reed-making

I've been putting this off for 6 months, but I had a lot of time today.

Bassoon reeds. Get 5 blanks done by Wednesday. You start from actual reed, and you cut it down to size, add wires, add string, use pliers, hot water, hot wax, and nail-polish. After I make the blanks, I have to trim them down slowly and carefully into playable reeds. Then, I play them, and fix them more until the reed is perfect.

And I'm making a list for the next time I have to do this, and when I eventually lose the book.

This is after shaping, marking the wires, putting on 2 out of 3 wires, before putting on the string, and after shaping. See that big crack down the middle? From the middle to the bottom, especially around the lower wire. That's not supposed to be there. Fixed with nail polish.

The reed itself next to an existing blank, and its marks. The string wrapping. An almost-finished blank. And the string, nail polish, knife, and slide-rule that was used.

I really really want to hear from colleges.

OMG. Cardboard Tube Fighting League. NYC. I don't know when, but I'm so going.

draws

Listening to iTunes on random: Overture of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Londonderry Air (Bassoon quartet medley of English songs), Barangolás (Kontroll), Ladies in Their Sensitivities (Sweeney Todd), Gettin' Out of Town (42nd Street).

Drawings from last week. Maraid, Me in the normal vaguely confused daze, a Bionic Lunch-Lady, Gay Pride Ninja, and a Pointillist Crayon self-portrait.

A very nice title.

I thought of a very nice title for this entry in the shower this morning, but it's gone now.
This will be in parts:
Why I haven't been writing, the nature of an Enneagram, a difficult book, and something amazing.


I haven't been writing because I've been out of my house. I'm working on the musical, I'm at the movies, I'm at Zach's. And when I'm at home, I'm working in my room. I have started breaking away, becoming separate than my family. I've been thinking in terms of 'when I have my own place' and 'then we could drive there' and 'maybe there will be a dog'. There isn't a big life plan about fame and fortune. I'll be married with a little apartment and money will be okay but tight and I'll be an animator with a steady job, maybe even with health benefits. Isn't this what's going to happen?


I've also been thinking about language. I still don't comprehend. For example, if I were to choose between sending a telepathic thought in language (speech, the picture of written word), or in a set of pictures, feelings, and experiences, I would choose the latter. There are so many things that I don't have words for, and there are so many things that I feel, that all I can do sometimes is repeat.


I am a 1w9, and in order, 1, then 8, then 4, then 9. 8, 9, and 1 are all in the same area. 1: the Reformer, the Perfectionist. Details, flaw-noticing, fear of being evil. Hate not having some sense of personal control, an innate need to improve (based on flaws), and are emotionally repressed (as a result of the self-control). And there's a sense of organization, ambition, and overall self-reliance.


I like some of this, and I don't like some of this. This year I've been fighting the giant monster of criticism, of being extremely driven, and I considered these aspects as evil. It's a case of the Reformer's traits eating each other. I don't want to be overly critical and I don't want to fight to win every moment of my life, and I want to think differently. So, I think I may understand how an Enneagram is like a tool for change. Core value used here: Movement.


The unhealthy Reformer is like an unhealthy Romantic (4): moody. The thriving Reformer is like a healthy Enthusiast (7): happy. That's pretty much right.


When you have an idea of who you are, look at what other people are, and then realize that you don't look at the world like that, and that you almost don't realize that people live their whole lives quite differently than you do.


A difficult book and something amazing.
I have Letters to a Young Poet- Rilke, and The Accidental Masterpiece- Kimmelman. There's also a book on Pixar Business, which I don't expect to be philosophical. And there is also a science/art book to research. Or, I can just try to read them all.


Something amazing. I would love to do a big big project, but we've tried that idea for the last two years of Stac, and it doesn't work. I know I need to do something. I would love to not do an AP Art portfolio, save $86, and animate something. A walk. An 11-second sound clip.


I haven't heard back from any colleges, so I'm in limbo. I have done what I needed to do with the college forms, and now I don't know if my big goal, CalArts, has been reached or not. And I can't stand still. A great treadmill.

Fine-tuning Core Values and Issues.

Been reading posts, and god you people are amazing.


I often need a Big Goal. Something I work hard for, concentrate on, care about, even become. Without someplace to go, I'm just standing still, I'm not Moving. STAC was a Big Goal in middle school and as a freshman. Then I found CalArts, and I'm scared of denial, but I worked for an answer. I want an answer O_O*
     Luke mentioned a One Thing that changed someone in STAC, like Molly's connection to Let the Right One In. I was thinking, what other movies did we see? What shows? But I realized that my thing was myth.


So some repetition and reflection:
Core Values:
The Marriage of Art and Science
I don't know where I'd be without this. I need both in my life, even at the same time. Last year I took AP Bio, this year I'm taking AP Psych, and I need to know more and more about everything around me. Science includes history, too, but not like the classes in school. This comes from everything, basically: loving scifi, biology, keeping a garden, cooking, Star Trek, even a lot of superhero stuff.


