthday Dinner.

We went to a place in Manette (Manet?) which isn't "Bremerton" but damn close. I dozed off on the car ride there.

The place, while cold, was very nice. We ended up being there for about two and a half hours. I had this ricotta and butternut squash stuffed in...something...with something on top...uhm. It was really good! Mom and Celia complained about how long it took the food to get to us but the place gave us lots of bread and I was perfectly fine. We had nowhere to go so why were they ranting about the time? They were understaffed and busy; perfectly good excuse for being slow. The food was worth it. Totally worth it, the first time I have had gourmet fancy expensive food that seemed like it was worth the price tag.

After I gave Celia her present (some Log Home magazines) and we all went home and chilled out for the rest of the night.

Mmm my food was so soft and gooey.

Being home I am so tired and sapped. I think it is because I am not riding my bike three miles like I am used to. Bah.

it is when the quiet ones snap...

I told off Patrick. He didn't say anything during critique again; just stared at the computer screen. His critique went quick as no one really wanted to say anything. Gordon closed out of his website and then I snapped and said something.

Pretty much, from the back of the room I said:
"You know what Patrick. During this whole critique you have just been sitting there staring at your computer watching movies. You haven't said anything. It is really disrespectful to all of us, and insulting. It is insulting to me. You come in late and say you don't want to do the project. We all did the final. We all did the work. It doesn't matter if you don't want to do it, you do it."

There was a moment of silence and Gordon said, "You know, she has a point."

During his short critique I indicated my mood towards him, a prelude or a foreshadowing if you will, with a little comment:

"For a photo major you don't have really any photos on your website."
"I'm not in a photo class this semester."
"Bullshit. We spent 10 weeks in the dark room in our 2D Design class."
"Yeah but I didn't like anything I produced."

After my comment I looked back at people's faces and they had a frozen expression of ecstatic joy on their faces. I have been basking in the praise of my accomplishments all day. Karen reenacted the events for Cidney, Laura, Tabitha, Robin and I later on. It was great. All of it was great. Just gotta stand up in class, stand up to the major E-bags who think they can get away with it. YEAAH!! I ROCK!

Chatted with Mel, Jim, Karen and Chelsea between the break of classes.

We had Paul for drawing and that was just painfully slow and bland. He lectured for ages about the techniques of the Masters and this line thing that doesn't work at all. I couldn't make a decent drawing in the whole class today, all the proportions ended up looking screwy even though I laid them out. A really slow and stressful way to end my semester. Scott was our model and he was great. Really friendly and top notch. Paul supplied us with cookies and juice again but Scott was naked so he didn't get up to get any (nice guy like that) but I asked if he wanted one and brought a cookie to him when he said yes.

Sarah, Danny, Mollie, Elaina and I went to Acorn for lunch. I had an overpriced sandwich. The staff was cute but it was way way overpriced. The talk was centered around their upcoming ADCS debates and not my heroism (I don't think they know Patrick).

After class I hung around PNCA; running errands and whatnot.

I am lending Sandman to Diana and on my way to her place to drop it off, I passed Tabitha and Karen. They informed me that they were not invited to Cidney's Going Away Party going on right then and there and they were going to crash it. I said I would join the after I swung by Diana's.

So I swung by Diana's and I did some last minute Christmas shopping. Went home, dropped my stuff off, and went down one floor and crashed Cidney's going away party.

It was fun. Karen, as I mentioned, reenacted my heroism. Robin played her Cello. Then I played her Cello. Then Tabitha played it. And I played it again. We ate ice cream and fried bananas. Tabitha sells knives door to door. I never knew that, amazing! The night was filled with lots of chatter about whatnots. Fried banana is delicious. Cidney is leaving us for Evergreen. She is going to be a Geoduck now, bah! I wanted to be all awesome and Illustration Major-y with her. Bah! Sucks. Gave her a group hug and bid her farewell to the tune of "Giiiiiiiii..."

...

My first semester at PNCA is over.

no pain, maybe some gain

Oww my abs hurt so much. I didn't even know I HAD abs. Yoga activated some hidden muscle within me.

I came to school early to print out some more copies of my minicomic for class. The good printer was out of ink, the other printer had someone on it, and I couldn't use the worst printer because far too many people were using it for it to be viable for many copies. Grr! I hate how horrible the printers are at this school. You think, what with it being an art school and all that, it would have good printers and lots of ink cartridges on supply. Bleeh! So I only have about 6 one sided comics. That is no good for giving to people, none what so ever.

The 2D critique went fast. We didn't really any intense discussion. My messages didn't come across very well but my first collage was complimented as working really well as a piece. Tabitha's collage was beautiful. Patrick came in during the last 20 minutes and didn't even have his final with him. He didn't even say anything during the critique. Glad I won't have him in anymore classes; what with him being a photo major and a flake. It went quick and so we didn't have to return after class. Which does me no good because I have class at 3.

Comic Club had two more people show up and four old people. Sweet meeting some of the other people. We had Pizza Shmizza instead of Hot Lips. For some reason I horfed down four slices. A small meeting but a good show up considering it is finals week. I hung out in the commons after with the left over pizza, offering it to who ever passed. It got gobbled up pretty quick.

Craig had a slice, he said he is doing his science comic with scratchboard which seems unlike him. His paintings are so colorful and vibrant, I can't imagine him black and white. It will be super rad to see!

Time Arts was all critique and all the work was brilliant and well thought out. Some of it at different levels of completion but overall a great variety that was a joy to go over. There was karaoke, sped up eating, people walking with mixed up sound effects, illustrated Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, visual poetry, slow motion fabric, gridded animation, music video with a guy and an animated chalkboard rabbit, a comic about the end of days, a comic about purgatory, and a comic that seemed to be the exact opposite of mine in a way. I'm going to miss everyone, I'll see them eventually!

Oh and Marilyn can't be human with her ink skills. Seriously. Not human. Her work was just one page but she contained more lines compacted neatly together than I have ever seen before. Her work was about this gummy shark boy trying to win a beauty pageant. I don't understand it either but wow.

Yoga, as I mentioned earlier, was a serious ab workout. Even if we only did ab-stuff for a few minutes. Ow ow ow...

expressive use of line

I had a really great day today. I feel great. The energy from biking combined with all the Oreos: YAAAY!! I'm close to sugar-crashing though. Not so fun.

The first hour of Digital Tools was spent dealing with the network glitches that arose with publishing our website and then burning to a disk. The computers kept freezing, or they wouldn't turn on... I had to restart mine three times. Macs are such poo. We eventually got it to work and the critiques went off without a major problem. We have four left (we went alphabetically and so mine is last) and we agreed to meet at 9am. Yay for sleeping in a little on the last day. Some really nice websites, amazing what people did with the technology. Mine will be rather plain in comparison. Hmmn. Oh well. Still went great except Patrick irked me because he spent all the critique looking at trailers online and not paying the least bit of attention.

In Drawing we had Morgan Walker for a teacher and he barely seemed aware he was supposed to teach us. We drew for 10 minutes and then he gave us some proportion instruction and we drew proportional sketched up till lunch.

Mollie and I went to Hot Lips and had pizza and had an intense conversation about being mature, acting your age, relationships, social interaction vs world experience, etc etc. You know, girl talk.

After lunch we sat in a circle and ended up talking for almost an hour. We all learned a little more about each other (Eva is a Jazz singer! Morgan B. is insane in a totally awesome way! Nell has a dog named Indie!). The last 15 minutes we did 3 5-minute poses with each posed representing an emotion. One we had to draw sad, the other happy and the last a haughty socialite. I can see where Lindsay got the idea that he, Morgan W., is crazy.

After that I went Christmas Shopping and bill paying! Yay!

Stopped by Powell's and picked up a few things for some certain folks back home. I went to Finnegan's to see if they had the Hazmat Playmobil (I really want it for myself, not getting it for Liam) but they didn't have it (still great Playmobil selection). Then I went to the Portland Clinic and dropped some much dinero for that appointment I had months ago. Bleeeh so expensive to get treated.

