I'm So Tired, I Haven't Slept a Wink.

Well this is an update that's been put off for far too long.  It's been super busy on my end.  I was getting hours from the temp agency, was helping Dory prep for Castle Con which was earlier today, and I was attempting to finish a cable tie piece for a juried exhibition.  Well I've got the piece started, but I read more into the competition and found out it's an online only exhibition.  They issue an e-magazine to their subscribers with whatever digital photos you provide.  It's so not worth the $35 entry fee.  So I just busted my ass for nothing really.  On the upside, there's another exhibition that I will be applying to, THE 10TH A.I.R. GALLERY BIENNIAL A Juried Exhibition Open to All Women Artists.  Open to all mediums and has a real gallery as opposed to a virtual one.  What a novel concept.  Hmmm, what else has been happening... well I warped my loom.  Meaning I strung up my loom and am now weaving on it, the materials were starting to bust out of the jar I keep them in, so time to start a weaving.  Oh and I am now indebted to Leyna for giving me a copy of some website editing software.  I can now update my website!!  I'm also indebted to Steph for fixing the coding problems on the 'contacts' page.  It now works!
 The Whale is still coming along at its slower-than-molasses pace, but I have faith that it will look amazing in the end.... or at least look like a whale.  Unfortunately I have not been taking photos recently due to laziness.  After all I've been doing this week I think I'm entitled to be a little lazy with the photos.  Watched some TED Talk videos again, since there's not much else I enjoy watching on the internet.  Be glad I don't post cat videos.  Anyway one of the talks was this one:



Ayah Bdeir talks about building circuitry and making it as easy as snapping Legos together.  She started a website called Little Bits, an open source and storefront website where the parts she uses in the video are available.  This got me thinking about a lot of projects that I couldn't accomplish due to lack of knowledge of electronics and wiring.  I think these things are brilliant.

Well on a far creepier note I saw this video in a yahoo news article.  This girl is so incredibly doll-like it's frightening.  And the fan base is typical for the "cute, not legal, and trying to be Japanese, please-give-me-attention." genre.  You know, those creeper guys at anime conventions who ask for you picture and try their hardest to upskirt you in the pose, yeah, that kind of fan base.  What I find difficult to swallow is that the mother of this kid encourages it. There's just so much wrong with that.  I mean seriously, a mother is supposed to protect and raise their child right?  Just read the article and try to watch the video ( I got about 20 seconds in before I couldn't take it anymore.  Bad Harajuku accents need not apply.)

 And Just because I can, Cat Videos.



See Ya'll Later!

I'm so Sorry but I'm Addicted to TED

I'm seriously addicted to TED Talk videos.  I figured If I'm going to watch a video anyway while working on art, then I might as well watch something thought provoking and awesome.  It's either that or finding something on failblog.org to amuse myself with.  I was really impressed by 2 artists who gave talks about their work in the videos.

The first video is of contemporary artist Aparna Rao.  She works with technology to create amusing and sophisticated sculpture meant to provoke a reaction of some sort.  My favorite are the blank canvases with the little creatures who pop out from behind them when it's quiet. 

Ok that video should work, if not the link is here.

After that I continued to watch videos and work on the Whale.  I'm trying to fill in this 2 inch squared area and it's taking me a fairly long time.  So the next video is of an artist named Béatrice Coron.  She works with paper cutouts and creates these absolutely gorgeous and very elaborate scenes with nothing other than paper and an exacto knife. 




If the video doesn't work you can find it here.  Her work reminds me of Kara Walker's pieces.  Kara Walker is a well known artist for her paper cutout silhouettes and installations.  Where Béatrice's work is rather whimsical and fun, I feel Kara's pieces are more political and darker.  There's no pun there.  Kara Walker works with wall installations from what I've seen of her work.  I love it.  It's meticulously worked on and the themes are sort of like a sinister story time. 

From Artnews.org

She deals with stereotypes within the African American community in a style that is reminiscent of early American illustrations.  The graphic quality of the black shapes on the white background allows for far less distraction in the messages of her work.  I truly love the work and she exhibits all over the world, I'm sure the National Gallery and Metropolitan Museum of Art have her work in the permanent collections.  And if they don't they should cause it's incredible.   

