Tyler Durden works at Trader Joe's

Broke in my new bike baskets. Okay not broke but I used them. After the darkroom I went to Trader Joe's to pick up some groceries. Great prices not much in the selection department. They had orange juice, cookies, grapes, bananas, apples and those really good Terra chips so I was set. The nice guy who wrung me up (I believe it was at the "Flanders" register, as all had little street signs from the streets in the Alphabet District) had a name tag that said "Tyler Durden". He made my two bags even in weight so it would be better to bike with. The mass of the baskets made me rethink how I was biking and what I could squeeze between and I bumped into them with my leg on occasion (but it wasn't at all painful so it's all good). Got back home nice and safe with lovely groceries to stock my cabinet.

Wrote up some post cards and sent them out. Sean came over and brought with him UBER GOODIES!! He bought me a tube for carrying art (it is blue and semi see through and has a shoulder strap and is awesome) and he made brownie/cheesecake combination that was delicious and total face stuff worthy. I stuffed my face good and we watched the awesome that is House. They do mix it up occasionally on the show and when they do the episode has more impact and meaning. After House we watched the last hour of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Horrible movie, just bad acting and general lack of...yeah. Silver Surfer silver surfed for about 10 minutes and then Doom wrecked up the place (okay I kind of like Doom but only because the actor who plays him is also one of the doctors in Nip/Tuck and I totally need to add my address to the parents Netflix so I can watch the fourth season of that show).

I spent my time in Digital Tools trying to figure out the audio texture of bubble wrap, skirts, jackets, doors and hula hoops. Yeah. It made a lot of sense at the time and now when I think about it, seems a little crazy. But hey! It's art school.

We have returned to models in drawing class (hurray) and for the first part we did gestures and a subtraction figure study. The second part was a more geometric/measuring way of drawing the figure and we were introduced to crosshatching. My first drawing looks snazzy, the second ended up being unfinished.

Went to Subway with Michael for lunch. Thank GOD someone else out here likes Heroes. And it turns out that Matt and Andy are Michael's roommates. I put two and two together and figured out that Matt was the guy that was with Michael at Stumptown Comics Fest and Craig had been with a tall fellow that I realize to be Andy. Small world!

After drawing I spent two and a half hours in the darkroom. Did a bunch of shots of Ibanez and a few shots of Diana and Chervona for fun. 5/6 of my images done and will have time in the darkroom tomorrow to work on that final one. Huzzah, I am on top of things!

basketed

Woke up with terrible pains all up my legs. My thighs hurt when I put pressure on them and my calves ache when I twist my legs in different positions. Not sure if it is vitamin deficiency, dehydration, or just the extra funtime exercise I did over the weekend. Either way, it has stuck with me all bloody day. Ahhg. Advil worked a little bit.

Art History, we went over the pre-Greek art. Pretty spiffy and I was able to contribute to conversation. Got a B on my test, which was pretty spiffy because she only took away points from the areas I know I missed (locations and titles). We got out a little early so I called mum and asked her to send me some important top secret documents.

Felt all confidant and stuff when I was helping set up the darkroom. Walked about like I knew what I was doing (and I mostly did). Sally liked a great deal more of the photos from the two rolls, and I did too. Some of the night shots look great and maybe two of the photos I took of Chervona has parts in focus/not blurred. The beach trip photos have a thick blanket of gray. I developed a smashing picture of grass and plant life blowing in the bluff winds and a shot of the street at night, both of which she was all "oohhh!" over and said that "I got it". Huzzah. I'll probably work in the darkroom after class tomorrow, just gotta do two more prints for the assignment. And about six prints just for fun. And go to Trader Joe's and go shopping.

Rachel brought in her baby Byron during lunch. Cute little kid; wasn't scared of me or nothing. Rachel also had dyed her hair with the same bang dye job as Diana's. Well similar to it, looked really great.

Finished up my animation during class (about 10 people still did not have theirs finished; I thought they were due today and I was behind?). Put it into the animation lunchbox and it looks AMAZING. Exactly how I wanted it to be. I forgot to draw the clothes on the lady (she climbs over the box and it tips and she rolls over the front of it out of frame) but you can't really see anything...Hahaha. If I have time I think I'll ink it and reshoot it. The pencil lines are soooo light. Oh and put clothing on her. Diana was helping me animate it and when I finished and hit play she went "woah!" and Rose came in and went "woah!" as well. After class she complimented me with some more "great job"'s. I'm so proud of myself. I doodled a bit more of the lady in the animation. After speed drawing it is hard to slow down.

Rode home with the aching legs and swung by the front office to see if a package had arrived for me. And it did! I have side baskets for my bike now. I attached them all by myself too (Lynsey helped with one of the screw/nut dealies but I did the other five all by my lonesome). Really hard to do it by myself, lots of maneuvering around the basket and back tire and reaching around with a wrench and screwdriver. But I got them attached just faboo.

Sean stopped over right as I was starting to work on my sketchbook assignment so we sat on my porch drawing together. I didn't have time to not do my city scape perspective assignment (to ignore it and watch tellie) tonight so I moved my TV onto the porch and we watched Prison Break and Heroes as I drew the city around me and Sean drew whatever.

Prison Break: OH MY!! THE BOX! Ahhhg how why what? Prison Break always amazes me with their lack of compassion for main characters. It really moves along. They could have drawn out the "what is in the box?" bit for a few more episodes but NOPE. They didn't. And ahhg I can't believe they did that. And Michael doesn't know. Oh gee, at least he is smart enough to not trust Bellick. Hee Hee and Sucre is back, they can't get rid of all the characters.

Heroes: Okay, so he doesn't care what is in his box and he snogs bad-accent. Pfft. And Sylar can't quite recoup his powers which is a bummer but he did need a cap on his abilities somewhere along the line. Haha I loved Kensei's expression as Hiro ditched him. That was brilliant. And HRG as the enigma is back (I'm wondering if their is a second guy in those frames but probably is Bennet as Bennet was sorta bad). And Claire snogged that guy? He was a peeper! Ewewew!! Those twins and their plot line bore me, maybe because my reception is fuzzy and I can't read the subtitles.

Not so happy with my cityscape, oh well.

Legs hurt, blaaahh.

missing pipes and a little drizzle drizzle

Got my two rolls developed at Fred Meyer today. Both were done in twenty minutes with no problems at all. Take that Rite Aid and Pro Photo! The Fred Meyer was on 20th and Burnside, when I biked their I remembered it as the area I got so lost in when I was first biking back to my dorms over a month ago. It is all so familiar and easy to navigate now. Well easier. I don't know why they don't have a bike lane on Burnside, seeing as how it splits Portland into North and South. Sort of a major road.

After that I went to PNCA to work in the darkroom. The darkroom had the chemicals ready to go but the water was weird; there was a missing pipe and the temp gauge said the water was well over what it was supposed to be. I didn't want to fiddle with it alone so I just cut my film and put it into the sleeves (some of the shots look great, booyah!).

On First Thursday, at Floating World Comics, Jason told me Exterminators volume three was in my box. I picked it up today and still have not read it (whats wrong with me? It is AMAZING the only trade paper back I'm actually splurging on). Its my reward, I have schoolwork first!

Biking back from Floating World Comic's it started to rain. I am now familiar with biking in the rain. Bike gets good traction, I just get chilled.

I'm a little over 2/3 done with my animation. The last 1/3 is the fast part so it shouldn't take as long as the first thirds took. Watched Death Proof while working on it. It's much longer with the added scenes but I don't really like the added bits and without Planet Terror the first part is painfully boring. But that car chase is AMAZINGER since I last saw it.

Earlier today I did my laundry, wheee! Oh and I had some of Sean's stew for dinner and watched a little bit of 5th Element. And I ate some more delicious taffy.

The sprinkler is still leaking.

I lie, I do hike

Another day, another movie. But after the beach trip I just wanted to sit back and not move. Hoo boy am I exhausted.

PNCA organised a beach trip, free for all students. They didn't get the full number of people and only about 20 of the people that signed up, showed up. But that's probably good because it might have been hard to keep track of everyone otherwise. I rode and left my bike at school. I was the third one there, after Mollie and Vasee. It took everyone else a long time to show up, lazy art students!

We were heading out to Cannon Beach and Falcon Point. Long bus ride, the scenery was really beautiful but sort of standard in Washington. I sat next to Diana and we chatted about wooden chopsticks versus plastic ones (non biodegradeable/reuseable vs biodegradeable/cutting down forests). Rachel, the student services lady, had lots of delicious Trader Joe's snack goods for us to munch on. I made myself two sandwiches for the day, egg salad and tuna fish.

The beach was cold and I had many layers. I opted for the hike with Rachel and so we set out. Lots of ups and downs, similar to Washington as well. I had my camera with me, need some nice shots for the darkroom. There were some nice photo oppurtunities, I think these two rolls will have some really nice shots. Don't wanna go in tomorrow and put in extra hours..waahh!!

I met Matt and Andy, who are more MFA students. Matt was reading Watchmen on the bus and was wearing Spiderman cutoff globes. SpidermAndy.

The top of the hike put us on a bluff and it was really windy. Like, my scarf was trying to choke me and escape windy. Quite magestic. Rachel had said it was similar to standing at the edge of the world. I got more of an "edge of the world" feeling from Dungeness Spit than this place, but the hike was worth it. We tried to climb down this one embankment that was a narrow pathway cut into thing bushes but it declined to fast and was too muddy and none of us were in shoes that had any sort of traction (myself being in not distinctly muddy converse all stars) so we went back up. Matt slid into me a couple times and I got my legwarmers muddy from it.

I was cold at the top of the bluff but hiking up and down I went inbetween chilly and boiling under my layers.

I had my egg salad sandwich in my pocket but I only ate half of it as I had munched on snacks pretty constantly on the way there.