Went home and Lindsay was working on her "delicious" final. I had SO MANY OREOS!! eHHHHEEHEHEHHEHEEHHE!!! WHEE!! YEAAAH!!! OREOREOREOREOREOREOREOREOREOREO!!! BWAHAhAhAHA ohmanI'mtired

the power

Guess what?
What?
I AM DONE WITH FINALS! EARLY! HAhAhah! YEAAAHHH!! Whooo!! Now I can buy y'all presents in my free time (haha not really...).

Art History had some difficulties with the technology (how many times has this happened?) so we rejoined at 9:30, when someone was there to tend to the technology. We watched a video about cathedrals that featured a guy talking about them in modern day and some really cheesy animations about people building one. Super cheesy. Those cathedrals are just, wow! So much detail, how come we don't have more structures like that?

I finished my second collage for 2D design. I used all recycled images; nothing new was produced for this piece. I used gouache from my color wheel, magazine cutouts, these weird Japanese cards left over from...something, I don't know, and the photos from the darkroom that didn't quite cut it for being finalized. It represents "isolation". I think it does it quite nicely. Sort of. Uhh. Well I'm done and that is good.

I had some of Yo's soup for lunch. I wasn't able to finish it but Robin had the rest so there was no waste.

I was the first up for critique in Time Arts. It went pretty well, the comments were really useful and honest. It was a real critique it felt like, none of that "yeah the composition is nice" stuff; I really felt like they payed attention to my work. I had printed out some minicomic versions of my final and Diana, Marilyn and Pete took them with enthusiasm. I'll print out some more for Wednesday; for class and comic club. Yay! That went really well. Well and good. Good and well.

Amanda had an animation completed and went after me. It was AMAZING. 200 individual sketches she did for the final! Holy cow! It was beautiful. That girl is crazy talented. Go Amanda! Rose had a great comment about her piece, "The power of animation! You could be in Narnia."

Kim gave an extra-credit presentation about artists whose art is wrecking up flats and the like with parties and calling it installations. Uhm, yeah. Then it was a work day after that so I got to leave at 5:30.

Lindsay made delicious hot cocoa and we had extensive girl talk.

Craig stopped by to return the comics I lent him. We chatted about cats (his, mine and Ibanez) and..umm I think it was mostly cats. Hahha. Craig gets to move out of Goose Hollow. Lucky duck.

describe the necking

I got and and had my breakfast and headed pretty much straight into inking the panels. I inked till 2:30 and it looked like I wouldn't be able to finish them and still have enough daylight to check out the architecture that I needed to photograph and write about. So I packed up, showered, and headed out. I turned down Yamhill and took some photos of the Pioneer Courthouse Square and went up Washington, across Park, down Burnside and around Couch street taking oodles of photos. Once I knew what I was looking at, I saw Roman and Greek motifs everywhere!

It was raining, not enough to be totally soaked and miserable but enough to be unpleasant and chilly.

I got to PNCA around 3:30 and inked in the library for about an hour and finished. It looks...all right I guess. The lines are all sort of the same. It really needs some value/color but I don't have the time to put that in. Scanned it in and put it together on the computer. Took me a while to figure out how to print it out on a single page (front and back) so it would fold up into a nice, neat little comic. Well, a while to figure out the orientation. It came together nicely. I just have to tweak it a little but it looks great. Printed sort of cruddy but I will figure it out. My critique is tomorrow, but I could turn it in Wednesday.

Left the school at around 6:00 and it was well dark and cold. I passed a really cute guy on Burnside. I smiled at him but I don't know if he noticed the smile in my eyes (the actual thing was obscured by a scarf). I miss up a lot of chat-up opportunities when riding on my bike.

Relaxed and ate a sandwich courtesy of Tuna Clause. Relaxed a little too long and didn't get around to doing my essay until about 9:00pm. Oops. Well, I got it finished before Midnight and that is pretty great, huh?

three am

New record for late staying upness and general working on projects. 3:17 am! Booyah!

Got up, ate breakfast and showered. Watched Family Stone which was surprisingly depressing. Good but depressing. It was just alright. The inclusion of the deaf brother was very human but I still can't stand Sarah Jessica Parker. Baah.

Chatted with dad a wee bit and buckled down and did my comic.

Watched QI and other comedy related to people who have been on QI. Not as far along in my comic as I would like to be but I should be able to get the inks finished in an hour tomorrow. Right now it is at 50 panels with all the borders inked in and all the text is inked as well. 18/50 of the panels have complete lineart. Okay maybe it will take 1-2 hours to finish it.

Didn't get out to see the architecture like I should have. It was gray and it went dark before I had the chance.

Lindsay, Brandon and I watched Superbad (while I worked diligently figuring out the last seven missing panels). All the parts with McLovin were hilarious. The rest was kind of...Ehh. I didn't like the main character; he was so insecure. Plus I have never really been down with the whole "hey everyone in high school parties" philosophy. Then again the inclusion of the one female character (none of the names I remember) who didn't drink was a great touch. Nice that it is like "hey not everyone drinks". That is rare in teen movies. I dunno. On the fence. But the cops + McLovin scenes were awesome. Wish there was a "Just the good parts" version. But everyone has a different idea of what the good parts would be.

Gotta get up and work work work. Busy day ahead of me!

pirates VI + not the angry itch

Yesterday:

I wore the mint green cropped jumpsuit to school today, the one I got at the holiday sale for $5. Got some compliments on it; nice to dress fun when it is so dreary all around.

Scanned in some of my new darkroom work and sketchbook to add to my website. The scanner kept scanning things smaller than I wanted and I had to redo about half of what I scanned. The weird glitches and kinks in my website seemed to get worked out. As much as I like Gordon, I will be glad for this class to be over. Only two more classes! One more week!

The substitute for Arvie was really enthusiastic about teaching. His methods were far different from Arvies; he had us to straight lines to build up the form and then come in with a contour. Sort of hard to explain, the final pieces don't have much emotion to me. Not really my cup of tea method of drawing. He gave us juice and cookies at the end. That was awesome. More teachers need to give out snacks.

Student council didn't have lunch, only candy canes. I stuffed my pockets and sat in for the meeting. Diana is the new moderator and that is downright awesome. Shes a real cool lady, that Diana.

After council, Jack and I went to Quizno's for lunch.

I made my comic run after drawing. I haven't been since First Thursday in November. Been a while, lots of comics had piled up. Two issues of The Boys, American Virgin, Black Summer, Y the Last Man and THE NEW PIRATES OF CONEY ISLAND!!! This comic was an eight issue mini-series. The first issue came out in October, 2006 and there was four monthly issues after that one. Then it went on hiatus while Vasilis Lolos did Last Call and I have been waiting since March for new issues. Such a rad comic, that one. So happy it is back with new goodness.

On my ride home I passed a Police Lady on a horse. About two blocks later I passed a pile of horse poo.

I finished my collage. Well, I haven't drawn in her face yet so I don't know if I am finished or not. It looks cool, nice and yellow/violet. Not quite Paranoia anymore. Hmmn.


Today:

Got my work done real quick. I do a good job, it just gets done quick and I have to kill time. Maybe something to clean will come up. Read some comics. Sean Carney gave me the OK to use the MFA's computers. Speaking of the MFA, they treat me nicer than the BFA's. Well they are a lot more conversational, some of the BFA are great and some just ignore me. Still, I like my job.

Midnight Update:

While biking home I saw Lindsay at about 13th and Burnside so I decreased my gear and escorted her home.

We watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch while eating dinner. Wonderful movie! Lovely songs and a good story. Is it wrong to be a little jealous about the costumes Drag Queens get to wear? I can't believe I went this long without watching it; what held me back?

Then I watched Kill Bill volume 1 and got to work on my comic. That movie and the part of Sin City I didn't finish a few nights ago; while watching those I achieved 23/50 panels pencilled onto Bristol paper. I got into a good rhythm, but the quality started to falter so I'm going to stop work for the night on it. Two more movies should be good for finishing it, if that. Then I have to ride my bicycle and find some of the architecture Libby recommended I write about.

Weekend goals: Finish comic on Saturday, scan it in and print out nice copy on Sunday so it can be critiqued on Monday. Find architecture on Saturday and write about it on Sunday and turn in paper on Monday. Plan out and start my second collage in the open time; due Wednesday.

squares and holes

I achieved more today than I thought I would. Add that to the fact I might be a little behind...it evens out to being right on track!

