word of the day is word

This makes me think I should give up now and go into animal husbandry or something. Dear god she amazing.

Magnetic life

Sometimes you need a little change. Last night I was feeling burnt out after two hours of printing....which equates to only 3 book jackets. I decided to cut up some magazines and came up with some collage doodles. I think I might do a bit more of this when my portfolio is done. I am shooting to be finished with everything in the next two weeks. I think during crit week for the rest of the pc kids (I don't have crits as we will be going to NY for real life abuse from possible employers. Altho in this market place I might just go to 9th street while Im there and ask for a job.)
I did a bunch of these in high school and like magnetic poetry it is really easy to make yourself feel good when you cut up existing stuff and new compositions. I love magnetic poetry. They should come up with magnetic parts of magazines so people can make magnetic collages. Maybe I will do that when I am done with school.

Night of the Living Dead

I never really listened to the words to Night of the Living Dead by Tilly and the Wall, but today while working a book about me I happened to hear the familiar reference to Atlanta. Ever since I moved here I started noticing that a lot of songs reference ATL and not just hip hop songs. When the Postal Service made a reference to Washington DC (the district sleeping alone tonight) I felt a strong connection and pride for my home. When I hear reference to ATL all I can think is "I am surviving this hole and I have the emotional scars to prove it. Yeah, I am being melodramatic, but I hate the looks. The disgust and anger like somehow me being a homo cause the economy to suck and for the roads to be littered with craters they have the audacity to call potholes...more like black holes. Maybe its just because I have so little to focus on aside from school that when I venture out it is to places where one would see phobes...like the grocery store, gas station, restaurants, malls, and running. I have been holding my breath for two years and I am the better off of the two of us. The other day someone said to me "charrow, I didn't realize you hated Atlanta so much." Have you ever talked me before? I would rather be a little fish in a huge pond than a fish too big for the pond.

btw: I live off of North Ave. and there are prostitutes.

Oh and just when we thought we were no longer lost
They kicked us out into the dirty streets of Atlanta
So it's Friday night down on North Avenue
Where gas station parking lot prostitutes
Tried to fix their hair in our rearview mirrors

Crewd

I am hard at work or something while browsing blogs with breakfast I looked over JJ's shoulder and saw a familiar image of a woman floating in a house. It was a piece by Gregory Crewdson an amazing photographer who's work looks more like a still from a movie than photography. His photographs are slice of life if life is the twilight zone. I saw his work in New York, not at the MOMA as you might think, but in a Manhattan apartment. I was baby sitting for a nice lesbian couple who have a Cambodian baby girl (you think I am kidding but I'm not) and live in an apartment in Battery Park facing the statue of liberty. After 9/11 the prices of apartments near ground zero dropped. They had had a place facing ground zero and after the market broke they moved to the other side of the building facing the butt of the statue of liberty. The apartment was everything you would expect from a couple who could afford to own in Manhattan. It was impeccably furnished with forties wood and leather chairs and amazing art. Even the babies room had been touched by the hands of taste. The walls had graphic images painted on it by my cousin who is a successful artist (who also owns in Manhattan) and for awhile I wished this was my family. The thing I remember most was that they had a huge photograph in the living room by Gregory Crewdson. By huge I mean 5 feet wide by 7 feet tall. It was of a boy in a shower reaching down into the guts of the house. It was so cool. I may never have that kind of money, but at least I had the story seeing an original Crewson in a private home.

pretty mess

Two more.

A shape experience. These are for a book I am making for the post kindergarten crowd. Kindergarten is essentially an introduction to design. It helps kids develop a relationship between shapes and nature...well at least that is principle it was built on. After kindergarten children are thrust into first grade and thus begin their decent into structure, discipline, and hatred of school. For some reason there is no no bridge from kindergarten to first grade. This book is for kids who want to continue their design experience (or rather parents who want to continue their children's visual education). The spreads will have colors that are harmonies so that children can focus on the shapes and not be overpowered by the color. While they do not make actual images they will, hopefully, inspire kids to play more with shapes and not feel constrained by making literal image. I have an image in mind for each collage, but I do not want to influence viewers so I am going to keep my thoughts to myself.

Dramatic painting.

Its on the way. This group illustration is going to be the death of me. I need an illustration that is of a group. This is the fourth version of this little piece. I know it is not quite right still and I sent it to my prof to ask her opinion. She said the light on the faces was not quite getting it. SO I am going to attempt to fix this one and if is still not working I will do a 5th version. While correcting is all fine and good sometimes its a matter of letting paper show where there is light rather than building up white pigment. This lighting is also especially difficult b/c its coming from below so everyone is supposed to be underlit/ theatrical which is not natural looking. If Degas were alive then I would send him an email asking for guidance. Seeing as he is not alive and I do not have a connection with the great beyond I will have to light JJ with a flashlight in a creepy campfire way and photograph it. I will get this...oh yes I will.

book covers again

I did some image adjustment. I asked two friends what the images were. One friend proclaims herself as someone who misses a lot of conceptual things and the other was an art history major in college. The conceptually deficient friend got what the top image was, but not the one below it. The art history friend did not get either one. So, like any good designer I refined both. Anyone up for a guess?

refined by unrefining

My teacher adviser was not thrilled with the images i created for my book covers. She suggested that I give them more life and emotion by tearing paper. So here they are in torn paper. I have lost all sense of good and bad. I feel like a circus monkey and I have flees.