mexican dog

There is nothing like spending an evening listening to people speak spanish while writing latin that isn't really latin, it's more like the english alphabet trying to pronounce latin. I am waiting for the day when I wake up and can spew spanish without a thought. I am hopeful of this because it sort of happened to me once. I was in a room where two people were speaking spanish for three hours. The next day I said things I didn't understand.

I hear lots of spanish everyday but frankly, my development is disappointing. Learning spanish, I just realized, is a major goal for me as is having a mexican dog. Mexican dogs are awesome, they're really roguish. I think when I own a roguish mexican dog, my life will be complete (not meaning a chihuaha by the way).

Megan Kirkland, who is a better woman than I, has a headache right now and for want of a spanish lullaby is her life made wretched.

appreciation
tenderness
approval
compassion
warmth
care
consideration
valuable
understanding
welcome
sing me a song about delicacy and I will revel
and I will revel

Wading through yourself and losing your keys in the muck, then time runs out and you have to try again tomorrow. Who was it who got to decide how fast we all have to be at everything? It doesn't leave much room for meditatioin. Or even coffee with friends. Coffee with friends where noone has to leave early.

I am the viking cook. I just thought someone might enjoy this delicacy, I know I did

What do you think. I can't be all the things I'm supposed to be right now, so I have to choose. I can't be the perfect student and the perfect friend. Neither can I pursue a personal life as well as submerge myself completely in personal statement (instead of choosing one or the other I go back and forth and end up just twitching a lot). I know I can do the things I need to more quickly than I am and maybe even stay on top of everything but I'm struggling. Someone somewhere along hte line is going to suffer, probably my grade which unfortunately at this stage of the game means my portfolio and thus my life if I ever really go for the artist thing with all I've got. I'm ready to give it all I've got but then there are people, who I want to be there for.

Right now I'm sitting in the art studio, it's 11:42 PM and it's my lucky day, I am picking up a roving wireless network. I just got done working on a project that was sort of due already some time back there, I know I can do this thing though, if I can do anything, I can do the swamped artist thing.

This current project is going to be a fun one. I have constructed a life-size Apollo. Apollo and I are going to shoot some pictures in various suburban locations. The basic idea behind this springs from my vehement hatred of suburban living. Apollo will look really unfortunate standing there in front of Wal-Mart with the shopping cart, or going to McDonalds or participating in some other degrading activity having to do with commercialism or advertising.

Originally I was just going to make some drawings of this situation, but my professor was the one who suggested the life-size thing.

So the fact that I will have a giant naked greek god in my portfolio from now on, is something I can thank Maria for.

I think after Apollo and I have our fun, we will finish off our day by doing a little skateboarding.

and I've never been to Boston in the fall...wow, now I have! I've never been to Boston in the snow...that will change

This is Harper. Harper is awesome. I wish Harper would take me to the banquet..

This is my new tea set, I am under the impression that it is an antique. At least I got it from a lady's barn full of antiques and Maria thinks it's an antique. I'll just go with that.

A long history

The long awaited day is here...I now have access to the internet. And in my very own home..Internet all around! On me!

It has been a long time since I've written a well representative post and kind of a lot has happened lately in the center of the universe that is South Lancaster, MA- pop. more than I can count on one hand. So this calls for a frenzied grammerless account consisting mostly of runon sentences and fragments. And when Amanda is almost to the point of neorosis with the misplaced commas, just remember that someone somewhere just learned the difference between your and you're.

Several weeks ago we spent a few days in NY. Boston and NY were the main reasons I came to AUC. Birds of a feather flock together right? So NY is where the artists are. So Wayne and friend Kate and I went to some galleries. Apparently, according to Wayne, there are hundreds of galleries in the art district. We covered close to 20. While we were looking in one of them, someone showed their work and got in. Maybe that will be me in a few.

Ok, random picture time, in no particular order: the infamous egg installment, my precious piano innards, some other stuff, fall, friends, I love it here!

By the way, this is a yankeeberry

a funny story that happened today

You will recall that we're building a stage set for Bethlehem. So we manhandled the school board into letting us take over yet another warehouse for the comings and goings of the art department. The building they gave us for this project is full of junk like old furniture and all manner of old randomness. We had to clean it out ourselves to make way for the all consuming slabs of foam.

