mica student organization fair

here's a little poster i designed for mica's student org fair today. fun stuff.

for everyone who thinks all i do here is color

first, the last time i picked up crayons was probably at a visit to the preschool. or possibly at a papa vinos that provided kraft paper table cloths. second, the only people who use crayolas at mica are either attempting to be cheeky in a drawing class or melting them for some sculptural form.

yesterday i got my first graphic design "heartattack assignment" from bernard. take his list of 35 words. create a list of 50 free association words from those words. and then draw a thumbnail sketch/symbol for each. i'll do the math for you. 1,750 words and symbols. due next monday. so if you don't hear from me for awhile, you know why. (right off the bat bernard asked how many people in the class were in relationships. a few people raised their hands. to which he responded: "go home tonight and kiss your loved ones goodbye. because you're mine for the next 16 weeks.")

he hit so many nails right on the head. he demands that you know why you are here. why you chose mica, and why you picked graphic design. (he fully intends to weed out anyone who doesn't love graphic design.) it's reassuring to hear the chair of the gd department tell you that his goal is to make sure you get your moneys worth. (and if you ever feel like you aren't getting your moneys worth, tell him, because he'll give you more work.)

i already know this class will be a challenge. (not just in the time management department.) my approach to design is usually pretty simple. i like to run with the obvious. but there's no innovation there. and now i have someone who will most certainly call me out on it.

i've been postponing posting my schedule for this semester because for so long it's been up in the air. and it still kind of is. (the schedule obsessed part of me is flipping out inside.) but this much i know: there are five exciting classes that i am taking for sure.

my schedule is as follows:

monday
graphic design I with bernard caniffe (9 am - 3 pm)

tuesday
typography I with ellen lupton (9 am - 3 pm)
note: you can follow my type class this semester with our flickr group, "typography live."
modernism and after with t'ai lin smith (4 pm - 6:45 pm)

thursday
artists books with laurie snyder (9 am - 3 pm)
urbanism with daniel d'oca (7 pm - 9:45 pm)

then add in some work study, program manager, and a little community arts.

the only thing i'm bumming about right now is my failed attempt to take french at johns hopkins. in theory it sounded wonderful. but everyone who warned of the hoops i would have to jump through was right. first, my form got lost. second, the class was full (which means the form wouldn't have even made a difference anyway.) determined not to give up, i kept emailing the teacher, took the online placement test, and crossed my fingers hoping that if i showed up to the first class a vacancy would appear. but sitting in on the class yesterday was like pulling teeth. no one had any previous french experience. so we started with bonjour. and learned how to count. it was painful. and there is no way i could stay in that class and be ok with it. (just sitting there made me miss mademoiselle.) and every single higher level class conflicted with my schedule.

i'm not sure what to make of that mess right now. something feels fishy about my backup class (social problems) but i feel like a slacker if i stick with only 15 credits when i could be taking 18. and at this point mica classes are mostly full. i'm meeting with my academic advisor tomorrow morning as a last resort. so we'll see...

how an art school does orientation

a group shot of all of the orientation leaders post extreme bingo. (my green sequined thrift store dress ended up being perfect for the occasion.) this is one of those traditions that makes you realize mica is like no place else.

edit: these posts are pretty delayed. but i figured i'd cheat and put them up anyway...

exploring baltimore

"we live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold." (from "the unbearable lightness of being." a book that is basically my life right now. thanks for that one, jackie.)

one of my focuses during orientation (besides answering any and all questions mica related and getting freshman to dance at freaky tiki) was working with a group of 3 other mica sophomores on redesigning the hour long "charm city slide show" presentation that essentially welcomes the new freshman class to baltimore. this was quite the undertaking, and we had been meeting and discussing our approach since last spring. summer email communication was fairly successful, but once ol training hit it was hard to get the time to take to reconvene and finalize things. which, realizing the magnitude of the message we set out to convey, made me nervous. i like improvising and tackling things as they come. but when it is something really important, i like knowing that it will happen without a hitch.

much of our message (actually all of it...) rested on andy's mad scientist map creation (something he was working on pretty much the entire school year.) what it really came down to was wanting to provide the freshman with a tool that would give them the resources to explore baltimore on their own. so instead of listing off ten random places to visit, we would break things up into categories and corresponding modes of transportation. this is something he is still working on, so you can imagine how much more can be done with it. it's huge. this is something that not only hasn't existed (especially in such an interactive form) at mica, but doesn't exist in baltimore, either. the focus now it to highlight locations that are essentially dubbed "mica student approved," but imagine if it becomes a resource for an entire city of residents...

here's the website: www.aneighborhoodcalledbaltimore.com/map

even if you are miles away in michigan and may never visit baltimore, check it out. make sure you mess around with all of its features (there are both transit and walking maps.) and if you happen to call baltimore your stomping grounds, don't hesitate to email andy, andymangold@gmail.com, with more places and addresses. (or to tell him how amazing his map is!)

edit: these posts are pretty delayed. but i figured i'd cheat and put them up anyway...

gateway

moving on up.

