real talk

first try

this is a little bit of something I might be looking at. The paper got really silly & I know how my next try will work (I ran out of paper, so it will have to be tomorrow), but this is generally what I am going for.

maybe the sun will move around.

The sun is a round plate! I am exited to work with more shaped plates from here, but this was my first try with the jeweler's saw.
uhhhhh and the trees are a linocut printed over my etching with very transparent ink

NOTHING IS GOOD SO I WILL JUST TRY TO MAKE EVERYTHING

Looking like some camels in the snow

change in thesis proposal: Pattern & Habit ON VACATION

So this is done. Or this part is done. I will make a better picture of it when I fix my camera thing.



BORING

These works are patterns built of patterns. The buildup of habits upon habits. Cultural habits as well as these habits that we, as humans, have developed as a survival mechanism.

I forget when I am entirely enveloped in my daily habits that they are even there. But if I am in my niche and my habits are disrupted, my entire day is usually destroyed. I know this reaction is more extreme than the reaction of a typical human being, but there is always a human desire to maintain a pattern.

When I am outside, I leave most of my habits. This weekend I ran off to buffalo for a second. I got lost and slept in a funny place, but my mind was the clearest it has been since august. I could actually articulate myself verbally, which is impossible when I am home, as I am so weighed down my by habit-schedule.

THESE THINGS I AM MAKING are patterns built out of patterns & imagery relaying cultural habit. They are saturated burdens & too much at once so there is no room for anything else.

THEY ARE HABITS.

So I need to take these habits, these hopefully universal habits, on vacation. These gods and moms would look better on a beach with some tiki lamps.------next is more work with collage & other printmaking techniques to incorporate color and an environment.

This is the beginning!



I can imagine the plate printed on kitikawa these linocut pine trees printed over it in a transparent ink. I will cut out the trees (and dudes) and collage them onto a larger image. a lithograph i haven't sketched out yet.

and it will repeat and repeat and repeat.
these friends will be on vacation in the pacific northwest.

oh and buffalo was wonderful & the meeting went well, I think. The city itself is beautiful, but wholly terrifying. In any case, it was nice to take what I am doing here somewhere else and have someone else look at it.

actually, the demons make me do it.

artism

I am into these obsessive patterns because each mark becomes a very small piece of an eventual sensory overload.
I can just slowly live in fear.

new plate::

ALMOST HOME

This guy is almost done! I need to work out the wiping---this print is totally underwiped.

SKETCH FOR MY NEXT PLATE

CEPHALORACOPAGUS MONOSYMMETRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

NOT DONE. THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO ERICA FINK, HOWEVER.

BUT CHECK OUT MY DEEP ETCH.
I think I might have to loosen up my patterns a little bit next time, though./////needs some kind of environment yet.

THIS IS NOT FINISHED YET

It has been etched once. I will revisit it a couple more times to work in the environment of the awkward walking daddy's girl. My big one is in its bath of acid right now. Hopefully she comes out etched squeaky clean.

progress update/ the two and some months before this started

These peaches are well on their way. I plan to have them ready for their first etch by monday & I have sketches for my next plate. I just have to acquire more copper. I think I will also work on drawings to be transferred to photolitho plates, as they are cheaper & I can do a few things a little bit bigger and still have the opportunity to incorporate repetition. My initial thought was to just create as many etchings as humanly possible over the course of this academic year, however, I forgot I have to eat too. BUT since I have a love for some nice plate tone, I don't exactly need the most gorgeous pieces of copper. I just need to be resourceful& I am an expert at being broke. it will be okay it will be okay.





I also was feeling minorly nostalgic/ panicking that I forgot how I almost died in at least 30 different cities. So I drew a partially inaccurate (those lines ain't highways) map of my adventure as an epic mooch. I drove (or rode when the boys felt the need to get behind the wheel) a big white van around the country with some dips into canada. Every night, they played a show & fed me & I had floor to sleep on & they put the gas in the van that was taking me everywhere.





I was searched by dogs and was fed cacahuates by a trans lady on the streets of el paso. I chased twelve boys through the jemez reservation in a rain storm and climbed a mountain. I watched the sunrise over lake champlain in vermont and swam in a river full of poisonous snakes in north carolina. OH and I saw the grave of a vampire in a confederate cemetery. oh and I met all the famous people.

all while promoting someone elses' work. We met so many who had propelled themselves around the country in a similar manner. Their art was feeding them (barely) and putting gas in their cars.

People only know what you are doing if you force them to see it. So why can't I do that? For what I am doing. I would have to tack myself onto something musical and the actual adventure would have to be after I am technically finished with my project. But I could begin planning it now. I should get myself into grad school first, though.