Before I go on with that part of the story there is another character to be introduced. His name is Jeff, and he sounds exactly like Elmer Fudd. He is in charge of something at the college, I'm not actually sure what but whatever it is, it apparently gives him license to haggle man and beast when they step outside of his wake of acceptable behavior. His special interests are Wayne and Maria. Specifically Wayne and Maria's large destructive dog. Ok, so Ellie chewed through the wall, knawed through a telephone line that put someone on campus off the wire, and then urinated all over the bindery, it's not like anyone skipped a worship or walked on the grass or anything. This guy just seems to be down on us a lot.

So back to the present circumstance. Wayne, and "the twins"(two mexicans who don't have to pay for school cause they're just that amazing) proceeded to clean out the warehouse for the project. Now Jeff, bless his heart, alerted everyone on campus that they had two weeks to excavate all valued items from the place and then everything was getting thrown out.

So the time passed and the deed was done.

This morning while Wayne and I were happily painting, me on my brand new homemade easel doing a copy of a Van Gogh and he on his homemade canvas whipping out a wicked landscape, Jeff walks in and greets Wayne like he's trying to be nice but really you know Jeff is about to blame Wayne for something. Sure enough, somebody broke his antique table, specifically, somebody ripped the legs off the antique table and where was the table? In the warehouse!! Hello! the two weeks were up!!! Anyway, he claimed to have left a sign on the table saying to cautiously circumvent it, but I don't buy it. So poor Wayne had to apologize and then Jeff started blaming the twins and then left leaving Wayne and I in amazement and sour paint.

Later that day Megan trolleys in with a a bundle of wood under her arm, kind of like she was going to start a fire with it. When she got closer I noticed the nature of the wood, hmmmm...table legs. I didn't know whether to be deliriously amused or exhumably jollied.

What was Megan doing with the table legs?

I think the real question is who will save us from the wrath of Jeff?!

Foam drifting...proceed with caution

Hmmm... which to post first, the project that has a six figure budget and has nothing to do with school and everything to do with real world opportunities in the workplace, or the pictures of my homemade earrings and other seemingly random and comparatively insignificant items from around my room that I took pictures of because I didn't want to sketch or crack eggs anymore? A little thing that is important to me like the ring that Megan bartered for me at the flea market and a big thing like tons of people counting on you to come through and build them a perfectly magnificent stage set, are vying for first here. I will relent and say that the fact that other people's time being on the line makes the big project somewhat more significant, but please don't
forget about the little antique costume ring that made my whole day cause it's really cool and Megan got the lady down to $5 from $$! That's my handy dandy Meg!



Ok, so these pictures show our first day sculpting foam! We're making Bethlehem right now and the large foam wall is going to be a gate that cars can drive through and several camels I'm told(do you even know how expensive it is rent a camel in D.C.? Do you even know?!). The foam is drifting, I wonder what it would be like to ski in... Hmmm.. corn snow?
.........................................






Now for the peanut gallery that is my life. The eggs are for an art project that is due Tuesday next, more on that later, all I'll say is that I have to drain 100 eggs and right now I have 76 to go. The ring is so cool, you can flip the center stone so that it's either black or white, so I figure I can take advantage of this handy dandy ring and indicate without having to explain whether it's a good day or a bad day. Black means bad day, don't give me homework, give me ice cream, white means good day it's almost the weekend and we're going to the city soon so lets go have some ice cream. And that is just how simple life can be.

There is very little motivation until you see someone else doing a better job than you....

You Make Me Feel So Young......?

Don't we all want to feel young? Well, I've found the way to feel oh so young and bouncy, just have everyone around you act like you're not old enough to make your own decisions and presto! Years will fall away like chaff.

Having a hard time coming up with ideas?

Here's a few I found particularly mouthwatering: instead of making your college dorms quiet and apartment-like, put speakers in all the rooms so that the office workers can announce to you any time she wants, day or night that there is a male in the dorm so stop running through the halls nakedly screaming. Also a good strategy- make the seniors have to go to the same exorbitant amount of worships as the freshmen who actually are unruly and ungrounded teenagers-that's a good one, also have lots of academy style class night parties to boost school spirit on saturday nights, that's the fountain of youth right there!