"you're electric again." - mom

she's right. and it feels so good. this gateway gets me giddy. the crazy green windows. the convenience of career development on the second floor. the "infinity pool" fountain out in front. the late night cafe. and the pimped out bbox (black box theatre.) it's insane. (enough that i can over look the odd orange walls in our apartment and the funky bathroom cabinetry.) i just keep thinking about how extremely lucky i am just to be here. and to be living in the gateway on top of it all.

in retrospect, summer seems like it was just this waiting period. like i was just waiting for life to get going again. and thinking of things to fill the time before i could get back at it. even when i was at mica for pre-college, it just felt different. it's another story when you get to be the student, and you're gearing up for another jam-packed year.

let's do it.

ps. i promise the next post will have pictures!

plans and post its

always an unbeatable combination. registration opens for incoming sophomores tomorrow morning, and i am ready to go. i've got my shopping cart full (mica finally converted to online registration) and i've known pretty much exactly what i've wanted before even coming here. i remember sitting in the hotel room in chicago after looking at lake forest and planning my next four years at mica out. (obviously my decision was already made.) i ran that course book ragged.


and today i finally looked at the logistics of cross-registering at johns hopkins to take french. i was starting to get nervous that it wouldn't work out, i've heard it's really hard to fit those classes (which meet 3-4 times a week for an hour or so) into the mica schedule (which consists of 6 hour straight studio classes.) but i found their course catalog online, and, (ding! ding! ding!) there's a class that fits! it basically says in bold: this class is designed for students with scheduling conflicts. it's for "self-motivated students" who don't mind spending 1-2 more hours a week with on-line materials. sweet. sign me up.

fresh air

today was the the mica vs. ub kickball tournament, rematch. mica brought home the cup last semester... not bad for an art school, eh? (want to know their excuse? "you may have won kickball, but we'll see who makes more money.") needless to say, we kicked their butts again. majorly. and it was really just a fun time. it felt so good to spend time outside. i hadn't been this active since online aerobics senior year.

you can leave the ship but the ship won't leave you

i had my first real college leadership conference yesterday. it was a collaboration between mica and the university of baltimore. it was pretty basic. but it felt so good to just be in that kind of environment again. i missed it.

one of the sessions was called "true colors." we took one of those classic leadership styles quizes & identified ourselves with a color. i've done many a personality quiz in my day. but for some reason it was good to take one apart from high school leadership activities & apply it to my college leadership experiences. especially recently with all this program manager stuff kicking in to high gear, i've been trying to see how my leadership style from avondale will fit in with the student activities office at mica.

i was green. it was nice find my truth in the typically generic generalizations. the facilitators described greens as sponges. they talked about greens just soaking everything in, and needing to stop and squeeze it all out and process it on their own. which is very true. one kid (who was obviously green) asked with all seriousness where the water went when it got squeezed out of the sponge. (ummm... so he missed the boat with the metaphor.) but i thought about it, and realized this blog is totally where i squeeze out my sponge. (speaking of blogging & sponges... my friend stephanie started her own blog! she's been talking about it for awhile & finally went for it. so glad i was able to convince someone to try the whole blog thing out. it really is such a good outlet.) here's more about green...

green:

expects intelligence and competence
seeks for ways to improve systems
standard setter
perfectionist and quality conscious
serious
theoretical and conceptual
seeks "big" picture
looks at the world and sees possibilities, meanings and relationships
architects of change
sets high standards
visionary/futurist
analytical
philosophical
can see the core of complex issues or problems
can never know enough
appears cool, calm, collected
needs independence and private time
encourages change for improvement
constantly in process of change
are challenged most when someone says it can't be done

and that's me in a nut shell.

