no drawn out artsy movies for me tonight

The art film night was cancelled last night due to poor planning but that enabled me to see the Larry Rinder talk. Overall it was largely uninformative. He curated a show in Portland about graduates from California College of Art and Crafts(or Design, some Cali school) and what they are doing years from their graduation. He only picked 10 out of thousands of artists and at first I didn't really see the point about talking to an art school about how great their art school is and their artists. Actually, of all the artists shown he said that none of them were making a living from their art. Ha!

Well part of the point of the show and talk was to assess if they would have been capable of doing this work without art school. The consensus was "I don't know". They (the artists) said the school gave them a great community and discipline. I was not fond of how Larry Rinder said that any bright piece was "cartoony" or "comic-ish" something like that. Like somehow you can't separate bright art from childish connotations.

After the talk Gavin and I walked back to Goose Hollow and hung about and chatted about art. Lindsay and Brandon made their delicious meat/corn/cheese/tater tot concoction again and we gobbled it up while watching The Darwin Awards. The movie was surprisingly funny and endearing. Gavin started drawing on my arm and got carried away; carried away past when the last bus home left. So he ended up crashing here.

Earlier in the day, work was mostly uneventful except for when I accidentally locked myself out of the supply closet. The past few Friday's there have been next to no MFA's upstairs and now it seemed like they all were there. Guess they have something due on Monday.

I'm rather excited for today. Have my first ever blind date! His name is Adam.

trick or tr-I'M REALLY TIRED!!

Wow, I'm beat. It is Monday after Some Cats From Japan all over again. But like that time, it was sooo worth it. Halloween was great! Fun times were all around.

Karen's Party

Karen was throwing a party for all those who were not invited to parties. I was not invited to a party (well not directly, I'm sure Noel would have been cool had I shown up with Michael to her party) but I would have preferred the smaller one with people I liked and knew better.

I didn't know who all was going to Karen's so I hung out with Cidney and Mel until all was sorted out. There was lots of hubbub about which bus to take and where, which max, max and bus? In the end, after about 45 minutes of discussion we went with the first choice, the max. Which was the obvious choice as it comes every fifteen minutes by Goose Hollow and it takes us within 10 blocks of Karen's. So at around 7:00pm Cidney, Mel, Chelsea, Kristin, Robin and I left.

The Max ride was fairly uneventful for most of the fair less zone. Once we got into East Portland. Hooo boy.

This really drunk guy sat next to Robin and harassed her a little bit. Then he got into some weird yelling/shoving match with this guy he had gotten on with. Drunken playing around but it was very very off putting. I was very glad that they didn't have tickets and got off promptly at the first stop after they boarded. We just sort of sat about silently and awkwardly while the two guys yelled back and forth about, oh I forget. It was weird. The other loud guy was sitting right next to me and I was very scooted over next to Kristin. That wasn't fun.

We got off at a stop I remember from the time last summer when I went to the river with the pre-college people. It was a brisk walk and we stopped at a house that had trick-or-treater indicators around it and go some candy. The couple at the house were really nice and loved our costumes. Yaay!

We found Karen's house no problem and settled in with Tabitha, her friend Allison (I believe that was her name), Karen and Jim. The ten of us were all that there was for the night. Nice little group. Karen had burrito fixings layed out, and chips and drinks and soda and brownies and all other goodies. I brought Trader Joe's Cheese Puffs and Sprite and Juice. More than enough.

We started off with a movie; the remake of The Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds. Not really that good or scary. Well less scary due to the fact we were making fun of it the whole way through (we nine girls all paused and sighed during the scenes where Ryan Reynolds ran around shirtless, Jim just rolled his eyes). All it all, it was a pretty bad movie. Way too embellished and lacking in lots of action. Sorta funny but it fell into cliche so often. This movie, it really makes me glad my dad never made me hold the wood while he chopped it.

Then we moved onto a Mob themed card game. It took a little to get into it but we really got into it. Lots of fun being mean to each other. Robin and I were the first team to get out so we noshed and observed the others playing.

When the game was over we sat about and talked about calling a cab to take us home, one of those bus cab things. We called Radio Cab and they said it would be forty minutes. So we played charades from Cranium cards for the next forty minutes. I flopped around and somehow they got that I was a Waterbed, a Greenhouse, Titanic and Eddie Murphy.

