Wednesday, April 28, 2010

assorted updates/what I've been reading

-this past week I've watched 1.5 documentaries on china ( 1920's- 1999'ish) its a long and confusing history. today i finished "the man on Mao's right" an autobiography written by Mao's English interpreter ji chapzhu. Ji was born in china, but fled to america during 30's rebellion and returned to china in his 20's. it answered a lot of the questions that arise from watching 6 hours of china documentary. Ji fought for the communist cause, but has a western democratic sensibility and able to explain chinese culture to americans. but a lot of the rebellions he doesn't even understand. a lot of the craziness and treachery is straight out of "Animal Farm"

-i was gonna drive a support van for my brother who is doing a bicycle race from CA to CO, but called him today to back out. have mixed feelings of relief, x-treame guilt and depression over not ever being able to DECIDE what I want to do.

- i miss my mom millions. looking at tickets fro trip to MA for mothers day weekend and a bit beyond. looking forward to yardwork, indian food, puppies, cocktails and hanging out with mom.

-tomorrow is studio cleanup but looking into renting studio space for the summer, and possibly taking drawing class.

Monday, April 26, 2010

garden update



talked to my neighbor this morning and he said it is ok to start a 2nd garden in his part of our shared yard.
tomato, yellow pepper and kale.
cucumber

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

sid vicious



i love our neighbor's cat

animal hospital





space oddity


last weekend me and adams went to "space oddity prom" at bluebird. lots of fun, wish I had more time to work on my space costume

space corsage


we had so much fun the IU student newspaper reported it!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

new years resolution part II

we are about 1/4 way through the year, so just checking to see if I'm track. here were some of my resoulutions, written in a december post:

I'm a big fan of Anders Neilson. He co-curates a gallery in Chicago- well actually its a coffee shop, but anyway if i sent him work and I had to drive to Chicago and meet him that would be cool. also, I have 2 books half ways finished and it would feel pretty good to have those done and out in the world so I could move on. I would like to get up earlier, get a job, apply to some residencies (penland, women's studio workshop, xeric) sell those two books i finally finish at cinders and desert island. I think I'm eligable for free health insurance, I just have to fill out some forms. practice some kind of instrument.


the verdict

-for the chicago gallery ive been working on a series of prints about a sailor's life ( i've posted some of the water prints) just have to finish a couple more, photograph them and send pictures to anders.

-i finished one of the 1/2 finished books, but still working out how to get it published exactly. Ive been struggling with Instant Publisher. I cannot figure out how to upload my pictures to the site! but once i figure that out it is way more affordable then LULU. ( although you do have to order in bulk)

-def. need to work on getting up earlier

- got a job!

- applied to penland and women's studio workshop, chickened out on the Xeric grant, mostly because of their expensive application proccess.

- half way through free health care application, just need to corral application form into one envelope.

-I will have to rustle up my drum sheet music and get tapping.


wow- im a bit further along then i thought. written down i see that I tend to stop two steps away from victory. this week's resolution is to get ALL of this stuff off my list by next friday.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

this is cute!

mushroom log!


although 1/4 lb every two months isn't very much. I think those grocery store packages are 8 oz?

garden update

its only been a week and I already have progress! its so exciting that things are actually growing. now I want to plant more stuff- cucumbers, peppers and maybe even tomatoes. maybe there's room in the front of the house.
bush bean juuuuust starting to peek out
close up of lettuce

herb pot
no sign from the artichokes- yet.

Monday, April 12, 2010

young juvenille

a biased and uninformed look at children's books these days.
"uninformed" because everything I'm about to say is based on a 35 minute browsing of the Staff Picks section at Monroe Public Library. "biased" because of course I love the books I grew up with...

I would describe children's books made this millennium as loud. plots based around brats being uncooperative and yell-y. every other page a close up of a child with lines radiating out of his/her mouth indicating some kind of loud noise. hard to find a book that looks like someone actually drew it, instead brightly colored blocky characters straight out of an afternoon cartoon . there is no subtlety to these books- you barely have to look at these books they are so loud and fast paced.


i prefer the classics.

here is a page form "a kiss for little bear"*


the plot: grandmother gives chicken a kiss to give straight to little bear, but the kiss gets sidetracked and misplaced and found again . this is a scene i remember just STARING at. in the back we see little bear laughing about the whole situation. its not mentioned in the text that little bear knows about the misplaced kiss fiasco, its something we find out through the illustration. All the illustrations have subtleties like this, forcing the reader to slow down and actually LOOK at the book, and give you reason to go back and read it again.

in this scene from "Sylvester and the magic pebble"**, Sylvester's parents are questioning the neighbors on Sylvester's whereabouts.

oooooh i love this drawing - the attentive duck neighbors, the dogs playing in the background. I'm unsure how to describe why i love this so much. its just funny. but not loudly funny.

here is a newish book i liked (2004) ,"kitten's first full moon"***

just a nice story about a cat. no yelling or misbehavin'




*words by Else Minarik, illustrations by xoxo Maurice Sendak xoxox
**William Steig
***Kevin Henkes

Friday, April 9, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

xx and jj

yesterday got free tickets to see xx and jj at the Chumley Theater. XX is a swedish electric pop band. It was pretty heavy handed on the stage theatrics. I imagined them stressing out about what a true american rock show should look like. it resulted in lots of choreographed lights, lots of backlighting, a disco ball and smoke machines.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

impromptu garden

was just gonna plant some mint and turned into a full fledged garden.


peas, lettuce, artichoke, rosemary,parsley,cilantro,basel and mint.

happy easter

Friday, April 2, 2010

Thursday, April 1, 2010

sedar dinner. better late then never?

sharon had lots of people over for a belated sedar dinner. got a very convoluted lesson on jewish history and the significance of passover. although convoluted isn't the right word- what's the opposite of convoluted? a word meaning something complicated described in a confusing but simplified way?
Sedar is a lot of drinking and fumbling through hebrew songs and lots of food and then more singing. and then project runway

Elija's plate
herbs and salt
Sharon describing what's on Elija's plate
a delicious (non)traditional burger with two potato pancakes instead of bread and a crispy matzo bread center.

afterwards I showed Matt some drawings, and he pitched some story ideas and we settled on one about a fox and his shadow, and we both got really excited because foxes are awesome.

proactive

hoping to get this residency
sent my application off today just in time for april 1 deadline.

free show

brad got free tickets and invited me along. Joanna was good. I got pretty riled up over the drummer. he was making a big f-ing deal over every tap and muffled cymbal crash. getting up to tap the rim of the base drum, bobbing his head and rocking out to every song- extremely out of proportion to what was actually being played. - its joanna newsom,Neil

YOU ARE NOT TODD TRAINER