Unfocused fear


The excitement of the election, the race to the finish has deflated.On to the teams. Poor Obama. He is having to run the marathon at the Olympics before he even has a chance to move his socks into his White House dresser. The foretelling of how bad things are going to get...promises something dire without any fleshing out. I hate the ambiguity of this. Should we be buying flour, rice and oatmeal in 50lb containers and storing canned goods under our beds reminiscent of the provisioning my grandmother (who learned this in the 30s) would do? Should we be plan to lean into it? Should we pay off all of our bills? Should we be stashing cash...which might not be worth anything? There are trickles of how bad its getting. Our school superintendent sent out this note:

Community Forum: School Budgets and the Economic Crisis: What Does it Mean for Tburg?
All members of the Trumansburg community are invited to an open forum on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 7 - 9 PM, in Room 313 of the High School to discuss the impact of the current economic crisis on the Trumansburg Central School budget. The District has begun designing the budget for next year and are seeking advice and creative ideas from the community. With over 50% of Trumansburg's funding coming from the NYS, a freeze or cut, could have a significant impact on the program the District provides to students. The Trumansburg Central School District's Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) is sponsoring and will moderate the forum. Superintendent Paula Hurley will make a brief presentation and other members of the Administration and School Board will be in attendance.

I think I am going to this meeting. At least information is power...versus the scary ambiguity that exists in the ether surrounding the financial doom we are going to live through. We have tightened our belts...but the college money we stashed for K and A has trailed away, our so called retirement the same. Thankfully, we have our morgage and that's it. No other loans. All credit cards up to date. All expenses paid as we go.
So, perhaps the squirreling away of provisions may make me feel better. Or just listen and wait. Be prepared to hear what is put out there...and be prepared to act.

Late nights redoing work I thought was done--but revisiting seems to be important. I am getting some headway, but it seems every step forward has a quarter step back. Will I get through this? Can I keep it going--with haircuts for kids, laundry, something in the fridge, Mandy taken care of, 'walk around' money for when I am not there. And clothes, how to reduce down to just the "vital few" (that's corporate speak for something else)--as you know..love that corporate speak.More left foot, right foot. I need to think positively.

I had some nice chats with K and A individually yesterday. They are my jewels. I love my kids and their good thinking and ideas. A and I went to the store and shopped...his being rational and thinking (versus my opposite behavior) and had nice talks. K came into my room last night (R is gone) and sat on my bed and then crawled in next to me...and talked until late (she stayed up later doing a nice drawing of a mask). Financial change is tough, but I have my jewels...my treasure.

Chad, of the famous Chad Grohman Blog, weighed in with good input on the owl sketch posted yesterday. I am revising the illustration and splicing in an new bottom treatment--for this p.m. I was tweaking the color of the garden sketch(with the monkeys..experimenting with overlap, monkeys etc)--with a different color palette than I normally feel comfortable with. I also tried doing something new with the color of the clouds which I love..seems a bit candy colored...but pretty. Take mental notes...

More later.

future tense


If I weren't enrolled in an illustration program, or possessed by noodling illustrations along the way...this would be on my lists to do. Perhaps an ISDP program in Music?

I guess this is my inner Pittsburgh coming out.


Dropped in the clouds from another piece. The ink drawing was too spare...and needed it. I think they helped. Also,putting my Virginia Lee Burton hat on (particularly evident in her inspiring illustrations for Robin Hood)--I should redraw the field the owl is sitting on...regularizing the ground shape).

New horizon. New Day.


Tears all around. Obama triumphant! This is a paradigm shift. It is beyond just the office of the President in new hands--but one of the dreams of the sixties have been realized. I was pleased that we all behaved like adults, with John McCain being a gentleman in his speechifiying and his concession talk. Perhaps new President Elect Obama can take the rest of the week off, get his head together and get those two dear girls the puppy they were promised. Now, the question is what kind of puppy? A little taupe pug...named Sally (after the former almost Vice President?) that they dress in clothes from fancy department stores. Sarah Palin will be taking her brown paper bags laden with all of her contributions from Saks Fifth Avenue to Salvation Army today. The denim shirt goes back on and she can go back to being the Queen of Alaska. Can you imagine that crown? It was fun getting to know her husband, Willow, Piper, Bay, Trig and Tron(?)--and look forward to how team Palin is getting packaged and repositioned for the next go-round.