at the end of the day i basically wrote an essay on the back of my evaluation form. don't get me wrong, it was a good conference. the idea was to put leaders from mica and university of baltimore together. and it's important to put the idea out there and in motion for a few years before you build on it. but i think it can be bigger. the good old leadership conference planner in me had a strong urge the whole day to start project planning for a leadership conference that would involve all of the schools in the baltimore collegetown network. if the idea is connecting (key word!) & really mingling with other students, that there needs to be more that just familiar mica faces and a smattering of kids. i see mega mixers, lots of networking & idea swapping, and allowing the experienced leaders to plan and facilitate their own sessions and pass on advice to emerging leaders. that's my vision. we'll see what happens...

thoughts on days when it's 72 in baltimore

once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy. -sri nisargadatta maharaj

art as necessity

just a quick spotlight on one mica student doing something very cool.

mica mondo beyondo

i love making lists. to-do lists, pro-con lists, shopping lists, etc. but this one's a biggie. now that i'm full blown back at mica, it seemed necessary. it's a mondo beyondo list of goals and aspirations. i came across this concept a few years ago when reading about the problem with new years resolutions, and a solution of switching them to more inspiring intentions or lists. for me it takes the shape of what i want to do while i am here at mica. it's supposed to be juicy. things i am almost too scared to write on paper. (or type, because i guess that is what i am doing.)

here it goes...

teach art at mount royal elementary school.
be in a mica student exhibition.
become friends with with president lazarus. (i’ve always had a way with freds in high places.)
meet ellen lupton. have her as a professor & a friend. have her help me write my book.
experience a rolly chair race in the halls of third floor brown center at three in the morning.
be a program manager. help plan halloween.
be an orientation leader. and by the time i am a senior, an orientation coordinator.
be a tarc at mica pre-college and spend five extra weeks in baltimore during the summer.
participate in the planning of a major exhibition through the class with george cicle, like "at freedoms door".
start a french club. sustain it while i'm at mica and prep it for continued success when i leave.
study abroad in france.
cross register at johns hopkins (just to say i'm going to johns hopkins.) to take french sophmore through senior year.
get a sweet summer internship.
get my own apartment in a baltimore brownstone. with stairs. (like in the cosby show.)
take as many classes as possible.
major in graphic design. minor in art history. concentrate in book arts. or maybe community arts.
apply to georgetown or yale for grad school.
meet my soul mate/life partner.
and get married in the main building.
ride the ducks.

second semester: spring 2008

i'm nervous. but that's a good thing. not much can phase me anymore. so when i actually admit to myself that i'm nervous, i know i'm stepping out of my comfort zone. maybe first semester was too comfortable. i picked mica because it would be a challenge. and i'm still waiting for the classic art school post-crit breakdown. but i'm sure i shouldn't speak too soon... i'm doing lots of scary things* this semester. (not to mention taking on the position of arts and education program manager in the student activities office...)

monday - drawing II (4 - 10 pm)
wednesday - sculptural forms* (8:30 - 2 pm)
thursday - elements of visual thinking II (8:30 - 12:30) & critical inquiry (1:30 - 4:15 pm)
friday - painting I* (9 - 3 pm)

sorry, dad. no spelling class.


edit: i just had to add this syllabus from sculptural forms today. scary? not so much. he put quotes on his syllabus. good quotes. reassuring quotes. i can dig it.

this one was on the back:

"there is no measure with time. no year matters, ten years are nothing. being an artist means not reckoning and counting but ripening like the tree which does not force it's sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer."

ken talked about his own experiences in grad school. encountering all the fears and doubts. thinking "i'm not any good at this." or just getting plain sick of it. but realizing that it's all part of the process. and you just do as well as you can. because he had a history of always doing as well as he can. he just needed a reminder to trust himself and believe in himself.

elements crit

it felt so good to bring this all together into a culmination. the entire left side of the elements room was glowing yellow. (which was really so important. i had documented everything in a yellow sketchbook with pictures & such, but instead i opted for making 4 trips back and forth from the commons to main.) shamelessly sunny. (which helped off set such a dreary day. it was very reflective of my current emotional state... wondering what i'm going to do with myself for five weeks and already missing this place.)

throughout the course of this semester, all this yellow became a lifestyle. i had high points and low points with projects and kept pushing even when i had probably already taken it too far. it was an invaluable way of investigating my creative process and who i am as an artist and individual.