At the bottom we walked along the beach and Diana remarked about how hard and stiff the sand was. Californian's are so cute. Amina wasn't too fond of a poor banana slug that was minding its own business and didn't need some teen being all scared of it. The beach was cold and there were surfers doing their thing.

After the hike and the beach we went into Cannon Beach for lunch proper. Rachel and I split an over priced, nothing special fish and chips combination. Skippers/Ivars is better. Then I got some taffy. MMMMMM.

I fell asleep on the ride home.

I finished off my Stephen Colbert icecream and munched on taffy while watching Secretary with Lindsay, Brandon and Ibanez. What a fractured little romance.

Its the good life.

night rider versus pizza

Just got back from the Friday Art Film night at PNCA. Again, weird movies I didn't quite get or understand. The first was a Japanese film about uhm small terrorist groups I think. The guy gave us a heads up for some lewd behavior. The scene he warned us about took place about two-thirds of the way through. He should have warned us about all the other gratuitous lewd scenes that took place one after another and were really uncomfortable to watch/badly acted. I didn't enjoy that film. The next one was Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky. I loved some of imagery in it but I didn't quite get it as a whole till the very end. Beautiful and rather spooky. Not next week but the week after the movie guy will bring in Delicatessen, as per my request. And there might be a horror night later on in the month, that will be fun! These art films aren't quite my thing but I'll continue to go to support it. I know I'll see something amazing and not like I have any other plans.

Slept in. Worked on animation while watching Shaun of the Dead. I'm now at about 22/45 frames done. Another movie on Sunday should do it.

I left the place at around 4:40 to go to PNCA. I locked my bike up at the school and ran into Noel.

I was planing to meet Lindsay after her job and walk about and take photos, Noel joined us. We looked into a yarn shop (fabulous!) and a used/vintage clothing shop. Both places were fine with me taking photos and I think I got some great shots. There were some fabulous pieces of clothing in Ray's Ragtime (the vintage shop) but nothing for my Halloween costume. At 5:45 we split from Lindsay, Noel and I were both going back to PNCA for clubs.

It was good walking and biking weather. Really loving this night riding thing. Going to the beach tomorrow. Wheee!

Lindsay and Brandon are watching Big Trouble, I think I'll go join them and work on my animation a bit. Lots of movies today.

night rider versus the boxes

Whoo! I rode my bike around for First Thursday (big art show opening day around Portland) and had so much fun. It was really cold but so exhilarating. Left at about 6:00pm to check out PNCA. Wore my leather pointy shoes and leather jacket. Nice animal cruelty combination going on there. My hair was still flattened back from the days hairstyle so I just gelled it into shape and headed out looking all sleek like.

There wasn't much going on around PNCA so I rode down to 5th&Couch to check out the galleries there. People in the Pearl don't have a lot of respect for bikers (yeah you share the road with us, we will obey the stop signs and you should too). Didn't get hit but there were some dummies. I always get a weird start when I am turning left towards Couch, like I never have been able to get the pedals started right so I falter. Didn't help that I was wearing shoes not meant for biking in. Got there alright and locked my bike to a gate. The gallery in the Portland Art Center had a nice installation in the front half, the back half was annoying (we are forced to deal with people crying really fakeily and awkwardly...deep). Upstairs was some New Renaissance work, some of it was really brilliant and so well executed. Wasn't so inspiring but really purdy with some great technique. Another annoying installation tucked away(shes swimming in an endless circle...deep). Also annoying kids running about.

Floating World Comic's exhibit was all female artists and I think they may have been Portland-based female artists as well. A good premise but ultimately I was left disappointed. Is this all we could do as a gender? Nothing really stuck with me except for some nice line art and a few colorful pieces but even then it is hazy.

Ran into Gordon, my Digital Tools teacher. He recommended I check out the gallery "Motel". He looks exactly the same in class as he does in reality, I guess the perks of being a computers teacher at a small private art school. He is a cool guy, while I may not be interested in all that he teaches us he gives a good energy so I enjoy class. Today we worked on piecing together our images and making them into a video. I was starting from fresh when I came in this morning and I was the only one done by the end of class. Huh. My video is about a sea monster attacking people, finding a bride, having a family and attacking more people.

The Motel gallery had this really insane hyper-rendered in pencil artwork. I spent so long looking over all the little bits, noticing how people just breezed right past them not taking the time. I took the time and I saw so much. Really surreal zombie women and portraits and people walking along floating rock formations with spears. Ghostly and ethereal, loved it! They had silkscreen tee shirts with the designs but you know, I'm trying to be save-y here.

It was getting dark so I got on my bike and decided to ride home. Somewhere around 12th and Washington I decided to circle back to PNCA and see if anything more was going on. There wasn't anything going on at PNCA, no new shows (there is something from Casey Oney but I saw it earlier today). Down the street was where they close off traffic and have tents set up. It was about 2-3 blocks last month, now it was about one. Walked through it but nothing caught my eye.

Looped around and went into this poster-making place that was having higher end (or rather commercial) looking wares. Chatted at length with Jacob Kaup, a local potter who had some spectacularly colored wheel ceramics on display. They were sort of drab at first glance but when I got close it was just WOW. So many little reds and blues, turquoise and...just wow. Gazed and gazed at them. There was a nice jewelry maker lady who made these really fancy bracelets with lots of little beads. The paintings upstairs, some of the abstracts only half looked planned out and the Italy street scenes were childish. The works composed of bits of wood were nice...but like I said it was commercial and not so indie and edgy.

I left the building and heard Chervona playing so I skittled over towards them. They were not playing the first time I went through the tents on 13th, but they were now. Much of the same music they played last First Thursday, but it was still amazing. Bounced along in rhythm and took some photos (no flash, probably blurry but we will see). Just love these guys.

Continued through the network of tents back towards where I locked up my bike and saw this display I missed the first time through. The work had a very gestural quality to it, but it was made using bent wire. There were mobiles where each direction produced a new face and there was a large piece on the back of just faces (the artist, Spenser called it "Schizophrenic on Coffee") melding with one another. There were smaller little movable toys and wire birds. I was enthralled. I stuck around for a while and chatted with him on and off between him making sales and me admiring the 3D skull earrings. We talked about octopuses.

At about 8:30, my fingers well and truly numb I decided to ride home. Second time today I made that trip. On the way back I stopped several times to take more night shots of the city. People were really nice about it as they walked past. No one mugged me or looked like they would mug me.

So from 6-9:15 I was out and about and freezing cold but like I said, exhilarating and worth it! I'd like to bike at night some more if I didn't worry so much about drunk city drivers.

Oh and in drawing we drew boxes for three hours. I thought I had bested that old foe but it rose again. The platform was what gave me the most trouble; I want to take an axe to its irregular angles.

hugs and mambas

The darkroom is really taking it out of me. Got my negatives and the teacher just looked over the contact sheet and said most of them were not that interesting (yay another roll to shoot/develop in a couple days). The ones that were interesting had these spots on them that looked to be caused by the developing process, which doesn't make much sense because it was Pro Photo and I'm not sure if it is the Pro or the Photo part of their name but they should be capable of doing nice prints. I did like some of the contrast on the lavender shots but her whole "not interesting" comment left me with a bad feeling for the whole class period. Maybe I should just take pictures of things I like instead of looking for what she wants. The things she wants should be present in pictures I take that I find interesting, they should be present in any good photo, huh? Probably another week or two in the darkroom left. AHHG.

I missed the morning rain shower (also apparently the shuttle bus didn't come) and the afternoon rains as well. I had a plastic bag to put over my seat so it didn't get wet and in turn make the seat of my pants wet as I rode. Smart thinking. I'll have to ride in the rain eventually. When the day comes, I'll just bring a change of clothes.

I worked through a large portion of lunch in the darkroom. Chatted with Jim during the span of time it took me to eat my egg salad sandwich.

Ran into Michael on my way to Time Arts. He gave me a little sideways hug that really made me feel better (I think he detected I was fairly miserable). Then Mel swooped out of nowhere and poked me with her umbrella, I in return poked her with my cellphone antenna. Michael got out of there before he got poked. Hahaha. Dropped off my stuff and went and got some sweet to make myself feel better.

Time Arts was spent drawing pages for my animation, eating Mamba's (Mambo's?), and watching animation shorts and talking about common traits in video. I am 1/3 of the way done with my animation, I don't know how many other people started drawing theirs. All of ours start with a box and we modify it somehow. Mine; a blond climbs a top it and then the box swings forward (sort of like it is on a hinge and she tipped it) and she pitches off it. Right now I am to the part where the box starts to flip. I love her expression and poofy hair. Hee hee. Shared some of my sweets with Diana and Daniel (I believe that if you have treats you should share, even if it just with the people around you).

Lindsay sent me a text saying she had some banana bread from a coffee shop for lunch but it wasn't at all good. Mine was better. Well. Isn't it always?

As I said, I missed the rains coming back. Pretty brisk bike ride.

In my e-mail was a message from mom nagging me about employment and House. Bah!

Lindsay and I trekked down to Safeway and got some Chinese food for dinner. We scarfed it while watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Lindsay thinks it would be a great idea for me to go as Trillian as Darwin from the movie for Halloween. I say, two people would get the joke and they would be Sean and Lindsay. I want to see if I can get my costume to work, if not there are other options.

Never, ever will I choose a teacher just because they have a funny name.

I needs the moneys

House is on in 40 minutes. Whoo House!

Brr cold cold day. Brought my big coat and hat and scarf and was plenty toasty for the most part (hands still nippy). No rain during my commute but certainly a lot after.

The power went out twice in Digital Tools. Thankfully I had saved before each power outage so I didn't loose anything. First time was a close call though. My video got all screwed up as I was saving it so I will be starting from scratch. Oh well. Jim lost a lot of stuff due to the outages. There is a lot of construction going on all over Portland. I had to bike through it later today, bah!