Now on to business. Things calming down, a bit. Meeting today about the logo project. Need to get details on the web project....message from the client contact and the technical requirements don't seem to match up. So, a call to the tech guys need to happen. Outputting a bunch of images for a chat with Doug Andersen, my thesis advisor from Hartford. Again, just the prep is educational. I have been feeling like I haven't dont much, but there is a style evolving, and a technical approach evolving. By March, I should be further ahead with more work. Its all been uphill learning...and I have one or two that might be able to be finalized (or final already). I still don't think that there is enough work given the time we have had off...but it is what it is...and with the time between now and March there is ski club weekends, and blocks of time that the Art Trail took up. So, probably by our San Francisco trip, I will have the NY picture (a vector portrait of the Statue>>big big big, and the same of a pigeon or a NYC greek coffee cup, and a John Alcorn inspired image cooking in the cooker). And, I should have at least 3 + finalized images for the thesis. Need to review the thesis paperwork so I can get the less directed work done in advance. Plenty of down time and plane time between now and New Years.

More later

Baker Institute for Animal Health, Cornell University


Holt Architects recently completed the new front office, waiting room and administrative offices for Cornell's Baker Institute for Animal Health --which used a collection of my illustrations output on fabric and sandwiched in plastic-- a product from 3Form (a worthy company with interesting materials for architecture, large and small scale exhibitry or even god forefend, an illustration show). Its a bit less than 6' tall and the detail holds. Holt did a great job of revisioning a very clunky, not well considered space--discretely using color and other materials to create a modest, functional and very stylish place worthy of such a fine institution. Just wanted to share it with you.

New 3x3

I just got the most recent 3x3, cracked open the magazine and found my SPREAD!! Then, on to the web to give you a link>> and dang! Charles Hively posted my sweeter than saccharine picture of a Papillion avec papillons! I am thrilled to bits. From what is shown in the magazine, I definely do not look like little miss country mouse! Wow!

Syracuse Poster Project


I forgot that I have been selected with Don Kilpatrick (SU, ISDP MA, Illustration 2006) to participate in the Syracuse Poster Project. The committee selected two images from my body of work. There are poems written (haiku for my pieces) and then they are produced as posters and as kiosks to promote the arts in Syracuse. You can see more about the project here>>. Don's work is beautiful and poetic. Mine is from my original "slash" illustrations (name coined by John Thompson) with the baseball catcher for our Baseball project and the guy on the stoop for one of my body of New York City images. Got the haiku yesterday and had to flip the mechanicals as they of course need them the week we are away in New York.

Hope

The good thing about having an hour drive to go to the dentist is the opportunity to let your mind wander and think. This is a momentous time. A time that will be pivotal to our future as a nation and a people. After the tragedies, thoughtlessness, and automatonic state we have lived in--many living on financial ruin unknowingly, many living a life without ever having to say no and wait.

We have seen cities trashed by by local, state and national government's inaction and callous disregard. We have been dragged into a cluster of wars without a say--with surges becoming mainstream and the aspect of money, riches and our people never being discussed. Always more, never weighing the options, never truly problem solving...staying on a task that might not be the right one...doggedly worrying it without asking why? or are there other approaches. Not only has the national leadership from the President down to the mouths in the House and Senate but also down to those who deem themselves "right" and those of us who are labeled "unpatriotic" therefore, wrong. We cannot educate our children--nor to those in power, education is something you just do...it just happens and it is not the organic plant that grows and flourishes and brings us all together fostering that ability to ask why? how? or challenge the assumptions. Education gives us the right to state the truth without repercussions. We are told to open wide and gulp when more filth and lies and greed by our leadership is presented as commonplace--with the expectation that we all do as they say, not as they do.

It is a time where we as a people are humilated, poor and embarassed to be Americans. We have been represented by people who have no sense of appropriate behavior, who have taken an imperious stance with the rest of the world that does drive off of listening and collaboration but by a dictatorial command. We are financially beholden to those who hold our extrodinary debt with god knows what sort of unholy promises made to keep those debts in hand. We do not spend money on the things we are good at : ideas, innovation, the future--but that of guns and investment bankers. I am stunned that this so called bail out has still permitted these skanks of bankers and dealmakers to continue to take home the astronomical salaries and bonuses now supported by everyman USA. Does Joe the Plumber understand that? And, is there any plan to regulate in the future? Is there anything that we as co-owners in these establshments have to dictate change inside the business and as a chance to change and teach each other financial health and behavior?

I know this diatribe is unhealthy and frankly, something we all know. But here is something new for me at least. I feel hopeful. Cynical old me, I feel that with this new man, this thoughtful and articulate man, we can ask why. We can engage in a national conversation. I feel that maybe with Mr. Obama, a sense of intelligence and dignity will be assigned to this engaged person to bring respect back to the office of President, and indirectly to our image of ourselves as Americans. I believe we are capable of so much, and the last eight years have suppressed thought, innovation, and excellence for a private agenda of a minority, headed up by a man of clay--a man who believes that Armegeddon is within his reach and his final days prior to being elevated to heaven will realize the word of God. I believe we live those words which can be summed up by the simple phrase " to love thy neighbor", which I believe is the key to many of the issues we have. If only we could reach across and talk with each other, to listen and engage, to share and not demand. Imagine the world we could have. Mr. Obama represents that hope that yes, in 4 years things could be better. I think we should all give him that chance.

