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Friday, November 28, 2008

Or maybe just an awakened determination...

Last day with the family. The time went by so fast. They got on the Yellow and ended up walking to my place so we took it easy for about an hour. Dad made some turkey sandwiches for us. Mmmm. Eventually we decided to just wander down towards Little Finnegan's and see where the rest of the day took us. Mom found a delightful cowboy lunchbox that she liked as well as some bike streamers. Big Finnegan's had a wonderful noisy ray gun that is the perfect prop. It was splendid. And the nice parents bought me the Playmobil Advent Calendar that my heart desired so strongly. It is now assembled and waiting to be enjoyed during my finals month (finals week is for suckers). I also got a new bike light because mine was stolen.

There is a printed book exhibit at the library and included some Kelmscott Press selections.

Mom's ice cream cone fell apart when she was trying to undress it from its paper holder.

The massage chairs at Brookstone are lovely.

The crowds were very crowdy. Nordstrom Rack was insane, we were in there fore barely five minutes and we had to escape.

The last hour was spent in enjoyment of the Chinese Gardens. We had some late afternoon tea in the tea shop (as well as a mooncake and some dumplings). I had the Monkey King again (same kind of tea I had when I went there with mom a few years ago). We sat and talked about stuff, you know. Nathan took lots of pictures, of few of which I'd like to see. The family got to the train station just in time. We hugged and hugged and then they were off to Tacoma.

The clouds were overhead but no rain came down. It made for a rather pleasant walk to Powell's. I was just snug enough. I found a present for a someone someone amid the sale racks as well as some other things for me in the sale section (namely JPod, which had an approach in the narrative that intrigued me, a paperback of Atwood's Oryx and Crake with a Bosch cover , and the new edition of Illustration Now for $15). It wasn't that crowded but Powell's probably didn't have any Black Friday sales. The streetcar was packed and my arm was tired of reaching up and grasping the rail tight. I've done tight streetcars before and no one smelled so it was fine.

I assembled the Playmobil Advent Calendar, put some stuff away, put on a sweater, and kicked back. Tomorrow I am throwing myself at work with a profound vigor, yeah!

Mom Makes Magnificet Meat

Climbed into bed and then I remembered that I had totally forgot to write! Oops!

I was up way before everyone arrived and managed to put away the dishes, watch the new episode of House, wash some more dishes, and get everything in general order for the day.

The turkey took four hours and while waiting we played a game of Munchkin. I almost won but Nathan succeeded. Mom was willing to let me win but that isn't so much fun when you know it is going down. Dad made us some scrambled eggs and cheese. Mmm! After Munchkin we sat about and read and talked. I worked on my puppet and did a few prelimiary casts. It works! Sort of! Still needs some fine tuning and practice but in general I think this system will work for the structure of it.

We had a pretty standard Thanksgiving of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, yams, salad, and home made apple cider. It was all very good and filling. My taste has broadened and I enjoyed the salad very much. All the left overs are going to be sticking around in my fridge so I shall be well fed for the next week. All that work culminated in a sort of quick, early afternoon feast.

It was followed by some more time spent reading and eating chocolate. We all gathered together and watched Black Sheep. I made popcorn and explained my process so that the joy of pan popcorn can be spread far and wide. Mom and Dad and Nate seemed to like the movie regardless of its violence. Whee!

Thanksgiving was nice. A simple little dinner and just about us getting together and enjoying it. Nothing too stressful. It was nice. Except for me not winning Munchkin.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

playmobil, how I love thee

Ma, Pa, and Nate arrived safe and sound. Their train arrived early. I was lagging behind because the Max I was on had malfunctioning doors so we ended up meeting at the crosswalk at 1st and Everett. Dad was easy to spot, Nathan and Mom less so. We hugged and boarded the next train so they could check into their hotel. We crammed shoulder to shoulder in with our bags and portable cooler, thankfully the stop for their hotel was the one at the Convention Center. Dad scored a room at the Holiday Inn and they are on the quiet floor. No children allowed. We settled in and watched some TV (Cash Cab and a bit of Star Wars). Mom shoved snacks at us and we left to board the Max to go to my place.

