art history, and a story of internships

Today I've applied to my 6th internship (it turned out that I'd applied to the same one twice). I've gotten amazingly better at writing cover letters I've also contacted a couple (but not enough) places on campus about summer jobs.

Halfway through April, and I'm still at a no-go for summer.

But my backup plan, my last-resort plan, is still to work on my own art all summer and build up a portfolio. But it's a last plan. A nothing-else-goes-through plan.

Besides this, I need to finish my 3 animation pieces. Each is 30 seconds.

But I'm almost done with my art history essay, and it's not due till Thursday. So. There's some hope?

bring in the new year with Fleet Foxes

Somehow managed a nice, round number for 2010 posts, but it's not anything like 2009 posts. This marks almost the third year of this blog.


2010.
What happened last year:
I got into Pratt, New Paltz, and Purchase, waitlisted to CalArts, decided on Pratt, graduated Herricks High School.
I started college and did well in my first semester.
I started playing Maplestory.
I love my overgrown puppy.
Movies.
I started listening to more alternative and indie music.
I also noticed that I've said a lot of things like, "I want to ____," and I never get around to them. I shouldn't say, "I want to do all the things I want to do", because that's like running around in a circle to try to make a tornado. So maybe I should just do things, rather than spending too long trying to think about priorities of things and orders of things.


Start of another year.

What a life I lead in the summer, What a life I lead in the spring,
What a life I lead in the winded breeze, What a life I lead in the spring.
What a life I lead when the sun breaks free as a giant torn from the clouds,
What a life indeed when that ancient seed is a berry watered and plowed.


What a life, What a life, What a life, What a life.


What a life I lead in the summer, What a life I lead in the spring,
What a life I lead in the winded breeze, What a life I lead in the spring.

Theories of Human Evolution

Today I met a wonderful little boy at my cousin's graduation party. He was playing something with a lacrosse stick, and charging into a garage. I asked what war his was playing in, and he said 'No war. Dinner.' It turns out that he was a paleolithic-age hunter. We had a long discussion about the different theories of human evolution and of migration patterns out of Africa.


I wish there were more people like this kid, who knew that the Neanderthals probably died out due to climate changes and that Homo erectus was the original humanoid species to leave Africa, not Homo sapien. He reminded me that I'm not exactly normal.


I am more worried about moving in with people I don't know than the other parts of college. Will I be about to have a conversation about human evolution? What about talking to people about Metropolis? Will anyone geek with me about the history of Disney animation? Or Star Trek? I know so much. So much that I'm not using during the summer.

This is about the end of stac.

It took me a while to finally be able to make a statement. Here it is.

I came into stac not knowing myself, and I'm leaving stac understanding more about who I am, where I am, where I want to be. These were the most important parts of my time in stac, but not all of them are stac-related, but a lot are. Kevin did a figure drawing workshop with us. He specifically told me I should do more figure drawing. I was a lead in "You Can't Take It with You". I drew myself. First my face, and I realized that I realized how much I hated when people degraded their art. Then my body, and I let my hair down for the first time in about three years, and become more comfortable with a more realistic body image. I made a mural, mostly by myself, and it was finished on time. I learned textural painting from Cathryn. I learned painting and drawing techniques in my first art class with Ganes. I started this blog. I went into the city by myself every morning for two weeks to take classes in figure drawing, then drew zoo animals in the afternoon. I got obsessed with CalArts. I fell in love with a 6'3" heavy metal muppet I went into the city to take figure drawing on Spring Street, in a quiet basement with creepy old men. It was weird to draw with crayons, because it was not 'professional', but I still like that quiet basement. We did Enneagrams twice, and currently I'm a 1, the perfectionist. I did a lot of work on Carousel. I did not make it into CalArts. I finished the AP art course. It was good that I had to finish pieces, but bad that I didn't have a lot of room to experiment. I got into Pratt Institute, for a BFA in Film (Animation Concentration), with a hefty scholarship. I'm still not sure why I got a scholarship, and I would like to know if it was my blog or my art or my writing or something else. After not being comfortable with my college choice, I visited Pratt, and took a tour. On the wall of an animation workspace, there was a line from a CalArts student film, and I knew that everything was connected. I'm still a bit scared about college. I got a facebook, to stay in contact with high school, but from a distance. I haven't cried about the end of stac since, well, the end of stac. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but I'm still letting go. This is who i am, or who i have become, or a mixture. It's the parts of me I love and the parts I don't like. Now i have to figure out how i fit in the world with this, how i need to change or how i resist changing.      I think that's what college will be like for me. I think it will be hard at first, because i won't know what to do or how to work, where things are, or who to ask for help. But once I make these issues be helpful to me, then, I think, I'll be better off.