Drawing was two point perspective. Okay it is a little more complex than the doodle I did on my arm. Michael, Mollie and I all sat around the Jamison Square Fountain drawing the surrounding buildings. I fashioned a hat out of my scarf as I had lent my hat to Mollie (who has really closely cropped hair). My drawing was very minimal and lightly pencilled in. Drawing geometry is hard!

These Red Bull people were giving out free Red Bull to students during lunch. I grabbed one to give to Lindsay later on.

Got my film from Pro Photo Supply. See Rite Aid, it can be done!

I need a job, I'm not anywhere near any trouble amounts in money lacking I just know it is time to go about getting a job so that I won't be really stressed later on when I need to get a job because I have no money. I am applying at the temp agency Lindsay works through, rode down to the office to make my presence known. Lots of construction zone navigating, uhhg. And it turned out I had to apply online FIRST and then they will call me and schedule a meeting. They said something about needing seven years experience but I don't know the specifics. We will see how it goes.

Stopped in at some stores trying to find the key piece to my Halloween costume. No luck.

Lounged, ate spaghetti with sauce that Sean made and gave me some of the remainder from. Good sauce, just needs to be put through the blender.

House in 30!

one hour photo my TOOKUS

Due to the fuzziness of my TV I can't quite read the subtitles on Heroes. So what exactly is the whole deal with the twins. Crossing the border for the cure and what not? I think I can figure it out on my own but I'm not sure. Both Heroes AND Prison Break both ended with a "whats in the box?" ending. Prison Break has the likelihood of being a part of anatomy from Sarah or LJ (box big enough for a head but I sure hope not). Heroes is, uhm? I dunno...photos? I like Peters new haircut and the fact he has amnesia so he can't remember what a wuss he was. Can't wait for more Sylar, yaaay! Claire descendant of Kensei perhaps? Har har, the Haitian got Mohinder. And I hope Claire smacks that flying kid. Hes outside her window in the middle of the night, that's creepy.

Dropped my film off at Rite Aid at 7:50am.

Review and first exam in Art History today. Knew the importance and era all the pieces were from, just not uhm..the titles. Well, I made up for some of my lack of knowledge with lots of fun facts. I don't feel much panic/fear over it. Felt it went quite well and now I know how she tests (I'll study names a bit better).

After test went to Rite Aid to pick up film at 10:40am. They said the film was really wound tight and they had to go get a special tool to open it.

Went to class without the film that I would be printing that day. Listened to lecture about balance and rhythm. Got back my color assignment (B) and my previous photo assignment (also a B, argh!). Looked over old prints for good examples of line, value, and texture. Went to lunch.

Ate at Hot Lips with Cidney. Blackberry Soda is goood.

Went to Rite Aid at 12:50 for film. Said they couldn't get it open and they were sorry. Biked to Pro Photo Supply on 19th & Marshall and dropped it off. They said it would be ready tomorrow. Argghh. I don't like being behind when I don't have to be. Probably have to put in some extra darkroom time this weekend so I don't get marked down for lack of creativity again.

At least at the end of long Monday there is Time Arts! Whee! My animation looked pretty cool and I have an idea the teacher seemed happy about for my next animation. I really like that class, the people are nice and fun to talk to and Rose Bond gives us a wee bit of a break if our work isn't picture perfect. We are learning new techniques and she gives us a little leeway with that. I feel that I should be better in the darkroom, I don't know why I'm not.

Grr Rite Aid. They should have given me some free candy in apology.

goddamn the rain, goddamn!

Wow, I've had over 50 entries in this blog. Whoo! Hard to believe I've only had four weeks worth of classes. The pacing is similar to Olympic College so it isn't hard keeping up. People whine about having essays due in a week and its like "yeah? and?" for me. More people should take classes at a community college for a year before moving on to a four year. It will give them good college habits.

Today was dreary. Weather wise it was gray and raining on and off. Of course rain was on when I made a grocery trip to Safeway, but it wasn't so bad. A little moisture but I had my leather jacket on so I was dry for the most part. The gray stayed strong but Lindsay and I shared many laughs over various things so it was great in doors. Except for homework.

I always get my homework done and I don't like that I know that. There isn't the worry that it won't get done, just the "uhg I'm going to get this done today" feeling. If that makes sense.

I watched the first hour of Hot Fuzz which took me through my Time Arts assignment. Lounged, laughed, biked and read some history of art. Sean invited us over for burgers and they were delicious. Good to be friends with someone nice and generous. Overly generous really, quality meat is rare in student housing and someone who knows to prepare it is a precious commodity. Sean is awesome. Lindsay and I walked to Safeway to get some sweets, the rain had subsided by then. We got the Stephen Colbert ice cream and the Heath Bar coffee ice cream. Read the rest of my art history assignment in good time. The book uses words like "manly", "flabby", and uses exclamation points when talking about hunts depicted in art. I find it rather silly but it holds my interest. I love the Egyptian stone sculptures. So massive and beautiful. Really majestic and immortal looking. I love how art is one of the few things that lasts.

Mum, you ever find the full poem about damning the rain and whatnot?

Stumptown Comics Fest (or OCTOPUSES GALORE!!)

Yeah so today was the first day of the two day Stumptown Comics Fest. I'm not going tomorrow, had enough UBER FUN today. Highlights: $2 comics at the Oni table, Shannon Wheeler, meeting Christopher Mitten and octopuses EVERYWHERE! Also not going tomorrow because I spent about $20 too much (but it was spent supporting indie people so I don't feel bad. I never buy things at cons and fests that I could buy elsewhere (except for the $2 comics)). But it was great, really close and comfy and lots of super nice people.

I planned to set out at 10, left at about 10:20. Was going to walk to the Max stop in fareless and then just decided to pay for the ticket and got on at the stop in Goose Hollow. Turns out this weekend they are closing down a chunk of the Max line for construction. Course they couldn't do that without giving us options so the shuttle but took us across the bridge lickety split (probably faster than the Max). Got right on the Max again and went to Lloyd and thought, "crap is this where I get off?" But I didn't scoot off in enough time to follow through on the possibility of it being my stop, but luckily for me the next stop was right outside the front door for the Comics Fest so it worked out great!

The fest was only $5 to get in, and was relatively uncrowded when I got there. Did a look checking out everything. I didn't want to browse everything serious during the first walk through because that's how I would end up spending all my money (gotta be specific!). Made my way to the back where Jim's table was but Jim wasn't there, only his friend. So I went back. Ran into Karen at the Oni table and then we saw the prices on the scuffed comics. $2 each or 6 for $10. I got the first volume of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (it wasn't scuffed it was just on sale) and the first two volumes of Wet Moon. Karen was buying two comics and they said we might as well buy six between us and save some dough so she picked up this Marquis de Something that we both went "ooohh" at the line art in. Shes holding onto it for now, sort of a trade off thing I guess. We parted ways after that, I'll see her Monday. Jason from Floating World Comics had a table. Lots of neat things, but nothing I couldn't just go and buy later.


Octopuses at the Fest:
One girl had this really cute style, big eyes and brilliant colors. One of her prints had this girl with an octopus draped over her. I didn't want to outright buy the print so I bought her postcard collection instead, which had more variety so that was cooler. Plus I don't really have room for lots of prints right now.

Talked to these guys from San Fransisco (at their table). Actually I came to their table several times throughout the day, they were really cute and sweet and I was bummed to find out they were not from around here. The red-head drew an octopus next to his autograph in one of the comics I bought from him (I had previously complimented him on his octopus art in a poster he was selling). The other guy did a quick sketch and wrote "hugs and kisses" next to it. Tee hee.

I bought a mini figurine from this nice lady. She had these two molds; one was a mutant chicken that had a mini-comic accompanying it and the other was an octopus attacking the space ship. You can figure out which one I bought.


Panels:
Carol Lay, Shannon Wheeler (with Stacey Murdock) and Matt Wagner were the major guests at the Fest. I only saw Matt Wagner, I didn't talk to him (I'm not familiar with his work). I love Carol Lay and Shannon Wheeler so I was just tickled that I talked to both of them in person.

Carol Lay's panel was a little under attended which sorta made me sad but I think shes the type that's loved by people that know her work but she isn't so much out there as other cartoonists. She advised me to be bold. And I shook her hand. WHOO!!! Didn't get a picture with her but I'm happy having met her.

Shannon Wheeler and Stacey Murdock did a panel about the Too Much Coffee Man opera. And there is going to be a second one which I will try my darndest to see (just gotta remember to buy tickets around December for the show which is in April). I had a good laugh. Stacey Murdock plays Too Much Coffee Man in the opera and he sung a little from it, quite brilliant. Afterwords at their table they autographed a postcard for the show for me. Booyah!


Autographables:
The first comic I bought was Kazimir Strzepek's The Mourning Star. He was really nice to talk to and warm and friendly. Generally if people were approachable and nice I was more inclined to buy their stuff. Plus he was downright adorable! The comic has great art and I look forward to reading it. He doodled in it and wrote "Thanks Trillian! Hope to read one of your comics sometime! ♥ Kazimir."

Camilla D'errico autographed the postcard book for me.

I chatted at length with John C. Worsley about materials and methods and how he produces his work. he was doing live digital drawing and it was cool seeing his process. He had two issues of his comics and they were both bound really nicely and you could buy the set for $5 so I went for it. His autograph was a simple thanks with his squiggle autograph.

Christopher Mitten was one of several artists at the lengthy Oni table. One guy earlier, a writer, he was nice but I just didn't feel like talking to him right then and there (he apparently works at Floating World Comics on Monday so I'll see him again most likely). The thing that caught my eye about Mitten was Wasteland. It is one of those comics I keep seeing around, on shelves and store fronts. It is a very distinct cover and I said this to him, that it was sort of lurking around. I flipped through his portfolio and asked him about his comic methods and whatnot (he has really nice ink skills). I gave in to fate and got the first volume of Wasteland interpreting it as a sign I must buy it because it keeps showing up (same thing happened for Palahniuk's Rant). When he was autographing it we got to talking about my name. I boasted it being the queen of nerd names and how I once heard a dad refer to his daughter as Arwen. Mitten teased me a little saying Arwen was more nerdy than Trillian. Once I finish Wasteland I'll email him an apology for the name I called him. He signed the book, "To Trillian, Thanks for following the signs! Christopher."

