Ho Finito ma Sono Triste

Buon Giorno ragazzi. It is actually a gorgeous day today. It is a bit frigid but the sun is out and reflecting against the snow. I am done with my finals. It should be really exciting since I'm not in "stress-mode" anymore but I'm sad because I am 7/8 done with my college career. I am in denial. I still picture myself complaining about finals an year from now.
Okay, I'm going to stop thinking about it.

On a random note, a friend of mine recently shared with me about how she/he is jealous of artists because they have a channel of expressing their emotions in a creative way. This led me to question, "who can be artists?" and "are artists born creative or learn to be creative?" I have my opinion on both but it's interesting to ask these questions to "artists" and "nonartists." Then again, the REAL question is, who gets to say or judge who the artists are?

gah.

Have a great break yall!

-G

Untitled

IT'S SNOWING!

The Burtonator

I had a very relaxing Thanksgiving break. Besides black friday, I slept many many many hours (in advance) because I knew I will be lacking sleep for the next two weeks. Darn you final projects!




One of the coolest things I did during my break was visit the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMA. Many know him just as a producer of films such as Edward Scissorhands, Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, etc. I personally think that he should be primarily recognized as an illustration. I forget what school he went to but he graduated as an illustration major. Tim and I are quite similar you know (just kidding). Anyway, what I really liked about the exhibit was all his early sketches (which by the way are located on the left of the entrance of the exhibit). The subject matters varied but they were very personal, quirky and youthful. They reminded me of Dali's early sketches. While I was in Europe, I was fortunate enough to visit Dali exhibits in Prague and London. I didn't really like Dali's work until I saw the sketches or thought processes that were behind his masterpieces. I'm pretty sure that Dali's work inspired Burton a tremendously.
I'm not saying this because they're both whimsically perversed surrealists but because Burton's drawings mimics Dali's thin and delicate line qualities. For those who will be around NYC during the Holidays, I highly recommend that you visit this exhibit at the MoMA. Word of advice, try to go very early because it will get extremely crowded.





PIECES!

-g

Behind the Scenes

Last week in my wood and mixed media class, my professor took us on a field trip to the warehouse to help an artist install her work for an upcoming exhibit. Alyson Shotz is having a show called Drawing Through Space and I was fortunate enough to help her through the process of planning and execution. Not to mention, Shotz is a well known artist and we are lucky to have visiting artists who expose us to their art work and have their gallery in our art building.
These are some of her work:

When I was studying abroad in Florence last semester, I had an opportunity to intern in the university's art gallery. At the end of every semester, Syracuse University Florence throws a student art show for the students, faculties, and host families. Part of my internship was to install all of the student artwork. Though it was tedious and meticulous work, I had a great time learning how to organize artwork and find ways to help the presentation. A valuable lesson that I've learned from my freshman year sculpture professor is that presentation is half of the art. Word to your mother.

Here are some pictures from the SUF Spring 2009 Student show:

Batik!

Look at this random italian granny. Love her. She probably hates me.

This was my painting final. I believe the assignment was taking a masterpiece and revisiting it in through a novel perspective. This was my version of Botticelli's Annunciation

Good times!

Good Morning

It is beautiful outside today. It's pretty cold out but the sun is making me happy. This is the first time in four years where it didn't snow by halloween week. It's already November yet it's gorgeous. Odd.


Let me see what's bumping in my life.


Currently, I live in the University Village Apartments in south campus. They are not SU apartments but obviously we're affiliated with the school. I cannot NOT brag about how great it is to live there. The ceilings are really high, each bedroom has it's own bathroom, every apartment has a washer + dryer and we have great facilities in our clubhouse. I found out yesterday that we can sign out the movie theatre which is ggggreat. Why go to the theatres when you can watch a movie in your jammies. I just wanted to advertise my apartment because the theatre part got me excited.

Oishi, which is one of the 3 sushi restaurants on campus, is 50% off every monday & wednesday. It's pretty exciting.

