it's like an ant farm, but with squirrels!

This is currently in the front window of the cottage:











Please note: In the video, we were watching Ideocracy, which is the loud sound you hear in the background. It was kinda lame. The squirrels were more fun to watch.

Good Morning Noon

Good Morning Noon, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

So I finally got all my marks and my final average is an 83! I was really happy. I ended up with a 94 in critical theory!

Yesterday I started summer school and really like the instructor. Thank goodness because I'm going to have her in June for the next class. So this one now is called Contemporary Issues: Art Today and it runs until the end of June. Here's the description:

This introductory studio-seminar course exposes students to some of the issues, theories, conceptual and formal strategies that inform contemporary art practice. This specific offering concentrates on drawing and painting with reference to other media. Each weekly seminar explores current ideas and discourses through some of the following: presentations of artists’ works, analysis of assigned readings, and students’ presentations of their own projects.

1313 Mockingbird Lane, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

The next one is a 3 week intensive course called Painting and Digital Imaging. I'm super stoked to take it, but am a little nervous about having a painting assignment due for each class. Here's the description:

The capacity to manipulate and synthesize images digitally from a vast number of sources allows artists increased latitude in generating ideas for paintings. In this studio/lab-based course, students use the computers, digital cameras and scanners to gather images and create compositions for their paintings. Through a combination of painting and digital experiments, students explore a range of possibilities for expanding the painter's vocabulary.


I've got a shitload of old photos and some crap from my teen years that I'll probably work into paintings. I also have a whole box of slides we found at Goodwill last summer that I'm going to try and use.

side dish, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

Then from the end of June to the first week of August I'll be taking History of Modern Art. Here's the description:

This lecture course surveys major artistic movements and artists from the 1860s to the 1970s. We begin by examining the roots of Modernism and proceed to a consideration of movements such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism. We then examine Duchamp and the Armory Show of 1913 to illustrate the influence of the early-20th-century European avant-garde on North American art and aesthetics, particularly Abstract Expressionism. We conclude with a discussion of mid-20th-century art movements, including British and American Pop, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Performance, Land-based Art and Post-Minimalism.

This will probably end up being mostly essays and exams, and I have a friend taking it as well, so it'll be good to have someone to study with.

hush puppy, originally uploaded by snailbooty.

I have so many photos from my first year drawing class that I just haven't had time to tweak and upload yet but I'll get to it eventually.

OH last night I started a dance class.

A hip hop dance class.

...

STOP LAUGHING I'm serious!!!!

Katie Hip-Hop Dance - Delmar Loop 9, originally uploaded by kocojim.

I haven't taken a dance class since I was 9 years old and even then it was Royal Conservatory Ballet - ugh. I do love shaking my ass on the dance floor (the 2 times a year I actually go out dancing) so I thought what better way to get in shape an learn some new moves.

My ass and obliques are KILLING today though, ya'll. Maybe by the end of the class in June I'll have the balls to tape myself dancing and share it with you.

Maybe.

P.S. Here's a shot of a sculpture that I made last November. Just totally forgot to post photos of it!

Borderline Normal

Freudlo, originally uploaded by Tommykane.

I was supposed to check out a facebook-induced event last night at Kalendar, but ended up feeling all headache-y from my allergies so I wimped out and stayed home. Which is also why I'm inside writing this, rather than sitting on my deck, soaking up the sunshine. Sigh.

For the last 4 months, our condo looked as though an art supply store birthed a giant poo baby who wouldn't stop spontaneously pooing all over the place. I've never let my home get as dirty as I did this past school year. I spent the whole day yesterday organizing all the loft junk into an semi-cool workspace. Now that I've been at school, I finally have a sense of what kind of stuff I need to effectively complete homework without having everything everywhere.

Now that things are organized, I need to spend a couple of hours actually cleaning it. But I don't really feel like it. So, I'm online enjoying my flickr contacts' photos. I think I'm in love with Tommykane's sketchbook.

one more assignment done...

Kirk and I have been dreaming up fancy houses we would love to live in. So here it is:




Wanna see the whole fabrication process with slideshow-y goodness?

Dudley the Fearless

Dudley the Fearless, originally uploaded by micgormit.

micgormit is one of my favourite toronto-based flickr photographers, and dudley is the cutest puppy ever!


oh, i mean, besides oscar of course...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. ack. flickr's down.

10 things I've learned in the last 2 weeks

1. There are not enough hours in the day to browse flickr.

2. House painting is hard work - all that bending and reaching. I'd rather be painting canvasi than my bedroom.

3. I HATE having my home in total disorder. My bed is in my living room and my clothes are EVERYWHERE.

4. Beds are meant to be in bedrooms, not in living rooms where cats and dogs will sleep on them all day and get hairs on pillows and in between sheets.


5. Even though I don't have to get up by 7:00am anymore I still seem to wake up around 7:30am. Today I fell back asleep until 11:30am but that's neither here nor there.

6. Am a big baby. It's a beautiful day out and I'm inside posting this to my blog because I left my sunglesses at Steve's last night. Also, because the sun is really bright out and it burns my eyes.

7. I don't need TV. Kirk and I cancelled BellExpressVu so that I can concentrate on all those projects I have listed in my to-do journal.

8. I eat less when I'm unemployed. When I'm home, I just seem to graze a little here and there, but when I was working I scarfed.

9. Working out means ab pain. That combined with mentruation really puts a damper on things.

10. I miss TV. I have cramps right now and am so hopped up on Motrin that I want to veg out on the sofa - I mean bed. Since it is still in the living room. Maybe I'll go rent a movie.