The last guy I talked to, Jeremy Tinder, he had a whole comic about all the mean things he has done. I would read a snippet and look up at him in shock or with a slight glare. Hilarious in the end, I bought the little mini meanness-comic and he drew a self portrait with a speech bubble saying, "blah blah blah" next to it on the inside of it.


It was great, so much fun! I only spent maybe five hours there, the two panels I sat in on were sandwiched between three chunks of time spent wandering and admiring people's octopuses. Saw Michael and Phil from my drawing class, Jim showed up eventually and we had a good chat over coffee (well I had root beer) about comics (like usual). I boinged his curly hair. You know, I lightly grabbed a curl and let it go and went, "boing!". Craig, who I met last night at the movie night, was also at the shindig. We chatted a little and ooed and aaahed over the octopus and chicken figures. He mentioned buying one of the chickens but I don't know if he did.

I feel really inspired to do my own little indie comic to pitch for $5 at things like this.

Road the Max/Shuttle/Max back and relaxed. Our RA was having a little get-together tonight. Hung about, chatted, ate brownies and cookies. Busy day, most of my energy was spent in the afternoon chatting up the comic honeys and looking fabulous.

the man in the (cheesy) mask

Movie night at PNCA. Saw Fantastic Planet and a Japanese movie from the late 60's about a man whose burned and gets a mask for his face and seduces his wife. There was also a tangent about this brother and sister which only made half sense and a scene with a guy talking that was filmed all in x-ray. I keep forgetting the Japanese movie's title, something about a man who gets a mask? Oh and there was a girl with a yo-yo. Fantastic Planet was cool, lovely animation. It was in English and the dub was horrid. I'm glad it didn't end up where the Om went to a new planet and treated the inhabitants there like they were treated. Really really odd three hours. Met some new people and had some free pizza. It is every Friday so that's fun, something to get out and do.

Lazy day. Went to the clinic again to sort out the fax to there to get it to fax to here stuff. As per Moms advice, I crossed left using the crosswalk this time. Really easy. But you know sometimes you just don't think right you are just thinking about going left and you can't think smart.

I could swear I did something between the clinic and the movies but I really don't recall. Hmmn. Oh well.

Oh, right! My stove, some really nice guys came in and swapped out my stove for one that works. One guy was English and the other had lots of piercings and burn marks from his adventures spinning Poi. Another group of people came in earlier to assess the situation with the stove and the sprinkler leaking. Turns out it is probably leaking due to some problem in the drain of the people above me so they have to fix that to fix ours. It only drips when they shower so yeah, drip drip drip in the morning. Gah!

I've been shot!

I just got back from Sean's. Because I was over at Sean's you know we were watching a movie. This time it was Severance. It was great. Just the right amount of scary that doesn't leave me worried about Soviet war criminals lurking outside my window and enough scary to make me go EEE. It was shot really well; the colors were nice and clean with good greens and blues and the darks were nice. Enough character development to make you go "AWW DANG NO" when they died (and I went "AWWW NO" at every one of them, I felt bad every time). Didn't try too hard to be a commentary about weapons companies, sure you could get that out of it but I just found it to be a well put together thriller/suspense/action/sort-of-really-violent movie. Plus it had the guys who played Howard in Death at a Funeral and Gustav Graves in Die Another Day in it. It bugged me every time he was on screen where I had seen them before, yay for the Internet.

We made popcorn in a pan, not from a bag, to enjoy with the movie. Turned out a little salty but it was good.

I wore the nice coat that Jeanette gave me today, it is always cold in the morning and you never know if the gray will stay or leave. It left, and the sun was oh so radiant. Had to lug the big thing around with me all day. Errg.

More audio work in Digital Tools. It is interesting but I am starting to get tired of it. Gordon said we might make zines int he end which I think would be super awesome and cool. This is his first year teaching, I think hes doing pretty well but I am well and ready to move on from Garage Band.

On the way to my next class I ran into Daniel who said class was cancelled due to Arvie being sick (possibly food poisoning). Chatted with Mollie, Michal, and Michael a bit. Michael wasn't quite sure about the specifics of two point perspective so I whipped out a pen and drew a quick little tutorial for him. On my arm. He took my pen and drew two little dots above the drawing and said, "there, now it is a smiley face."

Outside I was unlocking my bike and a nice lady with her bike was looking around for a spot to park hers and I mentioned to her how I was leaving in a minute. She was very grateful even though she probably would have seen me leave, even if I hadn't told her). Nice to be gracious and friendly.

I didn't get halfway down the sidewalk when I encountered Jim and we talked at great length about comics (great length=I'd say 20 minutes?). Noel joined in for a little bit, so many good comic people around here. Very awesome!

After that I went to make my comic run and decided to go up to Trader Joe's (I knew it was on Glisan and somewhere around 20th). Comic run proved successful, sort of. Well the only thing in was American Virgin and Becky Cloonan wasn't the artist for it again and if she isn't doing it anymore I don't know if I can stick with it as I had only bought it in the first place due to her artwork. Story isn't so great, it has it's moments I just don't know what it is leading into. Picked up a couple indie comics on a whim (bad Trillian, whims are bad) but well, you gotta support the indie comic maker. God willing that will be me some day!

It was alllll up hiiiiiillllll to get to Trader Joe's. And it was hooooot. Uhhhg. Got there alright, my fear of biking near cars is almost all gone (not so good at trying to achieve a left turn when I am on the far right side of the road. Got honked at when I did it and I couldn't get enough speed to do it not-wobbly. Ahhhg.). I wasn't really in need of anything from Trader Joe's, I just wanted to see where it was and what they had (also it is fun to adventure). Ended up getting some cheese puffs, jam, and Emergen-C. Biking back was down hill and easy peasy. Got to 13th alright, even though I had to go West on 16th for a bit. No worries about it, I knew I'd find a place to cross eventually.

Relaxed at home for a bit, ate some lunch and kicked back. Did my laundry. The people will be coming TOMORROW to fix our stove/sprinkler.

I had an appointment at the Portland Clinic so I left at 3:00 for that. They were very helpful and kind to me at the desk and at the counter on the 3rd floor. And when it came to giving me my third Gardasil (what I was there for, needed to establish myself somewhere to get the third shot) they did it without the proof I had the first two. I'll call my old doctor and have them fax the proof I wasn't tricking them tomorrow (they closed at 4:00 and I didn't get to the point of getting the shot until 4:15). But yeah, they did it and that was super nice of them! I think they were more willing because I was mellow about the possibility I may not get it today ("oh yeah that's cool, I understand. I live like five minutes away, I can come in whenever right? No biggie.). I know the attitudes that get people behind the desk to be nicer to you, but it wasn't much of a stretch. I'm really happy and content down here. Wonderful place Portland and PNCA.

Went back home, talked to mum and Nathan on the phone. Lindsay and I went to Ole' Ole' for dinner (we needed the hot meal) and I had one of their burritos. It was HUGE and the owner and waiter seemed really impressed that I got through 2/3 of it. Sort of complimented me on my eating prowess almost. Nothing on the menu went over $6 and the food looked great with large portions.

Sean stopped by (he knew we were back because I was went "whooo!" in his open door as we were walking past it in the hall) and I wasn't sure if I was up for a movie tonight but OOOHH I am so glad I saw it.

for the birds

The Audubon Society is doing this fundraiser through Art Media. Basically you fill out a form and get a canvas and draw a bird on it. Then you give them the piece of art and they sell it and keep the profits. They get the money, you get the pleasure of having sold a piece for charity. I'm thinking about drawing that old song from my childhood about the three crows on a wall, or the three craws who sat upon a wa'. Its 6"x6" with nice sides on each side so I think I'll put a few of the lines on each side and the first part on the front. Complete with crows! Wheee!

A lecture and critique was all that went down in 2d Design today. Lots of interesting examples of line, texture, and value, no one really pointed out my work and went "WOW". But then again they weren't the most dynamic of shots.

I had Yo's soup for lunch. Ohh that stuff is GOOD.

In Time Arts was another lecture, this one about animation. Rose really gets into her discussions so they don't really feel like lectures. We put our zoetropes into the animation machine.

I have another roll of film to shoot and some animation stills to draw by Monday. I think I'll start taking my camera with me so I can get more "oh I must take a picture of that!" shots for the darkroom. I'm really proud of myself, I'm no where close to being behind in anything.

I reported the stove/sprinkler thing to the Goose Hollow people. It should be fixed tomorrow.

no heat in Portland

Woke up this morning with time to spare on making myself a nummy breakfast. Was going to make scrambled eggs, got the eggs all ready and was just waiting on the pan. But the pan didn't sizzle when I tested it. It didn't even cook it a little. It was like the range wasn't even on. It was at medium and I set it to high to test and nothing. Tried all the other ranges and still nothing. Put the egg mixture in the fridge and decided to just have a cereal bar and banana. When I came home I was going to make the scrambled eggs for dinner but the range STILL wouldn't turn on, and the oven wouldn't either. The indicator lights were on so it wasn't unplugged. I was left with one option, I had to call the man.

Dad was just going to bed (so he says)when I called him. He said to check the breaker switches. I turned them off and on and nothing, nada, el zilcho! I'm going to have to talk to the Goose Hollow people and get them to fix it because without the stove I am stuck in Cheerio/Sandwich/Cereal Bar territory. God forbid I have to include more vegetables with my meals. Cracked open the first jar from Tuna Clause, oh yeah lunch will be awesome tomorrow! Had to enquire from dad about how much mayo to put in, and if there was any secret thing I was missing. The technical amount to put in is a "glop" of mayonnaise.