Feeling young again is an itchy rambunctious trip to neverland, if only I actually was as young as I feel with all of these commodities, at least then I wouldn't have all of these years of growing wise to waste while dissipating in unnumbered required worships.

I'm actually not bitter about this, I think it's fine, of course when I realize how many worships I've missed later this semester, then we'll talk. I could actually number many more good things about this little Walden of mine than the silly bad things that I've pontificated, this place is like the unpopular kid in school who ends up saving everyone from an avalanche or something and things turn around for him and everyone starts to see him in a different light- anyways, AUC is a tender delicacy for the connoisseur of eccentricity.

Wasn't this blog supposed to be about me being an artist!?

Squirrel is our newest addition to the delicate food chain being housed in several buildings under the protection of the art department. Every time we try to let him go, he runs back to us and climbs our legs like they're trees. We've got to get rid of this squirrel, but it's almost winter and he's still pretty small so we may keep him for awhile, Lord help us.

A deal's a deal

Megan thinks that pets have souls and perhaps that all dogs go to heaven (I assured her that my dog would be in the 7th circle of the inferno for all of her sins but likely the rest of dogdom)...

well, so my cat receives my best attention and I've regretted that I haven't invested my affections on a creature that has the hope of salvation. Salvation for all mankind.. regardless of the exclusion of my cat Alex from this promise, I know he knows the difference between right and wrong.

I guess the difference is that right and wrong for him is dictated by me, not God.

He's been missing since Thursday and not only does he receive my best attention, but finding him has been my most serious matter of prayer. So today I got up early to go circumvent the art building and premise I'm sure arrousing the suspiciouns of campus security and neighboring community members that I was probably a homeless crazy person trying to break in and steal industrial foam or something.

I repeat this exercise every morning because Alex is in a new environment and I worry about his kitty well-being. So since thursday I had not seen him at all, I was beginning to lose hope as I looked in all the usual places. As I was scouring the favorite hiding bush I all of a sudden made a hasty promise to God. If you bring back Alex, I won't sneak him into the dorm anymore. I won't ever again, I promise... Why did I do that! I think that must have been what He was holding out for because Alex popped out of a crack in the shed out back about two minutes later after days and hours of nothing. I'm so happy that he's ok that I don't even care. My joy outweighs my perplexity.

Who can be sure of themselves at any time. When there is always a voice saying it isn't right, what you're doing-it doesn't have a place. It doesn't have a function, it is child's play.
It is a child's pastime.
Well it is expensive, $70 on wood! wait til you hear how much the paint costs!
There is no place to leave behind the uncertainty. I thought I finally had, I love this child's game! art is liberating,So why is it so uncomfortable in a room full of science majors trying to gingerly avoid the subject of what I do in my spare time. I research colors, I research beauty, oh brother, how ridiculous! One of the quickest ways to make me uncomfortable has got to be surrounding me with inquiring left brained thinkers. How much more insignificant could I possibly feel in the midst of researchers of machines and industry and economics,
I research color. Oh Lord help me.

My first trip to Boston with Megan. What this street performer lacked in juggling talent, he definately made up for in weird psychological tricks he'd play on the crowd. He made two little kids race and he gave the dollar to the loser. Then he made two more kids race and they got really confused and neither of them moved.
Plans to dominate the freedom trail and fill our minds with ennobling american history, turned into lets eat boston creme pie and go shopping. The fog made for unusual pictures of disappearing skyscrapers and ghost buildings.

My cousin Erica's hot motorcycle

minute man shooting rifle

Not only are these two horses clydesdales, they're larger than most of their own kind. Redwood tree, dinosaur, supersize me!

this is the orphaned bunny that I took to the vet, who after assuring me that he would take care of my bunny for me turned around and put it outside to face the cruel collegedale wilderness without friends or family or triple A.

here is my final project from last semester, it needs some more work-especially the hand but since it looks a little nazi-ish I'm not going to bother