the one week mark

Five TBA Festival shows down, six to go. During painting class we received more vouchers and Karen and Jen couldn't use theirs so I ended up with four total that needed to be redeemed. Also James couldn't go to a show tonight so I took that ticket as well. I'll relax next week. And tomorrow.

So today I pretty much went class to class to lunch lecture to class to class to TBA to home. 8am to 9pm. No coffee. I know I keep bringing up how I'm doing this all without coffee. With enough bragging I may be able to graduate without any of the dark stuff in my veins.

Figure Drawing had a lot of focus on the perspective of the model stand. We all drew it and he went around critiquing what was wrong with it. Mine was along the lines that it was getting wider in the back, which is a fine error. Not the worst looking one and he said my mark making was nice. At least I have the general size of it down and I'm not suffering from a case of covering up sloppy measuring with intricate detail. We couldn't decide if we wanted to do a puppet show or a fashion show so we are doing a puppet fashion show. Yeah. I think I'll have to start working on it now, eh.

Ran into Lindsay twice at school today. Once by the lockers and again in the line for muffins from Yo. She is looking well and apparently Ibanez is loosing the weight he gained in my care. Her name was dropped by two students during the puppet fashion show idea. They want her to do the lights and backdrop for it. "Toon! We want Toon!" they cried.

I'm having trouble locating my final print portfolio from last semester. Yoshi isn't really around at the school so I sent him an email. I really hope they have not been trashed as that was an incredible amount of work in that portfolio.

History of Design delayed discussion because some people couldn't round up the textbooks. What the hell! They never did that at Olympic College. If you didn't have it you didn't have it and class continued on without you. That was really weak. She skimmed through the textbook and talked to us some more about the work. We also had first grabs on the artist we wanted to present. I choose Aubrey Beardsley. She showed us some websites and talked about Queen Victoria. I was rather bored, I hope that once we get into the texts it will pick up. I was up late reading, why can't I expect other people to do the same and come to class prepared?

At least she let us out a little early to grab food (we were expected to go to a lunch lecture). Jen, Karen and I hit up Urban Grind. I had a soda and a disappointing overly chewey grilled cheese panini. It was really not...good.

The chat was supposed to be about gender identity but there was a language barrier between some of the panel members so it wasn't a truly insightful discussion. Their performance art is much more expressive than their words alone (Neal Medley was on the panel).

In painting we went over our self portraits. It is a very small class so it becomes readily more obvious the differences in effort (two didn't have a portrait to present). Bryan's and mine both dealt with the consumption of food. Karen's looked like Karen and have pretty soft supple shades. Jen's looked not really like Jen. It was amazing but a little gaunt (but that girl sure knows how to use lettering in her work). Alaska Erin isn't pulling any colorful punches. The CD cover designs showed a greater rift between the did and the did not. It is far more difficult an assignment than one would originally think. A person has all these ideas and then you have to grab one that would make for an interesting cover...and then POOF where did the ideas go? The one I think I'll work with is a cover for something by Janove Ottesen in which he is in a suit but his head is a tie and his tie is Janove dangling from the shirt collar.

Vouchers were handed out and like I said, more than one came my way. I'm too tired to list them off, but you will be hearing about them as I see them. I rushed to PICA to redeem my vouchers. I should have ridden my bike. I was a bit late returning to class but Farel seemed laid back about it and I fit into the flow of what was going on. We were doing quick drawings of our surroundings and filling them in with whatever color seemed fit. It was a delightful exercise and a good chance to practice washes. I raced home once class got out. I had supplies and an armload of Beardsley books to haul. I stuffed them into my baskets (thank you dad so much for them, I couldn't manage without my side baskets) and rode towards the setting sun.

I drank a large quantity of juice when I got home and got right back on my bike and went to Documenting Dance: Three Films. Mel was there so I sat next to her. The first two movies were documentaries about Anna Halprin. I was nodding off and fell asleep during the first one. Not because it was boring but because I was, and still am, very exhausted. She looked great and I was surprised she was 80 during the time of filming. Well, a life time of postmodern dance will do that to you. The way she talked about connecting with nature really touched me. And the clips of her interacting with the surf and the woods made me miss the nature of Seabeck. I did stay awake through the second film which was mostly about her movements that involved the earth, the first film was more of a history with some great archival footage. It is hard to explain my feelings that came from the movies.

Jerome Bel was the choreographer for the piece in the final film. It centered around a French ballet dancer who was a week and a day away from retiring. She talked about her favorite dances, what she wished she had the chance to dance, and showed how in the Swan Lake many of the background dancers stay still for large portions of time while the "stars" get to do the fancy footwork. From hearing Jerome Bel speak a few days ago, I felt that I understood this piece more. Here was this talented dancer who devoted her life to her craft. She had previously hurt herself and wasn't even supposed to be able to dance again after that. Still she rose to dance in a highly respected theatre for a long, respectful career. She admitted that she thought that she wasn't a star because possibly she was not good enough. Just this one dancer speaking her final words before leaving the stage. A dancer that no one would really think twice about because she is in the back. A dancer was allowed the stage all to herself. It was intimate and beautiful.

When I got back to my bike someone had separated the seat and the rod it is attached to from my bike. It was laying on the ground next to my otherwise untouched bike. Someone put a lot of effort into stealing the flashing reflector from the back of my bike. A flash reflector with a dead battery. I'm just glad they didn't take the seat.