I am still working on the product assignment for my advanced illustration class. I decided to make hand warmers with stitched on pigeons on them. It has the whole quirky, urban hobo look going but I'm pretty excited about them. My professor Roger told me to make hats and other clothing with pigeons. Mind you, he is a very ambitious man especially when it comes down to product designs. I'll post pictures in the future after I finish them.

My History of Fashion professor throws a party every year and this year, he's doing a Chanel party. I think it's hilarious yet I'm sure I'll love it. I really like it when professors make field trips to their homes & or studios. You really learn a lot about their lifestyle and what inspires them. Two summers ago, one of our Illustration professors, James Ransome took us to different illustrator's studios and it was AWESOME. By the end of the day, we ended up at his place, had a bbq with James Gurney and just shared our sketchbooks at his studio. It was a fun packed day. If you ever visited my studio, you'd only conclude that I am a huge mess.

Alrighty, that's all for now. More art talk later gator.


-g

PRA DUCKS

We are taking illustration to the next level. We are turning our illustrations into PRODUCTS. That's basically all I can or need to say about the assignment. So, I will now take the time to go over some everyday products that have illustrations on it.

Under Water themed Softsoap

Board Games

Kid-Robot Apparel. I love Kid Robot merchandise.Alphonse Mucha Keds. Freakin awesome!

Alphabet Puzzle.

I think I want to print my illustrations on fancy soap boxes and compact mirrors. Those are some ideas for now. If I do girly products, I'll probably produce a watercolor painting? Is that sexist? Whatever... I'm a girl and I like watercolors. I'm pretty excited about this assignment.

btw, here is my memory box sculpture project. It is a 5' x 3' x 3' box made out of pine wood with yarn and pipe cleaners. The audience is supposed to sit inside the box and feel the fuzzy material above them (face, hands). It's supposed to represent how I used to enjoy coloring in cluttered spaces as a child. I'm just glad that it's over.

Poster Project

In my advanced illustration class, we are making posters that illustrate haikus from local poets.
It's actually exciting because we've done so many "childrens book-esque" & editorial assignments that something simple as a poster is novel. I remember hating my design classes in freshman year and wanting to touch hardcore, messy, dramatic oil paints. But jumping back and forth to different techniques and medias is fun. It brings a different dynamic to each assignment. Plus, the poster project is actually a contest so for I'm sure it'll bring little edge and competitiveness out of all of us.

This is the website for the poster project. If you want to see the past student posters, check it out!
http://www.posterproject.org/

This is something else I found for fun while brainstorming for my poster.
I love threadless.



It's hard to read but it says:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator




They rarely do make sense.


piece and blessins`
-g

Deb's in Town

There have been many debbie downing moments today:

1. The Illustrators stayed up last night, finishing our "animal musician" assignment for our 9 am studio this morning. This morning many of us showed up to class groggy and half awake, to find out that class was cancelled. I shouldn't complain too much since I completed mine earlier than others and got some good nights rest. However.... I went nut-so this morning because my bus from South Campus never show up and I knew I was going to be late. So yes, we all went crazy over a cancelled class. Wah wah :/

2. The reason why my professor, Roger DeMuth is out is because he the caught the flu. Wah wah:/

3. He's probably going to blame it on one of us. :\

4. Though he didn't show up to class, somehow he managed to drop off our assignment before we left. Damn it Roger! :/

5. Roger keeps telling us that we're doomed.

6. Our Business to Freelance professor actually means it. :\

7. It's super humid & hot. :\

8. One of the greatest things about the new University Village apartments is that it comes with a Laundry Washer & Drier in every apartment. And because it's free, my roommate and I have been allowing many of our friends to come over and do laundry. It only takes one idiot with an ultra heavy load to break our machines :\

9. It also takes only one can of pringles to break the vending machine. :\

10. Remember how I went crazy about John Legend on my last blog? Well apparently, he is not really here to sing but here to talk. It's not really a bad thing because the content of his speech (?) is rather important. I believe he collaborated with NAACP and is here to talk about poverty in Africa and how philanthrophic and humanitarian events can be effective. I guess I had different expectations and they aren't really being met. That's okay. I'll choose a lecture from John over a professor any day. Which leads me to my theory that there is a direct relationship between the good looking professors and good grades. Yes they do correlate but we'll talk about that another time.