Got to school early and photocopied and cut up the fliers for the next Comic Club meeting (the last of the semester). The fliers I designed are a little on the small size but they use large font and are bold so they are semi-eye catching.

We had our final (and only) test in 2D. I did fairly well, though I mixed up chroma and hue when it came to describing chroma. Oh well, that was one little bit. I received an A on my painting compositions that I turned in late. Booyah! In the break between other people finishing up their tests and working on my collage, I put up about half of the fliers for Comic Club. Lots of clumping around in my Wellies and running into Kurt again and again.

Cut up the gouache squares for the rest of the first section of class and cut up some Bristol. Lunch came quick.

Diana and I went to Tea Zone and had decent Strawberry Tea and the delicious perfectly sized Panini they make there. Gave many compliments to the super cute waiter. It was a great lunch, I treated Diana because she made dinner for me a few weeks ago. Today's walk for food was not as brisk as yesterdays but it still is very cold.

Drew out and painted/applied the squares to the background of my collage. I'm now half done! It really didn't take that long to do. Had to work fast as the acrylic dried almost as soon as I had applied it. Just need to think of what to do with my second collage. Hmm. This one is Paranoia so maybe Confidence?

I cut up and paneled all the pages for my Time Arts comic. Much of the time was spent figuring out more likes and dislikes for the characters and talking about the sheer awesome that are board games. Still, now that they are all drawn out it will be easy to just put the art in. The panels are also TINY so I won't have much room for detail.

Yoga wasn't so bad but my elbows were giving me some trouble. I still can't support my weight at all.

I punched out holes to use for the other part of my collage and that is all that I got done tonight after Yoga. I'm not worried. I'm on track. If I keep saying that I'll believe it.

fiddy panels

All my pages are planned out. All the panel layouts. 50 panels over 7 pages. 39 of which have a rough sketch for what will be contained/narration to go along with it. This is the hard part, after this is just sketching and inking it. I finished my comic page in about a night and that was 23 panels. I'm just doing about twice that with barely more detail.

Worked more on my website. Couldn't add much too it besides an influences page. I left my resume and extra image files at home (I'll remember to bring them this Thursday). Class went quick. Gordon and Ric had a tiff about the value of teaching us iWeb. Poor Gordon, even though he could totally own Ric in a fight. I do think that I would have liked more Illustrator and Photoshop projects but any Mac practice is good practice. I guess.

In Drawing Arvie told us to go out into the school and draw something from observation. Anything we wanted and spend three hours on it. I did not want to do this. The school has messed up architecture anyway so it is difficult to draw with the perspective tools we have been taught. I had to find a way to make this project fun.

I drew Jim sitting in the student lounge up until he moved and so I smeared out the charcoal drawing and drew Kat instead. It didn't look great so I smeared that. Then I layered another drawing of Jim (moves around so much) over that and then he left to work on a paper. At around this point I decided to just layer drawings over one another. I drew Kat a few more times, Evan sitting and working on his drawing, the microwave, the hall across the commons, the couch, the ceiling, and the railing. Lots of charcoal drawings over one another. Then it was time for lunch.

Kat and I went to Yoga Pearl, which was a very cold brisk walk down to Davis. I'm okay with Vegan food as long as it tastes good and my Mexican hot chocolate, brown rice and corn bread was DELICIOUS! Well worth the walk. Really warmed me up after the walk. Portland is really cold now. Like, I don't care if I look like a mugger I am going to buy a face covering ski-mask because it is so cold, cold. I sure hope Santa leaves me some long johns under the tree for me this year.

After lunch I didn't really want to add more black charcoal so I went back to the class room and drew it as well as Michael, Eva and Mel. For this I used white conte over the charcoal. When I had reached this point was when Arvie first saw it. I explained it to him as "well you told us to draw something from observation, you didn't say just one thing" he grinned at me and told me it was looking great. For the final part I went down into the commons and with the edge of a red conte I did a line drawing of the main stairwell and wall. The whole piece came together in that "it is abstract but there is still thought to the form and lines and still sort of cool how you can make out the different bits" sort of way. I'm really pleased with it and even sprayed it. I hardly ever spray my drawings.

Michael and Eva did self portraits. Kat drew someone on a couch. Tess drew Kat. Mel drew a toilet. Evan drew the student lounge. Danny drew the pool table. Sara drew the exercise bike/installation. Nell drew the student lounge from the commons. Alex drew a chair. Cool the variety that came from the open assignment.

Arvie said to me "some people say why, others say why not. good job Trillian." and he patted me on the back. Yay! I've really enjoyed having him as a teacher. He is going to Africa for the winter (90 degree weather, how ever will he survive) and so this was the last class he is teaching (we are having a sub for the last three days). While painting was not a requirement I'm still sad that I'm not going to have him again.

Pedaled as fast as I could home. My scarf was bundled tight against my face and my hands were nice and cozy in my gloves. Nothing was protecting my thighs and they became sufficiently numb upon my return. Watched Saved and worked on my thumbnails. Brandon came over and Lindsay made us all dinner (she is awesome) and they watched Saved and for whatever reason I joined them. So yeah, Saved twice in one night. Great movie so I'm not really complaining.

geoduck vs sloth

Back to it all after a very disappointing weekend. Managed to get to school right on time only to find Art History cancelled. There will be no final exam, only the paper. So that's pretty...non stress.

Sat about and chatted with people. Robin drew me for her drawing project. Looks like me; she really got my nose. It is fun modeling for people.

We did teacher reviews in 2D design. Yeah mine wasn't so favorable in the whole "did you learn the concepts?" part. We had a review for the exam on Wednesday. I'm not too worried about it seeing as how I get her feebly explained concepts.

Had some Quizno's for lunch. Tasty though pricey. Cidney is leaving PNCA for Evergreen. Tabitha didn't know what a Geoduck was. She does now.

I have one of my collages planned out. Whoo! Just have to put it together and plan out the other one. Busy week ahead!

In Time Arts we looked at some installations of Rose's. Pretty cool animated projections; might be spooky if they blended more in with the surroundings. Wrote out and thumbnailed my comic. Helped Diana brainstorm, talked about weird Internet stuff, chatted about food, and even had a dialogue about smashing TV's. I'm on track.

Couldn't find my gloves so my hands were numb when I returned home. Designed the new Comic Club meeting flier. Might use it, might not. Hmmn.

David Not Delivered

Mom and Celia missed the punctuation in the show title. What we thought to be “David Sedaris reads Santaland Diaries” was really “David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries and Other Stories.” There was not David Sedaris reading. Should have figured. Why would he be in Tacoma doing multiple readings during this busy time? So that sucked. Royally and hardly. The two man performance was cute but overacted and that always annoys me. Christmas Means Giving has never been a short that I liked so I was anti-thrilled when it was performed. The guy performing as David looked like Quentin Tarantino. He did convey some of the moods but his acting prowess was underwritten by his over exaggeration. Nothing can compare to the real thing. Some day, I will see and hear the real thing.

But this… This was not worth the six hours worth of travel.

And also this kid spit apple on me on the bus. And smelled like he needed a diaper change. Cry cry cry. Remember how I mentioned the sweet train riding kids? Hah. Yeah.

Michael picked me up from the train. Back home safe and sound. But uhg. What kind of parent allows a little kid to spit apple. Repeatedly? Bleeh!

harbinger of elfdom

Got up all nice and not really all that early for the train. Paniced for a second and thought I had slept in but I hadn't. Got all packed and headed off a little after 10:30. Later than I would have liked but still way early.

There was a man in an elf coustume on the max. A premonition for Santa Land Diaries?

The walk from the Max to the train station was quick but it goes through a really dicey area. I think I'll ask mom for cab money so I don't have to walk through that area to the max/street car at 9:30pm tomorrow.

I thought it would be all crowded because of the train delays and closures that happened earlier in the week due to bad weather, but it wasn't. Had 45 minutes before we would even start lining up so I got a good seat and read a little. There was about three nice parent/kid pairs in the station. All of them having fun with their kids and not yelling and trying to get them to fall in line. The dad/son behind me in line were especcially adorable.

