Yeah

I'm at home because I have a stomach ulcer.

Degree Project show tomorrow.

Yeah.

Note to Self:

The perfect musical accompaniment for my artwork would be one of these two bands:

Morphine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7s9xnhWj0o&feature=related

or,

Electric Wizard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9MTscBEb3g


Both bands are very simple, yet extremely moving and powerful.
Morphine has three instruments: a 2-string bass (in itself a minimalist instrument), drums, and a saxophone. My dad turned me onto this band.

Electric Wizard is much darker and has extremely slow, heavy, doom metal sounds. Something that you would stand in awe of. It doesn't need hooks or shit like that.

goodbye norton

Tonight is my last night in Norton.

It's been rejuvenating to be at home, eating good food and sleeping. A lot. I've also been able to go to the gym a lot, which is important.

Here are two photos that I found. The first is my bedroom window, the second is the parrot we used to have, Loki.





Then I made a sketch for a Skayer poster I want to make:





Oh and here's one for Metallica, playing in the Da Nang Valley in Vietnam. This is a reference to their song, "One." The final image will have a small silhouette of a UH-1 Huey in the fire.





And possibly my favorite: an Electric Wizard show on Halloween in Hell.




This semester promises to be very rewarding, very busy, and very productive. I have 4 studio classes: Lithography, Illustration Portfolio, Art Ed Portfolio II, and Intro to Painting.


I will be posting more on here over the semester, as I believe it's a requirement in our IL Portfolio class.

.

If I were to make an advertisement on tv, it would be completely silent.


That would get your attention.
A complete lack of stimulation.
Or maybe I would whisper to you!


I'm trying to be quieter with some of the things I do.


I'm sad because I have a minor stomach hernia and I can't run. I also can't go to the gym. I was looking forward to being home this break and losing some weight. Oh well.



I went onto Danielle's fb when she wasn't looking and made her status "EVERYTHING IS COVERED IN BLOOD SO EVERYTHING MUST BE BURNED"

I think it's what I would say a lot if I had problems.

.

Awe at the Spectacle of an Empty World

We awoke to the end.
We had each other.
We faced it hand in hand.

The sun shone red.
We looked at the sky.
The clouds opened on our bare faces.
Tastes. Bitter in our mouths.
We felt the last to feel.

Everyone lost.

We slipped: together.
We huddled in search of a warmth that had escaped us.

Things were empty.
Sounds echoed.

We… were.
We fell a little further down: empty, but together.
Stuck—we found each other.

The sounds reached a crescendo and we swelled.
Swollen with all of our might,
We strained against the weight.

All the words we wanted to say spilled out.
Like a river.
And we were lost.

Things were so real.
And.
All of this is true.

____

This piece started in Texas. It began as a series of words and sentences that came to be a story. The story progressed and became an art piece. Each of the columns folds up into a book. Each print is 5x7in and each book is about 100in long.

88 prints, From left to right: etching, monotype, cut paper, embossment.

Make sure you click on it to see it larger.

simple. and a story I wrote

There's beauty in lines and circles.

And it's true that everything is better when it's simple.

I've been thinking about my work a lot lately: where I fit in to the greater scheme, and where I want to go.

Making simplistic images will work because in a vast sea of complex imagery, a picture that is quiet and simple will stand out like a sore thumb. When everyone is yelling louder and louder, sometimes what makes sense is to talk in a quiet voice.

Or to say one thing, and make sure it's said well.

A lot of illustration is obvious, by definition. I think Illustration should ask a question, rather than give an answer. To give someone the framework for an idea or an interpretation, and then let them fill in the details in a way that brings them a visceral experience.

I don't want to tell you what to feel, I'm going to let you figure that out on your own.


Maybe I could call all this the "New Minimalism?" That might be a bad idea.


I wrote a story for Degree Project, won't you read it? (it's only 500 words long) In the story, many things are left out. These are for you to fill in as you see fit. When I read it, I don't fill in any details because I don't think details like that matter in this story. It's up to you.

_______________________

The air was still.

Things were just as they’d always been. We walked slowly because there was no rush. The rhythm of the people throughout the narrow streets, the sun going down over the rows of apartment buildings. We watched as the alleyways between houses showed brief glances down their narrow corridors.

A slow grind – We became machinery: working for days on end. It was all we knew. The city was gray, people were tired. Things weren’t easy anymore for anyone.

The sun set as brilliant warm colors lingered at the horizon. The gray buildings darkened, solidified—monoliths in the silent street. They became black outlines, with the sky behind them passing from blue to white, to orange, a color shift that only the sky could do.

Birds, on a tree between two houses, suddenly scattered, flying into the air. The air changed and we all breathed in. Something was different.

It was quiet. A peace that you could live in for a million years.

Sounds stopped.

Something happened.

A drone, a whir—arose from the horizon.

Our eyes searched the sky.

Shapes, something different than the emptiness that had been there before. They came and swept across the town: brown and slick. Wide, giant wings and massive bellies that opened up and dropped fire on us. They flew low over the city, at odd intervals. Mechanical beasts, pregnant. They birthed fire onto us.

We who had been troubled so much by meanderings and uncomfortable realities suddenly found ourselves lit by the fire of our own destruction. The flames came as fast as the beasts, and now they were upon us—a great onrush of the tide—a wave—an avalanche.

The streets lit up; black monolithic buildings changed a color to match the sky they were once silhouetted by. Chords rang out and the air whistled, blown out from hell. I watched as the people I knew were consumed in flame, their dying bodies writhing in agony. They danced on the way to the ground. They couldn’t cry.

The fire rose above the trees and bathed my face with the hottest light.

I ran.

My feet splashed in puddles as they turned to steam. My clothes burned and my eyes watered from the heat. I felt everything: the earth, the fire around me and the air being sucked away to fuel the fire that consumed all.

A train struggled on its tracks and I ran alongside it. Its gears: metal, its wheels immune to the inferno that had enveloped the city; its beat the same as the one that my feet beat out. The river appeared before me. I looked and saw people being pulled up and out of themselves. They were gorgeous.

Plunging into the water, my lungs filled with the scorching air. I was more aware of my being than I had ever been. I looked up through the water at the horrible fire—held back only by the water. Things faded and the memory broke. The black became more than the red, and suddenly everything was dark.

______



So if you read this, let me know. You could just leave a simple comment.

Senior

Christmas was interesting.

My dad was at Brigham and Women's because of foot problems that left the doctors confounded. He came home today and we ate and opened presents.

I got a lot of books on war and art (!!)


I'm almost done applying to grad school.




So here's the portfolio I used to apply to SVA's MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay program:
(I'm not gonna type out the names and media, etc)

I seek to create images that are more subtle than obvious, more simple than complex.

I'm not a colorist and I'm ok with that.

I hope you enjoy it.