When forty minutes was up we called the company to find out what was up and they told us that after forty minutes they delete our call for a cab. So apparently we have to call again and again every 10 minutes to make sure our cab is coming, instead of you know...relying on it and not pestering people. Yeah so we got mighty frustrated about that. Karen told off the company a little and then the awesomely kind lady that she is, Karen offered to give us a ride home. In her car. At the same time. Well, Tabitha and her friend were driving home in their own car. So it was the eight of us in a five seater car.

Robin sat with Chelsea up front, I sat on Jim('s lap, tee hee), Mel was squeezed next to me and Cidney was on Kristin. It was a squeeze. Unsafe squeeze but it was either than or wait till 1:40am for a cab that may or may not come on time. Karen was a safe driver and knew safe routes. Jim was dropped off first and Robin moved into the back seat on top of me. She used the handle to hoist herself so she wasn't putting her weight on me (something I didn't think to do for poor Jim). Karen dropped us off at Goose Hollow and we all meandered in and all probably got to our comfy beds at around the same time. 2:00am. BAHHG!

Halloween at PNCA

Rose from bed at about 7:00am to take a quick shot of Lindsay and Sean's costumes. They were doing their costume together and were Maude and the Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Thanks to sleeping in, I got a really good start on the day. I didn't ride in costume all though now I wish I had. I pass by a High School on the way to PNCA everyday and on Wednesday's all the kids are on break and I saw their costumes. Some pretty cool ones at it as well.

I made a quick change from bundled up biker to a certain infamous missing person before entering the school. I got so many smiles and "I found you!" from people. I loved the attention. Sohkun was a flamingo and was downright adorable. Got tons of good response from the darkroom people. Messed around with my old prints, played around mostly and hung around being overall awesome with my awesome costume. I knew someone else was going as the same person but I didn't see them so it is no big thing.

They gave us a free lunch and made the willing costumed people parade in front of the uninspired non costumed people. Mel's Jellyfish and Mollie's Medusa were downright spectacular but we were all beaten by a voodoo woman, a pirate with a real parrot and a girl with a rooster on her head.

The critique in 2D was rushed near the end as always. Got some good feedback but overall they always end up rushed because there is too much to talk about and not enough time to do it equally.

Time Arts was fun. Diana flipped out when she saw me. As did Amina. Very fun. We watched some videos and listened to a really intense audio. Then we worked on composing videos using clips from the 3 second animations we did a few weeks ago. Finished clipping things together and left to go to Karen's awesome party!

The next day (today)...

BLIMEY! I'M TIRED I'M TIRED I'M TIRED. I do NOT want to go out to First Thursday but I should because if I go out and see some stuff and write about it I'll get the coveted bonus in Digital Tools.

Gordon's strategy is that if we just do the work required for the class we will get a B. He wants us to go out and see art and make our own unstructured opinions and thoughts about it. And there is any number of things going on we can go to, First Thursday is just the easiest way to do it. I like that teaching practice. Doing the work is not enough, and it shouldn't be. There is also an extra project we can do to get the uber coveted bonus. I plan on making my own zine. Maybe about working in a library four three(!) years.

I started to nod off during my midterm meeting with Gordon. He was really well spirited about it considering I was midsentance explaining where I want to go with my art. He seems to really like where I want to go with my art and his interest encourages me to structure what kind of artist I want to become.

Drawing was torture. Ish. Did some great ink drawings in the first half, the second half not so much. I was tired and loosing focus and my drawing showed that. I didn't get the chance to do a good amount of value range and ended up with mostly dark shadows and a few lighter ones. Ah oh well.

So glad to be freed of the school to go home and relax. Ibanez totally loves me when we are home alone.

The chocolate yogurt was not much better than the green tea.

Well time to go out into First Thursday. First stop: going to Floating World Comics to see if Kazimir Strzepek remembers me from Stumptown Comics Fest. Next stop: I dunno, Steven Slappe's new exhibit? Compound Gallery?

Back from First Thursday:

Whee! That was fun. I was dead and a zombie for most of it but I did a pretty good gallery loop. Rode my bike down 14th and then down Couch and parked it at 5th. Scooting along on my bike past all these slow cars, so awesome.