which led me to finding my spine. this has been the basis of everything we've done this semester. starting with an object, making 10 pieces, 5 pieces, 1 piece. moving to an idea, making 10 pieces, 5 pieces, 1 piece. finally just using whatever process worked to do whatever project you wanted. i realized how much i had been beating around the bush. yesterday, it just all seemed so simple. this is what i have been interested in through the medium. it all goes back to that give and take.


one thing i've been honing in on is the idea of plans. i've been thinking so monumentally about them, that i forgot the most basic artistic association with plans... architectural blueprints. my next project (winter break!) will be investigating that. (i mean, there had to be some reason that i collected house plans and kept binders of them when i was 10.) imagine, graphite plans on yellow tracing paper...

emac crit

our emac final was to go back and revisit and expand a previous assignment. i went back to my gift shop postcard project inspired by walter benjamin's "the mechanical age of reproduction." (the assignment was a material virtual collage. my ah-ha moment was realizing that i could actually print them as postcards, and add that layer into the concept too. so it kind of became this installation of overlapping postcards within postcards spilling out of a gift shop bag.)

i went through a few crazy ideas for this final (i actually considered printing and framing a huge caillebotte "rainy day, paris street" reproduction, cording it off, and hiring a friend to act as a security guard.) and finally mina suggested simply doing a website. great. thank you mina. it meant that i could have a little fun making up stuff and do something graphic designy. it ended up being a spoof on museum gift shop websites, focusing on the art institute of chicago in particular and how one of its most famous pieces is used as a branding tool. check it out here. (and let me just say that the testimonial page is my favorite. that guy was seriously what came up when i googled "art enthusiast." he totally matches my color scheme.)

cap crit

i don't think any of us had any idea at all of what we were getting ourselves into when we selected "finding baltimore" as a foundation elective. i could not have foreseen finding paula and fletcher as mentors. finding other students with the same passions and drive that i have. finding a need within myself to seek the truth in baltimore. and also finding how i can speak my own truth as a member of the community. finding a way to immediately impact the dynamic of the neighborhoods we visited with the "a neighborhood called baltimore" project. finding a whole new leadership lexicon and mentality. finding myself in the middle of what is truly a community arts movement. finding countless reassuring examples of art that is truly making a difference.

it was so neat to see everyone share their growth from this class in a culminating project: johanna's examination of food as a social gathering conduit, maria's "skinny white girls" clothing line, ellen's organic "planting of the seeds" in labeled jars for each neighborhood, lauren's huge neon yellow "aware" on the front of the brown center (right next to the "bullet hole") and her "driving drawings," stephanie's performance paralleling cap and faith, tierny's knitting club project in brooklyn, sarah's broken glass self portrait and map of baltimore, alder's illustrations and poems, anna's banner of journaling and words, meg's "give and recieve" hands installation, emily's honest stream of conciousness, maggie's warm fuzzies, and the other maggie's "holding hands in a circle" pictures.

i can already feel that not having this next semester will leave a big void to fill. i'm going to have to make sure that i am replacing the energy that was coming from the class in other avenues. like the mount royal elementary + mica portrait collaboration i've been working on with katherine. and trying something new for tier two of my cap internship. and, of course, everything "a neighborhood called baltimore." really watching it explode. and the great thing is that now, all of this comes together under my new role as arts and education program manager with student activities. (like today in class i started thinking and talking with fletcher about how baltimore is presented during freshman orientation, which was through a charm city "slide show." i remember that clearly. not only was the powerpoint itself weak, but there was just something off about the whole thing. my mind started going a mile a minute... why does it have to be "charm city?" why can't it be "a neighborhood called baltimore." that's the mentality we need to be presenting to incoming freshman.)

i know i will keep soaking it all in and growing and connecting the dots. that is really what this college thing is all about. i can't compartmentalize and keep these things separate. (even though i am an organizational machine.) it was too hard to come back from a neighborhood tour and switch back to making conceptual art for assignments. and it will be too hard to contain this experience in one class. it is now ingrained into who i am as an individual, and just as importantly, an artist. whether i realize it yet or not, every choice i make in the rest of my classes at mica will be influenced by the revelations that have come from the "finding baltimore" experience.

i am going to miss this class so much! (can you say community arts concentration?)

drawing crit

our final project for drawing was a narrative, using figure drawings from in class as a prompt, & working big (5 ft x 5 ft.) i got a studio for this one, hoping that it would give me a chance to separate drawing from the rest of the assignments i was working on in my room... and to truly focus and spread out. that was a good idea.

