Happy accidents

Well, for my senior project I've decided that I'm going to print all of my portraits on transparency paper. There are other deeper reasons but I will get into that later. I started testing some today and realized very quickly (after the first print) how dumb I am. I was in a rush when buying these expensive transparencies and missed where it clearly states "Write-on Transparency Film", then "Not for use in copiers and printers". "Awesome," I thought. But I began looking at the first print I made--it was a photo of my friend Caylyn. It was very...stylized and interesting looking:

Sure, my first thought was "that's creepy." The composition I'd created coupled with the way I edited it before printing made for an already interesting design, that I can take credit for, but the blots and runs of ink were completely left to chance. This is where I thank my artist predecessors, Duchamp, Cage, Pollock, and Rauschenburg among several others...probably several others I know nothing about that challenged the rules of art and incorporated laws of chance into their pieces. Oh man, I feel these art history courses running through my veins...I have to stop myself here. Back on task, back on task.

So, like Jean Arp and many others I decided to roll our old master painters out of their graves just a little more by doing another print. It's a photo of me playing piano, actually but once again manipulated in a way that reduced the original photo down to just 3 colors or so:

Me!

This one was printed much larger and more densely but I still love the way the ink separates and forms small spots of emptiness. Of course, the "white" that you see in these 2 prints is actually transparent, I just placed them on a white surface when taking the pictures. I won't be using this style for my portraits...It'd get to expensive with ink but I love the feeling of discovering something new even in the midst of "failure." I guess I just have to keep an open mind.

Consignments

Painting is fun. Unfortunately, I haven't done hardly any of it in my life...I don't quite know why. Either way, I was asked by my sister to help her paint a consignment shop. It was a blast. I found out there is something I just really enjoy about collaborating with other artists to make it happen. I'd ask Jessica "How's this look?", "What do you think about this?", or "There's just something not Quite there...What do you think?" She'd offer a suggestion and we'd bounce back and forth on color schemes and thematic ideas and it worked. I think, anyway

Apparently I've made a mistake. I accidentally painted a naked woman. It's Supposed to be a silhouette of someone shopping but what I'm finding out is that it sort of looks like a naked woman trying on clothes in a changing area...

NOT naked woman shopping at a consignment store.

Apparently the couple that is starting the shop shared a love story over some old sewing machine...They used to go shop in consignment stores together and he bought the sewing machine for her or something? Either way, I saw a graphic of one and ran with it and got another silhouette out of it:

Love Machine.

There are more photos of the mural but Blogger is being kind of ticky right now and isn't taking all my pictures so I can't put them up but you get the gist. Gist, I like that word.

Also I'll be putting up another long detailed post up tomorrow because I'm finally completely sure what I want to do for my senior project. I'm stoked.

.cliffhanger.

Economic breakdown of Milledgeville

I'll explain Why this map is important in another post, it is concerning my senior project, but as of now I'm just going to post it because I find it slightly interesting and it took me forever to put together. The information comes from the Census but in order to get This detailed of information they only allow you to see one little block of Milledgeville at a time...skip this next small section if you don't care but just want to see the map.

How it was constructed:
In order to get the map to show street names and things, I had to zoom in to where I could only see 4 sq. miles at a time. So a small portion. I then took screen shots of all the separate parts of the town then patched them together on Photoshop like a puzzle. It was at least 15 pieces I had to put together. A painn.
But, now that it's done. I have a nice Detailed economically broken down map of Milledgeville:

CLICK the map to make it bigger and more readable!

"The old days"

Incredibly dorky bumper sticker made in high school...
0's and 1's referencing binary code

Sometimes I think it is important to remember your roots--where you came from, and yes, that even means remember some of those high school days many of us dread. I stumbled across a notebook of mine that I kept throughout HS, a comic. It's really quite humbling to look back and see where I was just 4 years ago to where I am at now. Embarrassing perhaps, but anime, comics, and video game booklets; those are what kept me in it and, I guess, led me to here. I found folded up sheets of paper that I'd use for a straight edge because I had no ruler among other small ingenuitive things I'd problem solve with (I was in class for most of this after all so I had to get creative). In fact, much of this was drawn while I was in ISS or some other form of solitary confinement for discipline (Mom, don't get mad--remember it's been 5 years now...).