Kazimir didn't remember me but he did sort of vaguely recognize me. Anyway he was sweet and fun to talk to. His comics are done at a 1:1 ratio and he had them up on the walls and I had to lean in super close to read them. But yeah we chatted and some other comic people were around that I didn't recognize but I knew they had to be important as they were all...published looking.

It was really hot and stuffy so I moved on to some of the other galleries. I went to check out Slappe's but I was never able to find it. I ran into Craig in this gallery with wigs and drawings done in Thailand. He told me to check out his and Sean's show that was on the other side of the block. I ran into Gavin at Pink Pony...Prancing Pony...Plastic Pony...uhm. Something Pony, they had really sweet cheap shirts and prints and zines galore. I didn't buy anything but now I know another place to go when I have money (which will be ages from now. I want a real job).

After that this guy was standing at a door and was like "Hey wanna check out this 3 foot ceiling gallery?" And I said "okay" and followed the arrows. I had seen the paintings before but they were in an open setting. This time they were placed in a crawl space that you had to pretty much scoot on your knees around to look at the paintings. Being in that space made me feel like a giant looking at tiny little paintings and in that setting it made me appreciate the intricate detail more. Kinda hurt my knees but it was worth it. I was starting to get really bleary so I continued on my way to find Craig and Sean's show. Stopped in at Rake, some cool paintings but I was so unfocused I wasn't paying attention. Saw Jack and ran into Gavin again.

Craig and Sean are MFA at PNCA and they were having a dual show in a cute little gallery. The stuff was mostly pieces I have seen before (either from their show at PNCA or by sweeping up past their studios) but it was nice seeing it more collected and tidied up. Congratulations go to Craig for selling his giant colorful robot piece. Chatted both of them up about whatnots and complimented Sean on his awesome tattoos (some great ones down here). Matt was there briefly. Jason...person, uhm I don't know he had a plain name and I kinda forget it but he heads student council, he was there and we chatted about how crummy Seattle is, how much the new sculpture park sucks and teasing the MFA's about their pathetic student council cash pot. There is a MFA trip to Seattle the 16th and they had open seats so Mollie and I will be joining them.

After them I waved goodbye and meandered back towards my bike. Stopped in at Compound Gallery but it was totally packed and people just stood chatting and blocking the paintings like they didn't matter. Will have to stop by later and look when there isn't so much congestion and claustrophobia inducement.

Popped into Floating World Comics and had a few more words with Kazimir and picked up my comics; well it was just one comic and I got one of Kazimir's smaller works. Then I rode home pretty much the same way I got back. Finished off my cheesy puffs and now I am ready for bed. Gotta get up for work in twelve hours.

I forgot I don't like the flavor of green tea

Yesterday was what felt like my first real day to relax. I didn't have any homework, I was all caught up in class and I had most of the night to kick back. Whoo!

Started work on my digital tools shape project, got the areas all shaped out and whatnot. Got a head start on my gray scale, a lot of people were having issues with Illustrator and Illustrator was having issues with them. Lots of chat about Macho Advetures Battlerama with Jim and Karen. More ideas and thoughts and feelings to bring to the table next club meeting. Shared my special Mats Mats candy around with some nice people.

Drawing, uhg my guys head was too small but the critique didn't go that badly. We had a late start on the ink drawing of the lady and I was going really slowly to make sure I got the lines correct. Also I wasn't allowing myself to do new lines over the old lines before, I had worked with the lines I had which was why my man looked horrible. The addition of my fault lines made this drawing look fab! Didn't get around to adding true values, I just outlined the values instead so it was more of a line drawing. Arvie seemed to dig it.

Stopped by Trader Joe's and did some grocery shopping. I grabbed a thing of chocolate and green tea flavored yogurt to try out. The green tea was a mistake. Here is my reaction to it:

Yeah it was gross. Never again. Hopefully the chocolate is better/actually good.

Lounged about. Lindsay dyed her hair for Halloween. It looks like dear old mums for a minute then she dyed it again. Then she looked like dear old mum if she was dressing up as me circa 2006.