Getting things done day.

1. I painted more of the cow today. I'm making a cow. Out of foam-core. It may be my 'individual project', but I seem to have a lot of those.


2. Myth, my final for Mythology class. I'm writing sci-fi, because I would love to get an idea out of my head. I've been writing down the history of the future, a history of the protagonist's world. Or the opposite of history? Using historical patterns to create a fantasy future. It's fun.


3. Quest Project, Animation. I need a camera to actually take pictures of the frames when I'm done. But I have a  lot to do to lead up to 12-15 seconds. Basic characters, storyboard, exposure sheet, stuff that's unnecessary but I need to show something.


4. Health Project. A month to make a Powerpoint or Photo-story of the curriculum. Not bad.


5. Manifesto, another draft


6. Biography. Eat right through the book, write scenes, go through major editing.

What I'm Doing

I have an idea of what I want to do, I don't know how to make a project out of it.
     I was taught that, to understand how to draw something, I should break it up into its shapes, thus rendering it into a two-dimentional figure within my own head. I don't know if other people do this, or if there is a better way to explain it.
     I also recognize that I want to learn how to animate in a three-dimentional world after a two-dimentional world. But if I understand how to make 3D things, I think my 2D art will be better. 'Better', meaning I'll know how the thing I'm representing in 2D is in 3D.
      If I made a full human sculpture, I would learn more than just drawing one side of it. And, I would be able to understand the side I'm drawing, and its relationship with the parts I do not see and do not represent.
     I want to understand the world as a three-dimentional place by building three-dimentional things. Sculptures. Paper geometric shapes I don't know the names of.

So, this week:
Make more 3D geometric shapes with paper. Get an idea for a final piece.
What if I just make a wire and plaster human face? Or skull. Homo sapien, Homo erectus, and Homo habilius. Human evolution, models, and an anatomical understanding. But where will they go next year?
What if I made a 1'x1'x1' cube like the plan, and wire the lightbulb and battery inside it, and make a glorified lamp?

crusades

I've started Pokemon: Pearl. I named my character Saladin, and my rival, Richard. After all, the Third Crusade is the best.


I was on my way home from church tonight, and the car passed some teens walking in the street. I didn't see enough of them (see paragraph above), but I knew a few. They were walking around the neighborhood, possibly drunk, and I was on a different end of such a spectrum. It's so weird.


I drew a bit, but I left it in church.

too much history channel as a child

I spent today in the city doing everything except figure drawing. I got to draw animals at the zoo and I figured out a cardboard suit of armor from the Met Museum.


Armor. I like the simple examples of Gothic German armor and the Italian armor of the 15th century. Basically, knights were still fighting in wars, the armor wasn't unnecessarily decorated (that happens in the Renaissance), and I don't have flutes running everywhere, as in German armor. There are also a lot of things you can do with metal that I can't replicate with cardboard. I took notes:

And this is Gus the polar bear.


I think, because I don't have science or history as classes, I'm overcompensating. It's great to study something interesting.

Romanticism.

I was so happy today that my bassoon teacher knows both Klee and Klimt.

Gesamtkunstwerk. All art together in unity. This was Wagner's creation.