Anyyyway, I told myself when I first started this blog that I was not going to post any work that I had created before the date of the first post because I didn't want to use that stuff as an excuse and just stay content with what I've already made, but I'll make an exception for the sake of nostalgia tonight. So here we go...

 

And of course, I can not go any further without talking comics, self/friend made comics...not the published kind. These stick characters go way back, even to Elementary school...I have been a part of so many. My friends and I were known for them, haha. I even sold bookmarks once for 50 cents to a dollar a piece that had these characters doing random things (whatever the consumer :) wanted).They'd look like this--these are a few pages from a random issue (please don't feel the need to read them...):

Oh man...those were silly. Notebooks full of these things.

And to think, this would be pretty much everything I could put in my "art" portfolio besides the few cheesey flash animations and photoshop tutorials I'd gone through at that point. It's no stretch of imagination to see that I was far from the "art world". Crazy to see how far I've come...Maybe I should of done more of these (next photo). Maybe it would have helped prepare me for the craziness that is that art world from working in this sort of state of "automatism".

A day well spent

 

I think it's odd how different each day can be. Just look at an array of most college student's facebook statuses. One day is wonderful and productive and the very next day it feels like I'm in a hopelessly lost fight against a bear, but through them both I'm the same person and keep pushing through to the next one to see what it holds.
Well, not quite where that came from but this day in particular was a good one (just 4 days after a Really bad one). I played with audio stuff more and took to the woods carrying a camera and alongside me followed my faithful friend Cedric. Here are some pictures of the endeavor:

He was Super muddy...

Clouds

Deforestation

For some reason I really like this picture, haha

 The picture in my previous post "My new backyard" was a taken today as well and the picture of a leaf looks great if you click on it.

My new backyard

When I was younger my friends and I would go play in the woods. We'd build tree houses and "discover" new species of plants and sometimes, if it were a particularly gloomy day, we would have to hide from things, from people, from monsters. The shadows of the trees and depths of the trenches served us well. We were never found.

Now this tree is what is left amongst the soppy mud and dead branches. Like a memory it stands tattered but strong in what I like to call my new backyard.

Little, Liver, Love

So here it is, some things I've learned put together in a horribly great little song...rap...thing

The beat and song I played on an electronic keyboard I got in middle school, haha. It reminds me of something I'd hear in the 90's...

To listen, go here:
http://www.fileswap.com/dl/1QOqQ276/keyboard_test_mixdown.mp3.html

Enjoy. :)
I'll blog about it more later but as of now I'm going to Milledgeville to hang out with some friends

A little piano bit

Alright, so as promised I recorded a bit on my piano at home. No...my piano is not in the most pristine shape nor does it produce the cleanest sound, but it gets the job done and I enjoy playing it. :) Also the mic was in an odd place sort of and was facing me because I was testing how it does recording both the piano and my voice at once--that demo will come in the near future.
The biggest issue I've come across so far is not a fault of the mic but the operator (yes, that would be me). I need to keep tweaking my EQ to get rid of any kind of "muddy" sound. Anyway, here it is. It isn't very long or anything amazing. I was trying to play some highs, mids, and lows to see how the full sound would come together. Improv #1 in A-minor. Baha. Not really...it's called "untitled" as played in my living room...not much of a recording studio but one must start somewhere!

http://www.fileswap.com/dl/E04q17V6/first_piece.mp3.html

Obey the arrow. click That link.

Gilgamesh

I'm taking one core class in school this semester because I was never able to get into it until just now. It is a world literature class. We're reading the same old stuff mostly, But this semester we just completed the Epic of Gilgamesh which I'd actually not read yet so it was kind of interesting. Anyway, I had the joy of writing a 4 pg paper on it today(sarcasm). I got to the end of the paper though and realized there was an interesting paradox going on with the main character, an inner conflict basically. Here is my conclusion to the paper before I explain further:

