Encouragement

Had a pep talk with Will where he sent me this:




Fortune Cookie Fortune that I got today:

Still have some ink under my nails from the studio yesterday. haha. Impossible to get it out of all the crevices sometimes...

Good things will happen soon.

I'm on Fall Break! woo! No class Monday or Tuesday!

Little painting

Reserve.

Acrylic and collage on paper.














This little painting is around 11 x 14 and has been the only sucessful sort of painting I've done this semester.

If I never mentioned it earlier in my blog (and that was so long ago, who would remember?) I am getting my BFA in Painting and Printmaking at Eastern Kentucky University. I will graduate in May 2010. Hopefully on to bigger and better things after that (like grad school?)

I've been kind of stumped this semester as it is the first semester of my last year, and I've been kind of strapped for interia ever since my grandmother passed away last month.

So, there has been very little work coming out of me, much to my professor's chagrin. Another reason for the blog. Accountablity, I suppose. That is, if anyone reads it. haha.

Somehow Podcasts segway into storytelling.

I love podcasts.
I would say it is because I love getting information, and I like the ease podcasts provide.
I can listen to This American Life for free every week, get movie reviews from Filmspotting, etc.
But I've been thinking about what I like so much about them.

When I was little my mom got me this tape with the best storytellers from some kind of oral storytelling festival, and I listened to it religiously.
And the best memories I have from my family and friends tends to be the stories that they tell/told. Or the stories we create together, I guess.

I've been writing in my paper journal lately, I'm trying to find out what I want my art to be about. I keep coming back to the same things, or at least simular ones.
Communication, Memory, Collective Memory, Storytelling, Myth...
or at least I'm interested in these things. I just still haven't figured out how to make my art meet up with what I'm interested in exploring.

The only one of those I believe I work with at all right now is Storytelling, any of the paintings I do that actually mean anything, instead of being a still life or something done stricktly for the grade, has always been somewhat about telling a story. In critiques on those paintings I'll talk about what the painting is about, and tend to get into some big long story about the painting.

So I want narrative, I want storytelling.
I'll figure it out. Just letting it out into the internet ether.

My excuses are just babies of snow...

Happy Sunday everyone! 

The Carrot Revolution was kind enough to link to me the other day. Thanks again for the shout out and the nice words.

 

I sent out a  scholarship application to Penland School of Craft this week. I hope I get it. I want to do this summer program on lithography. (Well, the program also includes stuff on intaglio and relief, but I know those processes, so I hope that they'll let me focus more on the lithography, since I know nothing about it.)

But anyway, when I sent my scholarship application to Penland, I had to take pictures of some of my art. Those arts happened to be the paintings I've not yet posted here, so here we go. 

Okay, paintings. Uhm. This one is kind of dumb, but my painting teacher likes it. We had to do our paintings about something, and I kind of picked communication, or the lack of. 

Essentially, It's a wasteland. 

Okay, so this was my final for painting 2, I painted a painting for my roommate, because I owe her some money... No, just kidding, She wanted one of my paintings, so I made her one. She needs to quit smoking, but, smoke is compositionally really really wonderful. I like swirls. Her hair is really not that color. I made it much too blonde, but she says she doesn't mind... sketches of it here. 

This painting is really personal. It's the biggest painting I've ever done. It's about 4 x 5 feet. I'm happy with it. People tend to like it before they know it's about death, and then they're like, "oh, i see. uhmmm." Oh well. 

It's what I was talking about here. 

Anyway. It's snowing outside. It's the pretty big clumps of snow.... or at least it was. It's calmed down now. 

Anyway. There are about 12 things I should be doing that aren't blogging so... 

Pictar

For my Rachel,

Proof of my being at Vandy:

Yep. 

Crazy Ears

I'm some kind of officer in my school's chapter of the Art Student Association. We need to vote again now that about half of our officers graduated, so that's why I'm not really anything yet. I was once the Treasuer. 

Anyway, I made this poster for our meeting.

It's pretty dope.

I thought you'd want to see. yes. 

Nashville and thoughts on cities

I went to Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday with my friend Ann and saw a lovely art show at Vanderbuilt by Xiao Xin Lu. It w

as a series of monoprints that had been drawn back on, sometimes  collaged, sown back in, anything that you could name. She had a very lovely control of mixed media. 

It was fantastic and has inspired me to try more things with my own printmaking, and maybe stray from the edition-able print. I know that i'm not a 'printmaker', I know I'm a drawer/printmaker who is influenced by form of printmaking. I am really excited about trying to explore this direction that my artistic vision wants to take. I've been thinking about it a long time, b

ut it wasn't until I saw Xiao Xin Lu's show that I realized how beautifully mixed media informed by the printmaking process could work. 

I just need to find a way to make it work well for me.

...and I'm pretty excited. 