We settled on having Bellagio's for dinner instead of eating out. We had the Garlic Chicken and it was good. We played Scattergories and Mom bested Nate by a few points. After that game, Nathan stayed behind reading comics while we went to Safeway to get the stuff I neglected to buy earlier. Udon, gravy, pie, tinfoil, and ice cream were ours!! Dad and I enjoyed some ice cream, he had chocolate sauce and I had this lavender honey that Adam and Karen made. Mmmm!! Mom was getting yawny so they all left early. Probably going to watch TV on their big screen. Ma and Pa are so adorable. Dad showed off some scratches he got from a battle with a thorny bush.

I slept way way in and had to drop off one of my three destinations. I opted for clay and comics (and not Trader Joe's). The clay was put into a backpack and by the time I was done my shoulders were an achey mess. I also got tissue, a new crooked liner brush, and some small watercolor paper. I stepped into Big Finnegan's (it is next door to Art Media) to see if they had Munchkin (they didn't) and walked out with a travel Scattergories set and a Playmobil Bicycle Policeman toy. I got the toy mainly because, for some reason, he had a gun. And it was cheap. In line I saw the most marvelous thing: a Playmobil Advent Calendar. Three different kinds of them! Each day you get a different toy for a set and there was a knight set, a princess one, and a pirate set. I really want the pirate set. They were not badly priced and I probably will rush out and get one once I decided I REALLY NEED one. Playmobils are the best toy because they include every profession and possible set.

Floating World Comics proved to be a cornucopia of must-haves. And with my discount I got a great deal on the pile I did buy. I got Tekkonkinkreet because I have been wanting it for a while, a slim Grant Morrison/Philip Bond, a collection of Becky Cloonan shorts, the new volume of Exterminators, and the new issue of The Boys. And it all came in $30 cheaper than you probably think it is!

Exhausted, I rode my bike to the Max and with the time I had I decided to just go home instead of circling by Trader Joe's. Which worked out for the better because everyone came in earlier than I thought.

A Level, hurrah!

In indication of my feast picture, Morgan said it was "A level work". It was the first thing I thought of after knowing not to do anything to do with food. We spent a lot of time talking and on break. We talked about chickens and owls and animals and hunting and killing your own meat. We also went over our portraits and pointed out some of the best likenesses (my Heather got mention as did Natalie and Lacey's portraits of each other). The last 45 minutes was just to draw Kate and draw it nicely. I worked on scribble shading and some contour. A very easy way to go into break.

We went over the exact same websites in History of Design. No one had the heart to tell her so we saw the same work and the same websites and heard all the same dribble. Karen and I played silent 20 questions (I was Cillian Murphy and a tee shirt, she was a blender) and also played a few sadistic games of hangman where we went to great lengths to draw the figures as we waited for each other to guess the very difficult words.

Student council is really good at sorting things out when there are only 10 people in attendance.

The critique in painting went smoothly enough. The jaw was too narrow and the cheekbones too high to be Keanu but it was very dynamic. James' looked more like him and was much softer. Jen cut her Clint Eastwood out and it was striking and awesome. She pasted it onto black paper and the whole combination just worked. After the uneventful critique, Farel's friend Zachary Flagg Baldus came to class and showed us his work. He went to SVA and has had a pretty solid seeming career since then. Lots of variance and commissions. He works in between computers and traditional a lot. His whole portfolio was so smooth and with a real clear idea as to how he wanted to present things. He used Seamus, a PNCA alumni whose last name begins with an H but I can't remember the rest, as a photo reference. Same dude who taught me how to bind books, small world eh? Our final is still unassigned for that class.

It had stopped-OH DANG I FORGOT THE CLAY AGAIN!! Tomorrow, I'll get it tomorrow. Yes.

My shift tomorrow has been cancelled so I can stay up late and sleep in! I could have done the morning thing but it is nice to have that burden off my shoulders. It gave me time to clean up my apartment. It doesn't look really like my place without the clutter but it probably is better for my lungs (the cough I get from dust has returned). I put up some more art work and put away the dishes and scrubbed the counters and sanitized stuff. My place is ready for Thanksgiving, now all the parents (and Nate) have to do is bring the grub!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Duchamp's Last Work

Marcel Duchamp did everything and thus he was able to do anything. His final work was an example of his marvelous devotion to the creation of art. When he threw himself at chess and became a master, he said that he would never create monumental art again. Everyone believed him and put out books about his work before he had died. His secret was a piece that spanned several decades’ worth of hidden construction: Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas. While many artists try anything, Duchamp is one of the validated few who could do everything.

