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.

A black bug bit a big black bear, made a big black bear bleed blood.

This one is a larger plate I have been working on:


I started a second plate yesterday so my face wouldn't get too sick of this big one.

OH AND I realized a lot of my forms tend to connect to one nice bulbous creature. Also, I had sensed this "LANDSCAPIC" quality of my work before, but thinking about it in terms of the opportunities that printmaking lends me can make nice things. I can have as many of these bulbous creatures as I want, and in numbers, they become this unearthly landscape.--------Also scary as shit if each part of the leviathan earth has empty eyeballs staring at you.

The third thing I am seriously working on right now is to write a language composed entirely of tongue twisters. I can easily gain inspiration by collecting tongue twisters in languages I have had no associations with as well as just following the general rule that typically combinations heavy with alliteration and rhyme will be difficult to say.


This is swahili
Kale kakuku kadogo ka kaka kako wapi kaka?

it means "where are your chickens, brother?"

The bulbous leviathan landscapic creatures speak this unspeakable language that I haven't entirely composed yet.

also this has become important:
Using patterns to develop an image allows me to prove a devotion to the work. The time spent correlates to the intricacy of the patterns themselves, so ideally I am allowing the viewer to perceive this passage of time. Also, I use the patterns as a device to make the subject of the image secondary to the process. The images could be entirely blasphemous, but the seriousness of the patterns tends to contradict this.

devotion= manuscript illuminator= images become worshipped (accidentally) for their beauty instead of content= iconoclasts destroy

Class Blog: Sourcing Inspiration

More inspired by joy or sorrow:
JOY. WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE SAD? I am an anxious person, but a happy one. I think all that anxiety comes from the need to want to preserve my own happiness as well as the happiness of others around me. Much of my work so far has been created to lend a sense of harmony or comfort to the viewer. If the subject is uncomfortable or blasphemous, it is used in a humorous fashion or highly ornate to give the viewer another reason to look at it. IF IT NOT JOYOUS, I WILL MAKE IT JOYOUS, DAMMIT.

I am more inspired by positive energy, as it is not draining. There isn't this underlying need to make everything positive if it is already positive, so I can focus on other things, like flowery neck manes or how I want to cook an eggplant.

More inspired by rest or fatigue:
I am certain that I am more inspired by fatigue. Both as an emotional state and a feeling on a day to day basis. Usually, in that first moment where I realize I feel great, I put half my energy in to worrying about when and whether or not I will become too exhausted to function. But in reality, when I hit that point of exhaustion, I am no longer worried about getting there and have the space in my mind that was previously used for worrying returned to me. It is the same for developing ideas, as I begin to come up with something I immediately become worried that I will loose it or exhaust it. But when I have actually failed at something, I tend to find a better focus shortly after. It is entirely irrational, but worry overrides a rested state.

More inspired by relaxation or pressure:
It seems counter-intuitive. I know the typical human being usually works well when they are being pressured to work well. But again with the anxiety taking over the process, I am less inspired by pressure as more energy goes into worrying than actually creating. I have had the tendency to want so bad to give up if outside pressures are so bad that I may finish, but I will likely be less proud of my result than I would be if it was finished on my own accord.

I know pressure is really something totally unavoidable, so I have just learned to deal with it by maintaining a fairly strict structure in my process. I think that is how printmaking has worked well for me, because there are steps in the process and maintaining a time table is potentially more possible than something ( painting ) that just winds up becoming infinite. I know I am not inspired by pressure, but I don't know if I am inspired by relaxation either. I don't really do that.

More inspired by culture or nature:
I am definitely more inspired by culture, however this is not to say that I am not inspired by nature. I take my fair share of walks and climb my fair share of trees. I am obsessed with mountains. How they look, how they smell, how I feel when I walk to the top of a little one or drive through them after a big breakfast. But I think what people have done with nature and how they have dealt with it is more inspiring to me, like cold weather parkas and big pots to carry water in on your head forever.

I suppose when a culture gets to the point of being able to basically ignore nature because of design improvements, I get bored with it. The struggle for comfort and happiness and how it breeds creativity is what is inspiring to me.

More inspired by anger or pity:
I am more inspired by anger. When I am angry, things happen. I feel like pity is a waste of energy. You can feel bad about something, but if you don't have enough fire in your system to do anything about it, you just become a waste of space.

WHAT AM I DOING

joe wojtowicz----would like to acquire the footage of me hula-hooping and screaming for ice cream.

HELLLO BABYYYYYYYY

NERD ALERT

bro yo

summatime summore

I have been doing things way more important than serious art-- circling our nation. BUT MAKING NOT SERIOUS ART ALONG THE WAY. this is a recent dude, cayden owns it.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

together and the same but different

Another recycling project!
wood block prints on found fabric. houses growing upward to the rainbow pear god.

oh my doggies

this is not the print. just the stone

under-space/ dyin' alone

this lil' baby is 6 feet tall.

How it is

THIS IS A QUILT.
THAT IS WHY IT IS FLAT.

My room is messy

This is not done. I finished etching in the background tonight and will print that tomorrow. JUST YOU WAIT.

I must have been angry. my patterns are more obsessive than usual. there is nothing like pattern meditation, ya'll!

sundae trees

manifest destiny. manifest ice cream.

GET IN MY GRILL

potted crabs

a print that does tricks

This guy. I made 17 of him. He took up the last couple days of my life.



TRICKS HE CAN DO:

some of these mountains more finished

CLIMB THIS!

This is a tiny playing with what paint can do study. a little bit of paint

check this land

I can't make eye contact. EVEN METAPHORICALLY.
also, I am sicker than a bug right now!