The train was delayed about fifteen minutes. Not so bad. I was sitting backwards and no one was next to me, despite having an apparently full train this ride. I listened to music and dosed off (something that has never happened before) and woke up when the play list ran out. Watched the last episode of Nip/Tuck season four and listened to music all the way to Tacoma.

Mum and her friend were there, they had been waiting a while due to my late train. They came bearing fish & chips for me. Whoo! We picked up my bus (uhg) ticket, might as well do it then when we had the time. The lady at Greyhound was lazy not very helpful with the people in front of us and I feel bad for the person put on hold that had probably been calling for a while. So expensive and troublesome to visit home. Bah! They should use some of those thousands of airline miles and just put me up on a plane. Then I'd be classy!

Nodded on an off on the ride home.

Mum, Rubie and I watched Waitress. Not as good as I expected it to be but I loved the idea of a happily-ever-after with just her and her daughter. That was nice. And some of the pies looked dang good! Nathan Fillion was adorable sure but, I dunno. Maybe moms reaction towards the movie altered my own.

And since we were in the mood for Nathan Fillion we put on some Firefly. Mmm such a good show. Was it good that it had its series and movie and was quality or should it have been drug into the ground?

I'm going to take some tapes down to Portland with me. Yay, Red Dwarf!

Lots of travel tomorrow. David Sedaris is worth it!

IT WAS MOLDY THREE WEEKS AGO!!!

AHHGHG!!! Work was so stressful at the start. I was running late and when I got there it turned out I didn't have my keycard so I had to ride all the way back to Goose Hollow and get it and then go back to the studios and when I got there I realised I had left my purse at home and that had my lunch in it so I had to buy my lunch with the change I had in my pocket. AHHHGGG. No fun. The MFA's had some snacks left over from their open studios so that was great.

Not so great? Cleaning out the first floor fridge. UHHHGG OH GOD THE SMELL. I got several "I feel sorry for you"'s from the studio people. And "you are a brave woman" from Jason. Yeah. That thing. Disgusting. I'm going to put a real sign on it, not the "hey this fridge is a little warm so be careful" thing that is on it right now.

Work went relatively quick.

Milk shakes are becoming a regular part of Lindsay and mines diet. Yum! We spent an hour and a half unwinding watching Christmas lights blink and listening to techno.

Tomorrow I got home to see mum, Celia, maybe Nate and David (Sedaris that is).

mint & basil

Today I did some serious baking and blending. For breakfast I had a chocolate milk shake (I needed the sugar, what?) and for dinner I made Basil-Cheese Triangles. The milk shake was delicious and the Oster blender worked perfectly.

I bought the Feta Cheese and Basil for the Triangles yesterday but had no luck finding the phyllo dough at Safeway. They didn't have it at Trader Joe's either (not great in the selection department there either) but they had this artisan pastry stuff that could potentially work. And it did! It broke a little during its travels but it worked out. Lathered butter on those puppies and wrapped it around the feta/egg/basil bits. Cooked up real good, all flakey and warm with delicious gooey centers. Mmm mmm MMM! Now I'm all buttered out. Whoo!! Like to learn how to make it with phyllo dough. I have some of the feta stuff left over, probably will use it for scrambled eggs in the morning.

Well, today was back to school and back to work officially. My website is coming together though the tools for building it are painfully boring to use. iWeb? Bleeh! Stuck in some Hitchhikers quotes. Will add more art with it. Just really stale. About four people were missing from class, guess they didn't get the "class returns Thursday" memo.

Bought a mint green cropped jumper and one of Nicole's prints from the Holiday Art Sale that is going on at school right now. Lots of great art, even more over priced and "ehh I don't really like it" feeling pieces being sold. Nothing grabbed my eye on the first couple of sort throughs. I had my budget and I didn't go over it. I actually ended up with four things so that was really sweet! Three things on my wall, one in my closet. Bought the jumper and print during the Digital Tools/Drawing break.

In Drawing we drew chairs. We drew one from many angles, sometimes with some fabric on it. That was the first segment. The second was a set up with three chairs entwined with one another in front of a cloth backdrop with a sad-looking mannequin. My drawing was sorta messy. I also was really bored and frustrated with the arrangement. We go model model model model CHAIR STUDY model model model. But it must be said my general technical ability is increasing.

Student Council had pizza, what a gyp!

For the last part of lunch I spent the rest of my Holiday Art Sale budget. Bought one of BT's prints and this photo of a guy with a Mohawk and his eyes closed. The photo really spoke to me and I don't know why. I really love it, it has a nice high proud position on my wall. All of my newly acquired art does. Love it!

Swung by Trader Joe's and relaxed at home for a few hours before heading down to PNCA again for First Thursday. I just wanted to see Nicole and Andy at their show and hang about a bit. Not feeling up for the usual run about.

Nicole and Andy's show looks amazing. Their collaboration really came together. Andy said it was all right to take a few of the pictures hanging on the wall (it is a crazy variety going on, all pinned and hanging and stuff. We can also rearrange them if we'd like). I will take him up on it when I have a folder with me in which to safely store some of the work. I know which of his work I'd like to put next to my Mohawk guy.

Chatted with some people and went back home. Made the delicious squares and watched the trailer for the live action Speed Racer movie. It looks...fun. I'm not sure, might go see it. Hard to say.

it's all over the walls

I originally didn't put much up on my walls because I thought I would be taking everything down in a few months. Now that I know I will be here for a whole 'nother semester I decided to put more things up. I moved some of the things I had in the living room to my room and put up the Cho-Chan designed poster for The Underpants (a show playing at the Gerding Theatre) along with it. I put up some of the cloth hangings my host mother in Japan gave me (never been displayed before). One is above my window, the other on the wall between my desk and my bookshelves, the third is in the hallway. I put up all the art I have been given by friends over the years and some of the movie fliers I nabbed while in Japan. It has a lot more character now and balances out the white wall space around my bed.

All I need to make my life complete is enough room for one more book shelf. Alas I do not have this room (actually, if I moved my bed under the window and stacked my bookshelves on the other wall I might have enough room...I will have to measure this out).

Only went for the free lunch and book binding today. Lunch was delicious. Being an omnivore makes you really in the minority here and thus there is always more food left for seconds if it happens to have chicken in it.

The paper worked well enough for the cover. It won't stand up to much wear, not as much as canvas or fabric would. The paper did make a nicer edge and it was thick enough to not have the glue absorb right through it. A pretty nice little sketchbook. Love to make a larger, thicker one in the near future.

The Holiday Art Sale is all set up in the Commons. I'll be bringing some dollars tomorrow to support the local artists (aka buy tee shirts and that octopus hand puppet).

Deposited my first paycheck today. Huzzah! I now make in a month what I used to make in a week. Goody gumdrops!

My homework is all done for tomorrow. I feel that I am caught up and ready to get down and dirty with my finals.

I don't wanna wake up at 7am tomorrow! This week has been so easy!

pretty creepy

Eeeee!! Diana has ball jointed dolls and she let me touch them! Eeee!!!

Managed to get up and get to school for Teresa's presentation. It was okay. Nothing up my alley but I was there to be like "raawr you rock!" The paintings were cool, were they thesis grade study and work? I dunno. Maybe for any large, layered and time consuming piece a lot of research would be needed as opposed to something a little more free.

Hung around and didn't go to any more lectures. Got my tickets for my journey home to see David Sedaris this weekend. Yaay! Hear it is all washed out in Washington, but I think it should be sorted out come weekend. Train up, bus down. It will all work out, I am sure.

Got my paintings in for 2D and my portfolio in for Drawing.

Bookbinding was fun. Asked everyone the all important question of "If you were to name your kid after a place you wanted to visit, what would the name be?" Rainbow said "Bathroom", Leah said "Everywhere". Bath and Every would make decent shortened names. I'm so looking forward to the art that I do in this sketchbook.

After that I helped Diana bring her stuff home from school (she had a lot of stuff to lug and I have my wicked bike baskets). She lives around Burnside so it wasn't out of the way for me. She has a really sweet apartment. It has beautiful natural wall colors, lots of space, a bath, a view. Really sweet. We hung about, gossiped, looked at bad tattoos online, praised ourselves for being so mature, talked about art and then she whipped out her BJD's!!

