I have never in my life felt more in harmony with the path of my life as I do now. While the future remains at an oft-fearful level of uncertainty, I am certain that, presently, I am right where I should be.
Allow me to attempt a brief summary of my past weeks. On Tuesdays, I have one short class, World Art History II, from 3 to 6pm. So far we've covered material from the beginning of the Renaissance to the Baroque period; It has been informative, but fairly undemanding. Wednesdays are my longest days: I have silkscreen with Larry Wright (formerly assistant to Rauschenberg, Warhol, and many others (he has awesome stories - those guys knew how to party!)) from 9 in the morning until 2, then a sculpture class entitled 'Trash' from 3 until 9pm. Despite the length of my Wednesdays, it remains one of my very favorite days of the week, as I love both classes. On Thursdays, arguably my most tedious day, I have a Foundation of Visual Computing class from noon until 5. Thus far we've been working with Adobe Illustrator, but as of tomorrow we're starting in on the monster that is Photoshop. I am enjoying the process of learning these programs, but I look forward to not being obligated to stare at a computer screen for 5 hours (given, we take short breaks, but still...). On Friday nights I have my 'drawing' workshop with Steve DeFrank. I put 'drawing' in quotes because this class is perhaps the most liberated a drawing class one could take: DeFrank's definition of drawing is loose because he wishes for us to experiment, and not be necessarily grounded to traditional media and subject matter (although, he has models pose in every session for those of the class who wish to draw from the model, which I have done for at least part of the past weeks, with the exception of last week, but more on that in a bit).
My week is a relatively full one, though I find that I have ample time to work on projects and time to socialize. Every Thursday night, after my computer art class, I have been going to several gallery openings with my friends (most often Chelsea and Erin Perfect (yes, her last name is 'Perfect' - her family home's physical address in Reading, PA is literally on Easy Street. haha.)), where free wine (and sometimes vodka) is served and new art is observed. I've seen a lot, some good, some bad, some unabashedly and post-modernly shallow.
I have found a few places where I like to spend my treasured alone time, namely two cafés: 71 Irving, which is a mere five minute walk from my room, and Stumptown at the Ace Hotel, which is about a 12 minute walk, but oh-so-worth it. The espresso is better at the latter, but the former is often more convenient, and has a very pleasant atmosphere.
Anyway, I'd like to share a few photos of work I've done in the past weeks. Both of the following are from projects assigned by Steve DeFrank.
This is a charcoal drawing, from a project where we were to use an object as a stencil or a stamp. I found a bit of a torn movie poster on the street somewhere, and used it to create the 'old man' on the left side of the composition. The right-hand shape was from a broken piece of masonite I found, and incorporated below:
This is what I consider to be my first real creation here at SVA. It is something I'm proud of (though the image was taken with my phone, so hopefully I'll get a better picture of it up here soon...). This serves as the first of a series (per DeFrank's assignment) of works which seek to visually interpret modern Icelandic musical compositions. This piece in particular was inspired by, and created entirely by repeatedly listening to Ólafur Arnalds' Lokađu Augunum (conveniently the first track on my blog's music player). I sought to interpret the severity of this song, its melancholic beauty, its hopefulness in the face of the seeming hopelessness of the human condition. A challenge, indeed, but I'm pleased with my result. In order to fully appreciate this piece, I invite you to right-click on the image to open it in a new tab so as to enlarge it, while still having access to the music (again, it is the first track on the music player (scroll down to find it)).
I'm currently working on the next of the series of which this is a part: Jónsi and Alex's Indian Summer; expect an image in the next few weeks.