Born of Marie-Caroline-Lucie Duchamp and Justin-Isidore Duchamp on July 28th, 1887 in Normandy, Marcel Duchamp had art as a birthright. Descended from an engraver and painter, he and his siblings grew up immersed in it. Of six children, the eldest four pursued everything from painting to sculpting.

At 15, Marcel was painted the Impressionist scenes Church at Blainville and Landscape at Blainville. He departed from painting and worked on intricate studies of his siblings. A few years later his landscapes and portraits were included in shows. In 1904 he joined his brothers in Paris. Up to 1911, his portfolio amassed a varied number of studies from the monochromatic Red Nude to the well rendered yet still loose Portrait of the Artist’s Father. In 1911 his work took a turn towards Cubism and in that one year he produced over 18 remarkable paintings, including the studies which later lent to his infamous Nude Descending a Staircase. Cubist artists were not keen on his style, commenting that it was more on trend with futurism. Scores of paintings later, in 1914, he departed from the medium and turned to finding new forms of expression.

Viewing specific sculptures like To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eyes, Close To, for Almost and Hour and the etching Oculist Witnesses were indicators of what his work would become. Many of his pieces were studies for longer, more lengthy works such as the 1914 painting Chocolate Grinder in his piece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-1923). Work like Bicycle Wheel and Comb exemplify his use of the readymade as a medium. In 1935 he did a series of rotoreliefs. Sixteen Miles of String was one of several installations. His production of work slowed in the Twenties and almost stopped in the late Forties and was limited to all but a few studies.

Duchamp’s love of chess started at around the same time his art career did. In 1923 he became much more serious in his devotion to the game and started entering tournaments. Through the Twenties he climbed in rank throughout Europe and participating heavily in the community by designing posters for events and writing articles for magazines. He approached chess as any other piece of art and played games for their beauty and not their brutality.

During the decades that he seriously pursued chess, his output of art was minimal and limited mostly to studies of Rodin and Ingres. After The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, his individual work was more playful than a serious endeavor. To the world it was clear that he was done with art and it was time to consider his portfolio as a retrospective.

The sculpture Given the Illuminating Gas and the Waterfall wasn’t considered too highly when it debuted as it wasn’t placed in context with the installation it was a study for. It was one part of several sculptures in preparation for Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas; an installation revealed after Duchamp’s death in 1968. While he worked at becoming a master chess player, he worked on the installation in a hidden room in his New York studio. In 1965 he moved the whole secret project to a commercial building and finished it. The piece was assembled from found bricks and twigs, a door from a house in Spain, a hand constructed life sized mannequin, and a mural manipulated from photos Marcel took on a vacation in 1946, the time when he started this final piece. He had to slowly collect all the materials as to not raise awareness of what he was doing. The leather on the first mannequin cracked and the construction had to be restarted.

All while constructing it, he created a binder detailed the reconstruction which would eventually happen upon its discovery. It was his climax but it wasn’t just for him. The piece can only be viewed in one specific way and has only been photographed in one way. Images of the reinstallation are nonexistent. He left instructions and now the piece is permanently installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In his manual he sketched how the doorway would look once permanently installed. Hundreds of photos and 35 pages of notes highlight the fifteen outlined stages of assembly. In the museum it is viewed as an old door and as you approach it a light turns on and you peer through holes in the wood. Through the peephole is a woman laying nude prone on the grass, holding a gas lamp in her hand. Her face is obscured by the silhouette of the brick.

The patience chess requires instilled the discipline required to embark on such a lengthy piece. There is no doubt in the honesty of his devotion to the game, but his pursuit helped ensure the determination needed to keep working on his masterwork. Having grown up with art, there was no other lifestyle present for him. Duchamp’s privacy on the matter of Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas could have only been achieved by such a childhood. In this day in age, only recluses are able to complete masterpieces that no one else knows about. Duchamp did everything and so he able was to achieve anything.


D’Harnoncourt, Anne and McShine, Kynaston. Marchel Duchamp. New York: The Museum of Modern Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973.

Tomkins, Calvin. Duchamp: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc. 1996.

Schwarz, Arturo. The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. New York: Delano Greenidge Editions, 2000.