Ball Jointed Dolls are really pretty (over priced and sometimes creepy) dolls from Asia (mostly Korea and Japan). Only one was finished (had its face painted) and we assembled and dressed him up. Diana was thrilled at the result as she never really liked that one before (I don't know why, he was gorgeous). The other one didn't have any clothes that fit him and the female one wasn't ready to be put together. Hopefully my visit and hanging out will encourage her to put the rest of them together and paint them. That would be marvelous.

Nice and easy ride home. Need to hang out at other peoples more often.

Tomorrow I am just doing the book binding and that is it. Need to sit down and do all the stuff that needs doing.

in a bind (that was a really bad pun)

There were rain showers all day and I had to bike in them. My wellies kept the bottom part dry, but I had two large wet patches on the thigh part of my pants. Just as soon as they were dry and I was warm and comfortable it was time to go home. Need me some rain pants. I'll make them fashionable.

My alarm went off at 7:10 and I turned it off when it went off. Then I woke up at 9:00, right when Jason's thing was supposed to start. I decided to just sleep and miss it and apologize when I saw him next. It is really nice taking a lazy start to the day on a Monday when you don't have to be anywhere in a hurry. I got to school around 12:45, in time for the free lunch. Grabbed a sandwich and sat and chatted with Jim and Matt. Said toodles around 1:15 and met with Diana who was going to the same bookbinding lecture as I. Fun!

Good thing I got there at 1:15 as that was when the bookbinding thing actually started. Sean was late and didn't get one of the official sewing things. He used a frame instead and mooched supplies so most of us only had five signature books, instead of six. The book went together pretty smoothly. I'm excited for tomorrow. More learning about binding!

After the session, Diana and I braved the rain and went to Oblation to look at paper for our sketchbook covers. They didn't have the lobster print I desired so I went with this cool aqua and silver chandelier print instead.

Diana was going to hang around for Justin Bland's thesis, which was orchestrating this Gingerblaze festival thing that she took part of. Her Marie Antoinette gingerbread sculpture is the bomb. I hung around and talked to people just long enough for it to turn dark for my return.

I watched Jan Svankmajer's Alice. I thought it was supposed to be scary but it ended up being more surreal and some of the scenes went really long. Some excellent stop motion but overall kinda "uhh, whatever."

Heroes had a pretty great little round up. Adam in the coffin, Nathan Petrelli shot..uhm. Well I guess that was it? A little lack-luster I guess. Sylar is still badass, but uhg why couldn't they have just gotten rid of Maya. Really annoying and pretty much useless. I think Nathan's shooting was more of a warning to those coming out on television about their powers and less of a killing off of his character. Nikki is probably dead, but I never really cared for her character.

Tomorrow I will defiantly get up early for Teresa's lecture. And Mia is added to the "to check out" list.

awww dang

Well. Today was not as productive as I would have hoped. I got all my painting done, so that is good. Just have to assemble it tomorrow. Didn't work on my comic outline/proposal at all. So that really...sucks. Yeah. Not so good there Trillian. That Thanksgiving break really jarred me and now I'm lacking motivation to do the things that I love. Crud.

Watched a lot of Nip/Tuck instead. Jon came by and gave me back my DVD's and comics and I lent him a couple more volumes of Transmetropolitan and Desolation Jones.

Uhg. Today was so bad. I even got up before noon!

on little Ibanez's feet

Posting late because I went out tonight. Out to a movie. The last showing. Again. Well, this time I was with a friend. Michael and I saw The Mist, which is based after a Stephen King novella. Yeah, his books don't interest me in print and their movies are equally disinteresting to me. The ending was devastating but any time they could have touched on the greater morals it just boiled down to black and white, good and evil, live or die, etc. The effects were not as quality as they could/should have been. Acting was okay. Ehh, can't say I would recommend it highly to anyone. It was fun to hang with Michael and chat afterwords at length about stuff.

5/6 of the way done with my paintings. Have several general outlines for where I could take my final comic. Watched some Amelie so I am familiar with how to write my comic (sort of want to work with the styles of character introduction that are present in that movie). Watched some of The Tick when I painted. Watched Mysterious Skin earlier on. The version I had was in Spanish so I had to figure out how to download and attach subtitles to it. Overall, the amount of effort put into getting the subtitles wasn't worth the movie. Really horrible story. As in, the subject matter. I dunno, wasn't in the mood for something that dark. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was of course, amazing but man that movie was heavy. Kind of wish the alien abductions hadn't turned out to just be the mind covering up for emotional trauma.

I think I wasted a lot of time today but by tomorrow I should have my paintings all done and arranged and my official outline and proposal finished. So maybe not so much waste. I'm on track. The comic is my major final project, then comes the website (which is more the process of gathering things than producing), then a collage which will come after the painting. I think that is it. Oh and the piece of architecture write up. What happened to my list of things to do. Dang.

I hear it is snowing in Washington. Ha ha, it is just really cold down here!

shut up and eat your sandwich

Taking it real easy today. My weekend will be filled with comics and proposal writing and the like. But comics are awesome.

Work went fast. My yellow broom was missing so I couldn't do as good of a job sweeping as I would have liked.

Teresa and Jason asked if I am going to show up for their thesis discussions. Well, Jason didn't so much as as tell me to drink coffee and be there. I told him I don't drink coffee so he said to just be there. The nice lady who shows up to movie night now and again also asked me to be at her proposal. I shall be there for all three of them. But beyond them and the bookbinding instructional activity I'm going to spend the open time working. Probably.

Craig gave me an airhead candy today. Nice guy. Andy and Nicole are having a dual show that is opening this First Thursday. Uhg, supporting friends is such a bother!

Movie night was Brick and a Jackson Pollack movie. Brick is still awesome the second time around. The iMac had problems playing the DVD and it paused at some of the worst moments. I wish more movies were like this. I didn't stick around for the second movie. Actually, no one did so Jack didn't play it.

Went home. Brandon is staying over tonight so I wanted to leave him and Lindsay alone so I went and caught the late showing of Hitman at the 7$ movie theatre (7$ all day, strange how that is now a deal). I said to the guy who bought his ticket before me, "A great night for a bad movie." We got to talking about how sometimes you just need a ridiculous action flick and he asked if he could sit next to me and I said sure. We chatted about movies and like Beowulf, this was a movie that you really have to see with someone you can make jokes about it with. Hitman was absolutely ridiculous. In a fun way. A few cool fight scenes, nothing really epic. Some nice visuals (namely the visuals of Timothy Olyphant). No one cheesy one liners but lots of (maybe intentional) silly lines. Olyphant was so good in Live Free or Die Hard, I wonder how he suddenly became so wooden in this role. From what I remember of Nathan playing the original video game, the film did carry over a lot of those elements. Hallway walking, clothes stealing, stealthy killing, etc. Oh, it also carried over the footage from Dark Angel for the opening sequence. Not "inspired by" the footage of the kids in the compound from Dark Angel, THE footage of the kids. Did they really think no one would notice that?

Work and two movies. Very relaxing. Now I have to get on the ball!

digital tools: photoshop collage

Collage compiled and edited in Photoshop.

aww darn you math

I got a 53.5% on my math exam. Yup. I'll be taking math during the summer or something. Oh well. At least I wasn't close to passing, then I would just delay taking math for ever and ever till I do eventually pass it.

Digital tools, the critique was very kind. A few pieces really sat weird in the whole thing, but overall it worked. We are moving on to a web site next/for our final. It is using iWeb, which Gordon said makes pretty dull looking results and it is next to useless. So yeah...why are we using it? I don't know. I made my project proposal about using the extra project towards making a nice print out of my Time Arts comic but he said he didn't want us to double-dip the project. That is really lame. So much work to do a whole new extra piece in a couple weeks on top of all the required work. Bleh! I'm going to have (should have) a busy weekend ahead of me.

We critiqued and posted our "activated conte" pictures from last class. I dunno, mine still seems like a big mess with big feet.