Ann and I talked about how sometimes unexpected things are the best.  For example: not expecting a birthday present and getting one makes it so much better than if you were expecting something, no matter really what the gift was. 

I can't remember how it came up, but it made me think of

 New York. Which brings us to my second 'things I just like looking at' 

 

This photo was taken in Chinatown when I was in New York a few weeks ago. It's not just Chinatown that I visually enjoy, even tho I picked this photo for this topic

 (because of the colors and is one of my more favorite pictures I took on my New York trip). It's the hustle of cities that I like and am kind of uncomfortable with. You can be around so many people and be totally alone, and there is some appeal in that to me. At the sam

e time I really love random happenings you'll find more often in city places, which brings me back to my talk with Ann about unexpected things. While I was in New York one of my favorite experiences was getting off a subway with a friend and seeing some people breakdancing one direction, and a guy who played a mean guitar/foot drums (He was playing Tom Petty's 'You got Lucky', actually. I remember because I really like that song.) in another. All while lots of people are streaming around me going about their business. 

There was just something just visually great about it. (While leaving Grand Central Station we saw a squash tourney, too. This was not as visually awesome or moving etc., but was pretty out of the blue and cool too.) 

Maybe it was because I'm sheltered and just didn't expect something like that. 

I'm sure if I lived there, those kind of thing would quickly become old hat to me.

but just that the experience of all these people going about their own lives all around me and how I got to experience some things they enjoyed doing (playing music, dancing, playing squash) filled me with a wonder and a calm for the people who are around me. 

I think I like cities for the same reason I like living in the dorm. It's comforting to be around people, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't like them. I'm not a huge people person, and will openly admit to really not liking most people I've met in my life, but the fact they are around going on with their lives and having their own adventures and stories around me that I  will never know fills me with warm fuzzies in my stomach. It's just full of so much potential. 

A Very Short Post

This has to be short and without images, I'm due to a class in about 15.
I'd just like to state on my internet record that:

1. My trip to New York was wonderful.

2. I feel more comfortable in my own skin now than I ever have.

and that I'm just in a fantastic mood, and I'm actually very happy.
So much so, to shout it from the internet-blog-rooftops, I guess.
I can't remember a time in my life that I was this happy before.

...Now to eat my Ramen and run to class.

<3 Lindsay

But I think I got some linseed oil in my ear...

It's kind of disturbing how much I miss my sketchbook.
I've just left it at a friend's house, but I'm already frustrated and missing it.
I actually want to draw.
It's feels weird that it's not here with me. It's existence is comforting.

I painted for about 6 hours or so today. It was (generally) good times.

I gesso-ed the back of a painting because I didn't put enough gesso on it the first time around, and the back looked stupid with the paint showing thru. (I think this will also eventually destory the canvas) Little white spots showed up on the painted side, and I had to match colors for several hours trying to fix my painting. It actually turned out better than it was before I had to rework it, so I'm pleased.

The RA (I assume) put up signs in the bathroom stalls with names of funny cities.
I wanna live in Chicken, Alaska.

and because I hate putting up entires with no pictures...



I drew that for-freaking-ever ago. Like, at the beginning of the semester. It's kind of like this weird thing my roommate, her boyfriend, and I were talking about one day at the Mellow Mushroom.

Punjab's

More proof that the world is coming to an end.
My favorite place to eat has burnt down.
Punjab's was one of the best resturants in Richmond, KY, and to be honest I think one few remaining fantastic things in Richmond.
The people who worked there were always the sweetest people you'd ever meet. They had the best and kindest service in town.

Anyway,
I was there with my friend Shae, and my roommate Megan.
It started to smoke from the ceiling and we all left...
You read my roommate's (the journalist) entry here.
It's much more thorough than mine. Pictures and everything.


Needless to say, I'm depressed over it.
So close to finals week, right when I need Saag Paneer most.

Groovy

I did this little drawing this afternoon.

If I had a website, I'd have something like that in flash for the homepage. With actual links instead of random sayings...

Hope the Thanksgiving holiday was nice for everyone.

Things I'm thankful for at this second:

• The RA on our floor has really good candy in the bowl in front of her door. (she sets it out there for us. Mini Butterfingers and Mini Crunch bars.)
• Lifetime shows Frasier late at night.
• Holiday Breaks.
• House shoes
• People who I can talk to anything about
• The cheap pack of markers I bought
• My yellow hat
• My family
• Being able to see my high school friends over break. and it not feeling like we've been far away too long to be able to talk.
• Walking in the dark down my street
• Yellow Ginko leaves on the ground from the tree next to my window.
• Nachos

I braved the cruel day called Black Friday this year with my friend Emily.

The dark grip of capitalism filled the air...

I bought some stuff. I kind of wished I could have made everything for Christmas this year, but it's hard to do that. Some people hate scarves, and really like DVDs and video games. oh well.

Yep.