Movement
I can't sit still, I can never sit still, and I'm always watching movement. Movement can be a change, but it's often a repetition. This is from modern art, where colors vibrate against each other beautifully. This comes from the mural, with it's repetition and change. A walk is a repeated motion, but nothing is the same about it. Something spinning is attractive, low musical vibrations, playing different notes that each have different feelings. The movement is related to 


Resourcefulness
I love my books, I love the knowledge in them, I love being able to reference them. I love using things in place of what should go there. I'll use mugs for bowls and cups and even plates, and I keep jars and containers around. I don't like to throw things out because I could use them some day, like my art supplies. I like pulling out ideas and using them my own way. This is related to creativity (which is sometimes pulling out ideas and using them in a new order), but more about what I've learned. It's directly related to when I spend a long time researching something, and when I become angry when people don't do research for art.


These pop up in my art 
Issues:
Communication
If I wasn't in STAC I probably would have given up on trying to communicate important things verbally. It doesn't work for me. The blog has helped my language, and there are a few people who understand my meaning. When I have nothing to say, I go silent. I can talk, but I'm inadequate when it comes to the important things.


In-Between
I like finding the places in between. The name partly comes from a Sandman story, where the personification of Delirium says she likes planes because they aren't really a place, but an in-between place. Which is true. Lately I've been working on putting together 2D and 3D, in a way after Secret of Kells and The Thief and the Cobbler. I live for having things done but not quite done, started and not finished, used but not depleted.


One-Up
Like the mushroom. I like not just doing well, but doing very well. It's an idea that I think was in Ender's Game: you can't just win. You have to make sure you don't have to fight again. It's also a competition in school, and it shouldn't be. I have to have the best sword in a video game, I have to have questions answered with 'yes'. I can throw blame out to society, but I'm the one that has to change for it. And being nice and caring can't help a selfish child. It's scary because it's the beast. Freud would have a field day.


Repetition
Similar to above, I live for repetition. Everything repeats, everything in the world.


Alone vs. Lonely
Being Alone is thinking in the shower, thinking about your day before sleeping, getting lost in a book. Lonely is needing someone else, eating alone at a table, being in the city, not being listened to.


Reality vs. What Could Be
This sort of ties in with the science. What could be. There are so many options out there, but there's also the reality of now. It's like 1 vs. Forever.

Yellow, a follow-up.

I feel like the yellow is a transition. Into the second semester. Then green, blue, purple. Something less excited.


A little explanation.
I can't live without sciences and art together. Biology, chemistry, astronomy, and social sciences. Even history. It needs to all be together.
I can't sit still, my artwork can't be still, I can't work on a piece for too long and not get anywhere. At the same time, there's comfort in repetition, as long as it moves.
I like being resourceful. Using what I have. This is related to my books.
I don't know what these become all together.

think deep.

This is the exact page, with decently legible writing. I have a lot to write about, but I have a quarter test tomorrow and a midterm on thursday, so this is not the time.
It does expose me a bit. I thought a lot, and took some notes, so this includes everything except the Koan. And there are a bunch of things that connect, but I can't find a name for their connection. Like my fascination with superheroes, need for the biggest swords in video games, competition, the childish selfishness. They're all related, and I don't know how. And the white circles in the mural, and now I'm trying to work in both 2D and 3D, and simple shapes, and that's related to order and organization and repetition.

St. Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor

Been listening to Ha Ha Tonka all day. It's like southern rock and bluegrass and I saw them a few months ago at a Ludo concert. I love listening to a rock band that can sing. Or that may be in comparison to Ludo and Decemberists. I don't really listen to music anymore.

    Other than that, I fully intend to do really well on my midterms. Not just pass, do well.

    And I don't feel part of my house anymore. I'm going away to college. I'm leaving. Soon I'll have a license to leave with that. Escape. I don't even want to sleep in my bed anymore. I spent last night curled up around my radiator.

    I haven't heard back from colleges, except for 'sign up for this thing online for such and such', and I don't know what I'm doing.

bring in the dancing lobsters

Drew some cartoons at rehearsal on friday. There's a part of Carousel when the party describes, in violent detail, how they ate lobsters. My brother said, well now the lobsters in the audience will be offended. Thus, the lobster gag.

Lyrics from the song:
Remember when we raked them red hot lobsters
Out of the driftwood fire?
They sizzled and crackled and sputtered a song
Fittin' for an angels' choir.

We slit 'em down the back and peppered 'em good,
And doused 'em in melted butter.

Then we tore away the claws and cracked 'em with our teeth
Cuz we weren't in the mood to putter.

school

Today I literally got a hundred on a test. And I realized that I didn't do much for it, not as much as other kids for the same thing. I'm done with this system.
     I'm going to be a second semester senior, and I want to work so much. I want to feel like I did something challenging in high school. Not that it's not challenging. But having a month to do a project that only takes a couple of hours isn't, like, having to build dozens of architectural models in one night. Bring it on, double English electives.