Kate was our model for today. I had her during my pre-college PNCA program. Ohhh she is so horrible, I don't know why the school continues to hire her. She kept nodding off during her long, hour pose. Her head would bob up and down and her leg slowly shifted downwards. She was holding a can in her hand that I was trying to draw and that moved all over the place. Just really bad. And she crawled all around while we were doing shorter studies of her and that was rather disturbing. Lindsay had her as well and she fell fully asleep and farted in Lindsay's direction. But my drawing looks good, so I am conflicted.

Student council had mac&cheese and the usual salad. Tasty. It was in 205 for some reason and they didn't have any folding chairs so I was stuck on a stool, looming over everyone. Sad to see the current leader of the council leave, he has been really nice. He always says hi and chats me up when he sees me in the studios. Diana might step up and fill his shoes. Shes mature and commanding. She can do it.

After drawing I had talked with Jim about meeting up and showing him how to sew on the schools machines (he has to sew something for a drawing project). The machine was broken so I just invited him over (to my place) to show him how to do it by hand. Okay I'm not the best sewing person, but it was good enough. We chatted about comics and half-watched some stuff on tv while sewing and painting. Got some pizza (chicken + feta cheese) from Bellagio's for dinner (3$ Goose Hollow discount, whoo!). Lots of fun, glad Jim could hang out. He is a busy dude.

I have a splitting headache. Work tomorrow. Trying to sign up for a bookbinding class.

snow? SNOW!?

Had to make another list. It is building up. Finals. Final projects. Argh!

Comic for Time Arts. Final project and webpage for Digital Tools. Collage and the late color scheme for 2D Design. Paper for Art History.

Bugger.

So yeah, the painted color schemes for 2D design was due today. Whoops. A lot of people thought it was due later as well. I'll turn it in late, but it will look nice. I'm half of the way done. Takes me an hour and a half to do one. Bleh, not looking forward to spending near five hours on this thing. Oh well. I have movies to watch.

Time Arts, we watched some thing about Bill Viola. Pretty cool. I'm uncertain more so about my final comic.

The stress that I thought I would be feeling all through this semester. Stress of the workload and all that. It wasn't around for the last few months. Now it is here. Uhhgg.

The plastic bag protecting my bum from the wet seat tore half way through my ride home. And it was snowing. Well, that snow slush rain. Like daggers. Daggers in my eyes.

choco found!

I don't feel all that well so I don't think I will be painting tonight. I don't think it is really due tomorrow (the 2D assignment) and if it is I will just turn it in late. I doubt anyone is ready, even Nell who has been working nonstop.

Not sure if I'm sick or I feel ill just because I haven't eaten that much today. Or other stuff. At least I should get a good rest tonight.

Yesterday we got a note from the Goose Hollow people that our sprinkler has been fixed. We still keep the trashbin there, just in case. We have been fooled before.

Also as it turns out I am stuck in Goose Hollow for another semester because I signed something along the way that keeps me here a full academic year. DAMN! Well, I keep the same room so that isn't so bad. And no worries about moving about during Winter Break.

Finished up my digital tools photoshop thing. I find it silly but Gordon says, "That gets more awesome every time I see it." I printed it out but the printer is a piece of haggis so it ended up being really blue and saturated funky.

Drawing we "activated" the page with red conte. My last drawing I felt was a big mess. Charcoal rubbed off all over my pretty turquoise top that Rubie gave me for my going-away party. It will wash out.

I was very fashionable today. Wore my wellies and black skinny leg jeans and I had my stripey leg warmers over the jeans and they peaked out from my wellies. Wore the turquoise top under my fine checkered asymmetrical zippered jacket and all that under my black pea coat. Color and pattern against black. Very awesome. The heat that came up from my toasty toes kept me snug all day.

Yesterday I rode my bike home through the rain and I had forgot my gloves that day so I was five kinds of numb when I finally got home. I'm overdressing so I don't catch a chill. I can't afford to be sick right now. Or ever.

Riding home I was very tired so I stopped for a quick breath a little past Burnside on 13th. I was looking around and noticed across the street from me sandwiched between American Apparell and a construction site...A chocolatier! With drinking chocolate! And other fine pieces of tasty morsels. I needed a rest so I locked my bike and went in. The people insider were really nice and the accented (French or Spanish, I couldn't tell) guy behind the counter gave me a great overview of all the chocolates on display (oh dear God, the beauty). I ordered a shot of drinking chocolate and read a little. The little 6 oz. (well 4-8 oz., I am not a good judge of volume) shot was intense, so strong and delicious and thick and flavorful. I couldn't imagine getting a regular size. I looked around the shop some more and asked for some milk chocolate recommendations and he pointed me towards this Goji Berry + Pink Himalayan Salt + Deep Milk Chocolate concoction. Oh dear he shouldn't have given me that free taste. Yeah. Something for a special day.

But that was so cool, I found a chocolate shop that I pass by every day. I think I'll revisit with just book and a couple bucks for some drinking chocolate.

je'taime, guy

Blah, I'm sort of behind on my 2D assignment. I have 1/6 of the things painted and I can't find the assignment sheet and I think it is due Wednesday. I'll get it done, tomorrow just won't be fun.

Back to work, back to school, back to the fun. It is getting down to the last few weeks now. The time seems to have flown by.

Big day, I stayed awake all through Art History! Huzzah for Trillian. I even asked questions about the orb. Funny how art's quality declined massively when Christianity took over. Sure some of the mosaic's are pretty but dang the attention to detail and proportion is not as...attentive.

2D was spent watching a movie and working on my design for the color scheme project (another one). I wanted to do an octopus but I couldn't quite get it so I made it an octopus girl. It would be cute if it wasn't so dang creepy with the bulging octopus eyes. The movie was Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. It had amazing color but it was a little distorted due to the projector not being calibrated right. An amazing story, the singing almost distracts from the really depressing plot.

Time Arts was a discussion/work dark. I sketched out more of my skeleton character and chatted up Peter. Rose put up my comic (and others) on the wall by the library for all to observe. Booyah! My comic is so eye catching, so bright. Have to write out a script and do thumbnails.

Have lots of work to do in the coming days (2D project, digital tools project proposal) and weeks (time arts comic, following through with digital tools extra credit project).

Oh and Heroes! WHOO CLIFFHANGER! Uber Heroes party at Matt and Andy's next week yall! Whoo.

home again...

Ahh home again. Well, is it really home? I haven't really made myself real cozy at Goose Hollow. I guess I consider Portland home? Hmm.

Mom was on a cookie making spree. I made my famous Peanut Brittle to give to Michael and Brandon (for giving me a ride and lending me a duffel; respectively).

Really I just sat about chatting with mum, watching Nip/Tuck and that was it.

Oh and Celia stopped by for a visit and gave me some AWESOME hats.

Cidney apparently boarded the train at Tacoma. Didn't notice her until I was standing outside the station waiting for Michael.

Wonderful seeing everyone. I'll be back up in a couple weeks to see David Sedaris. LIVE!!

...

Everyone is so mean about Basil but at least she doesn't have stinky breath like Ibanez.

rolling logs gather no...

Just got back Chris'. Back in the day I had to be home by 10. Now that I am a crazy art student I can stay out till midnight!

Outside of some really pretentious name dropping nothing much has changed between Chris and I. We sat about and out nerded/out weirded each other. We watched television and movies. Well actually this time it was only one movie.

Beowulf! Which is a good movie to watch if you are with someone you can make fun of the movie with. Which Chris definitely is. It had so many "This is SPARTA!" moments. Lots of shouting. I guess the effects were cool and there were some nice scenes; just nothing that really blew me away. I wouldn't say "oh wow! It is so amazing, you have to go see it!" Just a movie you can tune out of and joke around with a friend during. I wonder if Gaiman's script read "Grendel screams" or "Grendel: Agggg. Ahhhh. Ahhhggg. Agghhh." Also the Danish accents went from non-existent to needing subtitles. The scenes with Grendel and his mummy were borderline unintelligible.

Maybe we should have just seen Hitman. Mmmmm. Timothy Olyphant.

Is it wrong that I sort of want to see Wanted and Jumper?

I also watched my first episode of Project Runway and would really like to watch more, I just have no way to. And watched some G4 ninja contest. And Top Chef. Ohhhh the temptations of cable.

But yeah, hanging out with Chris hasn't changed much since August. Sipping soda, eating generic Americana recipes that are delicious, watching whatever and talking on random tangents.