Got to bed at a reasonable hour as today is a big big day! Now to go wander about and sneak into the background of peoples photos.

candles and flowers

Last night was the memorial for Brett Jarolimek, another fallen bicyclist in Portland. He was a PNCA alumni.

what a lucky and sweet girl

I am so lucky! Lucky lucky lucky! Sean and I, after having all the other people not be able to join us for the special sneak preview movie tonight, we made our way over to Lloyd Center Cinema. We saw a long line stretching about a hundred-fifty long outside the theatre and when we got closer we realized the line was doubled back on itself, pushing it into the 300's. Well it was more 400-600. MASSIVE line with hugely huge amount of people. I figured "hey, it is probably less people than it looks and they probably have a big theatre and are prepared?". Sean went and got us our free popcorn and drink while we were waiting in line and we nibbled. Our place was very much the last spot in line for a long time. About ten people braved the line and stood behind us. I was hopeful and it paid off. A nice wonderful amazing superb fabulous woman came up to us and asked our age and told us that we were instead 20 and gave us two tickets and told us to go to the back of the official line parallel to our line. We were the last people to get the green admittance passes. I felt almost bad walking past the hundreds waiting. Almost. We got into the theatre and in the back row was probably the last two empty seats next to each other remaining. We plopped down and prepared ourselves for the mystery movie, which was...

WALL●E! The new Disney/Pixar movie due out in 2008.

It wasn't complete; the first half hour was mostly finished but the last hour or so was made up mostly of animated story boards and some flat CG. And after watching the movie I am happy to report that Pixar is back! After that worthless film Cars they are back to what made them great and original. The message and the agenda of the movie was neither subliminal or hidden. It was very much "Look at what we are doing to the planet. It will get worse and we will stay the same and will be content to stay the same for hundreds of years as long as we think someone else is taking care of it." The movie followed Wall●E, a little trash compacting robot alone on Earth (which is filled with trash and uninhabited by people as they all left to go out into space and wait for Earth to become livable again) and what happens when a new robot, Eve, lands and finds a plant growing. He follows her back to the space ship and lots of running about happens in regards to the plant. Humans are just fat blobs living out of chairs and eating out of cups all day for their whole lives. They don't make any fat jokes as the whole characterization of humans is one big fat joke. The humor was clean and got some great laughs out of me. They didn't have to fall back on pop culture references that would not have made contextual sense. They also didn't need lame humor to appeal to the brain dead. This is very much a Pixar film in the spirit of Ye Olde Pixar where they gave the intelligence of their audience some credit.

I was hoping it would be Coraline but this was fantastic! I can't wait for it to be finished.

Art History got my dozing, man I don't like it when she drones on from notes. Blimey! I finished my paper for class before midnight last night and we chatted a bit about the vase and she seemed to really like my observations so I feel good about my paper.

Got my final print done for 2D design and spent the rest of class making prints from my older photos. Got two nice ones from my trip to Elandan Gardens and developed one of Joe Zuiche(Zuick? Zuich?) that has some great contrast and character.

Ate lunch in the library (food in a library, so contradictory) and read some more Crooked Little Vein. Ellis isn't the most detailed of writers in a novel form but he sure is whimsical and creative. Also it was really adorable how Gordon shyly asked me how to look things up in the library. I looked around for a second and found a computer with a tag saying "catalog use only" and refreshed it and indicated it to him.

We edited and finished the sound for our video in Time Arts early and Rose seemed to really like it. I like it too. Amanda's idea for the end really made it punch. We did a video of David Mura's A Nisei Picnic: From An Album. We were so awesome and on top of things that we got it all together early so I had time to print my color wheel for Digital Tools and bike home with time to relax between school and the movie.

When I got home there was a little square package waiting for me atop my laptop. It was from the Grandparent's Spencer and I knew right away what it was! Halloween Candy! The tradition that hasn't been broken in years, even if I move away out of state. They are awesome and what was great was the plastic bat-shaped bag filled with candy was cushioned in the box by even more candy! Yaaay! I might not need to go trick-or-treating this year. Wheee! Sugar sugar sugar sugar.

Thank you to all those who have sent me care packages. I love getting them.

Sunday, Beautiful Sunday

Rode my bike around downtown today. Need to be in that area more, I rarely go beyond 8th.

Rode down to Portland Art Museum to check out the Greek Vase for my Art History paper. Got side tracked in the Chuck Close exhibit for an hour and a half. Amazing work. His work is made so much in the color choices; such an eye for it all. The grind systems don't look so hard to work with but just the tonal ranges and the use of every color from every spectrum. Just wow.

