i'm never typing on a keyboard again

it's official. i love letterpress. and i love that we learned how to set type today by watching a vocational video from the forties. so good.

flash! in your face!

i can't figure out for the life of me how to get my flash files embedded in blogger (and i'm starting to think it might be impossible without changing the document size and re-building them all. which is not something i plan on doing...) but i really want to share these assignments we've been doing in gd 3. the class is, as far as i can tell, going to be all motion graphics. and shockingly, it's becoming one of my favorites. who knew code could be so fun? (or at least copying and pasting the code someone else painstakingly wrote...) so, for now, i'll just have to put some still shots and hotlink them. just click on the picture to play the game/answer the question/have your future revealed!

characteristics of a photograph

the thing itself
"he learned that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness, and that to recognize its best works and moments, to anticipate them, to clarify them and make them permanent, requires intelligence both acute and supple."


the detail
"he could only record it as he found it... he could only isolate the fragment, document it, and by so doing claim for it some special significance."


the frame
"the photographer looked at the world as though it was a scroll painting, unrolled from hand to hand, exhibiting an infinite number of croppings - of compositions - as the frame moved onwards."


time
"all photographs are time exposures, of shorter or longer duration, and each describes a discrete parcel of time. the time is always the present... photography aludes to the past and the future only in so far as they exist in the present, the past through its surviving relics, the future through prophecy visible in the present."


vantage point
"and yet it is photography that has taught us to see from the unexpected vantage point, and shown us pictures that give the sense of the scene... an artist is a man who seeks new structures in which to order and simplify his sense of the reality of life."

our first assignment for photo imaging was to read john szarkowski's seminal "the photographer's eye" and respond by taking five pictures over five days. those were my five, along with some of szarkowski's quotes. he has such a poetic way of putting things everyone already knows about photography, but tends to overlook.

mmm... ice cream

free ice cream for graphic design majors/concentrators in front of the brown center tomorrow (tuesday) from 2:30 to 4 pm! and that is why we are the best major at mica.

(and this postcard is why i bribed you to drive me to the supermarket for a container of sprinkles at the end of the summer, ben.)

best way to spend a saturday

working with the living classrooms foundation on a set of murals. i had no idea of how much ground they cover under the "learning by doing" umbrella. programs like fresh start, the crossroads middle school, safe streets, baltimore urban gardening, even my favorite uss constellation in the harbor. they really know what they're doing. (they've been at it since 1985) it was awesome to learn more about it all, meet some current students, and spend the day in the sun, by the harbor, painting purple row houses. so worth waking up early.

ps. i've been promised pictures of the finished mural and more action shots. i'll come back and post those upon their arrival...

no more knots!

yesterday, with freshly combed hair and an open schedule, i took my stubborn self to sprout in hampden for a hair cut. the stylist, a bit appalled but extremely forgiving, took three inches off and sent me on my way... so long as i promised to start combing. (yeah, right.)

and proof that the right thing, no matter painful it may be, really does always pay off... i was able to head over to atomic books afterward and purchase this super cool letterpress book (the cover says it all, it's beautiful) with none other than mr. john waters himself standing in line in front of me. wild.

so far, so good

a nine hour drive back to baltimore (thanks dad), a day of schlepping stuff from storage (thank you again), and a week of training/orientation leading later, and i can finally sit down and feel like i'm back in business. it's been busy. (i didn't even get around to mailing those thank yous until last thursday. oops.) but fun. from channeling "jenny from the block" for extreme bingo to racing to grab wood blocks last night in letterpress...

here's my schedule for the semester:

monday- letterpress (4-10 pm)
tuesday- center for design practice (9-3 pm)
wednesday- photo imaging (4-10 pm)
thursday- objectivity (7-10 pm)
friday- gd 3 (9-3 pm)

should i be worried that my only academic class is the science requirement? hmmm...

anyway, i took some pictures of my new room before everything starts getting thrown around and abused. even though i'm not a famous fancy artist/designer (and i doubt design sponge would do a feature on a dorm room) i felt the need to pretend and do my own little "sneak peek" just for kicks. proof of precisely the time post move-in when my ocd (and expertise at arranging stuff from alterman interiors) kicks in and i get to sort and color code for a whole new space. if only i was as determined about doing the dishes.