Okay all those 10 things up there is a big joke. I walked into the office about an hour ago and told everyone that I've been having a great day. I'm thankful that my class was cancelled because I got to grab breakfast and sleep. A hot day in syracuse means another day in shorts and one less day in a parka. I just enjoy being cynical and acting like my life sucks when in reality, it's pretty amazing. I think it lightens the minor gliches in life.




Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh kay... it is pouring and I left my umbrella in Shaffer. fijsY&*#RFIHATEMYLIFEEE!

MUSIK MUSIQ MUSIC

I may have blogged about this before but I love the performing artists that University Union invites to our school every year. Last Sunday we had our annual Juice Jam, where bands and artists come to perform outdoors all day long. This year we had Girl Talk, Jack's Mannequin, and The Cool Kids come to our school. It was a blast! Since I am a big fan of Jack's Mannequin, I bought my ticket at the student center right away. By the way, it only costs $10 to see 3 bands live. I love Juice Jam. Girl Talk's performance was literally an outdoor club with house music and sunlight. It's good to take a break from the workload and dance my worries away for couple of hours.


Enough about Juice Jam.

What I really want to talk about is our next visiting artist.
JOHN LEGEND IS COMING TO SYRACUSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
I'm not going to lie-- I've been having a very busy week because of all of my assignments but this news made up for all of my stress. I have more work then ever but my anticipation to see John is keeping me stress free :)

John Legend was in NYC this summer and his tickets were being sold for hundreds of dollars for crumby seats. John Legend is performing at one of our student auditoriums where even the worst seats aren't too bad. ANDDDD.... ANDDDDD the tickets were only $10. Where can you get a deal like that?

I think University Union does a great job with inviting a broad variety of artists to our school. In the past, we've had artists such as Kanye, Fergie, Billy Joel, Dashboard Confessional, The American Rejects and many more. It's even greater when tickets are very affordable to the students as well.

I can't stop looking at this photo.


Anyway, I think I'm going to have to write my schedule by the hour again. I must finish my work before the concert.

-g

BALANCE

I am back. And this time, I'll be here for the whole school year. Last semester I was too cool to study in Syracuse so I studied in Florence, ITALIAAAA (no offense to those who were still here). It's hard to explain the whole experience without talking about each day there but all I can say is that it was remarkable and everybody should go abroad. I guess instead of just walking you through the whole experience in one blog, I'll keep referring back to few of the many experiences I had there in the future blogs to come.

Let's talk about now. It's been 3 days since the semester started but I'm already loving my classes and my professors. In retrospect as a senior, I am starting to regret not taking all the various art electives I could have taken throughout my college career. Professors will advise you to take certain classes to help you with your talent and major. For example, my illustration professors always told me to take extra painting classes because it was one of my fortes. The whole painting thing got to my head so much that those were the only electives I was interested in. Even in the summer, I'd only take extra painting classes. I'm not blaming my professors. They were doing their job in helping me find my strong side. Maybe it was my ego telling me that I must only excel in one aspect of art. But at the same time, I can't regret it too much since all those painting classes have helped me broaden my perspective and technical and creative skills.

Florence helped me realize how much I enjoy sculpting and other 3D medias. I think I've always asked myself if I can incorporate sculpting into illustration where in reality, I should have been expressing illustration through all mediums. If something tickles your curiosity, well, let it tickle you. College is not just about "finding yourself" (whatever that means), but to try everything and then find out what you like and don't like. It's very simple really. I think we try to overanalyze our college career when really, we just need to go through all the trial and errors and learn from them. Alright, now I'm just lecturing myself and whomever is reading or will read this.

Oh, horrible news.

Marvel sold themselves to Disney. This is one of the biggest oxymorons in world history.
Thus, we will now be hearing, "Disney's Spider Man... Disney's X-men."

+

What would you do for 4 billion dollars? Actually, don't answer that.

On the lighter note, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXigfZGqsLM

The sky is the limit.

Have a great day ya'll.

-g