In Digital Tools we messed around in Garage Band making noises that the teacher called "textures". Fun but the constant noise really got on my nerves. We'll be into video next so that's cool. Its a nice general overview of the programs, most of which I am not familiar with in the slightest. Plus they are all Macs and on a PC my work has never mysteriously vanished leaving ghost files that may or may not be there. Grr, thankfully my files ghosted when I only had about two done (out of 15).

We reviewed perspective (my old arch-nemesis)in drawing class. The first part was just one point perspective and then we broke for lunch. There was this financial tip speech going on and I hear there was a free lunch (sure I packed my lunch but free pizza? come on!) Mollie and I showed up at a lecture where there was pizza but it wasn't about finances and managed them, it was more about acrylic paint and we decided that was more interesting so we stuck around and had pizza and learned about how to mix paint with stuff. I still ate my lunch after two slices, developing that artist "eat when there's food" stomach.

The rest of drawing class was spent outside drawing one point perspective of condos and streets. Mine was meh, decent. Didn't have the life the tree did.

I was all bundled up today, gotta be for the bike in the morning. COLD! I need gloves, good gloves. Not dinky little knitted ones with no grip (no grip on a bike, that's smart). And a basket for my bike to make it easier to go grocery shopping. I loaned Mollie my scarf during the outside drawing, as it was cold outside and I had my (dad's)cap that goes down over my ears. A lot of people were questioning me about being cold, Michael ever offered me his jacket (awww) but I was fine, I had three layers. I think tomorrow I'm going to bring a jacket to school to leave in my locker just so I have something there in case there is a snap and I'm not prepared.

Says there will be rain soon. UHHHHG I can't bike with an umbrella in one hand.

pah-chew! lasers! pah-chew!

Mel complimented me on having a great kitchen. Clearly she just saw our fridge and assorted counter top appliances, and not the stack in the sink. I got a dish load going right now, I'm clean and all that. On our fridge is a photo of Phoebe, a photo of Amma, a photo (I took and printed) of Ibanez, a quote about frogs, a Mech Warrior magnet, a Gnome magnet, a magnet of Lindsay's old cat, a flier for Japanese Hamlet, a Japanese flier for Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint, a cut out of a man I did for my first Time Arts project, and pictogram magnets! You can also see to the right my Oster mixer and rice cooker.

No one tried to turn into the bike lane today, though one lady was driving in it a little. Kinda wanted to shout at the stupid lady on her cellphone. Pay attention lady!

Stayed awake for Art History and learned some cool stuff about Egyptian pyramids and whatnot.

I started today in the darkroom with a photo for fun, instead of the assignment we were supposed to do (unity) and the photo I did (the one of Ibanez that is on the fridge) turned out great! And that gave me real confidence and I think I produced at least five good prints. Not sure if I'll spend more time in the darkroom tomorrow, might have to but I don't feel so frustrated now that I've pulled off a few pieces. But that's the way to go, combine art you have to do with art you want to do.

We made zoetropes in Time Arts. Super fun! Mine was of this secret agent lady walking and firing laser guns. There's a good amount of motion and it looks sooo cool. Its all pahCHEW pahCHEW. There were lots of good ones, one had a moustache bouncing about and another was hair ruffling about. Next class we will put them into the computer and animate them a little better. Whoo!!

Getting really easy to bike home. All I need is a tube to lug my paper work back and forth in.

PahCHEW! Heroes on in 10 minutes, whoo!! Prison Break is currently in an awesome second episode of a third season (I'm so glad MariCruz is alive). Love the show but hope it will be the last season, they can't stretch it out anymore.

kitten smuggler

I was reading my Art History book and I was near the heater so I was all warm and toasty and I started to nod off. Then I woke up and spent ages just trying to wake up again. Uhhg. Well at least my reading is mostly done, I hope that nap doesn't make me unable to sleep till 2am. Monday is my long day, I must have a good night sleep!

Another lazy day, fulfilling my lazy weekend. Heroes tomorrow! 9pm! YAY!

I had a dream where I was smuggling kittens and I put them in one another in a coin purse like way, to smuggle them out. And I was left with one kitten and then I was stopped at the check point and I had to unzip my kitten to see how many kittens I had. So I unzipped my gray kitten and pulled out the white kitten that was in it. I set the gray kitten down on its side and its body was flat as I had removed its insides. The white kitten was wet like I had just bathed it but all the other kittens had turned into paper. I was sad I only had one kitten and then they told me I had way too many kittens and I looked to my left and there was about 14 kittens on a display rack that was indicating they were mine and the limit was six. Oh no!

bull & venus

Well my whole "read textbook in a coffee house" cliche worked out pretty well. Read half of my Art History assignment in one sitting, and hope to finish it tomorrow. Not really hard reading just tiny print and lots of it.

Slept in way long this morning. Ibanez came in and cuddled with me a bit. Not really all that eventful. Had a nice lemonade at Starbucks, might try and find the non-conglomerate coffee place tomorrow. Had sloppy joes for dinner over at Sean's. Then we (Sean, Mike and I) watched Ravenous. Love that movie, gets better every time I see it. You won't find a better movie that stars David Arquette AND is about cannibalism. Seriously, there aren't any.

Slow day, but I need slow days. Enjoy them while I have them.

they tired to make me go to math class and I said "no, no, no"

Sean lent me volumes two and three of Preacher a few weeks ago and I laid down on the couch and started reading two. Took a little while for the plot to come back to me, been ages since I borrowed the first volume from Collier. Then Brandon came out of Lindsay's room shirtless and I went "eee" and threw the comic over my eyes. I'm glad to be in a comic circuit again, have Promethea and Akira on loan from James. As much as I'd love to spend my weekend reading comics I think I'm going to hit up a local coffee shop and get a cuppa cocoa and read me some Art History instead.

Went to PNCA today to sort out my transfer credits. I got the audit and I transferred 33 credits from Olympic College but only my Math 119 class came through and cancelled one math, there is still some lame "second' math class. There isn't any separation, no "oh this is Algebra and this is Pre-Calc" it is just "math and maybe a little bit harder math". So my options are: take math next semester, or test out of it. I was sort of hoping my Associates would enable me to skip it, but it all came down to credits and Olympic College and its 99 to 107/119 thing with no number in between left me short. So in a few months, I gotta try and remember what Kelso and Robertson taught me.

I was frustrated so I treated myself to an ice-cream cone from a super market. In the Pearl District they have a $5 minimum when it comes to purchases with debit/credit cards so I used up all my change and had just enough. Very tasty.

Dropped my roll of film off at Rite Aid (I finished up the roll earlier today). It was wound tight so they had a lot of trouble getting it set up to feed it into the machine. In the end I lost only one shot from the fumbling with getting the film to open, and it was just a shot of plants so no biggie.

Got my appointment all sorted out and rode off home at what seemed to be a very late 4:30. Lindsay was in the crosswalk when I was stopped at the light on 14th&Jefferson so I pedaled beside her as we went back to our room.

Rest of the day was spent shopping, lounging, and watching Spaced and QI. Really bad of me; hence the whole "stowing away at a coffee shop with nuthin' but my textbooks" plan for tomorrow.

Got two packages from home today. One contained lots of wonderful clothes from Rubie. Always need tees and pants, wearing some right now in fact. Thank you wonderful Rubie. The other had my old photography binder in it. Yay! Now I have my old prints and negatives.

jarMOOCH

Sean and I were watching Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man starring Johnny Depp. After what appeared to be something happening we turned it off. Oh wow after looking him up he did Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. I love that movie. Anyway, yeah we just couldn't stand it. The black and white seemed weird, like it is filmed in color and then made black and white. It had amazing actors but how they were directed was just sort of...odd. So anyone who has seen this movie, does it get better after Johnny Depp is revived by the "Native American" and a hit is put on him? Well not really a hit, well maybe a hit. I forget. It was so artsy that we couldn't distract ourselves by making fun of it, we felt we had to pay attention in case something happened. And when something happened we still were under-whelmed. Some fancy name is attached to it, it must be good! Reading reviews of it I kind of want to give it a second shot, we really were not in the mood for "art" movies.

So we watched The Condemned instead. Which was HORRIBLE but at least we could make fun of it the whole way through. Wouldn't recommend it. To anyone. At all, for any reason. Never thought I would turn off Johnny Depp for Vinnie Jones.

Digital Tools was hard, trying to get pictures that emphasize foreground and background..well sections of pictures and it is supposed to be black and white and abstract. Uhg. Didn't finish, isn't due until Tuesday so I will be putting in some lab time. Read some of Jim Hill's comic that he is working on; Fiasco. He has a very good comic name, Karen's full name is already a comic book name. She will have to change it.

Rode down 14th again, really easy and I can cross at a crosswalk simple enough when the bike lane disappears. Though I was on the right side and I had a green light and a car was pulling closer and closer to me and I realised they were turning, so I had to break. I think a bike lane is treated as a lane...you don't push cars out of a lane to turn, well not legally. And it was a mother with (I assume) her kids with her who almost got me. Grrr!

he first part of Drawing was spent critiquing our tree drawings. They really likes my tree, it looked as if it was blowing in the wind (apparently). Did myself real proud. Lots of good trees. So far there isn't a ban on "I Like..." yet, there will be.

Mel and I went to Tea Zone for some tea. I had this bamboo shoot flower tea (something like that) and it was really tasty but my tongue is still burned.

Then we did still life's with graphite with emphasis on the negative space. Really boring, how can we go from models and trees to cones and spheres?

