Ignorance is not Bliss

School really isn't over. And I knew that. But it didn't quite sink into my thick little brain until now. So here I am...1 day from being finished...irritated beyond irritation. All I have to do is finish some stupid symbol translations and I just can't do it. All I want to do is sit down with a book and do nothing. Just relax. And when I say relax, I don't just mean sit in front of the television and pretend to relax when I know that I have other things to do at the moment...which I've done once or twice. But let's face it...that's just pretending ot relax. So yes...here I am, procrastinating. Damn me and my stubborn ignorance.

Classes are finally over. Yes...over. And the sun is finally shining!!! YAY!!! I'm currently outside, in the sun, squinting at my laptop and I couldn't be happier.

I said that classes are over, but let's be honest...they're not really. I still have to finish work for my graphic design class and then there's the performance tonight for the performance art class --which I'm currently attempting to rememorize my monologue in conjunction with writing this post. I finished painting completely though...thank goodness!!!



I wound up painting what I believe was about 55 individual paintings of a cigarette. It was exhausting. I thought the piece would at the very least rid me of my mysterious cigarette obsession, but I must report the opposite. I still have no idea why I'm so obsessed with cigarettes --even though I do not smoke-- and I now wish to continue painting them even more so. But thankfully, I now have a way in which to paint them...I've openned a whole new set of doors for myself and I'm actually rather excited to set up a little table in my garage and start filling it with paintings --since the painting studios are inaccessable in the summer...BOOOOO.

Aside from completely paining, I've also finished spanish. For my "final," I chose to make a sort of extended length comic strip about the life of Augusto Pinochet. I found it frustrating to learn about so many countries with dictatorships and extensive histories, but we never got any sort of a literal timeline for the events about which we learned...
so I decided to make my own...in my own way. So this is what I ended up with. A two page, comic, time line of the life of Pinochet... go figure.

And now it's time to go and rememorize this monologue... and possible attempt to write a new one...we'll see how ambitous I'm feeling in the next few hours...

Getting A Grasp

So it's been a while. I know. I'm sorry. I won't bore anyone with the excuses I would normally throw out there, but instead I'll just say that life has been happening and leave it at that. To give you some visual references...I've been looking at the work of Barcelo and am in love with his work. How could you not be? The way he layers on paint is amazing. I've never been one for layering paint. And not because I have never liked that technique, but because I've never been good at it. And in all honesty, It's kind of hard to get that effect with acrylics. Not at all impossible, but not an easy task. Now that I've been working in oils, I've started to throw some layers on my canvas. And maybe a bit too rigorously. I've recently had to take a step back and return to my old ways. I was overwhelmed. Actually...I was floundering. My transition back to life here was a bit hard in the every day life, but I found that my transition back into my art habits was difficult as well. I forgot who I was. I was a different artist in Chile, and upon returning, wasn't sure how to mix that artist with who I had been before. But I'm happy to report that I think I'm finally getting a grasp on the situation.

That having been said...I've experimented with makeup and performance art in a way I hadn't before. My performance art class has openned up an entirely different world of art. I've explored an alter ego, as well as delved into my own personal issues in the form of monologues and reflective writings. I just registered for my fall semester classes, including my IP and am rather excited at the prospect of having an entire year to work on something. I'm sure I'm going to be hating it after a few months, but at the moment, I'm reveling in the idea.

Al mismo tiempo, mis recuerdos de Chile siguen. We had the All Student Exhibition here and I entered a piece using some of the photographs I took on my many travels last semester. I don't have any finalized photos, but here's a taste. Basicamente, I connected a series of landscapes using their horizon lines. I was simply playing with photo transfers when I happened to notice that the horizon lines of all of the photos blended together in a very cohesive manner. I've struggled with how to represent the variety of landscapes and lifestyles that I encountered last semester, and although this piece does not encorporate urban landscapes, I feel that it effectively conveys the way the different environments mesh and blend together in such an extraordinary way.

As far as the rest of my life...things have fallen back into a normal swing...I'm home again. Todavia extrano a Chile y todo que estaba alla...pero mi vida esta siguiendo. Life in Ann Arbor has continued as it was before...haha