i decided the only way i could dive into the term narrative was to pick a song as a basis. i listened to it over and over again. i tried to find marks that would mimic the music. i thought about distance. and solitude. this was a spilling out for me of so many comments/critiques/thoughts: using layering, but having each layer be distinctly different. not worrying so much about starting light... skipping the vine and going straight to compressed charcoal. being decisive with marks. experimenting with acrylic (and realizing it doesn't work so well with charcoal.) my inspiration was an exercise we did in class. our model would pose and we would draw for 30 seconds, and then each rotate to the easel next to us and continue the drawing for that person. by the time 10 people had added to it, things started getting messy. you would look at the drawing and think that there was nothing that could possibly fix it. but then someone would add something, just one mark to make a difference, and it would completely bring the piece back to life. that kind of surrender of control, so not me, was exactly what i needed to embrace when drawing.

it was so cool to pull everything from the semester together and curate it. it doesn't seem like much when you're wrapped up in it all, but when you look back at everything you realize how much you really did. drawing was definitely a class that i struggled with first semester. not so much that it was hard, but that i knew i was lacking passion for it. it seemed like just a requirement that i had to get through to get to the good stuff. but when i see how much i have grown in just a semester, i am so glad that i'll have drawing two next semester. it's shaking things up for me, which is always a good thing. i'm constantly questioning my definition of drawing, and beginning to realize that i don't have to keep it separate from the rest of how i create.

it's not so bad at all

it's the day before final week starts, and i'm thinking, it's not so bad at all. i guess once you survive something like avondale homecoming, planning a leadership conference in a week, submitting 10 college applications, or taking ap tests/being in the spring musical/chairing spring fest, this finals business tends to not freak you out as much. a little stress is a good thing. especially when coffee is involved. and getting more than four hours of sleep is unproductive anyway.

bluest light

here i am knee deep in finals, completely lost for 3 out of 5 classes. not sure what the next step should be for elements, or how to get my message across for emac, or even where to begin for drawing. but cap... i got that down. i actually have too many ideas. what's great about this cap final is that it is individual, and it gives you the means to reflect & process it all. so much of cap is community and people based, it's important to not forget about yourself in it all. and not to loose sight of who you are as an artist. and for me that means strong ties to scrapbooking.

it starts with this white canvas monochromatic collage approach. i've had this idea in my head for awhile... something simple and stark, with a blue light in the middle. for my cap final i'm planning on extending it into a series. because it just so happens that the blue light was distinct from my brooklyn experience, and in my cap journal brooklyn is the blue section. (yes. i color code everything. roland park=red. brooklyn=blue. east baltimore=green. reisterstown=yellow. those colors tend to then seep into your subconscious and represent your memory of the experience and then how you would share it visually.) & i've also wanted to make an altered newspaper for awhile. i'm not sure what would go in it yet, but i know that the front page will have "daily intelligence" stamped on it in big, bold, all caps. i think there will be a way to combine the two together.

and another thought on my mind... cap needs a manifesto. and you know how much i love manifestos. i could totally do one. really, what is community arts all about? what are the guidelines and goals and things that connect every manifestation? this might be more of a long term project, something that i keep referencing and adding as i continue with cap and channel my inner bruce mau.

so pumped.

a really cool thing mica is doing now is "black panther: rank and file." it includes films every tuesday in october as part of free fall baltimore, an exhibition (which opened today & i can't wait to see), and a two part symposium tomorrow. the first segment is called "aesthetics & revolution." because it's during the day they are expecting mostly mica students to come. the big superstar panel, "community & revolution" is later that night, and they are hoping that the audience includes more members from the baltimore community at large.

it sounds like it is going to be totally up my alley... just another perspective on how art can be a catalyst for change. and sometimes i agree that sometimes the best way to change things is to be radical. and to aim for things others find impossible or ridiculous. my favorite piece in the exhibition is titled "we wanted to be", by daniel joseph martinez. it stopped me dead in my tracks when i first saw it through the glass doors while it was still being installed. because it is all text, a perfect display of vinyl letters and kerning. it reads:

we wanted to be radical brave pioneers we considered ourselves to be a vanguard we overestimated ourselves ridiculously indulging in the illusion that a revolution was thinkable in the federal republic in this light we were self-timers who acted cut off from reality in a void we live a sort of armed existentialism.