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SLEEVE EXPERIMENTS

Well, I’ve sort of been playing around with this sleeve idea. My intent was to make one sleeve, with a back piece that ran around to the other shoulder. I didn’t get very far — it’s not as dramatic as I envisioned.

Also, a more feminine way of wearing it…

It’s pretty interesting, but I don’t think I’m going to continue with it.

I’m going to keep going with the masks I’ve been making. I have many different versions and photo shoots in mind.

Seminar Post 05: 100 Caption List

Here is the list of the out of context captions I have collected:

1. Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole
2. fraud is a front-line priority
3. has disappointed us on a number of votes
4. the other two deserve defeat
5. We are not a fan of sin taxes
6. This will only get worse
7. A truly dangerous idea
8. It would be the folly of better times
9. it would be simply cruel
10. hardest on those in need
11. I don’t even remember how I found him
12. it took my head off
13. What the hell is this?
14. are slow to absorb the work that really matters
15. I don’t care much
16. Memories of the hard drinking guy who’d walk into a classroom with a gun would occasionally use it.
17. “You Lie!”
18. a lot of blather and punditry
19. it might be hard to keep track of what matters
20. The results are considered in doubt
21. It’s likely to come with a hefty side of self-loathing
22. . . lusted after and devoured openly, with pride.
23. We embrace our inner fatty-fatty-bo-batty.
24. I dropped everything.
25. It’s probably not safe to drive and eat a McRib, but I did anyway.
26. There won’t be any tears at this farewell
27. . . .touch on every uncomfortably funny aspect of sex, sexuality and her relationship with her dear mother.
28. Or rather, a cliché
29. the screen equivalent of a “summer beach read”
30. break every 10 minutes
31. rape and retribution, those sordid small screen staples are major attractions.
32. “It’s like a classic greek tragedy.”
33. immune to pain half-brother hulking albino
34. it just can’t make scenes
35. as far as satisfying moviemaking goes, it’s pretty tragic
36. . . . must deny her identity
37. . . . assimilation to the extreme
38. This does not sit well
39. Too clumsy to fulfill its potential
40. Good intentions go horribly wrong
41. The one real misstep was the curtain raiser
42. the ironies of this wrongheaded exercise in righteousness
43. No one in her family has ever mentioned the existence of his person
44. He can’t do anything wrong, at least in the eyes of his family
45. Muting the melodrama and underplaying the politics.
46. No stranger to the cynical view of things
47. History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.
48. He believes he is fated to repeat all the events in Trotsky’s life
49. At first, they were mocking and indifferent.
50. Over 40 and disillusioned
51. Replaced by a culture that celebrates the worst aspects of Western materialism.
52. They can’t betray those ideals without denying who they are.
53. . . . offers compelling watching but not much insight
54. We deserve to be demonized.
55. The horror . . . the horror . . .
56. Desperate, kooky and needy
57. . . . because nobody involved in the film seems to recognize how icky it all is.
58. raw, unflinching look at the experience of modern warfare
59. that’s sufficient to hurtle you into the mountains
60. . . . deals frankly with the morass of war?
61. Don’t kid yourself.
62. its realism goes no deeper than the surface
63. I’ve never seen a more detailed rendering of a sniper rifle obliterating a foe’s head a mile away.
64. If accuracy was the goal, why was this significant detail so inconsequential?
65. Just the premise to let you slaughter hundreds of opponents, guilt free.
66. Just rack up more kills than the other team
67. It’s increasingly hard to tell them apart.
68. But if it works, it works.
69. (popular on the right)
70. we’d have conquered Iraq and Afghanistan years ago if only our politicians had let us win.
71. They’re all hostile
72. True to life? This is a fairy tale.
73. Mostly devoid of poetic whimsies
74. “The tragedy of bourgeois life is that we’re never that funny.”
75. one of the surface inane acting exercises
76. killing these zombies is an act of mercy as much as anything
77. things are not as they should be
78. nobody home
79. it does draw a lot of tension out of its quiet moments
80. a darker place than I expected
81. They got written off as weird
82. everyone starts picking apart their oeuvres for signifiers and ripped off parts, as if they were nothing but the sum of their influences.
83. . . . steal shamelessly from those who’d come before them.
84. Doesn’t really care
85. “we’re not kidding ourselves here”
86. No ambitions to be original
87. It’ll have to do better
88. It’s embarrassingly pat and predictable
89. Blundering, square-jawed bravado
90. . . . who framed him-- as a villain.
91. . . . who perjure themselves to convict the guy
92. Unfortunately reminiscent
93. Of course, we know how long that’s going to last
94. . . . won’t make you feel very optimistic
95. Groove isn’t everything, but it’ll do.
96. It would be hard to believe that he wasn’t
97. We’ve had a great deal of Beethoven recently
98. still haven’t found the audience they deserve
99. The Drugs don’t work
100. marked “death from above”

EXTEND & PROJECT?