Bought my film for class and pedalled home. Really bored, decided to make cookies before going over and watching Dead Man (thought it would be fun, cookies and Depp). Somewhere I failed in making the cookies, could have been some ingredient I added too much/too little or the cooking heat/time was off. They were crispy and just rather bad. Oh well, better luck next time. Tomorrow I'll make a loaf of bread.

awww

Silas from Port Townsend dropped out of PNCA.

Dang.

needs more contrast

Remember that photography class I took? Remember those prints I made? The ones that had good lights and darks and were very crisp and all that. I thought those were good, and that was my first time in the darkroom. First time with film and a non-automatic camera. I didn't even use a tripod. That photography class got me really psyched. In this photography class I spend three hours trying to get a white and a black on a single image. Five prints and none of them perfect. Kept on raising the contrast and raising the contrast and trying to keep the white which is hard when you need that dark. In the end I couldn't even get ONE good print. Looking forward to more work on Monday, might go in with Christopher over the weekend. Have to shoot another roll, whee fun.

I just don't get it. Those prints from Olympic College's photography class, I would do the test strip and figure out which second and then I'd do the print. The bonsai tree one I got on the first go, no problem. I think the one of the reeds and the water at Elandan Gardens was the first, maybe second print after the test strip. I did lots of the print that I gave to Jeanette and none of the later ones I did were quite as good as one of the first prints (that one I think came out on the second try). All of those had pure white and pure black and I did it really quick without having to fiddle about for hours on different magenta settings. I didn't even know there was a magenta setting to fiddle with. Now I can't even get a white and black on the same print unless I spill white out on a photo of of Ibanez. Hopefully with a roll of better photos I can find some success in my prints but for right now AHHHG FRUSTRATED!!

Biked down 14th instead of 12th today. Pretty nice straight shoot, though the bike lane on the left disappears and reappears on the right for some reason.

2D design was frustrating. AND on top of the whole printing fiasco I had to show Richard and James how to make prints/develop prints/explain the enlarger/all this other stuff because the teacher...I dunno what she was doing but I guess she didn't want to re-give the lecture to people who miss class. I tried my best to explain, I hope they get it.

My performance piece, also of the "uhg" variety. Two members were late in coming and I was almost thinking we would have had to give our performance with two people playing four roles which actually might have made it better than the quick, almost skit-ish piece we did give. Okay sure no one else had any ideas so I can't really diss the idea itself. We went first and it was really really short. A minute shorter than it was required to be, and it was required to be 2-3 minutes. Then there was a critique and it was really nice how people managed to get some meaning out of it. The next two were pretty amazing pieces, really well thought out and I could see me seeing them at TBA:08. I wish so many of my ideas hadn't been shot down now, might have killed some time. Oh well. Then we took a break and came back and a group did Thriller as part of their performance, it was pretty great. And another great, lots of meaning squeezed out of it, performance ended our performance art section. So glad to be over with it, moving on to animation.

Stress-free for the rest of the day.

Well on the plus side when I told Sally about my zoom technique she said in her twenty years of photography she had never heard of it before.

how big is your wrap?

Thank god for low key days. I'm still tired and if I had to really work on breaking the artists mold today I might just end up breaking myself.

We critiqued our crosshatch Illustrator pieces in Digital Tools. Mine needed a little more contrast. Then we worked on compositions using squares and circles for the rest of class. Not really totally helpful but the more practice on Illustrator the better.

There was a note on the door for Drawing telling us that we were going to be meeting at the Portland Art Museum. There was a great Leonard Baskin show going on, really amazing woodcuts. I knew his work looked familiar, it all clicked when I saw the prints from his various collaborations that he did with Ted Hughes. "Oh yeah! I new his style was familiar, Crow."

We were instructed to draw three pieces in the museum so I drew in pen Leonard Baskin's "Self Portrait as a Priest" (actually I outlined the thick black lines he did, instead of filling them in. That would have killed my pen), a line art version of Milton Avery's "Portrait of Annette Kaufman" and I lightly sketched the face of the woman from Jean François de Troy's "Allegory of Music". I have never been keen on assignments that have to do with trying to recapture the beauty of already existing work, but I do love discovering more about the piece as I focus on the details as I try to recreate them.

Phil and I ran into Arvie at coat-check as we were preparing to leave for lunch. Arvie told us that instead we were going to his studio/to check out a gallery. I don't know if you can actually still hold class during the campus-wide lunch hour but he has such a strong, commanding voice and so I followed him with only minor complaints (I was really hungry).

The gallery/studio ended up being in the same building my comic shop is. The first floor was mostly gallery space and a few shops, and above that are 35 artist studios. I asked Arvie if he was working on a piece using sandwiches as a medium and he said no. The gallery showing was very conceptual and a little sloppy for my tastes , I think I might have enjoyed it had I not spent the past hour and a half gazing at "fine art".

Arvie's studio was pretty awesome, improved by the fact that he whipped out some jelly beans and potato chips to share with us. It was a really nice large space with good light and enough room for his paintings (which are quite massive and colorful). After the tour he dismissed us for the day, as he had taught through lunch and whatnot.

Mollie, Mel, Eva and I looked about in the comic shop. Mel bought a little self-printed minicomic. Nothing new had come in for me so we all left to get food. We hit up one of the parking lot vendors, I got a chicken Cesar salad wrap. It was good though a little pricey. My hunger wins over my common sense most of the time. Maybe I should have held out for Hot Lips instead. Oh well.

We went back to PNCA and then parted ways. I'm so glad I don't have any 6-9 classes, that is just brutal! Biked home and now I can take it easy(er). Read some Art History. Whoo.

yesterday is today

Thanks to the Some Cats From Japan show, I for the first time in my life started to nod off in class. 4 hours of sleep + Art History at 8am does not make a good combination. Thankfully the room was so cold that I didn't succeed in dozing off, if it was warm I would have been out.

Yesterday:

Nathan and Rubie's final hang out day with yours truly. I had bought tickets for us for the Cartune Xprez show, hosted by Hooliganship (the duo were wearing really adorable bright red and bright blue long john combinations). We got there right on time and ran into Suki (who was going to the same event) on the streetcar. We had to sit in the front row and then they told us that theatre 2 had opened and it was playing the same thing so we were free to go to it and get better seats. We sat down in the second row. Leia sat next to me (nerd names unite). About 15 minutes after it was supposed to start was when the first video started playing. It had no sound so they stopped and restarted it trying to get it to have sound, but it didn't work. Another 15 minutes went past and they started to play a video from another TBA event in the waiting time, something German with lots of long pauses. I went and grabbed a 7-up and a Violet Crumble to munch on and when I came back they were playing a Hooliganship dvd from last year. Pretty trippy stuff, including a really sad video about a fox and a snow angel. Eventually they came out and said the Cartune Xprez was unplayable (both our version and the other one). They promised a refund and an invitation for us to come see the show at a later date.

I got my refund at PICA and we decided to trek down to Chinatown and see whats what. Stopped in at Floating World Comics but there were no new issues in for me. Love that shop.

Compound Gallery was open and was having a DigMeOut show. Unlike some museums and typical galleries, they cram as much art into the space as possible. It doesn't draw from the art to have it all so close together, it just forces the viewer to look closer. And closer I did. Loved so much of the work going on, just like I did last summer for the DigMeOut 2006 show. There was new work by Cho-Chan up and I was blown away by seeing Kana Ohtsuki's pieces in person. Beautiful work, really inspiring. Chatted with the guy managing the gallery and headed out.

There was a festival of sorts happening on 4th, live music and food stalls. Had some lunch and split ways with Nate and Rubie because I had essays to write and reading to read.

Around sevenish Celia arrived in Portland and Nathan and Rubie returned to Goose Hollow. We all hung out and chatted. I bought some shoes from Rubie for 25 cents (superstition). They are really cute flats with bows and polka dots. She also gave me a fabulous necklace and matching earrings (have to pierce my other ear now).

Rubie and Nathan left to get food for the train ride and to head back to the hotel. Gave Rubie hugs and a punch to Nathan's gut. Celia napped while I finished up my essays.

Lindsay had to work on a horrible painting project so she couldn't make Some Cats From Japan. I changed into stripey socks, Rubie's shoes, skinny jeans, my Guess white square neck shirt and my diagonal zippered Tommy Hilfiger jacket (I got it last summer at a Goodwill in Portland). I looked good, all ready for intense TBA musical performance. Sean came over at 9:20 and at 9:30 Celia, Sean and I left in her Prius for the show. There are construction pockets all over downtown Portland, so I was worried about getting from Goose Hollow to the Broadway Bridge but we got to it pretty easy, and got free parking a block away from the Wonder Ballroom.

The concert was one half intense performance, the other half was more about how it was made than a performance. The first and last guy blew me away, the middle two sort were not really up my alley but made for an interesting experience.

Fuyuki Yamakawa started off the night with a bang, or a loud hum that made me flinch. I don't know how he did it but there was a microphone attached to the side of his nose so his breathing and smacking his head with his palm created thumps and trills. Then he removed his shirt; revealing a stethoscope attached to his chest. The stethoscope was hooked up to a machine on the right and there was some light bulbs hanging in a cluster. He turned on the machine and set the volume and his pulse reverberated through the whole venue. With each heartbeat the light bulbs surged on. He breathed in and out slowly, achieving some control over his heartbeat. It beat faster and faster, the lights creating marks in my vision and he slowed it down, the beats were dangerously far apart (in the pamphlet he is quoted "Sometimes it stops my heart for seconds"). The beat really drew me in. Then he picked up the guitar. He didn't play it so much as turn the sound way up and move it back and forth and tap the side of it, the vibration creating noise from the strings instead of just plucking it. He continued for a long time with the guitar and heartbeat and then he brought in throat singing and the nasal hum. By the end, I was drawn in so much. My eyes, my ears, my whole body became a part of the performance.