Vote tomorrow for the future and for all of us.

Sunday

Its been a whirl since Halloween what with the pumpkins, the lumieres, the overbuying of candy (always afraid to run out) and the this kid is doing this, that kid is doing that...with the week ahead's expectations and deadlines (as expected) expanding and changing that it made this poor girl's head expand and expand and expand. I am finally deflated and can talk again. We have been going getting this person here, that person there, and the chores in between...so we approach the new work week with at least an attempt at trying to stay on keel. R goes to Miami for 3 days. I get out of here Sunday for 10 days...and have as usual, a road block of work with more piled on top (..."here is a website we need immediately, our objectives and raises are all built on the success of the job...")with all sorts of guilt and agendas built upon the brick (or lack thereof) in the thinking. So, I work weekends and nights to get this done when they have had ( lemme think...eleven months! to get this accomplished. Sorry to be so sour, its just that I hate the pressure combined with Christmas crap that still seems to be recycling. Oh, and did I mention, we might have guests? I hope we can move that needle as I do not have the time for them. I am planning on the time R is out of the house to work until midnight to get the work done. The logo (we cannot miss a month, so we need it a month earlier), a new publication, the website "how boutsomething Retro ?" (can anyone out there in the Real World tell me what Retro means...I know what it means to me, which is def. WRONG)??

Need to put my head down. Getting cranky. Have been dreaming about illustration (which is the magic these programs give you..the ability to go into pre- REM thinking about lines and weight, sketching pictures in your head, progressions, ideas, influences...a really wonderful pink cloud to float on when this real stuff gets, well...

too real.

The photograph bought on eBay by Zeke Schein, who believes it depicts Robert Johnson, left, and fellow bluesman Johnny Shines. © 2007 Claud Johnson.
ps. Read the new Vanity Fair's article on Robert Johnson, the inspiration of the book by Gary Kelley, Black Cat Bone and book, Me + the Devil by Scott Bakal. It's an interesting tale of the acquisition of an image from ebay that is thought to be the third recognized image of Johnson. There is a lot of history and his story to make Kelley's and Bakal's work resonate with history, music and the grounding that Johnson provided to today's musicians. Take a look.

IF: Vacant [gaze]


Memento Mori moment: October 31, 2008:

Everyone Tarrou set eyes on had that vacant gaze, and was visibly suffering from the complete break with all that life had meant to him. And since they could not be thinking of their death all the time, they thought of nothing... “For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything; by meals, by a fly that settles on someone’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.”

Albert Camus (1913–1960)
Algerian-born French journalist, writer.
Tarrou, in The Plague,
part 4, ch. 5, p. 197, trans. by Stuart Gilbert
Penguin Modern Classics (1948).

Waiting here with mini me and my distance glasses on...so trouble could definitely ensue. These early morning flights can work your nerves such that though the alarm is set for 4 a.m., I wake up at 2:30 and flip until four. There is a nice thing about having done this once or twice--I am consistent. Off for a round trip to see my clients in New Jersey which I hope will be fun and informative. ITs a good thing to check in though I dont do it as much as I should...and from a Rip Van Winkle standpoint, I need to get off my plateau and get out of my corner a bit. Going to central PA has been fun, informative and has given me a connection with a part of the world that is our neighbor that I haven't had any inkling of what it was all about. So, though I know New Jersey, this should be the same.

3B


When stuck, change channels. Use trace or change from bluepencil and ink to a trusty 3B pencil and a pink pearl. To confirm this sketch technique, I bought a can of Aqua net as fix...so I have $1.99 into the deal. The 3B is so friendly and gorgeous. It really doesnt like to be too sharp, slightly rounded but it will give you nice solids pretty quickly. Its a fast tool that if you don't watch it, it will fly off your page. it also does stuff that the fabulous Mr. Noodlers will not do beyond its expediency, it will chew up paper and do layouts that are rough and get the ideas going. So, I think this new/ old pal will be in this fist for a few days until I snap out of it...or maybe it even becomes part of the mix.

It's funny, this changeover, that is, from making digital pictures to making real live Q pictures that then is monkeyed in the computer (erased, colored). It is harder. My head hurts. It isn't as fluid, nor am I more confident in this arena. The design is harder, more critical. Overlaps and levels of interest are important. The relationships of objects have to have tension and work together. Much, much more complexity. Maybe more interest too? However, I am learning about levels of finish that I want to take things to. After spending around five hours on the newest Garden of Eden redo this weekend...taking the inked drawing into photoshop and erasing like crazy all the unfinished hangy things, sharpening up points, essentially drawing with the eraser and toggling to the brush if I miss. The piece still looks handdrawn, but its cleaner and sharper. My classmates and Mentor can tell me otherwise...wheither the level of finish is enough--but this is taking the work further in having to resolve the details.