Mum really misses me, tomorrow we shall make cookies together!

After talking with Grandma, I want to learn a card game to play in Goose Hollow.

frost and ferns

Went to see Enchanted with mummy tonight. Mostly because her dragging me along to see cheesy movies is "our thing". It was cute and delightful. It didn't rely on innuendos and other commonplace features in the standard kids movie. It did need more singing and dancing. And more James Marsden. Oh and Susan Sarandon was/is awesome.

Earlier in the day Jeanette and Caleb came over for a very lovely visit. They were minus the Liam. We ate sugar cookies, drank tea and chatted about college and work and what we all were up to. We took a little walk through the forest and put them to work pruning the trail. Bwahaha. It is nice when people visit Seabeck and not just call and say "I'm in the area, want to meet up for coffee?" I feel so special that they came all the way out here to just see me. It was a wonderful visit. I am having a wonderful visit.

It is still very cold in Washington. I never warmed up in my bed.

Started generally looking at what apartments in Portland are out there. Goose Hollow does nothing for me.

turkey coma, 2007

It doesn't feel like I have been away from my family for that long, like I haven't really been as far away. Maybe because a few have visited? But dad was missing. And that was no fun.

Mum didn't get around to making the stuffing. We just brought hollandaise sauce, vegetables and breadrolls.

Mum, Nate, Rubie and I got to Pulali in good time. Chatted with Grandma and Grandpa (who grew a beard! things do change when you leave home). Ate some shrimp and chips.

Washington is really freezing cold, has it always been this cold? Ahhhgg.

Celia was cooking in the Big House. When she puts her touch on it, it should be pretty awesome. Oh and puts some insulation in as well. So numb, glad I put on an extra layer like mom nagged me to do. Talked to Kirie on Celia's cell, fancy New York auntie! Averie and Ben showed up with Honey Bear while I was at the Big House. Moderate amount of hugs all around.

Thanksgiving got underway pretty quick. Good eats a plenty. Averie made a good noodle thing that I really enjoyed. We all said what we were thankful were through the meal. I got stuffed pretty quick and didn't have any room for pie.

Ben, Dan, Nathan and Rubie got involved in a game of Munchkin. I drew Nathan, Rubie and Ben (not as good as I would have liked) in my sketchbook and a compilation of Brynne, Dan, Ben and Averie on a post card. Yeah, it didn't look like them at all. My longer pose of Brynne and Celia looks like them a little bit. Might do better with some longer studies. Oh, Nathan drew me as a robot.

There was also a small quiz about my blog to see who was really reading it.

After the long auntie pose we all packed up and departed. Nathan drove.

Hopefully I will meet up with Jeanette & co. tomorrow.

turkey train

Took a nice nap on the train ride down. The gentle rocking is so gentle, really puts me to sleep. I was put on what they referred to as a "Turkey Train". It wasn't all that crowded; no one sat next to me. Watched a little tellie on my laptop.

Didn't take me long to pack, the one duffel was rather cumbersome but not heavy. I wish I could travel a little lighter somehow but I can't. Didn't need to check anything so that was good. The duffel managed to fit in my locker so I didn't have to babysit it all day.

Finished my comic during 2D, it is really bright. From afar the compositional elements and variety of pattern reads really well. I'm very pleased with myself and the result.

Comic Club was mostly discussion, we didn't get any real group drawings accomplished. Did have more pizza but less people from the last Wednesday meeting. Good discussions all around.

The Time Arts critique went well, even though the last few were done with a little more haste they didn't feel rushed (also the people came late and put their pieces up late so I don't feel so bad about cutting them a little short). Rose really dug the color on mine and seemed surprised that it was all pen.

We got out of class early and I had plenty of time to stroll over to Union Station, get my ticket and wait around for the train.

Mum picked me up and had a Happy Meal all ready for me.

My room is totally messed up. Wheres the nostalgia for your child!?

French + Pearl

I met with Pearl, the official advising lady who is really allergic to scent, to discuss my schedule. She told me that the Beginning Painting class I signed up for would be an elective because the painting class I really was supposed to take was the painting technique for illustrators class, which I am signed up for. So I switched the elective around for something else, a literature seminar! It is a 300 level too, as I have met all prior English requirements. So on Friday mornings I will be attending Illuminated Manuscripts. Cool huh?

Almost up to the required 30 images in Digital Tools. Very slow going and tedious. Mel was working in the Cage and so we chatted while I stirred my yogurt. I didn't remember that fruit was at the bottom of yogurt and thought there was something wrong with it. It turned out fine. While working on my project I had a loop of Aqua and Smashing Pumpkins playing, for the rest of the day Aqua won out as being stuck in my head.

We did a quick critique of our bags (mine was largely incomplete and I still don't know if I passed math) and drew a skeleton set-up.

Tess, Mollie, and I originally intended to go to Cha! Cha! Cha! for lunch but the line was long so we swung by Hot Lips. I got a tasy Calzone, some nummy breadsticks and a home-brewed Apple Soda.

All day they were giving out free haircuts. I put my name on the list and they got to me right at the end of lunch. I was a little late to Arvie's and didn't finish my skeleton, but most people didn't come anywhere near to being finished. My hair is really cute, I can't wait to fluff it up and show it off.

Mel, Eva, Mollie, Danny, Tess and Sarah all got haircuts. Mollie didn't have enough time for them to shave a design into her head though, bummer. Oh! Darya also got a haircut and she had time for them to cut a party hat into the side of it.

Talked to Pearl, OKed it with Martin and filled out the forms so my classes should change in the next few days. I will still probably need to know how to make canvases.

I managed to get on the ball pretty early in regards to finishing up my comic. Got it all sketched and inked before 10:30! I'm not done coloring it but I will have time tomorrow to do so. I'm only using four colors to fill it in (orange, yellow, green, blue) and thus far it really pops. Might have to fill in the borders with black.

Mollie wanted an octopus for her head and asked Danny to draw her one and it ended up being more like a squid so I drew a PROPER octopus.

The wheely bag I have to take home is MASSIVE and I would have to check it so to reduce the stress of the train I am borrowing Brandon's duffel. I'm not done packing (haven't really started). I just need some pants shirts hoodies and other fashionables. And some books and snacks for the train. And art supplies (one lunchbox full plus paper).

Now to pack! I have to walk in to school today. Buh! So that is catch the shuttle at 10:20 so leave the room at 10:15 so that is get up at 9:00 so alarm goes off at 8:30. I don't like it how sleeping in doesn't seem like sleeping in when you look at the time your alarm goes off.

of moss and burgers

Yesterday:
Didn't really sleep in and actually got a pretty good start on my day.

I got a good recommendation for The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (Llyw called the first few chapters badass) so I made a journey to Powell's to see if they had a copy for sale. They didn't have a blue edition (what I wanted) for sale, only a red one. It was six dollars cheaper so whoo!! Then I remembered I was in Powell's and got distracted for about two hours. Looked at the new Post Secret book and picked up a couple Christmas presents. I sat in the coffee shop for a while eating a cupcake and sipping a caramel steamer, then I trekked to PNCA.

I was at PNCA to work on my value/saturation chart and I had all my stuff except for the all ready completed pieces of value/saturation. So I packed up my things and went home.

Going to Powell's, PNCA and back from PNCA I managed to catch the streetcar in really good time. It was raining a bit but I was rocking the matching umbrella/bag and overall well assembled outfit. I rarely walk and now I notice the things I miss when I bike. Namely people. There are many great and interesting looking people abound including a woman who resembled Marsha from Spaced. She was awesome.

Completed my value/saturation piece with plenty of time to spare. Looks pretty cool except for some glue smudges. Bah! Oh well.

I was really crushed when I found out my dear daddums won't be home during Thanksgiving. I really wanted to see him and build some canvases and get down some of his stories for a zine. Love his stories. Specially the one about the octopus and the pirate clown. It won't be as fun and I miss his cooking (though I might give him a run for his job when it comes to cooking scrambled eggs).

Today:
I took a nap during Art History's break and my leg hurting woke me up. When I woke up I noticed I had missed four slides. Dang!! Next semester Art History is at 11 so that is really really good.