It was a hard act to follow, and Kanta Horio didn't follow it well. He generated a sort of sound from magnetising paperclips and amplifying the audio of them moving about. A nice respit, but certainly far from the intensity of the first performance. After that Aki Onda was also a sort of lul in the program. His work was composed of recorded sounds played together off of cassettes, so it was interesting how he would have had to collect all the sounds but overall it didn't work so well for me. I was still coming down from the first performance I guess. A good number of people had become fed up with the two middle performances (or as it was about to roll over past midnight and they had to get up for work/class the next day like me) and left before the epic finale that was Atsuhiro Ito.

Today:

Atsuhiro Ito came out with his long fluorescent light tube and fiddled with the set up. I wasn't sure if it was him, he seemed rather humble and when the review said that his instrument, the Optron, was a fluorescent tube hooked up with microphones inside I was expecting something a little more grand looking. Actually all of the performers were really subtle in appearance (save for Yamakawa's belly button length hair) and didn't try to dominate the stage, rather leaving their music to overrule us all. All of a sudden the lights went out and he started.

All the illumination came from the pulsing of his Optron, which flared and dimmed as he played it. I wish I knew how he was controlling the lights but he had a great sense for how to use his instrument. The microphones reacted with the speakers set up behind him and simultaneously he was switching on and off little dials with his feet. And this man was 42! I wonder how he managed to maintain himself for well over half an hour standing a foot away from speakers and holding a three foot tube of light. Another all consuming performance, something I doubt will be equalled any time soon. Well equalled in the sense of me seeing anything as awesome any time soon. I also got a picture with him after the show.

There was another band coming on after Some Cats From Japan. We stayed to watch them preform a couple songs but a unanimous decision came about that we were tired so at 1:10am we left to go back to Goose Hollow. Celia slept on an inflatable mattress in my living room and it felt great to sink into bed at about 1:50am. Hated HATED the alarm going off at 6:00am but what are you going to do? It was worth it.

I didn't want to bother with making lunch, figuring Yo's soup would hit whatever spot that needed hitting later on. I was a little wobbly on my bike but I got my energy and balance right as I turned onto 14th from Clay which was when I needed by balance and energy so it all worked out.

Art History was brutal. Our first real lecture class and it was slide after slide of the teacher talking about Paleolithic this and cave painting that. Not that it is boring but it was oh so not what I needed in the morning. Found myself nodding off, trying to fidget and stay focused. The break didn't come soon enough and after a mini nap and a Nutrigrain bar I gained some energy and momentum and didn't nod for the rest of the class (or day).

2D Design was darkroom, which was review for me but also sort of frustrating that a lot of my negatives were over exposed and my first photography teacher never told me that you had to leave prints in the wash for 5+ minutes so there was way more time spent waiting than I'd like. Got a couple good prints, but they aren't dark enough. I wish I had my negatives from my first photography class, I didn't get to print all that I wanted. I'll pick them up next time I come home. At least time in the darkroom goes fast. Before I knew it, it was time for...

Time Arts! Long talk about performance art and then we divided up into groups to work on our pieces. I'm not totally psyched about our piece and a lot of my ideas were shot down but I get the sort-of main role so it isn't so bad. It isn't as involved and choreographed as it could be.

Essentially one by one we look in a box and we each have a different reaction to whats int he box (confusion, sorrow, despair) and then I come out and am over joyed by whats in the box and its a photo of our teacher. Still room for some changes but I think it will stay pretty much the same (it wasn't my main idea but so far no one else had any other thoughts so we went with it).

Then we watched a video about a performance artist whose name I have forgotten but in the end there was a man that was made from a mold that had jello poured into it and the audience was invited to eat the jello-man. It was titled "The Last Immigrant".

Boy was I happy to finally ride home. 8:00am-6:00pm. I hope Monday will never be my long day ever again.

Wonderful seeing Rubie, Nathan and Celia. Hope more people come and visit and hope that you all understand that when you visit I will have to do homework. I'll try to get a jump on it, but you know me. I get it done in the end, it just takes me some time to get to doing it.

in short

I hope Nate and Rubie had fun.

The animation didn't go as planned.

Finished my essays with time to spare.

Time that was spent with Celia.

Some Cats from Japan was a cacophony of awesome.

Full days in review tomorrow night.

eat all day

Today's plans revolved around going from place to place and eating.

Nathan gave me a call 10:30ish informing me they were by my dorm. I had planned to meet them at their hotel but oh well, day got an early start. Ate my breakfast and we decided to just walk down 10th, towards the Pearl District, and see what happened. We checked out a couple shops, but no buyables were present. Looked into Polygraph, as part of TBA but decided against asking the performer any questions. Had an early lunch at the Tea Zone (mmm panini) then we trekked up to 19th and Marshall and I got the photo supplies for my next class. We looked at the spinning thing at the Corberry Press and I got caught in it, and came quite possibly close to destroying a piece of art had I not unhooked myself.

I drew on the sidewalk for a chalk thing going on. A self portrait of myself as a flower. Then we went to the mall, and had some free sweets that were given out. Tired we went back to Goose Hollow and relaxed and ate some of the Graham Cake that Rubie had made last night. Quite tasty. After that we walked to the freezone and got on the max. Stopped by their hotel for a bit and flipped through the channels (so much nothing). Rubie tried to get a Zune tax free at Sears (with her Sears discount because she is an employee) but it didn't work out so well. Then we had dinner in the food court.

Even though I bought a ticket for the max, no one was around to check it.

On the way to Pro Photo Supply we passed a man walking in a square from crosswalk to crosswalk on 11th & Lovejoy. He had chalk attached to his shoes and made a square design as he made his way across the street. I remembered seeing the white crosswalk square on 11th & Johnson and put two and two together and figure out that he was Stan Shellabarger, and his walking in squares was part of TBA. I remember seeing a note in the TBA book; something that said "Try and find Stan Shellabarger" and I'm excited that we did.

I like the way you say "graham"

Met Nathan and Rubie at the train station today. They are visiting for the weekend, originally they were going to stay at my place but dad set them up at the Holiday Inn. I just caught the streetcar going to the station, and we just caught the max to the hotel, and we caught it nicely on the way to 10th and coming back from PNCA. Had to wait a few minutes for it at Goose Hollow.

Met them at the station and we walked to the max so they could check into their hotel. When we got their they said that the room wouldn't be ready for another 45 minutes so we went to Burgerville. I had fish & chips, they both had burgers. The room has a sort of really ugly view, oh well. We hopped on the max again and went downtown. Walked around Powell's and then went to PNCA. Showed them about. Ran into Daniel, Kat, Arvie and a few other people.

We stopped by Safeway to get fixings for dinner, fettucini and a graham cake. Num nums! Rubie is fantastic, wonderful person. Ate the food and relaxed a bit. The day went by really fast (met them at 2:00 and then six hours just melted away). They got on the max at about 8:00 and headed off to the the Holiday Inn. Pretty convenient, you walk three blocks to the max, get on, and then walk about 7 blocks to the hotel.

No major plans tomorrow, probably Saturday Market and visit some of the free TBA events.

I can draw trees!!

Had to go to Reed College to see a lecture for Drawing Class. Had to get there at 11am, after my 8:00-10:45 class. I don't know where Arvie got the idea that we could make it to Reed in 15 minutes, which is in South East Portland (PNCA is North West, you have to cross Burnside and the Willamette). I hitched a car ride with Hayden and his tall friend (Sam?). We spent 15 minutes walking 12 blocks to his car, and then about 25-35 minutes driving to get to Reed and another 10 minutes finding parking and going "aww hell no one remembers where the lecture is?" It all added up to us showing up right as the few classmates that made it were leaving. Lots of people came late/got lost so we didn't feel to bad. Though a lot of energy wasted only to show up and then be told to go back and meet in class at 1:30 after lunch. Hitched a ride back with Michael (who unlike the people who I rode with, he doesn't smoke in his car with a window minimally put down).

We got back just in time for lunch so I went to another TBA lecture. This time by some people from a blog competition, Hooliganship, Slappe(PNCA professor) and Andrew Dickson. A lively discussion about the Internet and blogging and doing collaborative art. I didn't take notes so I have forgotten most of what they said (I was to busy eating my egg salad sandwich).

Returned to drawing class and for the rest of it we were in the park on Part Street drawing trees. I was very pleased with my tree drawing, I want to mail it to my old art teacher with a note saying "look! I can draw trees, OKAY!!" The work that I have been doing, a lot of it is just producing work to show that this is where I'm at and that I can do this. And I am finding that I can do it, and that is great. I'm excited for when I get to the point of being able to use these concepts and apply them to my work for me.

In Digital Tools I drew over a photo of my choosing (Ibanez) with lines and whatnot. I'm starting to really like Illustrator, gives a good look. Can't get a screenshot of either of my projects, don't think I can open them without the program.

Picked up my film I had developed earlier and rode off home. When I got home I was reminded I need to find and buy my Art History text. Powell's one 11th edition copy was gone so I had to go to PSU and drop $95 on a used copy. I have till the fourth to return it, so I'm going to try and order a cheaper version and then return this one. That's only if the text wouldn't be used for the next Art History (Gothic onwards) class, if I use it all the way through I am keeping it.

Today was cold, so biking was refreshing, there was also a whisper of rain that felt really good at the end of my bike trips.

Met up with Mel to go see Andrew Dickson's Sell Out at Wieden + Kennedy. A really excellent lecture on how to sell out (there are 27 steps) and how it isn't so bad. I'm not to concerned with selling out and all the people I walked and talked with after (Phil and Mike were also at the lecture) also didn't despair about it. One of the steps was to say you are not going to sell out. I am at about the step concerning college. I'm on the right track. Whoo!!