Resolved the costs associated with Hartford and have a better idea of where we are next summer. So, going into 2009 knowing what better to expect than the open ended financial aspect of the program feeling like I am on a slippery slope without anything to hang on to. Phew.

Need to resolve a few preliminary things to talk with my clients about tomorrow. Road warrior day tomorrow. Up at 4 a.m, to the airport by 5:30 a.m. Plane takes off at 6:30 a.m. and at Newark by 7:55 a.m. To the office by 9 a.m. Meetings et cetera until 4:30 p.m. and home by 10. Taking Mini Me to try it out along with a sketchbook to force me back to paper on a logotype I am working on. If the ole 3B comes out, I probably can get someplace faster than pushing the vectors around. Then, I can get back into the vectors and churn out 4-6 presentable ideas by Wednesday. We will see.

Halloween is Friday. No candy yet. Gotta get on that.

More later>>

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A Corner of the Garden


Snow. Freaking snow projected for today/tonight. At least two inches here. Over towards Cooperstown, the Central New York locus for snow, there are 10 inches planned with many of the schools in that area, calling a snow day for today! So, snow on the halloween pumpkin. The saddest picture for me are the little children in their special sparkly costumes that often they have to zip snow jackets on top of accompanied by rubber boots versus light little slippers. Really, the only costumes should be made to make the littles look like stuffed animals (with plush material) so a down coat could be stuffed inside...and a little tiger with boots is cute versus Cinderella in snow treads. Have to get the candy and cat litter. No, we do not give out cat litter. We fill lunchbags with an inch of cat litter and put candles in them (making a country lumiere) and have fifty of them line our front walk. Normally we have tons of carved pumpkins but time is short this year so four will have to do. We play spooky music and if the weather is nice, we have drinks and drinks to offer (this year we have a ton of left over cheese and crackers too) so the grownups often come and visit a bit before they go on their way. Its really fun and very Tburg. Many of our neighbors are convivial like this too, so its an open house throughout town.

Little visit to the House of Health today. Worth it. Lots of folks there--the black and red lady, the energetic lady who is one of the water walkers and the persistent lady who spends tons of time on the elliptical by the window where she camps out with food, drink, towels. She is totally set up. I enjoyed my time and feel stretched and more flexible.

Trying to get the numbers and charges from Hartford straight. Spent some time with their IT folks and managed to get all the email addresses, logins, and passwords straight. I know where to go for the finances and where to go for the email etc. Our faculty doesnt use Blackboard--they use OIL Paint instead. Speaking of computers, the MINI ME showed up on the front porch. It is a PC which makes it hard but its a SWEETHEART. I got the black one...not the pink, bronze or light blue one...but it is a real computer, has MSword (urg) and I can download mozilla and a itunes for travel. Its about as big as a National Geographic and about 2.5 x as thick. Lightweight and will do the email without a problem. It already has the wireless card integrated into the package so its pretty close to plug and play despite its right and left clickness I need to get used to. So, instead of writing blog entries on my phone (which I have done and will continue to do) I will be able to use a complete keyboard and not have to parse the blab that comes out of my mouth.

I was up early and thought about Adam and Eve and how Eve was derived from Adam. Adam's rib, Adam derivative...I also thought about how in Christian symbols, Adam is represented in Crucifixion scenes by a skull or partial skull at the foot of the cross. This depiction represented Adams fall from grace (as it is said) or fall into grace (I say) in his acquisition of knowledge. Why is it that knowledge is a sin? Yes, Adam and Eve did not do as they were told in 1)touching the tree of knowledge of good and evil and 2) eating the fruit of the said tree. To plead their case, if they were pure--God commanded them not to do these things and they readily accepted. They didn't even know they could choose. They could say no. They could have an opinion. They could act independently from their creator and maybe, jailer? Beyond the encouragement by the snake,what spurred them to act? They made the choice to disobey--and out of this disobedience they became more godlike in their ability to choose and their acquisition of knowledge of good and evil. I guess that is why they were locked out of the Garden to keep them away from the Tree of Life which would have given them immortality. I love it that Eve came from Adam's rib. Eve and Adam's dna must have been the same. How did God manifest this change. The book tells us that Adam took a nap, and the procedure to make Eve happened. Were there stitches? Did poor Adam hurt? Was it like looking in a mirror? If they were as uninformed (or simple) prior to their gaining knowledge, was it like my pets TJ and Mei Mei regarding each other, tolerating each other, coming up with ways to co-exist? I don't understand why knowledge was a bad thing for these elementary beings?