Geometric Drawing Abstractions

New year resolution. Read more. Make my own education, because god knows I don't learn enough in school.

Today, I started drawing a design for Carousel's title (drawing #1). The 'O' has a light, which represents Billy and Louise and everyone alone, and then the letters sort of fan out. Like blocks, instead of being in a line for the camera, they arrangement of letters in the three-dimensional space is curved. From the normal front-on view, the middle block-letters are closer to you than the end letters. In a view from above, the letters are almost in a semi-circle (second drawing).

     Because of the block letters (drawings 3, 4), I started drawing a lot of cubes. Then I started geometrically labeling them, then I turned a cube 15 degrees clockwise and counterclockwise about the axis that exists from the 'top' to the 'bottom' (drawing 5).
     I know there's some fancy terms for this way of thinking, but abstractions are better practice. It's hard to think of a drawing as a three dimensional figure with its own space, because it's just a set of marks. I don't know which is the 'right' way of thinking, because drawings are only illusions, and I don't want to believe myself into thinking they're real. 


Ceramics, on the other hand, is a whole nother beast.

And we learned about bureaucracy, so I drew a pixie. Fairly Odd Parents has its moments.

draws

Some drawings from today. I had a lot of time today, because I forgot about two tests tomorrow.

Number 2 on the Waiting Room Drawing Meme: Your reaction when you get into CalArts.A shading practice and a colored pencil blending practice.

Today I followed another recipe from Instructables. Candied Orange Peels. They worked out, except for a minor detail: I used an old orange and bad tangerines. Old fruit leaves a horrible after-taste.
It would have worked too, if it weren't for those pesky kids, and their stupid dog.

Geographic pride.

Today I went on a field trip to the Heckshire Museum in Huntington. The main show was about Long Island artists, including Cindy Sherman and Lee Krasner.
     In STAC, we sneak into museums. In Art Class, we get a tour. "Have you ever been to a museum before?" Yes, we're AP Studio kids. We weren't answering the questions because they weren't very good questions. There was a set of ethno-photography, but out of context. The African warrior was in a studio getting his picture taken. Instead of pointing that out, why can't we ask Why the artist may have chosen to do that? Or go further to reflect on the artist's ideas of ethno-photography?
     It was a very Long Island day, though. Long Island artists, a trip to Huntington, passing every old shop.


I wasn't listening to the nice tour guide. I was drawing. The caterpillar's from earlier in the day, and started as an exercise.

I've been thinking about books.

Today I took a small inventory, and I have approximately 108 non-fiction books of my own. This does not count the books of my siblings and parents, whose libraries are open to me. The break down into specific categories:
Fine Arts (MC Escher, D'Orsay), Animation (The Illusion of Life), Biology (Anatomy, Gardening), Other Science (Astronomy), Writing (Publishing, Comics), Crafts (Cooking, Sewing), Story Collections (Bible, Fairy Tales, Myth), German, Sociology, and Other. Other includes Blackjack Gambling, Glassblowing, So You Want to Visit Soviet Russia.


These don't include the library books, the borrowed books, lost books, or sketchbooks. And I haven't read them all.
I'm still reading lord of the rings. I spend a lot of time reading it, but I want to speed-read it again. I don't have a cohesive idea about the characters.
     I don't want to read a book by its movie. The movies are amazing, but they represent what other people think of the books. I need my own connections with the characters, outside Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen. It was the same with the Harry Potter series. Books let you have your own vision, movies are just optional visions.
     How do you read a book when you can't see characters? I feel like JRR Tolkien's writing is like a giant iron that smooths out ideas into a textbook of an adventure or characters being an emotion. Pippin is the stupid one. Gandalf is powerful, but not infallible. Sam complains and worries. Frodo is troubled. Legolas is perfect and Gimli is... stout. Boromir is a prick. Aragorn is silently concerned. I don't even know what Merry does. I really want them to be more, but I don't see it yet, and another 40 hours may not help.
     So many channels and nothing to watch.


I've been sending in portfolios, and I don't particularly like my non-figure-drawing work, except for the Tower. And today, something horrible happened- someone in art class asked my opinion. I didn't give it. If someone asks, I can be honest, but honesty isn't nice. The worst thing happens when you can say, "I think you can do better."


So that's what I've been thinking.

design prattle

So, I like the yellow. It isn't oppressive, and the reds and browns are nice. I'll keep it a while.
I'm sending in my Pratt portfolio tonight. And the Purchase portfolio (same exact thing, but due next month).


I've finished Treasure Island, and I'm convinced pirates beat ninjas any day of the week. I need to see Treasure Planet and the muppet version and other movie versions.
The first song of Rocky Horror is made of scifi movie references, and I want to see all of them.

Found this 'simple blog' format. Gonna try to add borders. Eventually.
I need a new title. The inverse mural doesn't work right here.
The yellow and brown and red work nicely.

Supposed to redo the layout and colors. Not now. Finding the right colors by hex-code is time consuming.


Boat Song, a really soft Ludo song.