Patrick thought he was being really funny a few weeks ago when he said Chuck Close should try different styles, branch out a little more and that it didn't matter that he was paralyzed. Patrick thinks he is funny but most times he is just a douchebag. I don't have a problem with anyone else I have met, everyone here is wonderful and knows to hold themselves in social situations pretty well. Except for Patrick, he just doesn't get it. There is a reason why we chew into his work a little more during 2D Design and Digital Tools critique. Part of it is his hovering over our work and giving his unasked for opinion like he is some photography God when really hes just some freshman with fancy cameras.

The Chuck Close exhibit steered me into the gift shop and I saw a hilarious Christmas Card set but after looking at the price I decided I could be funnier. I did buy a lovely ring for my right hand. But that was it. Had to hold off from all the shiney pretty books.

After the museum I rode down around 4th heading towards China Town. Little traffic and the sun was just the right amount of bright and not blinding.

Made my comic run, Doktor Sleepless and Black Summer. Also the new issue of The Boys, yay! That wasn't supposed to come out for a few more days. After Floating World Comics I went into Compound Gallery but the gallery was closed off for renovation. There was an annoying kid and I would have like to browse the store some more but the kid was so annoying I left. Little beggar child, poor hipster parent.

Rode home and have relaxed for a few hours. Now to write my paper!

Where's Zombie?

I'm in this picture. Can you find me?

Halloween shindig weekend! This one and next maybe. My original plans fell through but I had super low key fun today! I like low key, because right now the up key people are hooting outside and making my ceiling be noisy. I'd rather be irked than irk people.

Set alarm clock so I didn't sleep in too much. Finished my hat which completed my Halloween costume. Got my care package from home, thanks mum and dad for the Emergen-C and candy and Tiger's Milk bars! num num num!

Chatted with Michael who swung by around four and picked me up and we parked downtown and wandered about. Went into Border's and later grabbed lunch in the underground food court in the Pioneer Square Mall. Walked and chatted and then went to Pioneer Courthouse Square to check out the Zombie March going on.

The Zombie March was this gathering of people dressed as zombies intending to wander around Portland and be generally undead. There was a Where's Waldo zombie, a cross-dressing nun Zombie, and some people from the Umbrella Corporation. Pretty sweet. Some Zombies did the Thriller Dance. At 6:00 they did their march, good thing I got there early because I thought it was at 7:00. Stood on the sidelines as all the Zombies emptied out of the Square and onto the street. Michael and I decided not to follow, as did Mollie, Mel and Darya! We were all "hey!" to each other and sat about and chatted.

There was a guy who sounded like a Zombie but just turned out to be homeless and a little mentally ill. He spat and lunged at some police officers and they handcuffed him. There was three at the start when he was making noise and yelling profanities and when they took him away there was two cop cars, a fire truck and about seven to eight cops. He made a loud "RRRAAGHGHHH" sound and someone across the square who didn't know what was going on shouted "Brains!".

I made a quick stop into the Nordstrom restroom, which is the second nicest I have ever been in. It would have been third but the fact it was called "Woman's Lounge" instead bumped it up.

When I got back some more scene kids had shown up and so we five took off to the underground food court. I played with the Wii demo a bit, but it didn't have any fun games. We played some Old Maid while the other girls snacked. I bought a Day-by-Day chocolate calender for Christmas and I now realise that I bought it a month early. Oops, oh well.

We all piled into Michael's two door, technical four seater, and went back to Goose Hollow. I got the cushy front seat while the rest crammed themselves into the back. We bid adieu to Michael and went to my room to play with Ibanez. We also played fetch with Ibanez and Ball. We big some more adieus to each other, planning to reform for an SNL party later on tonight.

Went over to Sean's for some delicious cake. Hung out with him and Mike for a bit and watched Greg the Bunny and The Great Horror Family. Former was not as funny as I remember the latter was hilarious! Can't wait to watch more.

I made some popcorn and we watched SNL. Seth Rogen wasn't that great but he also didn't have many lines. For once the best skits were after Weekend Update. The girls considered Spoon's performance boring (but liked their music) and wanted something better to watch so I obliged them with my dance skills. After SNL we all said our final adieus.

Tomorrow I will be going to PAM, maybe with Mollie and maybe by myself. Have a vase to look at and a paper to write. Whee!