Today in class John told me that my current title, Extend and Project, is too vague — perhaps even a little boring. I’m not sure if I agree with him or not.

My plan is to give each individual project throughout the semester its own respective title (or untitle), which further discusses/explores the work, but the title Extend and Project is meant to envelop it all. I suppose it is more like a title for my thought process and my core concepts, not for the work itself.

The Oxford American dictionary lists the following definitions for “extension” and “projection”:

EXTENSION – A part that is added to something to enlarge or prolong it; a continuation : the railroad’s southern extension.

PROJECTION – A mental image viewed as reality : monsters can be understood as mental projections of mankind’s fears.

My thought is that my work this semester will be both an extension of myself (a literal extension of the body, work that adorns and decorates, enhances or inhibits, empowers or makes vulnerable), and a projection of my inner thoughts/visions/emotions onto a three dimensional object.

So, in fewer words, my intent is to extend and project.

I’m still curious, though, to see how others feel about this title. Is it accessible? Does it really need to be? Please visit the poll on my blog, and let me know what you think.

layouts

Here is a start to zandra... more to come!

Coloring Book Mock Up

Over the weekend I printed and put together a mock up for a coloring book. This isn't the paper I am going to actually print the pages on, and the cover paper is not what I will use - this was just see how the images and text work out when printed. As a test, I had an 8 year old girl color a page for me and asked her what she thought of the coloring book. Her only comment was that the story was 'too sad'. 

Seminar Post 04: Robot GUTS

Last week I enjoyed the recent Robot GUTS show at the 301 gallery and spent much time working with the installation. I decided to throw in some of my seminar work in just for fun:



Perhaps there is some level of being vain about the whole thing, but it was nice to use samples of my project for this show. And now some samples to prove that I have, in fact, been working on seminar and not just robots and their guts.







Some of these I am still playing with, others just make no sense at all without a caption. My response to the latter: Meh. I am still playing with effects here and there, but I'm making sure to keep it toned down. So far, I have a total of 30 completed pictures and at least 3 in the works, which is wonderful but I still want more. After the Robot GUTS show, I began thinking about how I'm going to display these images. John McVey's idea about magnetic paint sounded interesting enough to give a try, but I also came up with the idea of making a random generator with Flash, which could remove the physical element from the entire show. Decisions, decisions.

UNTITLED MASK EXPERIMENTS

This week I conducted a series of experiments involving a mask similar to those used in Transmitter/Receiver. I was looking to explore the visual impact of liquid and wetness on a blank “canvas”. I find the images to be very expressive despite the obvious lack of human facial features.

Many thanks to my model, Bradford Rusick.

hhhmmm.

After last class I really got to thinking about why I chose these objects, and what they mean to me. I looked up Betsey Johnson's philosophy, and came across this quote.

Celebration of the exuberant, the embellished, and the over the top. Sexy silhouettes, hippie inspired flowing fabrics, whimsical detailing and, most importantly, a fabulous fit.

A couple of the words really stood out to me: exuberant, embellish, and whimsical.
She doesn't make her clothes to have a deeper meaning of what's happening in society, or in the world. She makes clothes that make her happy and exude her personality.
This is how I feel when I'm making work. I like to make things that make me happy to look at and happy to work on. And I know that in the real world you're not always going to get a client that wants girlie and cutesy things, but I don't plan on working as a designer in the future, so for now I just focus on making things I like.

Now bringing it back to the topic of Barbie, like we talked about in class. I did play with Barbies and dolls as a kid, among other things. Now that I'm older I experiment and play with things like makeup, accessories and clothes (these are my toys now).
As far as the reason I used the color pink, I can't think of any other reason than that I like it, and it makes me happy to look at. If you were to see my kitchen you'd see all pink Hello Kitty appliances, and even pink oven mitts. I won't even mention the amounts of pink in my bedroom and bathroom.

Here's a quote that I'd say I wouldn't mind being described as

If Betsey Johnson didn't exist, we would have to invent her, simply to remind ourselves that fashion can be fun. She's the original wild child and set to paint the town pink!

And because we're making work here.

trying out a pattern of putting all the objects together.
click to make larger
not sure where I'm going with this, and not sure if I like the idea of not knowing where I'm going with this.

AGNO Labels & Collateral

Here are some things that I've been working on... New label design, packaging, t-shirts, dog bowl, dog collar and posters... These are just rough drafts, created just to see where I can go with the AGNO design and logomark. I am also looking into ordering beer case boxes and glass bottles to apply my labels to. Also, I will be looking into how to get this produced (screenprinting, rubber stamping, vinyl work).