Andrew Dickson "sold out" when he was employed by Wieden + Kennedy. The Time Based Arts Festival is put on by PICA. PICA is located in/funded by/a part of Wieden + Kennedy. Wieden + Kennedy is one of the world's largest ad agencies, they did Nike's, "Just Do It." Andrew Dickson's lecture on selling out was a part of TBA. So in short: Wieden + Kennedy funds PICA who puts on the TBA Festival who had Andrew Dickson as part of it, giving his lecture in an auditorium located in a building of the company he sold out to, who must have a distinct knowledge that he believes that working for them is selling out.

Nathan and Rubie visit tomorrow, yay! Also sleeping in.

a grape only needs yellow

My imagination has recovered from tEEth. Now the only thing on my mind is the legs of one of the male dancers.

After the show I hung out with Mel, Mollie, Daria, Cidney, and the two girls from Silverdale (why do I have such trouble with both their names?). Sat about and chatted and ate pudding. Lindsay was up late working on her art project, she has so illustrate "the pompous socialites laughed at Judy's small head". She did a lettuce theme.

Today I slept in. And it was good. Rolled out of bed at 9:00, leisurely got prepared for the day. The bike racks were stuffed, but I managed to find one with enough space. Cool how many people commute by bike, James said his bike was stolen because he used a cable lock and not a Krypotonite one. So now I feel better about dropping some pretty polly on my U-lock. Some times it is a hassle to thread through but ultimately worth it if it saves my transportation. I don't like walking to school, takes far to long.

2D design was figuring out how to get three colors to look like four and four colors to look like three (one day I'll figure out the scanner at school and start posting art here). Cidney gave me $20 so we split the cards between us. I only cut a little bit off and I taped it on, not glue. I got my colors to work pretty early on so I left to run some important errands. Printed out my assignment for Digital Tools. The teacher had us draw over this photo, experimenting with line and the brushes. Never used Illustrator before but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Excited for tomorrow. Digital Tools and Time Arts are what I look forward to (Drawing I is good but a lot of the stuff I'm familiar with already, 2D design is sometimes fascinating but it doesn't feel like we have started yet, and Art History is still to soon to tell).

Time Arts got more into performance art and a discussion about "what is art?" I didn't say my art=effort idea, but there will be time for that later. Next class will be spent in practice and we will perform on Wednesday. We have to use a box, have a surprise appearance, use some words somehow, a 5 second silence, and a repeated motion. No plans to meet up before Monday to practice and brain storm, we are leaving it to our lonesome until then.

Saw Daniel Duford, who shaved his goatee. I waved and he smiled back, I think he remembered me.

Walked about with Sean and shot a roll of film for 2D Design. I don't remember all that I learned about exposures in my photography class from years ago, I hope enough turn out. Have to leave early to see if Rite Aid has film development.

Tomorrow I am going to Reed College for a lecture of sorts instead of Drawing class (it is through Drawing class, I'm not ditching) and seeing Andrew Dickson at 6:30. All this TBA stuff is cool, but it is really overwhelming my schedule when I am trying to get my bearings. All is working out, I'm no where near being late on anything.

my imagination has been broke

Okay. tEEth like, broke something. My ears, my eyes and some part of my brain. My ears from the noise. So sudden and constant and woah. The eyes, the strobe show at the end. It was intense to say the least. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but it was good. Spectacular. Surreal, horrific, scary, and just a little bit sticky. It all felt so unreal, I've never been so sucked in to something. Sitting far above the performers, the dead center of the last row on the third level. Overseeing it all, the struggle and pain. Amazing in a way I can't describe.

Sitting there, it sunk in.
I am at art school.
I am.
At art school.
Art school.

*ding* laundry is done

I hope that my laundry looks a little less ravaged by the machine. Stupid heavy duty mechanic monsters. Grrr. Well it seems warm and fluffy. Should be good then.

Road my bike again. Slowly getting easier to get up the hill. Don't know what I'll do when it rains. Everyone else has a city bike, mine stands out a little. I don't need to join the popular crowd, with their pastel artsy bikes. I'd stand out more if I had a Ninja or something. Just calculated the distance to school: 1.21 miles and round trip (slightly different round) makes it 2.39 in total. Kinda wishing I could brag about it being all "OHhhh I bike five miles to school" But nope, just a mile. Well, that's a mile I don't have to walk.

Digital Tools we got right into it. We turned in our Photoshop assignment and then we were introduced to Illustrator. I'm not familiar with it at all, but I'm picking it up pretty quick. Working on a line vector piece that I will print out all pretty like on Thursday.

Drawing was more gesture and contour, near the end we got into shading and doing subtraction by way of highlighting, instead of addition by way of shadowing. Rather neat. There was also lots of hair fluffing going on between me and a few of my classmates.

Lunchtime I went to Utrecht to get the color aid cards and some vine charcoal. AHHHGG! I hope the color aid cards will be used extensively for ever and ever! $40! For a bunch of colored screen printed cards!!!!! There are not enough exclamation marks! Grrr. Might have James of Cidney gimme $20 and we will share the cards. Still the $40 came from my account. And I know all the photo gear I will have to get will run me at least that amount.

Yup. Trillian is going to have to get a job. Booo!!

Going to see tEEth tonight with Mollie and Mel. The remaining TBA events I will be seeing are: Cartune Xprez, Andrew Dickson, and Some Cats From Japan.

speech is BAD

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with that picture?

We were reading a paper in Time Arts about performance art, the paper came from a grad school book for people getting a masters in performance art (why would they need that?), anywhoo the paper went on and on about how speaking is bad and how every time you hear speech in a play/movie/TV/whatever it is all dumbed down and fakey or whatever. And how performance art is the only thing trying to reflect reality. Everything else is fake. And how a sentence in performance art must be treated as an object, like it has to be on equal par with the chair in your piece. chair = sentence. It was hard to follow. Earlier Diane had found a sticky note on the floor that said "this guy is a jerk" and we were wondering who it was talking about. I think it was the writer of this paper (actually it didn't say jerk but if Liam reads this I don't want to teach him bad words).

Lindsay's joke she got from her painting teacher:
How many performance artists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
I don't know, I left early too.

Rode my bike to school today. Nabbed a lock-your-bike-to-this pretty easily, and was only mildly sweaty as I went to my first class.

My Art History class left early, as we couldn't have done any reading so a lecture wouldn't have been so good for us without a reading warm up. The Silverdale-girl and Mallory are in my class, as well as a wide variety of other people from varying levels of education. I like being a transfer student, more variety in your classmates. We wrote a little essay and were allowed to go when we were done. We had a half-an-hour so Silvie-gal and I walked to Powell's to see if they had the text. They had it, but it was 11th edition, the complete book (not paperback or split into the two segments) and hardcover. Oh and $65. Going to shop around a little. I was peckish so I picked up a scone.

We got back with plenty of time to spare before our next classes. 2D design was uneventful, a lecture about color and how crazy it is. Sat about during lunch and chatted with Tabitha and Rainbow.

We had a special speaker talk to us about color after lunch. He was Spanish and had great hair and a lovely accent. Every now and then he would pause and say "is that a word?" All this color stuff, sort of intense. How you can combine four blocks of color and get three colors, or three blocks and get four. We will get into learning how to manipulate colors like that on Wednesday. I am part excited, part terrified. Need to get those color aid cards and burnable discs. All this stuff I have to buy, starting to feel like I don't need any of the stuff I brought with me.

My triptych for Time Arts seemed to go over well. Most of the class was consumed by the "what is performance art?" discussion. I still don't get how performance art isn't supposed to be seen as a mixed medium.

IT HAS ONLY BEEN A WEEK!! AHHH!!

And Nathan and Rubie are visiting Friday-Monday. That will be cool, need to take note of all the places I want him to pay for me to eat at.

fabuless trill

You know the barber scene in Police Academy? Where Copeland and Blankes sit down and get a buzz cut because they thought that is what they were supposed to get? And Martin comes in and requests a little off the sides (or off the top, I forget) in front of them, making them aghast at the fact they just had their manes shaved off for no reason.

Before I left to get my hair cut, I ran into Mollie and another girl who had their hair done by children yesterday. Mollie's hair was short, really really short. Almost unstyleable short. But it looked good on her, and she said something about requesting it that way. The other girl had a sort of Kelis-esque side half-hawk with a line design cut into it. Sean, Mike, and David were tagging along to see the possibility of my hair being badly ravaged by a 10-year-old. I arrived early and saw some of the work being done. One guy looked like he had a word shaved in the back of his head, it didn't really work but it was fun and a conversation starter at the least. Some of the hair cuts were not so good, sort of shaky but as I just said all would be good conversation starters. And if the worst happened to me I would just shave my head, something I've wanted to try out anyway. I got into my chair a little earlier than 1:00 and it began! I was asked what I wanted. I had the choice to go crazy or to be sensible and not push it. I just asked for bangs and the back to be trimmed up a bit.

It went well! It went really well, my cut seems perfect actually. The bangs are jagged, which I wanted and the back is nice and neat.

Afterwards we went to Larry Bamburg's exhibit on Northrup & 18th. A beautiful piece, little bits of paper and feathers were suspended and spinning slowly. Very serene to look at. We had talked about seeing it and the timing was right so my little quartet from floor three went so see Paprika. Actually it made me a little more confused the second time (such as the physical manifestation of Paprika in the beginning) but I enjoyed it immensely. And Mike and David, who aren't really familiar with Japanese cinema, let alone animation, seemed to enjoy it as well. Might have even blown David's mind a little as he was sort of "woah" when we got out of the theatre.

We were starving so we went for Thai food after that. Medium priced but extremely tasty. David and Sean got into a debate about should art be dumbed down for the masses. I made a point about how many people have prints of fine art in their home versus how many people have ceramic gew-gaws, and how really stupid movies do well at the box office even though everyone should know they are stupid. Sort of a "if you don't care you aren't aware" type of thing I guess. Mike and I just sort of listened as they fired back and forth, a very heated debate. One of many I will hear and be a part of in the coming years.

We, plus many others, are going to the William Kentridge show tonight. Bound to be spectacular.