Monday, November 24, 2008

feisty

Just have a couple hundred words left on my essay. It is coming along quite nicely I must say. Found out some new things about Duchamp and I cross referenced them to make sure. Finished my Keanu portrait. I had to make the background black because it got so dirty but it is very striking, I'm excited for the critique. Finished my figure drawing assignment (the piece had to be no larger than 5"x7"). Mine is of Feist feasting on Faust (in honor of Thanksgiving it had to have something to do with the concept of a feast). Returned books. Yeah, it was a fairly productive day once I got down to-OH DANG I forgot to buy clay. Oops, well tomorrow. Tomorrow is my only school day and then I have free time for pretty much a full week. Lots of time to get cracking on my finals.

I left the apartment to quickly show Robin and Diana my feast picture and when I came back, Cece had left and locked the door. I figured I would only be gone for a few minutes so I didn't grab my keys or phone. D'oh! So I hung out with the girls for about an hour. Diana made some darling earrings for the sale and Robin made me some tea and they shared their ice cream with me. Lovely!

Finally, Thanksgiving. Took long enough getting here.

little green plant

My apartment looks so empty now that it is cleaner. Still has a way to go but it should be tidy enough (or tidy compared but still dirty).

Today was not so productive. A lot of time was spent being overwhelmed and not doing a thing about it. I am giving up on papier mache and going to buy some clay with which to make molds out of. I've done that before. Just going to make molds, poor plaster into them, and then peel the pieces out. It should take less time than this papier mache whatever. Tomorrow I am buying some clay. And painting because my painting is at school. No clue what the background is going to be, maybe I should just try to edit out the blips that happened.

Essay was...barely considered. Very bad of me but like I said, unproductive. It's that lethargy again. Bad bad bad.

Cece had been knocking over my jade plant and not telling me. Now it has lost a lot of soil and seems to be near death. I hope I can bring it back, I don't want my luck to die with it (as the legend goes with jade plants).

Sunday, November 23, 2008

girl date

Portland coffee shops
futures decided over
lowfat chai latte


Met Jen at Coffee Time. She was shocked that I had not gone and so she requested, no demanded, that we meet and chat for a bit there today. Located in the posh 21st street district of Northwest Portland, it was quite the hip little joint. I rode a different way there and came upon some lovely little houses and some not so lovely hills. It is good to get a sense of what my city is like. I so rarely take the road less travelled. I arrived before Jen and ordered a turkey panini and a root beer float. I grabbed a spot and did a quick sketch of a lady sitting, chatting about school and how she should change majors. The coffee shop had walls painted with a lovely mural that contained pyramids, trees, mermaids, and much much more. Very beautiful, warm, and cozy. Jen arrived and we hugged. We both sketched and talked and ate panini. My sketches were loose with the intention to ink them in later.

I convinced Jen (with the promise that if she didn't like it, the next film would be on me) to see Let The Right One In with me. It is a Swedish Vampire film (the other tween vampire film out right now) and is playing at Cinema 21 and being students and a matinee, it only cost us 5$. It is about Oskar, a young boy of 12. He gets bullied and his parents are divorced. A strange man with a young girl move in next door to him. Turns out the girl is a vampire. They become friends. It is a very sweet little love story. The cinematography is amazing and when I felt a bit bored, I just relaxed and feasted on the colors and textures. It felt long and dragged a little bit. The action sequences were very subdued and utilized the strength of not showing what is going on to heighten the emotional impact. Bloody yes but not very gory. I liked it, and Jen did as well so now I don't owe her a film! I would still like to see more movies with her as she is a great movie buddy.

There was a trailer for Darren Aronofsky's new film The Wrestler. I'm a sucker for Aronofsky so I plan to see it. The French A Christmas Tale with Mathieu Almaric looked heartwarming and entertaining.

We sat in Coffee Time for a little while after, digesting the film and our lives. Sometimes I wonder if I am getting pretentious, or maybe I am just growing into the type of intellectual that I want to be. Who knows. We hugged goodbye and I rode off into the cold, crisp night.

Watched a few episodes of Rome while inking the days sketches. I need to do a ton more because one of my assignments for Illustration is journalism sketches. I have to draw real life or something. I'll draw some Max people. How I draw them seems to go over well so I'll keep with my method. I see it as unrefined and others dig it. Oh well.

I made my finals list. Four weeks to do:
Essay about Duchamp
Homage to a designer
Puppet
Painting Final (whatever it is)
Float design
Journalism Sketches
Science Friction Final (once I decide, I'm still undecided)
and document my illustration and painting work.

Tomorrow I need to start in on my essay and clean up my apartment. Monday is for painting.