       " Enkidu warned Gilgamesh. He basically said, “This is not a good idea.” The real questions that are answered toward the end of the story are slightly more deep than “did he survive?” These questions revert back entirely to his original goals; goals that were set in this section of the epic [the portion of the story I wrote about] and about immortality, consequences, and pride. We know that most of the men of his city were destroyed by a beast sent by the gods caused by his journey. We know that he was able to get wood for a very pretty door to adorn the city, one that would become very empty. We also know that through this prideful act of not heeding any warnings and pressing forward anyway he gained immortality…in his own eyes anyway by leaving the legacy behind of defeating Humbaba among other things he accomplished. These answers, though, only raise more questions. The entire epic is about Gilgamesh conquering gods and beasts but did Gilgamesh really win? Did he really leave behind the legacy that he would like to leave behind? In order to become a hero he did some very villainish things. The normal story of an epic hero means that he or she comes back from the journey changed for good and on a good beat, but the epic of Gilgamesh ends with a slow rhythm, one that could easily be interpreted as being a feeling of hopelessness. Gilgamesh now just a man looks at just a city with just a big wooden door and recounts his tales to one other surviving person so that his “immortality” may truly be achieved."

As sloppily written as that is (rough draft) I feel like I stumbled across an interesting idea. Gilgamesh was interested in immortality. He comments that through creating a legacy of being "the king that slayed Humbaba", a demon that protected a forest, he could gain a form of immortality. But what I began to wonder as I was writing my paper, and if I rewrote my paper it would probably be much better, is at what cost? He lost his friends to death. Most of the men in his city had been slaughtered. The gods were not pleased with him. Was it worth it?

Bringing it home, is it worth it? Gilgamesh's goal was to chop down majestic Cedars to create the best entrance ever but at then end of the story he's looking over this devastation and recounting his story to a scribe. That door, was it worth the fact that most of the city's citizens would never see it because they had to move or were killed? What I live for, today. Is it worth it? What type of legacy am I building and with whom and at what cost? I can't say that I can answer these questions or that I should be able to in the moment but one day there will be an answer, whether I like it or not. I pray I don't end up like Gilgamesh. Stuck. Looking at a "legacy", everything that I worked for, a piece of my own "immortality", that cannot be changed and it all be in empty ruins.

Audio! A long time in the making...

Alright, so I know it is not much so it seems but there is a lot of effort that's been put into this project for quite a while. I basically have an amateur recording studio in my room, lol. I just need foam all over the walls and I'd be set (not that I'm going to do that)...just saying.
I have a pre-professional mic (a RODE NT1-A) hooked to a preamp (Gemini PA-7000). Technical this technical that and wah lah. I have a legit microphone hooked to my laptop running Adobe Audition and it's wonderful.
There have been a LOT of obstacles to make this work. In case you aren't aware, there are lots of things involved with recording equipment, cables, amps, adapter, microphones, etc...It's like a giant puzzle. And each piece has its own quirk that you have to work with/around but it's totally worth it. Sometimes I feel like it is like cranking up a car for the first time after you've dropped so much money and time and thought into it.
After getting all the hardware figured out, I, of course, had to teach myself how to use Adobe Audition. I've used other audio programs before (including this one) but once again each one has its own quirks and equipment and my experience with Audition is limited.
That being said. Here is my first recording...lol.

http://www.fileswap.com/dl/2o3NrkJJ/testing1_mixdown_(3).wav.html

Shortly I'll be posting more and I would have perhaps played my guitar but it recently screwed up and I'm quite unhappy about it. So perhaps if I get time I will record a tune on the piano. :)

Until then. That little blip is all you get, haha. It's late and I still have some homework to do. This is the start of something glorious.

About as dorky as it gets! But this is me losing sleep to get this
thing to work like it is supposed to!

Wisdom

"Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand; beside the gates leading into the city, at the entrances she cries aloud: "To you, O men, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind. You who are simple, gain prudence; you who are foolish, gain understanding. Listen, for I have worthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right. My mouth speaks what is true, for my lips detest wickedness. All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse. To the discerning all of them are right; they are faultless to those who have knowledge. Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her." Proverbs 8:1-11


pru·dence: caution with regard to practical matters; discretion.
The next verse is "I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence"

A picture that I took a few nights ago that is completely irrelevant to what I just wrote