Other than that it's been a quiet and pleasant day.  Except for my father's students.  It's always a challenge to listen to them.  I really wished I had gone outside and enjoyed the nice weather, but I really wanted to get more work done on the Whale.  Also the efforts to clean my room have been... slow.  I get distracted easily by shiny things.  And my room is full of them.  Something else I've been meaning to do is re purpose some canvases that I've taken the older paintings off of.  I don't really care for the paintings I previously made... they kind of sucked.  So I want to make more beaded pieces at some point so I need to stretch some fabric over them.  That way I'll have them ready to go when I need them.  It's not like I don't have plenty of fabric right? 
 
Well I guess that's it for today.  Not much else is happening recently, besides the day jobs coming up but that's not a topic for this blog.  So on that note:
See Ya'll Later!

P.S.- Yay for reaching over 200 page views!!!!!

Little Movies, Big Movies and Beatboxing to a Cockroach .

I had to get this typed up before I forgot to post this.  I've been working on the Whale this morning, and to keep the screeching of 9 year old beginner flute students out of my room I decided to watch some TED Talk videos.  I love TED videos.  I watched a few this morning and one of them was more of an educational video for students than an intellectual thought provoking statement of facts/ theories.   So the video is kind of awesome, this guy uses various instruments to record the neuron impulses from a cockroach leg and teach students about neurons and electronic impulses.

The title really caught my eye, The Cockroach Beatbox. Curiosity got the better of me and it turned out to be really interesting... and gross.  The link will take you to the TED Talks webpage should the video above not work.  I'm not sure if the guy on stage is trying too hard to connect to today's youth or if he genuinely wanted to use a beatbox guy to prove a point.  He probably could have used a big drum or another deep booming instrument to get the same effect.
Anyway I ran across another video of the accomplished and very awesome Aimee Mullins (link will take you to the video since I can't seem to get the embed code for it).  If anyone took a sculpture class at MICA or the Puppets and Prosthetics class you would have watched her in Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle.  Cremaster Cycle was filmed in the Guggenheim Museum if I remember correctly and was a series of short stories that all fit together in some form or another.  A lot of repetitive movements, problem solving and wonderful prosthetic and costume work.  The concept was really way out there but I highly recommend finding a copy just for the experience.  Back on track, Aimee Mullins is an amputee, she's missing the bottom half of her legs just under the knee joint.  She's pioneered prosthetic limb construction and has provoked thought over what beauty is for a woman who's missing bits of herself.   I loved how she talked about how her legs could give her extra inches of height.  Who wouldn't want a few extra inches right?  Her conversation on the subject was really funny and the reactions of the people in her life are really interesting to hear.  I started wondering if, god forbid, I ever lost my legs, I'd want to be like her.  I wouldn't want to wallow in misery or try to get people to pity me, I'd want to do something awesome like her.

Keeping to the video trend for this post, I stumbled across this set of videos on music.  I don't particularly care about the music, although it's super helpful for finding new things to listen to, I love the people in them.  They're crazy!  This guy in the first video is just really likable and funny.  I'm eagerly waiting for the next video to come out cause I really like the attitudes and humor of these guys.

If I ever end up in London I want to see this shop. It looks like a chill place to go to for music.
Well it's about 2:30p and I need to go meet up with Marina to see John Carter.  This should be fun.

It's now 10:10pm, John Carter was ok.  It was fun and the guy who plays Gambit in X-Men was hot... and yeah.  I need to add the John Carter books to my ever growing reading list so that I can have a comparison, but overall I enjoyed the movie. 

Monster Strawberry!!

Oh man I had strawberries for breakfast today.  I took a photo.  It was huge!  I had to split it into 4 pieces in order to take civilized bites!  

Udon!

Yesterday I was at Mitsuwa Asian Market in Edgewater with Dory and Mae.  We had lunch there, I got chicken Udon noodle soup.  Next time I'm getting the ramen bowl cause it looked super tasty.   We spent some time wandering the book shop and did some food shopping.  I got pocky for the first time in a couple of years.  So tasty :3. 

It's finished, and there was much rejoicing.

So I guess I'll wrap this post up with the promised photo of the new cape.  I'm not gonna bother finishing it right now, cause frankly I'm not thrilled with it. It's just a little too puffy.  Commence with the re-patterning.

Good night and See ya'll later!