paintings!

Slideshow from this past weekend's school bus trip to Pittsburgh, PA

Cause I'm too busy to upload individual images. Anyway, we went to visit the 55th Carnegie International, which was ridiculously amazing. We also visited the Andy Warhol Museum, the Mattress Factory and Wood Street Galleries among others. I'm so frigging tired, but completely inspired. OMG that totally rhymes! (SIGH. that is how out of it I am right now.) I finally got some shots of recently submitted homework, so keep yer peepers peeled!

holy crap it's frigging october!

Dear blog,

I've often thought about you longingly over the last couple of months, but, sadly, you keep jumping to the bottom of my list of things to do. Since my last post, not only have I started school, but I also started working 3 part-time jobs on campus.

Sigh. I know. Waaaaaah. Poor me, I have 1500 photos from the summer that I haven't gone through yet. Waaaaah. I'm basically working a 57-hour work week and paying for the privilege. Waahh. There's still a hole in my new home studio ceiling after 2 months of emails and phone calls to the builder. WAAAAAAAH!

Jeebus. All I can do right now is bitch and moan and it's so frigging boring that I almost fell asleep typing this out. With all the recent politicking and with the economy heading straight for the shitter, the last thing you need is to hear that junk.

So, until I get my shit together long enough to post again, please enjoy this little piece of Canadian heaven:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

i'm learning to love printmaking

View on Canadian Art has a review of my printmaking professor's recent show on now at Craig Scott Gallery in Toronto.

Rudolph Bikkers is a living master ya'll. His prints involve dozens (sometimes upwards of 30) layers of colours and multiple printmaking processes.  I've seen them in person. They are flawless and crazy and I love them!  It's really been a great pleasure being in his class this past semester.

CSg artists, Rudolf Bikkers , Morphogenetic Fields IV

bikkers_morphogenetics_008.jpg (JPEG Image, 550x440 pixels)

CSg artists, Rudolf Bikkers , Morphogenetic Fields II

Blogged with the Flock Browser

More from Brendan George Ko

I've posted about Brendan before. Gorgeous stuff.

I found out he has a blog, checkit: http://photo-ma-graphy.blogspot.com/

Blogged with the Flock Browser

my brother got married last weekend!

i was a bridesmaid. sigh. i love my brother, my family, my new sister-in-law and her family, but if i ever get asked to be a bridesmaid ever again (especially when the wedding is planned for 3 weeks before the end of term), please shoot me. anyway, i'm having trouble uploading photos. here's a lovely video of the dessert table to tide you over.

BEHOLD! my recent printmaking homework!

screenprint
acrylic ink on cougar coverstock
8"x10"

The assignment was to complete a screenprint with 3 separate screens and colours. Next assignment is etching! Anyway, here's the process (well most of it):

more of my assignments from last term

mixed media on braced panel
20"x24"



acrylic on braced panel
24"x26"
-- i'm not totally happy with this but had to stop and hand it in anyway. i think the white eyes are a little much. will keep working on it and post updates when i get a chance



egg tempera on masonite panel
7"x10"

Happy New Year!

Yeah! So 2008 already, hunh? Yep. I've been mostly avoiding my usual EVERYTHING in order to eat, drink, and be lazy for 3 weeks. Anyway, I started a new semester at school today.

Class #1 :History of New Media Art

Course Description: This survey course offers a history of the relationship of art and media from the beginnings of photography and avant-garde cinema to contemporary digital and video art practices. The course examines technological developments that have affected and transformed perception and representation including time-motion studies, industrialization (Taylorism), mass culture, and global electronic networks (Internet). The influence of new media on various avant-garde movements including cubism, constructivism, surrealism, dada, and on the stylistic innovations of collage and montage will be explored. Selected writings on art and technology by key thinkers of the twentieth century will complement a visual and intellectual survey of artworks.

The first video we watched was of economist and communications smarty pants Herb Schiller. He's so cute I want to carry him around in my pocket all day.



And we finally bought a house. Closing date is mid-February and living with my parents is not as bad as I thought it would be, but still pretty meh.

we...don't...need to say goodbye. we....don't.....need to fight and cry. we....we could....hold each other tight...tonight.

my life is in a bit of a shambles right now. we're living with my parents, school is done tomorrow and we're jumping through hoops on the purchase of a new house. i'll be back before long.

it's all grist for the mill

So, I'm kinda freaking out right about now.