Romanticism is a movement that began in the later 18th century, in Western Europe. It mainly encompasses art, philosophy, writing, and music. The ideas were to feel more, all feelings, from great joy to horror to awe. Beyond rational thought, and into the imagination, Romanticism thrived on the politics of Europe. Following the imagination was just as important as being the paragon of education. It fueled nationalism, a togetherness held by medieval ties between peoples.

One of the first real act of Romanticism was in Germany, when Jacob and Wilhelm collected the tales from the People (Volk). During the time, Napoleon was systematically taking over the world, and Romantic nationalism was in the air. There was also the Romantic idea that the medieval stories of knights and kings and princesses were pure ideas of the imagination, and that they had the right to be told. This is contrasted with the Classicists, who looked at the Greeks and Romans for inspiriation.

Romantic art is characterized by over the top contrast. In almost every painting I've seen, there's been near-white and near-black. It's also about feeling the emotion to it's fullest, and living in imagination. Letting that take over.

Musically, there is a lot of progression, although I don't understand the technical terms. Wagner was a big part of this movement, as was Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert. All I know is that Weber wrote some great bassoon concertos at this time, and the music is so atypically beautiful. And it's my homework this week.

I personally love this. I've read a lot into the brothers Grimm, and how and why they collected tales. I love politics of the early 19th century, and how the economies were changing, and how Napoleon was taking over everything. And America around 1815 was... trying to avoid a war about slavery.

The Whites and Blacks, the deep emotion, and the totally improbable but beautiful setting. Medieval ideas. Sounds Romantic. Bigger.

Teaching, Kebabs, and Chimeras

listening to 5/4, Gorillaz. I know they're not good musically, but w/e. iTunes on random: Rockin' the Paradise (Styx), Fuzzy and Blue (and Orange!) (Sesame Street), I was Meant for the Stage (Decemberists).

First.

Student teaching. My mom was a lawyer, then stayed home to raise 4 kids, and now that the youngest is gonna be going into Middle school, she's getting her teaching degree. She's student teaching a 9th grade history class. Not too much homework, but like a little paragraph every night, and I think that's fair.

She came to me this afternoon with her book and asked me if this was a boy's handwriting. Cursive letters, neat, straight, little circles over the I's. No teenage guy has neat handwriting. Plus the name was spelt wrong. We come up with a decent plan of attack: collect the notes from the day's class. I wonder how much he's paying her.

Second.

Alex Kebabs and Grilled Soccer

3 pounds Alex sirloin

1 Hawaiian pineapple

1 soccerball

Assorted Peace and Love flowers

Ground Manhattan seasoning

12 skewers

Cut up the pineapple, sirloin, and skewer them with the flowers (check for bugs). Cut up the soccer ball. Grill somewhere outside, preferably on a beach. Make sure to season the kebabs and the grilled soccer ball in the last minutes before eating.

Third. Everything happens in 3s.

Tee shirt design.

One of my ideas, the one I'd go with, is a darkish purple shirt with the emblem of a golden yellow Chimera on the side, in total medieval style. The Heraldic term is segreant, a wingled quadreped on its hind legs. With parts from Bear, Eagle, Lion, Horse, Dragon, and Hart, perhaps. Or antelope. I think these are noble animals, 6 of them to represent the diciplines, all coming together to make this one sort of wonderful beast. Not aggressive, bit it's a symbol of togetherness. And one color is cheap. And I want something I can wear. And the 6 animals will be represented separately on the back.

It's fallable, but workable. I don't have a visual, because I still don't know exactly what's happening. But I don't want a shirt with a logo that had nothing to do with the slogan.

put work up on animatedbuzz.

slowly falling down the path into magic the gathering and D&D. I love D&D too much. I want to make a character who is also the idea of a place.

Making an ancient history for my map. and a religion, since the area of The Bergan is based off the Holy Roman Empire. I'm totally basing it off catholictism, so that i don't piss off other types of christians. and because Christianity is based off Jewish and Pagan beliefs, i have to make those peoples too. Which got me into the whole ancient history mode.

One mountain is not colored in. FML.

school starts and im biding my time until then.