Got another lecture about complimentary color schemes in 2D design. So is it spelled anagulous or analogous...analogous. I dunno. Tricky word and spellcheck never has it. The quicky "which color wheel/value/saturation do you like" critique went in my favor when it came to my designs.

She let us out for lunch early so I grabbed some Quizno's Sammies and intended to read The Raw Shark Texts. I never got around to it and mostly chatted with people. A band preformed on the dock outside 3D and I listened to them a little. Sort of the same stuff I heard back home; not really my taste. They did have energy.

The rest of class was spent coming up with a design for our color scheme assignment. I'm going to do something with an octopus.

My comic page is more than half sketched out. It isn't that hard to draw all the panels (I'm getting good at it! whoo!) and it is planned out really nice. There are 20-25 panels squeezed into a 8 1/2"x11" paper. Nice! Also chatted muchly with Diana about shared Japan memories (Did you go to Bikuri Donkey? YEAH BIKURI DONKEY!). Diana returned my Sandman: Endless Nights and it was passed around muchly by people needing alternate panel examples. The Delirium and Despair sections are some of the best examples. Go Gaiman!

I had to swing by Safeway to get some cash for laundry and power bill. Had to buy something to get cashback so I go some Ling Ling's Pot Stickers. Yeeaaah!!

No Prison Break tonight, is it because of the strike or is it cancelled? Boo! Heroes will be on and that is great. Yeaah!

sugar

I went to sleep with what should have been a 9 hour sleeping window but the boys in 410 kept me up till 3:00am, which was when Lindsay was awoken by their partying and gave them a talking to. Even though we talked to them we are still going to file a noise complaint. We PNCA students have started to behave ourselves, PSU should do the same. Sodding drunks.

Didn't have much fun making up my day of work. It was pouring when I rode in so the bottom half of my pants were soaked for the first half of my shift and my shoes are probably still drying now. Felt so good to change out of them when I got home. Came close to being literally sopping wet. Showed up to find the supply closet locked. I ate my breakfast and when the rain subsided I walked down to PNCA and got the nice desk clerk to open the closet for me. Had a really slow slow start. I was cold and tired and really just wanted to go home and come back and lie about working five hours. But I stuck around. Things perked up once I made a candy run. But still, uhg I'm not really fond of my job. The only perk is meeting all the studio people, some of whom are really nice and make conversation with me. It's good to be a familiar face in an art school.

Returned the videos I checked out last Saturday and checked out Alice and Gummo. Gotta have something to watch while I'm a slave to the arts tomorrow.

Matt had invited me out to see No Country for Old Men tonight. He bought advance tickets of all of us (all of us being Matt, Andy, Michael, Craig, Nicole and myself) for the 7:30 showing (I have paid him back already) which was sold out when I showed up at 7:00. All the showings up till late at night were sold out, which makes sense because No Country for Old Men is without a doubt one of the best movies I have seen in years. Every scene is shot perfectly, the silence that isn't silence audio really nailed some of the scenes home. The scene in the hotel room where Llewelyn Moss is waiting for Chigurh after he found the tracer and you hear Chigurh step back when Llewelyn cocks the shotgun and he steps back and you hear the unscrewing of the light bulb and the light goes out. AMAZING! That scene tried so many of my nerves. Brilliant brilliant brilliant. Every performance was right on and just wow. The Coen brothers are amazing, how do they keep doing it? I strongly recommend this movie for everyone. It is a little violent at times but it is a work of art.

Then I went home.

where'd that wall come from?

Whee! Seattle was fun. A little gray but overall really super. Saw some neat art, and some stuff that bored me.

I remember being told the bus leaves at 7:00am so my alarm went off at 5:30 and I was up by 6:00 and out the door at 6:35 or so. I was at PNCA and on the bus at 6:50. And no one was there. Justin was the next to show at around 7:00. Jason sat across from me and said something about 7:30. As the hour moved on more and more people showed up and I learned with great disappointment that Diana would not be there and we would be leaving at 8:00am.

The bus ride up was very...interesting. The combination of Jason next to me and Sean and Forest behind me lead me to overhear some really awesome guy-talk. They spent about 20 minutes calling Craig repeatedly asking for the definition of a term. They passed forward a note to a group of MFA girls and they got a note back. I'm not sure which was more vulgar and crude. Both notes were awesome.

The rain was horrendous leaving Portland but it cleared up bright and blue as we got to Seattle around 10:30.

We pulled into the UW to visit the Henry Gallery. Both when we arrived and when we left there were hordes of similar looking people coming and going on campus. I like PNCA because the people are really original and look different every day. Seattle University people, blimey...so boring!

The curator for the show at the Henry told us a little about the show and we were left to wander for a bit. There was some nice photography and a cool stop motion video of a guy traveling through a city laying on his stomach. Some of it was a little underwhelming but still well put together. There was a Kim Jones exhibit downstairs and outside of the rat army installation it seemed to be the same thing over and over again (this wood stick harness strapped to his back).

From there we went out for a much needed lunch. We wandered a group and slowly peeled off into littler eating groups. Craig, Nicolai(Nikolai?), Nicole, a nice guy whose name I didn't get, and I ate at "Yummy Bites". I had a teriyaki chicken wrap. It was indeed a Yummy Bite. Or maybe it was "Tasty Bites". Anywhoo, it was a very filling lunch.

Next stop was the Frye. A really well designed gallery, but with poor lighting on its important pieces. Some of the lighting cast really unfortunate shadows. Also they put a glare on some of the paintings which made them hard to appreciate up close.

The main exhibit was "Hug" by Patricia Piccinini. Disturbed all hell out of me. Wonderful sculpture of some really detailed and creepy half-naked mole rat critters. And the videos were none too sane either. I did love the fact the show combined a great variety of mediums and pieces and didn't limit itself to being just the sculptures. A nice variety is pleasing to more people, except I don't think most people would like "Hug".

The gift shop was severely lacking.

From the Frye we slowly made our way down to this architecture bookstore on 1st. Everything was $10 overpriced. Sure the copics were tempting, as was the toothpaste cap but overall it was a massive quantity of books I had no interest in. Except for the marine life diagram books and street fashion compilations (I would have bought something had they be $10 cheaper). Matt, Andy and I decided to walk around the block because the store was boring. The store was one block away from Pike's Place Market so we went down to there. Along the way I ditched Matt and Andy and went looking for a friend, and found him!

Lucky for me, Llyw was on break so we walked and talked for a wee bit before my bus took me away.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break (and Winter). It has been so long since I have seen family and friends. Traveling to and from Portland/Washington in one day is doable, but very tiring. It isn't really a bad ride; sure a few hours but once the Portland I-5 traffic backs up you are practically to Goose Hollow as it is. People are busy, I know I am.

We went to Western Bridge next, which I thought was going to be a bridge and not a building. As far as installations go, I actually enjoyed these ones. Except for the light clicking on and off for all eternity. And the constantly replaced melting ice cube. The fake snow falling on a Porsche was pretty and very majestic. Andy gave me a fake push towards it. There was also a 40 photo step by step of a block of wood being cut into a young mans head, an old mans head, a skull and then abstracted and then finally nothing. Symbolizing the decomposition and destruction and whatnot. They also had a cube of the wood carvings and saw dust collected from the photo series.

We were led into a room with a smoke machine and a slow moving light beam casting through the smoke onto the wall. It was very cool and we got to stand inside the circle of light and break the light beam up with our hands. Very sweet stuff going on there. I tried to exit the light area to the other side and found out very quickly there was a wall there. I was moving from a crouch position upon my exit so the extra upwards momentum combined with the wall bump caused me to fall backwards quite humiliatingly. I didn't mind getting laughed at and one of the super nice MFA's said she thought there wasn't a wall there either. I took some non flash photos of the scene and we all wandered through the gallery space.

At 6:30 we boarded and began the long ride home. I dozed for about an hour and then sat next to Matt and chatted with him, Andy, Craig, Nicole and the redheaded MFA dude for a bit.

Got back to PNCA at 9:00ish and rode my bike through the misting Portland night. I got home earlier than I normally do on Friday nights (regularly movie nights). I was expecting to be back by 11:00pm.

Visiting Seattle makes me so glad I choose Portland.