I have less than a month left for school and have so much homework, that I'm a little worried about getting it all done. I've been so distracted 'cause for the last 4 weeks we've been looking at houses, bidding on houses, walking away from bidding deals gone wrong, then doing it all over again.

I'm also finishing packing for our move to my parents' place, which is happening this weekend. I mean, packing what was left after we moved stuff out in August. We're about 70% done.

I'm also kinda sad about leaving this place we've been in for the last 7 years. Walking everywhere, 100 restaurants within a 3-minute radius, being a 15 minute bike ride to school, lovely old victorian houses, sigh, I'll even miss some of the panhandlers and crackheads. OK, I won't rally miss them, but my point is that living here has been a rich, textured experience. This is the first home Kirk and I made together.



I know in the grand scheme of things, these are trivialities compared to the reality that many people in the world have to live with, but hey, they're not trivial to me.

Sigh.

Now I'm getting all defensive and weepy. It's prolly just the PMS or maybe it's the rain making my broken toe (yes broken) ache. I'm driving Kirk and others crazy with my emotional bi-polar-like outbursts over all this shit, but I can't help it.

some of the last 48 hours...

sigh

so that thing i did the other day was attend a gala reception for the toronto french theatre's 40 year anniversary. my mom needed a date, so i went. it was...interesting.

well, the most interesting part was trying to get a picture of the governer general who was there and being blocked by her security. oh that and the bottle of wine my mom paid for but didn't drink.

so. much. homework. right now. i tried reading the news but i just ended up being all depressed. sigh. i think i'm totally PMSsing.

finally! now i own a piece of raymi!

hungover-raymi and i had coffee today. i really needed a batman t-shirt and she really needed to sell one, so it worked out great for both of us. read this and this if you want to know what happened.



PROOF!



current status of my panel painting. 75% done!


finally found something besides purses and accessories in H&M that doesn't make me feel like a big fat pig. ignore the socks. imagine opaque tights and cute shoes

when i was in 23 i used to have this recurring dream where i could sing like this. someday i will get over my singing in public issues. sigh.

progress is being made.

here is the current progress on the wood panel for my diptych project.







the best part of my day today was my visit with stefania.





i brought her some art nouveau/deco inspired source material and she tweaked it and is tattoing it on me!

this is the stencil we designed together.



this is phase 1 of 2.



this is oscar being bored.

there's a lot going on - and none of it meth lab-related, contrary to what yesterday's picture post might lead you to believe

for the last 4 days i've been working on one of the panels for my contrast diptych using plaster to smooth it out. well i didn't sand enough of it away and tried painting on it. as soon as it dried, the paint just started peeling off. last night i spent an hour trying to hand-sand it off. because it had cured, it was so hard that i just plain gave up.



dejected, i ended up going over to a friends' place for dinner, then came home and watching Dnevnoy dozor, which was pretty good. i was supposed to go to a birthday party (sorry tina!!!), but we didn't end up eating until pretty late.

anyway, the film is the sequel to Nochnoy dozor and second in Timur Bekmambetov's trilogy. It is all over though in 2009 with the Fox produced Twilight Watch in 2009. i actually enjoy watching movies in their original languages with subtitles - it adds a little more flavour when you can hear the actor's real voice/words/intonations. this last one is being filmed in english. oh well.



today kirk and i rented a storage unit for all our stuff while we stay at my parents' place.



we also went by their house to pick up our palm sander. kirk was wonderful enough to volunteer to sand all the shit off of my panel.



so i could basically start from scratch.

sigh. seriously, you guys, i wanted to cry. he's so lovely.



anyway, here's where I am so far:

yes, my mouth is almost always open

so here are the last 2 homework assignments i submitted for alternative media and techniques with shirley yanover.


tape transfers of old letters, acrylic paint and gel medium on braced panel
20x26


found papers, buttons, yarn, beads, acrylic paint and gel medium on gessoed canvas
16"x36", 20"x20"

i feel like they are both only about 75% done, but submitted them as time just ran out. I will continue to work on them and will post my progress.

any comments would be appreciated. seriously.

unless you want to tell me you hate it and that you'd change EVERYTHING.

in which case you can piss off.

now please enjoy some (shamelessly borrowed) images of the ridiculously beautiful work of mary o'malley: