HOLTERMONSTER'S LAIR

HEY!

2011-08-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

HEY! As you can tell, this blog has all but been abandoned. I've moved to tumblr, so should you be interested in what I'm up to and what I'm making these days, check me out over there at holtermonster.com.

Webcomic Review: Johnny Wander

2011-04-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

Yuko's webcomic is fun. It's clean, simple, well drawn, funny, and pretty random with a mix of autobiographical slice-o-life anecdotes and a string of recurring characters. She describes it as:

Johnny Wander might be about life after college, being a kid, growing up and all the people you meet and all the things that happen in that brave new world.

Or it might be about something else entirely.

Webcomic Review: 69 Love Songs

2011-03-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

69 Love Songs Illustrated is not necessarily a webcomic, but it caught my interest. It's the product of a group of about 30 or so London illustrators who, over Twitter, decided to bond together in mutual admiration of the Magnetic Fields and attempt to illustrate all 69 of the band's love songs. Each submission is different, ranging from short comics to collages.

Webcomic Review: Blue

2011-03-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Oh man. I am a big fan of strict black & white comics, with perhaps a splash of grey ink wash, but this is a wonderful color comic that I like--muted blues and tans with black & white. Very nicely done, and I like the slow dramatic pacing.

Webcomic Review: Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard Boiled Shaman

2011-03-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

This comic is pretty nice. It's only 10 pages in but it updates 3 times a week so it shouldn't be too painful between posts. I think I'll be visiting this one often. I like the color scheme and the stylized illustration.

Webcomic Review: Doctor Cat

2011-03-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's about a cat that is also a doctor. 'Nuff said.

Webcomic Review: Gingerbread Girl

2011-03-09T02:31:00.000-08:00

The Gingerbread Girl is on the Top Shelf Comix website as part of their TS2.0. It's updated in three page posts and follows a girl who believes her father removed the part of her brain that registers physical and emotional feelings, which she calls her gingerbread girl. All of the characters, including a pigeon, talk to the camera to help introduce backstory and move the story along.

Webcomics Review: Lackadaisy

2011-03-09T02:05:00.001-08:00

Lackadaisy is a webcomic by Tracy J. Butler, who says "It's about a gang of tenacious (if not shady) characters running a St. Louis speakeasy in the era of Prohibition. I suppose it falls somewhere in the realm of historical fiction, parody, dark comedy, and abject nonsense." Oh, and they're cats, and it's really nicely done.

Also, Tracy put together this nice looking and informative tutorial on facial expressions that anyone drawing comics could benefit from.

Webcomic Review: Scott McCloud

2011-03-09T01:44:00.000-08:00

Scott McCloud, whose name should be very familiar to illustration students, wrote a serial webcomic about a mathematics major who discovers a link between personally compatible women and the similarity of their phone numbers. The full story is on his website in an interesting format--each panel displays alone, with the next one buried in the current panel's center. The reader clicks through as each panel expands to fullscreen. I like the idea of displaying a finished story arc in an interactive way like this. Also, like stacking panels to be scrolled down and read, it helps in timing and surprise, since you can't accidentally skip ahead visually and ruin something.

Webcomic Review: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

2011-03-02T11:11:00.001-08:00

SMBC is one of those webcomics with recurring characters and themes, but usually different characters every time. Sometimes the comics involve characters from comic books or pop culture, but unlike a lot of webcomics that focus on the DC & Marvel universes, the references aren't usually over my head, like the one below.

Webcomic Review: Amazing Super Powers

2011-02-24T11:34:00.000-08:00

This is a webcomic my younger, nerdier brother turned me on to, and he's probably the best source I have for new nerdy internet media. It's actually pretty funny and usually only 3 panels. I'm picking up on around 4 or 5 recurring characters that rotate out, including a pair of balding Yankee detectives. I like cop humor.

I really like the easter egg idea, too. Every strip has an extra panel that you can view by clicking the hidden question mark to the top right of each strip. I didn't find that, the sibling did. Thanks bro!

PROMOTIONAL PACKS!

2010-12-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

My final project for Illustration 5 was to create 25 promotional packs and send them out to clients I want to work with. It almost seems frivolous to spend so much money and time creating physical representation when most content is dealt with digitally, but I think that tactility is important. There is some inherent awesomeness in seeing a piece in print as opposed to the screen. And being that most of my work never makes it past a screen, it's really exciting to see something specifically designed to be handled and interacted with intimately take its right shape. It feels like they are now finished pieces--no longer just .ai files that I can open and tweak at a moment's notice. With that comes a sense of permanence, too, which is both good and bad. For example, I now have 40 sets of cards with a missing embedded photo, a grammatical error, and one with a really hideous solution to fabricating bleeds from a pdf after absentmindedly deleting the original file. C'est la vie. Regardless of the mistakes, and the unfortunate design flaws in my packaging--which just can't be foreseen looking at a flattened image on a laptop--I'm really proud to have these made. I think even the most technologically savvy can agree there is a much larger inherent significance in the receipt of a handcut, handfolded, handglued, individually addressed and handstamped envelope over a fancy email with an attachment.

This is how it looks when it arrives in your mailbox.

This is how it looks when you open it.

This is the plan for the box & the response postcard I enclosed.

I've all but gone broke paying for this final product, but I have to keep reminding myself that in the long run, if I get even one job from any of these big name clients, it'll pay for itself.

MIDTOWN ARCHETYPES

2010-11-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

So, I finished my Midtown Archtypes series. Well, not really finished it, but I've done enough to fulfill the assignment it was originally intended for. I'd like to leave it open to continue. I considered doing another 1 or 2 for the assignment, but I agreed on 8 as a final number with Joel last week, and honestly, I need to stop myself. I could sit around making these all month. You can click on over to my gallery to see them>> laurenrae.carbonmade.com

IN PROGRESS: MIDTOWN ARCHETYPES

2010-11-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've been working on a series of illustrations chronicling the artsy-fartsy archetypes of midtown Memphis. They're all caricatured and vector--very different from the Beale Street postcards. Here's a sneak preview:

BEALE STREET POSTCARDS

2010-10-26T22:30:00.001-07:00

The postcards are finished--12 in all, featuring disgruntled bartenders and jaded street musicians. You can peruse them all in my gallery: Lauren Rae's Carbonmade: Beale Street

Illustrator Promo

2010-10-22T08:12:00.001-07:00

Frank Floethmann's business card is a really big comic that folds up into business card!

Pierre Paul Pariseau wants you to call him.

Lou Lou's promo card looks like their illos AND spells her name.

Slack Art's promo extends to the envelope it's mailed in with personalized return address.

Vicky Newman sends out pinback buttons of her illustrations-- cheaper & classier than t-shirt promo.

Beale Street Visual Essay Progress

2010-10-05T00:31:00.000-07:00

Progress on the Beale Street visual essay.

Beale Street Visual Essay Progress

2010-09-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a visual essay for Illustration 5 documenting a place I frequent, so I'm documenting Beale Street--specifically the people who are and atmosphere of working there. This is what I've got so far.

Odalisque

2010-09-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

I did this revisioned odalisque for Illustration class last week. I edited it after the critique last week. What'dya think?

MCA's December 2010 BFA Exhibition Card

2010-09-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

This is one my recent assignments at my internship--the BFA Exhibition card for December 2010. A little nerve-racking, as there is always some heated discussions about the show cards among the graduating seniors, but overall, I like it. I hope they do too.

MCA's 2010 Zap Card

2010-09-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

So, I recently started an internship with Combustion, a local design firm that handles most of Memphis College of Art's design work. The internship is supposed to be just for Graphic Design students, but being that I'm an Illustration student, I get to draw and design. It's a fun job. My first assignment was to redesign their "zap card;" a mailer they send out to prospective students to keep them on the mailing list.

State of the Union: Part 06

2010-09-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know what kind of illustrator I am. Maybe I don't understand the question. Or maybe I'm just still experimenting so much that I can't really answer that yet. I'm also not completely sure what kind of career I want to have. I think I'd like to do something that allowed me to illustrate, write, and design--like running a magazine or maybe working for several different publications or businesses doing different stuff.

I think my portfolio is lacking in design, which is the reason I fought to get the internship at Combustion I'm currently doing. I also don't have as much photo/illustration combination work as I'd like to have. I love doing it and I think it looks awesome, but I don't have a camera.

I don't think my portfolio really reflects exactly what I want to do. I think it's starting to more but it's not there yet.

State of the Union: Part 05

2010-09-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

If I had to spend the rest of my life illustrating one book, it would be
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's an easy one. It's got some of the most badass descriptions of people, creatures, environments, processes, etc. of any book(s) I've ever read. It would pretty much take my entire life too.

•••

If I was banned from doing art, I'd write. I've always loved writing, and I think I'm pretty good at it. If I end up going to grad school, it will probably be for some form of writing.

•••

If I had one month and one thousand dollars... I would put out a book of articles, interviews, rants, poems, and prose that I've written over the years and illustrate and design it all myself. I try to write a few pages a week, and I've collected plenty of fodder for some kind of publication. It'd probably end up being a kind of somber non-linear tale about early adulthood; moving out the parents house, friends dying, loneliness, naivete, stupid decisions, relationships, forming identity, developing personality, trust, friendship. (That all sounds really depressing, but I think it would end up leaving the reader with a kind of half-and-half happy/sad feeling). If I had my bills paid for a month and had the opportunity to just crank it out, I'd do it all for free and spend the grand on printing costs.

If I had six months and ten thousand dollars... I would rewrite/edit my ongoing comic story and turn it into a full-length graphic novel. I planned the plot to be spanned out over a hundred or more pages to capture the sense of time that I wanted to be a big part of the story. I feel like it will be effective as it is now (hopefully finished by May 2011). Although I've only worked on it a little over a year, it's one of those stories that has so many influences I've drawn from that it changes with every book I read or class I take. It's something I'd really need six months of uninterrupted time to write it all and draw it all, if not more. I'd ideally want to do the pages at 11x17 or larger and put a lot of work into shading.

If I had a year and one hundred thousand dollars, I'd finally put together the zine I've been yammering about for the past year. Specifically about Memphis life---art, film, culture, food, people, projects, happenings, secrets, drinks, businesses, charity, bars, etc. I'd hire a bunch of local, amateur, talented writers, illustrators, photographers and designers each and pay them for their talents. I'd put out an issue a month with $100,000k, and be able to pick which businesses to advertise for instead of cramming logos of whoever onto the back cover.

State of the Union: Part 04

2010-08-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

Ten illustrators I love

one: Sam Flores

Flores works independently, but consistently makes work for a collective of urban artists called 12 Grain and a gallery in California called Fifty24SF.

two: Audrey Kawasaki

Audrey does mostly gallery shows (and does quite well, I may add), but has also been published in NY Arts Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Artillery Magazine, and Juxtapoz.

three: Brandi Milne

I really like Brandi Milne's older work (above) but her new work seems like she's trying to be mainstream, and it's not my thing. She also does mostly gallery work but has been in Hi Fructose a couple of times.

four: Hermann Mejia

Hermann has been one of my favorite illustrators for years. He does work consistently for MAD Magazine. Badass with portraiture and watercolor.

five: McBess

McBess is pretty much doing everything I need to be doing visually. Strong contrast, large hunks of black and white, contrast of empty areas and areas of dense detail, AND awesome exaggerration of human form.

six: Marjane Satrapi

We all know Marjane. Her inking style is a big influence on my ongoing comic. This still is from the movie adaptation of Persepolis but I love the contrast of gritty inkwash texture and stark black & white linework.

seven: Aubrey Beardsley

I love Beardsley's treatment of black & white. Beardsley did a lot of commission work illustrating books and plays. Wish he hadn't died so young!

eight: David Downton

I covered David's process and work in the last post, but he does a lot of work for fashion magazines--Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, ads for Absolut and Tiffany & Co.

nine: Unknown

I found this guy (or girl?)'s work on MonoModa but I don't know who it is. I like the illustrative aspects mixed with the realistic handling of value and form.

ten: Thomas Fuchs

Fuchs has a crazy impressive client list, including Bostom Globe, Chicago Tribune, Field & Stream, Forbes, Fortune, Future, Galmour, GQ, Harper's, Los Angeles Times, Men's Health, Money, National Geographic, National Post, Newsweek, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Time, TV Guide, Vibe, etc., etc. I'm so jealous.

eleven: Little Friends of Printmaking

LFOP do a lot of screenprinting and illustration work for bands, music artists, and music shows.

State of the Union: Part 03

2010-08-30T03:07:00.000-07:00

My creative process usually
starts with a lot of thinking. This can easily be construed as procrastination, but don't be fooled. I put the idea in my head and then walk around. Things that I say, or hear, or read, or see influence how the idea grows. I usually hold it in my brain until it feels like I can actually put it into words or images before I ever sketch a thing. Sometimes an innocuous phrase or song or image will trigger something, like it all comes together, in which case I go scrambling for my sketchbook. Then once I have a basic idea, I sketch variations on it, but usually by this point, it's been incubating so long I'm pretty sure where I want to go with it. Sketching is more just for the sake of visual layout and design rather than brainstorming. Eventually I settle on a sketch, and sketch it bigger. I work mostly with ink, so I ink it, scan it, and color it in Photoshop. I tend to add a lot of textures too, and when it calls for it, I'll do texture work in watercolor on a piece of tracing paper over the original drawing and composite it in post.

My process seems to work fairly well. I think spending more time thinking than drawing helps the overall concept of the piece. But at times I wish that the two were more intertwined, as there really isn't ever any record of how I got from Point A to Point B.

•••

I found this guy David Downton over the summer. He does mostly fashion illustration; models, celebrities, actresses. He's got this ridiculously elegant way of composing a drawing. It's the kind of work that makes me jealous that I can't just sit down with a brush, slap down 7 or 8 perfectly placed lines and splotches of value, and emerge with a gorgeous ten-minute illustration (that I can then sell for the cover of this week's Vogue for a cool grand).

I tracked down an interview with Downton about his process. Turns out, he does dozens of sketches of the same drawing for each illustration, picking a choosing specific marks from each to compile the final result. He actually says, "When the drawing looks right I start to eliminate, to de-construct if you like. I keep working until it looks spontaneous."

I do the same thing, but I have a tendency to add lines where they aren't really necessary. I know it has a lot of to do with the very little visual planning I do for illustrations. I like high contrast and I like minimalism. I'm not huge on fashion art but these are just too gorgeous to get picky with.

His website is DavidDownton.com.

State of the Union: Part 02

2010-08-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

This is my personal favorite piece
that I've made. I spent eight hours a day for a week working on this thing. It means a lot to me for a few different reasons. Firstly, it's the only sculpture I've made that I really liked working on and really liked the finished product. It's also supremely personal.

It's a Tree of Life, a type of Mexican folk art. I saw my first one in person in Ciudad de Mexico two years ago, and this piece was my response for the proceeding exhibition. Trees of Life act as shrines to dead loved ones. I made mine as a self-portrait (with me in the center), and the four skeletons on the branches represent four deaths that have impacted me.

It's also important to me because I built the entire thing in the Rozelle Artists Guild group studio at our original headquarters, 822 Rozelle St. with the help of my best friends. The structure itself was made from disassembling and rebuilding a wooden chandelier found in the warehouse, and the plaster base molded from a found bowl.

•••

Most people seem to like this print I made in Digital Printmaking last semester, probably because it's dark and creepy. I like it too though.

I think my tarot card deck surprised me the most. I loved doing them, but I knew that doing 56 individual illustrations--particularly about a subject matter which is both very complicated and of which I knew very little about--was going to be difficult unless I spent most of the time researching the symbolism and condensing it into a simple image, and less of the time on the actual execution. In the final result, the nearly all of the illustrations were drawn at the print size, some even enlarged, which is not typical. They ended up looking simple, but not unfinished. I'm pretty proud of the way they turned out, and I'm still kicking myself for accidentally deleting the original PSDs...

•••

These are five sketches I like as much as any of my finished pieces:

The State of the Union: Part 01

2010-08-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

I spent the first four semesters of art school trying out as many different mediums as I could. I learned that I hated large-scale sculpture (although at times therapeutic, it was more often than not frustrating, and resulted in awkward objects not easily stored or ever properly displayed) but liked small-scale. I'm drawn to mediums that don't require mathematical precision, but rather can take on charm in their flaws.

I love working in collage. However, I no longer have the time to sit in my floor, meticulously selecting scraps of paper, fingers covered in rubber cement, carpet perpetually filled with tiny paper shreds, slowly yet methodically filling up hardbound sketchbooks. (The collection has dwindled considerably over the course of several moves, but I still have a surplus of shoe boxes filled with interesting bits of paper, which many close friends will attest to loathing on move-in days!)

I have since relearned to love the quick accessibility and simplicity of drawing with ink. I love working with watercolor, and get very impatient with acrylic and oil. I also really enjoy using Adobe programs to enhance drawings, and drawings to enhance digital art.

•••

I have been at Memphis College of Art for four years now,
and for the first two, I had a very... absentminded advisor. This resulted in my taking a multitude of unrelated classes with no real plan in mind, hence the necessity of my fifth year. That being said, I'm just interested in a lot of different stuff. I think the most beneficial non-Illustration classes I've taken at MCA are as follows:

Art of the First People: Mexico with Dr. Ramsey. Anyone who has seen my art over the past few years could guess this. Although the course itself is a little dry, it opened the door for me to a persistent aesthetic and conceptual obsession.

Digital Imaging with Howard Paine. This was really the first class I had taken that allowed (and encouraged) work that was photographic, digital, illustrative, and all three combined. I did great work in this class.

Life Drawing with Fred Burton. I know that Drawing: Composition is a required course for Illustration students, but I think Life Drawing should be also. Exaggerated characters and cartoons can only benefit from a foundation of understanding the proportions of the human form.

Forms of Fiction: Horror with David Burton. I really enjoyed this class because it basically consisted of reading great literature and talking in depth about it. We spent a lot of time decoding symbolism. I loved it.

Abnormal Psychology with Dr. Shaw. I feel like this class (along with its pre-requisite) really helped me with character development, scripting, body language, and dialogue with my ongoing comic.

Cultural Anthropology & Anthropology of Art with Deborah Halstead. Both of these classes are also very dry in their presentation, but intensely interesting, particularly concerning human behavior and relativity of normalcy.

•••

I wouldn't say I have a particular modus operandi
when it comes to what I make art about. I think that's kinda the beauty of being an illustrator--the freedom. It's not like being a fine artist working in series or a designer working commercially. Illustration falls into this odd shaped gap in the middle of the two, not limited to one medium or concept.

That being said I make a lot of work based on my interests. History, psychology, anthropology, and the aformentioned obsession with Mesoamerican and Mexican culture have/still are culminating into my ongoing "graphic novella". Human nature and human behavior also really interest me. I like drawing "odd-looking" people, and I like taking note of how my interpretation of "odd" changes.

I think the influence the work of my peers has had on me has remained consistent: I like watching them get better as I get better. Every student in the Illustration program right now has a completely unique style that has been carefully (yet also hurriedly) nurtured.

•••

As far as music goes,
I'm an emotion junkie. I've been listening primarily to the same five or six albums for years. I like familiar noises and words and actually have to be forced into listening to a new band. I hardly ever listen to music purposefully, as odd as that may seem.

•••

Non-art related hobbies, interests, and skills.
I'll try to condense this section.

I've been an avid writer for a long time. I always scored well on English exams, aced papers, and have kept a blog (&/or some sort of collection of writings) since age fourteen. I love writing, in all different forms too. This comic I have been laboring over for the past year is the first work of fiction I've attempted, however, and it's proving to be very challenging. I've also acted as the Senior Editor for the Black & White for going on four years now.

Of course, I started an arts collective my first year of college with a couple of other art students. I say "of course" not in an egotistical sense that you or anyone really should even be aware of our existence, but that if you know me, you know that it's such a big deal to me, I at one point chose to have a icon for it permanently inked into the skin of my wrist. Rozelle has afforded me a medium through which to do a lot of things and meet a lot of people I otherwise would probably not had the opportunity to do or meet. It's also put me in a position of responsibility for items of business I never would have expected, like financial planning, sponsorship, public relations, and event planning. Through that, I've also gotten a great taste of the business side of art-making and art-supporting. In all honesty, I'd be just as content with an organizational job in the arts as I would a real art-making career.

I've had some experience in other realms of the arts; I curated student exhibitions for the Brode Gallery at MCA for two years. I completed a curatorial internship with Power House Memphis a couple of years ago, and also aided in event planning, public relations, and private exhibition tours before they dissolved in 2009. I've worked for Indie Memphis overseeing the festival, organizing volunteers, and basically making sure the filmmakers and directors kept on schedule. I've worked on a few movie sets doing art direction and set dressing, also, through those contacts. I've sat in an empty silent gallery, bored, my fair share of hours.

But aside from that, I've worked in the food service industry since highschool; waiting tables, bartending, and catering. I like the work because no where else can a semi-intelligent, inexperienced twenty-something make three bills a night, and it reminds me why I'm in school--to avoid doing this as a career.

I think food service industry and administrative/organizational duties fall into the category of something I like that not many others do.

•••

If I could own any three pieces of art in the world,
they would be as follows:

Michael Jackson and Bubbles by Jeff Koons, 1988. This is one of the best sculptures ever created. Aside from the fact is solid porcelain and painstakingly goldleafed, it's just amazing. I think it's one of the most succinct works I know of that captures the pop culture-obsessed air of the 1980's; celebritizing meets idolizing.

An Olmec Head; specifically what's referred to as "Head 1" from the discovery in San Lorenzo. I love the sheer mass and bulk of the heads, the facial construction and feature exaggeration, but I especially love that they are shrouded in a lot of mystery as to who they are, why they were created, how they were transported, and what their purpose actually was. I like this one's face the most.

Surrogate by Patricia Paccinini. Because, I mean, look at this thing.

Superhero Coco: Skeletor

2010-08-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

My buddies from Illustration class at Memphis College of Art have been geeking it up again. The latest collaborative baby is Superhero Coco, a blog where illustrators are encouraged to submit redesigns of comic book characters. Every 2 weeks, they pick a character, and everyone submits. The results are posted every other Saturday. I haven't yet participated because, frankly, although I don't refute that I am a dork, I just don't know shit about comic books. I always had my nose in a Calvin & Hobbes anthology or a Mad Magazine as a kid. But as this week's character was Skeletor, I decided to give it a shot.

Happy Birthday, Derrick!

2010-08-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

So, Mr. Derrick Dent just turned 24 today! Derrick is one of my best friends, a fellow founding member of the Rozelle Artists Guild, the mastermind behind Project Sketchbook, and the male counterpart to the portrait artist for hire super duo known as Holterdent. Other than that, he's also a badass illustrator and could be accurately described as giggly. So in celebration of his conquest of his twenty-fourth year of life, I drew him up a little gift.

Did I mention he also shares an enthusiasm for Law & Order? It's the two of us as L&O detectives. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, D-ROCK!

The Curse of Yama

2010-07-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

I got this commission for a book cover in May, but being as my summer has been chaotic--filled with jobs lost, new jobs started, commission orders doubling, apartment hunting, packing, moving, & unpacking--I'm just now getting to it. So voila!

[CLICK TO EMBIGGEN]

Yard Sale this weekend!

2010-06-10T00:37:00.001-07:00

My roommates and I are moving out of our enormous house, and trying to get rid of all the extra stuff we've accumulated over the past year. Come on over this Saturday from 7am-1pm and look through our wares!

Curse of Yama: Book Cover

2010-06-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

Preliminary sketch for a cover illustration for Curse of Yama by local author K. F. Ridley.

Ving Tsun

2010-05-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

I designed a business card for my friend David, a private Wing Chun instructor.

Kickstarter.com

2010-05-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

Alice at VINI turned me on to Kickstarter.com today. It's a funding platform for independent creative projects. Basically, you submit a proposal for a project you need money for, set a funding goal, and site visitors can become "backers" and pledge donations to your project via Amazon. If you reach your funding goal within the time limit (between 1 and 90 days), you get 95% of the money pledged; if you don't, you get nothing and none of your backers are charged. It's still in beta, but I they're accepting proposals. I think I'll be putting something together soon.

CHECK OUT THESE PROJECTS:
Reading With Pictures is a project looking to get comics into schools via one big compiled textbook. They made over $4,000 over their $10,000 funding goal.

Fresher than Fresh is Kansas' first all natural snowcone stand. They're raising funds to renovate their snow cone trailer.

Almost Super is the third book by Matthew Buckley. He's more than halfway to his $5,500 goal to pay for self-publishing. He's giving away first edition prints at the ridiculously cheap price of one per $10 pledge. His first chapter is available for download as a PDF. I'm in the process of reading it now: it's smart and quirky.

Conjoined Twins Woodblock Print

2010-05-10T01:02:00.000-07:00

I printed my conjoined twins woodblock print. The color/texture is a digital print on Somerset Soft White.

Tarot Cards

2010-05-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

I HAVE FINISHED MY TAROT CARD DECK!
Well, I finished the 4 suits. There are still trump cards to illustrate. But I completed what I needed to for the assignment (a deck of 52 cards), and this makes 56 out of 78 cards in a tarot deck.

You can find them here on my gallery: http://laurenrae.carbonmade.com

Skull Papercraft

2010-05-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

I finished my skull papercraft. There are still some revisions to be made, but this is the first successful print & assemblage.

This is one of my tarot card illustrations that I decided to three dimensionalize:

& assembled:

Conjoined Twins Woodblock

2010-04-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

[CLICK TO EMBIGGEN]

Quetzalcoatl vs. Tezcatlipoca

2010-04-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

[CLICK TO EMBIGGEN!]

In Progress Screenshot

2010-03-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

I just found this screenshot whilst clearing off my desktop. In progress of the Jay Reatard Obituary illustration & the color comp thumbnail.

Click here to see the finished illustration.

MILIEU: Collaborative Installation Exhibition

2010-03-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

This is poster I designed for an exhibition I am a part of that's opening on April 2nd at Marshall Arts. The very talented Derrick Dent did the illustration.

Serpent Feathers: Chapters 1&2 on sale!

2010-03-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 are now available for purchase! They are 6x9in, softcover books printed through Lulu.com, so they're high quality. I'm giving them away at $9.99 each + shipping.

Visit my Etsy Shop to buy!

Mind Wanders

2010-03-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Everything seems unsettled. This week seems to exist outside the perameters of reality; an alternate dimension, where nothing quite makes sense. Rules seem flexible, schedules seem amorphous, things are floating, breathing, rising and falling in their own paces,
without me
without my hand.
My hands.
They feel idle and brittle, shaking and uncertain. My grip is lax and minimal on the objects I grasp. Glasses. Is this water or wine?
Pills. Are these red or blue?
Money. Is this real? Does it matter?
A tiny bacterium nested in my stomach. The status quo is altered. Pills and chemicals scribbled on green paper, folded neatly and shoved down my esophagus. Synapses widen. Organs respond. Tears about nothing, laughing at silence, doors locked but windows open. I cannot settle!

Mind wanders.

This skull houses wads of silly putty. It oozes from side to side, occasionally nestling against a crevice to take on it's shape, if only temporarily. Crevices that create mounds. Irritants. Jagged edges. Discoordination. Serated blades that catch in your hair.

Have I been biting my cheek all night? Whose blood is this?

I am a system, I am a machine, I intake and produce. Everything is scrutinized, weighed, measured, evaluated. These decisions are heavy and numerous and frequent.
Every breath is a choice. What will I breathe in?

My head. My head feels long and escaping. These pores have failed me. These guards are sleeping on duty.
The phone is ringing again. There is someone at the door. Someone needs something. Someone is hungry or lonely or intoxicated. Some emotion somewhere walks into a party. He has a martini and introduces himself to money. They sleep together and regret it forever.

Can you really befriend that which rules you? Do relationships ever really end?
The end of one, the start of one, an event, an e-mail, a porch, a glass, a sandwich, a document in my mailbox. Who planned this party for Wednesday afternoon. Whose handwriting is this? Where is my mind? I left it in this drawer by the pistachios and painkillers.

Caffeine. Nicotine. Alcohol. Marijuana. Barbituates. Benzos. Sex. Ice. Air. Water. Solar energy. Pizza.
Who is on the guest list? Does this party end? Someone, please, flip the breaker. There's a man in my house and he won't leave. There's a man in my house but he isn't there.

But we get up anyway. We brush our teeth, we open the curtains. Light reflects dust. Morning exposes evening. We do our dance, sometimes the Shuffle. A made bed is a clear mind. Tight shoelaces mean business. I am never out of contact. I am never unavailable. I am the most reliable person in the whole universe. I answer my phone on Mars.

I'll check in. I'll retweet. I'll update, respond, resend, rescind, reskin. This silly putty pulls levers and flesh obeys. It is weak and melting. It houses chaos. These lions should fight to the death in a cage under a shroud. You will hear the ferocity, and the whimpers, and the pure pure pure fear.

Listen and wait.
Admire it's purity. Shut off four senses.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the man in your house who does not exist.
I am the ghosts of beginnings and endings. I am a frightened bird, a ferocious lion, a pepperoni, a vaccuum cleaner, a marionette making sandwiches. I have spread myself thin enough to carpet a sunny porch, a sanitorium. Walk upon me and do not look at your feet.

I am harried and crying and all of the streetlights are too bright. I am smiling and relieved and the hardwood floor is familiar. I am walking and it's raining and I break down to call him. I am unsure until I realize I have been staring at a wall for hours. I am angry that it did not speak.

I live in jars and bottles and boxes and pots. Walk through this landscape, against waterfalls of lime and tonic, springs of gin, boulders of chemically hardened powder, green beans that squirm in the sunlight, a floor of fibers and it's all my hair.

It's unsightly. It's itchy. It's weak. It's medicated. It's crying. It's trying and trying and trying and trying.
It's a matter of weeding and tending, picking and choosing, and every decision is the biggest decision of your entire life, because it affects your right now. Right now, right now is all that matters.

And the decisions are heavy and numerous and frequent.
And every breath is a choice.
What will I breathe in?

Word of the Day

2010-03-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

28/52 Demons

2010-03-10T08:26:00.001-08:00

I finished the Cups Suit:

& drew all of the Coins Suit:

Census 2010

2010-03-02T17:29:00.001-08:00

So about a week ago, amidst a typical busy day of classes, meetings with cohorts about all of the silly arts & music projects I'm working on, and generally stressing about my dwindling bank account, I stepped into the elevator at school and was greeted with an obnoxiously hot pink flyer. Though it had multiple typos and a predictable misuse of punctuation, it caught my eye. Well, the part about "flexible hours" and "$17.50/hr" caught my broke, starving, desperate art student eye. It was an ad for jobs with the 2010 Census.

So, I applied. I filled out an application, I gave them my drivers license, and I took a ridiculously easy 22 question test to prove I could read, write, and do simple math. I suppose that's really all you need to be able to do in order to perform the duties of a Census taker--fill out paperwork. Now, up until this point, I really hadn't bothered to delve too deep into the political discussion concerning the Census. I knew what it was for, basically, and all I really wanted to know past that was How much do I get paid?, and What do I have to do?.

The Census Bureau employees I met with were pretty vague about the job descriptions, and horribly unorganized. They let most of the art students sitting in this lecture hall fill out their I-9s before telling them they would be shredded if they didn't have their passport, birth certificate, or Social Security card handy, which of course no one did, as no one told us beforehand we would need it. They instructed us to fill out some questions on the application in a manner that completely contradicted the instructions. The meeting took about an hour too long and I rushed out as soon as I finished the bubble answer test.

I knew that I would be going door to door asking people questions about their households and families. I knew that I would be knocking on doors in my neighborhood, and not shipped off to Orange Mound or somewhere else that an unarmed white girl with a government badge probably shouldn't be at night. That all sounded reasonable enough.

But lately, I've been getting flack from my peers. I suggested the job to a friend of mine who is unemployed, severely broke, and without a car, as I thought it would suit him quite well. In fact, if he worked the maximum 40 hour weeks, He could make enough to pay his bills until mid-Summer in one month. His response was that he refused to be a government lackey, and that he wasn't going to sell out because he didn't agree with the Census. I've heard this from a few people now, but none have them have really been able to tell me what it is about the Census they dislike--not in any specific terms.

So, I decided I should probably go research this. So I did. I sat in front of my laptop for two hours straight and read articles, forum discussions, reviews, rants, arguments, and interviews from CNN, NPR, NY Times, etc. And honestly, I had to really dig into the bowels of Google to even find dissenting opinions. And when I finally did, it was as vague and empty as the arguments I've heard on the street.

Let me pause here and say, I'm not necessarily for or against the Census. I'm deciding.

I'm not going to bother going into the details of why the Census exists. I think the average person knows that it was written in the Constitution by our founding fathers as a headcount of the population every ten years. Most people know that this count is to periodically revaluate the Congressional and Senatorial seats each state gets based on their state's percentage of the national population. If you want to brush up on the basics, check out U.S. Code, Title 13, Ch. 5, Sub. II, Article 14.

Why would people be opposed to that? I've categorized (pun intended) those opposed to the Census into four main groups.

ONE) Ignorant racists. When the Census is taken, it's taken without bias. The government wants to know how many people are living in that house right now, regardless if they are guests, or cousins, or illegal aliens. A lot of illegals don't file with the Census because they think that information might be used to later find them and deport them--but it isn't. Census information is not publicly available to anyone than the Census Bureau for 72 years after. In any case, that means that the population of illegal aliens is figured into the total state population, and therefore electoral seat distribution can be affected by illegal populations. So, say a state like Texas or California, which is right on the border, is going to have a greater percentage of their population be illegal aliens, as opposed to somewhere like Wisconsin or Tennessee, where there are much fewer. Those opposed believe that the Census should not take into account illegal aliens, because they will then reap the benefits of the Census, such as the reallocution of state funds for schools, hospitals, and roads, but without ever paying into the taxes that pay for those things. However, those same people in opposition also believe that the Census should be used to hunt them down and kick them out. And, of course, their logic for why Obama allows aliens to be counted and not deported is that he is an illegal alien himself. Although, firstly, he isn't, and secondly, Obama did not create the Census. Thomas Jefferson did, dude. (You can check out that article, interview, & ignorant comment here: New Obama ATROCITY against U.S. citizens)

TWO) Uninformed minorities. Yes, the Census does want to know what race you are. If you are one of the houses lucky enough to get the long form, you'll also be probed about your immigration status and what country you lived in ten years ago. But like I said, and like anybody can look up for themselves, the information taken in the Census is confidential for 72 years after it's taken (check out FAQ #32 on 2010.census.gov's Constituent FAQ). Elected officials and priests have been known to preach against the Census in minority neighborhoods. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders just last year had rallied nearly 4 million of their followers to boycott the Census as a means of protesting for citizenship. They don't want to be counted without first be legalized, which you must admit is noble, but do they not realize that the Census is not even close to the right arena for this fight? Do they not realize that those enormous populations of illegal Latinos in California will be ridiculously under-represented if not counted? Check out this article in response: National Latino Group is Wrong About the Census. Some black community activists tell black citizens to mark only "Black" under the question concerning race, among the myriad of other answers, even if they are mixed with some other race, because it "threatens to dilute funding" to answer honestly. What's ironic about it is that up until the Civil Rights movement, blacks were only allowed to check "black". Check out this article about it: Isn't It Time to Make Peace With Your Friendly Census Bureau?

THREE) Conspiracy theorists. The most dominant anti-Census voice on the internet are aging hippies that are obsessed with missing microfilms and the shooter on the grassy knoll. One of the most established I've come across is Gary D. Barnett, who appears to be an all-around disgruntled government employee that moonlights as a "rebel". You can read his anti-Census article here (In Preparation for the 2010 Census!), but I must first warn you that it is typical of a fifty-something year old guy that used to protest in the streets about the Vietnam War while stoned out of his mind that now has expanded his vocabulary, cut his hair, and taken a desk job that he justifies by shittalking it on the internet at home. I've found a lot of this kind of opposition, and it's mostly paranoids that think the government wants to know when they leave for work in the morning because they're going to sell the information to petty thieves and burglars. Much of it comes down to the ever popular and rarely backed-up stance of "WELL WHY DO YOUUUU WANNA KNOW?", except they are the types who are never going to be satisfied no matter what answer you give them. To clarify, I'm not saying it's stupid to question the government--I think that an intelligent citizen should, and a good government is one constantly questioned--but I also think some people just like questioning things to question them, and that they are not at all interested in the answers.

FOUR) Wannabes. This is the first group of opponents I encountered, and I can only categorize them as such. These are basically the young version of the conspiracy theorists. It's not so much that they think that the government is tapping their phone lines or raping their babies, but they think because they're a generation raised on the internet--and I am one of that generation--they know what's really going on all the time. Also, whether or not you realize it, because of our age, this generation has a much heavier personal responsibility to know what's going on in the world, what it means, who it involves, and how it affects them personally than their parents. I feel like all of these twenty-something kids talking about "selling out to the government", "being a lackey", or how they "don't agree with what the Census does to people" have all been reading articles written by assholes like Gary D. Barnett and his generation. They don't have a real argument past some cited incidents from the internet, and who the hell can trust that anyway? Most of these people are the type that aren't going to send their Census forms back because they think that it makes them rebellious or individualistic, when in reality they're just asking for a dreaded Census worker--like me--to come knocking on their door. And most of them won't be so defiant and rebellious in the face of a living, breathing, tired Census worker, who is just trying to get through a shift and go home. And even if they are rude and defiant to that poor art student that's just trying to get rent paid, they're even bigger assholes. Harassing the waitress doesn't make your steak magically cooked right. Shooting the messenger doesn't solve anything, it just stains the carpet.

When it comes down to it, the only real, substantiated argument I can find against the Census are against the Census takers--poor assholes that have to go door to door harassing people. And really, if you read up, an overwhelming majority of the horror stories associated with Census takers are fakes--the workers, not the stories. The Census is taken on April 1 in years ending in a zero. The forms are sent out in March, and nobody comes knocking on your door unless you don't send it back. So if some guy comes to your door in February, introduces himself as a Census worker, and then asks what color underwear you're wearing, it's just some creep. Likewise with groups of "Census workers". Census takers work alone. There's a pretty decent list of what to know about Census workers here: Avoid Census Taker Con-Artists.

Like I said, shooting the messenger just stains the carpet. It's not as if harassing the poor schmuck knocking on your door is going to abolish the Census, it's just going to make another human being's day that much more awful. I think when it really comes down to it, it's just that the Census Bureau is kind of retarded--and by that I mean unorganized, clumsy, and officiously bureaucratic, but not malicious. I think most people hate it because it's mandatory, and everyone deep down has problems with authority, even if what they're rebelling against is something aimed at helping them. And a lot of people are stupid, and paranoid, and gullible.

I think the best bit of wisdom I've run across is from a Time.com article by Jessica Reaves, who is in favor of the Census because:
If we don't define ourselves, the government will do it for us.

Jay Reatard Obituary: Finalized

2010-02-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

I finished my spread on Jay Reatard's obituary. I really like the front page illustration. As always, click for a bigger image.

Ex Libris: Color Comp

2010-02-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

I did some test prints of my Ex Libris litho plate today. It looks okay. Hopefully it'll print better the more I ink it. Here's a test print and the Photoshop colored version. I'ma print the color parts on Epson & print the plate on top. & learn how to register in the meantime. Woo!

Jay Reatard Obituary: B&W Comp

2010-02-17T12:15:00.001-08:00

Ex Libris

2010-02-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

I'm doing an Ex Libris stamp with waterless litho for Digital Printmaking. This is my rough sketch!

Jay Reatard Obituary: Color Comps

2010-02-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

These are 2 color comps from the thumbnails down there that I told you not to look at. I guess you can look at these if you really want to.

10 / 52 Demons

2010-02-10T07:20:00.000-08:00

This is a semester long side project to illustrate 52 demons, and from them create a deck of cards.

In my "demon" research, I came across this definition:
In the contemporary Western occultist tradition (perhaps epitomized by the work of Aleister Crowley), a demon... is a useful metaphor for certain inner psychological processes, though some may also regard it as an objectively real phenomenon.

I've decided to illustrate my own deck of tarot cards, which is actually 78 cards in total, but I won't be including the 22 Arcana Major cards (perhaps later?). The Arcana Minor cards are already divided into 4 suits: Cups, Wands, Discs, & Swords (or hearts, clubs, diamonds, & spades). They have 14 cards per suit instead of the standard 13, so I'll be executing 56 in all.

This is Ace through 10 of the Cups suit.

Married to the Road

2010-02-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

I have recently conjured the suspicion that being a young woman dating a musician in 2010 must hold a great parallel to the young women of the 1800s who tried to date sailors. Everyone knows something about sailors, and that something is usually that they are married to the sea. That old idea is a warning to lofty girls not to fall in love with them, for the hearts of such men will always belong to the sea. They are just as fickle as a modern day, struggling, touring musician. When they are away, they fantasize of home, wish and yearn for it, and seem to find little pleasure in their voyage past the spark of the first few days, as they remember all of the hardships a tour entails: uncertainty for a place to sleep, absence of a real bed or reliable companionship, monotony, close quarters, physical exhaustion and abuse. But when they return, it is only a matter of days before they are sitting at a bar, beer in hand, talking fondly of the road and reminiscing as if they cannot wait to get back out there and do it all over again.

And what of the women? We sit at home, at first relieved to have them out of our hair for a moment, yet within days have fallen into similar suit, missing their warm bodies in our beds, their inherent protective presence by our public side, and whatever combination of petty little details, like the smell of his pomade, or the ironically pink hued boxer briefs in the dryer. We, just as they, wish for the day they get home, and vicariously follow every rough night, every violent storm, every tumultuous wave they at sea endure. We, as women, are just as abused in this sense, for we are stripped our ability to coddle & nurture the abused, just as they are made to face it all without the coddling of a woman, which all men will deny a real need for, yet crave regardless.

Indeed, musicians today are not married to the sea, but to the road, and their guitars their boats. Their job is to chase something just out of reach, and to suffer the obstacles. The love they hold for something which primarily yields irritation is something they may never really understand; the need to leave, the urge to return, and the desire to repeat it all over is foreign to this species. Yet, we women are born with an understanding of emotional contradiction; we are made of it. That is why we can kiss them goodbye and kiss them welcome, time and time again. Though, I think it still takes a certain kind of woman to tolerate it all, don’t you think?

People Watching

2010-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is a guy I see at my favorite watering hole a lot. He's squatty, bald, with a big Jew nose and dark circles around his eyes. He's always wearing the most hideous turtleneck sweaters, drinking gin, and talking absolute bullshit about religion, politics, philosophy, society, and every other pseudo-intellectual topic a pretentious turtleneck-wearing douchebag would try to discuss at a bar on a Friday night. I've also noticed that he is always with a woman, although I'm quite sure he's gay, and she is always eight times drunker than he is. She's usually just giggling and agreeing with everything he says really emphatically. Actually, they might always be drunk because they need to dull the pain of his nasally, high pitched voice and condescending tone... Or they might just literally never get the chance to speak or contribute to the conversation because he never stops talking. I haven't figured out what to name him yet.

This is a guy that works at Huey's. Nevermind which one. He has a haircut that you usually only see on lesbians, swooping right into his eyes, and he always has this face on like he's about to cry. This drawing doesn't really look like him; I really only used him as a base, but when Take My Breath Away hit the chorus as he walked by, I had to draw him.

Growing Pains: The Expansion of MCA

2010-02-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

By Lauren Rae Holtermann, Editor

How many of you have a class that gets out past 8PM? Or even 9 or 10PM? Have you ever walked into a classroom or lab in the evening to find a dozen Memphis City School teachers staring at you blankly? Did you ever wonder why?
Part of Memphis College of Art’s mission statement is small with purpose. The school’s enrollment has generally hovered around 300 students, with 285 in the undergraduate program, and around 15 in the graduate program. However, over the past two years alone, the student body has grown to about 450 students, and frankly, there just aren’t enough places to put them all.

MCA is not a typical institution for higher learning in a lot of ways, not excluding geographically. We have no campus; rather, our college is confined to one building at 1930 Poplar Avenue that is under a 100-year-old lease with the City. Part of that lease are very particular limitations on how, if at all, the school is allowed to physically expand. In a nutshell, we can’t build outward or upward. You do the math.

So how is MCA going to accommodate the ever-increasing influx of new blood with the same amount of space it’s occupied for eighty years? Believe it or not, there is 6,500 square feet of space not purposed for student use in the building, and it’s sitting right under our noses: faculty and staff offices.

Starting at the end of this semester, administrative offices (Student Services, Admissions, Business Office) will be moving into the Grad Center at 1939 Poplar. By summer’s end, all of the professor’s offices will be relocated there as well.

The graduate program, which has been steadily expanding in part due to the recent demand for public school art teachers, accounts for about 90 students of the record breaking 452 head enrollment of last Fall. That’s a 600% increase since I started my undergrad career.

The grad program consists of MFA, MAT, and MAArt degrees, has been spread out between the constricted space of the current Grad Center, and classrooms throughout Rust Hall in the hours before, after, and between regularly scheduled undergraduate classes. As I mentioned before, if you’ve ever wonder around the school in the evening, you’ve probably accidentally interrupted one of them.

So where are all of these poor displaced Grad students going to go? To 477 S. Main--a 1920’s era building with five stories and a basement. Fifty thousand square feet that will be in the very near future known as the Memphis College of Art Graduate School. Grad students will have more than enough space and facilities to themselves, and as a result, the program itself is due for expansion and improvement, such as the addition of new majors, like perhaps Photography or Graphic Design.

Other than the transportational inconvenience it may potentially pose to some students and faculty, it will be nothing but benefits for those associated with the MCA Graduate Program. But how will it affect the rest of us?

That 6,500 square feet of newly freed-up space will be repurposed for liberal study classrooms, studios, and new Mac labs.

The response from students and teachers has been mixed. Betty Spence, Director of the Writing Center, is opposed to the move, saying, “This move will put a substantial dent in--if not destroy--the teaching and learning environment at MCA as we know it.” The close-knit community of students and the proximity of teachers is something that makes Memphis College of Art different than universities. In response, President Jeff Nesin says, “The goal and our job is to give you [students] the best we can give you.”

And in the long run, that seems to be what the school is doing. There will be more space for undergraduate classes in Rust Hall, meaning fewer classes will be scheduled in the late evening. Graduate students will have their own space and more opportunities for growth. Even the relocated professors and instructors will be making out fine, as each will have their own private office spaces, an upgrade for a lot of teachers, who have literally been put anywhere space permits—broom closets not excluded.

Originally, amidst all of the controversy and opposition from MCA instructors over who should stay and who should move, it was declared everyone would. Every office besides the administrative offices on the first floor (those spaces can’t be renovated into classroom space) and the Security offices will be emptied. However, there will be a few exceptions to the rule based on the location of the office in question, and the need for that professor to be near the studio. For example, Haley Morris-Cafiero, the photography instructor and lab tech, will probably stay where she is, as will Bill Price and Maritza Davila, who teach Metalsmithing and Printmaking respectively.

President Jeff Nesin responds to the ensuing controversy with, “Any change at all makes people crazy for the first fifteen minutes. Then a new year begins, and no one really remembers things being any different.” I related the situation to the recent EPA policy enforced move of smoking areas from the beloved Smokers Alley to the island of concrete twenty feet away, now lovingly referred to as Smokers Pad. In return, he mused back to the days when Smokers Alley was created, when smoking indoors was originally banned.

Sherry Yelvington, Vice President For Finance And Administration, assures me, “We’re working to make things better for you students, not more difficult.”

“The more we move, the more we will activate an actual campus,” adds Nesin. The musical chair game is set to be complete by August 1st, just in time for the Fall 2010 semester. Shuttle services will be arranged between the separate buildings all day rather than just morning and afternoon.

And as for us? We have nothing to worry about, and a lot of look forward to. I will be the first to admit that the situation is not ideal. The accessibility of faculty and staff during any standard school day is convenient and by now, this being my eighth semester, completely expected. Like Nesin said, it will take some getting used to, but every breathing, expanding entity goes through some growing pains.

Why do we read horror?

2010-01-27T12:55:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a class right now called Forms of Fiction: Horror. It's exactly what it sounds like: a literature class focusing on horror stories. Yes, I go to art school. I get to read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Dracula, The Exorcist, The Shining, and The Secret Lives of Monster Dogs, and go to class two times a week to sit around with a bunch of other horror dorks and talk about it. I expected all of this, and I've been waiting a few semesters to get into this class.

What I didn't expect to encounter hit me yesterday. Real discussions about not just writing style, plot devices, character development or effectiveness of suspense or drama, but questions being posed like, "Why do we like horror?"

I didn't have an answer. It's something I have definitely thought about, but never really forced any conclusions out of myself toward. I have been a total geek for zombie lore since I was fourteen when some fellow outcast kid on my bus loaned me a VHS copy of the original Dawn of the Dead. I watched it four times in two days, just amazed. It was like someone kicked open a door that I had always passed thinking it was spare molding on a blank wall. And over the years, I've questioned it. Why am I so drawn to zombies? Why do I buy books breaking their idealogies into metaphors for human nature, culture, and society? Is it the blood and rotting flesh? Is it the limbo between life and death? Is it simply an attraction to the unknown?

I, at some point, deduced that the commentary on human nature is really what intrigues me. The idea that our brains are shaped by the ethics and mores of the society we are reared in, but that at our core, we are animals. For all of the progress, knowledge, technology, innovation, emotion, learned restraint, traditions, expectations of civility that a few thousand years has yielded via mankind, we, as a species, are still as base as the others on our planet. We require food, we feel the urge to travel, we crave company and the need to be a part of a group, yet inherently know we are alone as sentient beings, and when it really comes down to it, we'll save our own ass first.

And of course, I didn't realize it that afternoon in my mom's living room hogging the VCR in incredulous wonder, but the meat (pun intended) of the philosophical and social commentary of zombie flicks is in the living characters, and their responses to the undead counterparts. The ideals and values that people cling to in a post-apocalyptic world versus the mindset of necessity. When manners, social graces, formalities, and preconcieved notions of human interaction have been erradicated, man becomes a science experiment, stripped to pure instinct and emotion--dirty, volatile, selfish, violent, and malevolent.

So, why do we read horror?

Burton, my professor, quoted Stephen King as a contribution, who said horror literature is a means for us to take out the monster, play with it for a while, and put it back. Who is the monster? The monster is the shadow. Burton pointed us toward some light Jung reading, which really just organized all of my thoughts on the matter into something much more concise. "The Shadow", according to Carl Jung, is basically your unconscious. It's all of the shit that makes you you, that you're not aware is even there. The idea is that fate is a myth, that things don't just happen for no reason, you're not attracted to certain people 'out of nowhere', and that when you meet someone you absolutely detest, it's really that you hate the things about them that are a part of your shadow.

I already know this. I don't really hate anyone, but I can think of a few people I completely despise. And over the years (I'm so old and wise and sage now, and the ripe old age of 21), I've learned things about myself I seriously never expected. Things I thought I was the entire opposite of. Things that people I didn't understand my attraction toward have brought out. Not all of them are good, but through this whole lifelong process of getting to know yourself (that I hope I live long enough to complete, in some form), I've figured out what it is about me that I see in those that I dislike. I have always known everyone you meet is your mirror, I suppose I just didn't grasp how effectively the mind can separate itself; how efficiently the unconscious can mislead the conscious.

We read horror out of curiosity for the darkness that lies in us all, at that inherent level, that a majority of us now accustomed to a civilized society will never fully witness firsthand. We read horror, so I have decided at this point, to satiate those urges that are a part of us. I remember in eighth grade, I decided of my own volition to go to church for about six months, because I genuinely had no idea what Christianity entailed and I wanted to know why everyone thought it was so cool. I had some qualms right off the bat, and made the decision to leave when my pastor told me I was a bad person to question the Bible, or anything it had to say. I remember one of my biggest issues was the idea that God made man in his own image, loves him unconditionally, yet curses him with grief for having natural sexual urges. It made no sense to me. Likewise, I think humans naturally have inclinations toward malice, violence, anger, sex, apathy, greed, and selfishness. I'm not saying if you got it, flaunt it. But denying the things that make one human is a denial of life. Those urges must be addressed.

Carl Jung says, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions."

Put quite simply, if you repress pieces of your outward being, whether they be good or bad, they unbalance you. Indeed, "the shadow" is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not that cut and dry, just as there are rarely true examples of good versus evil, rather, it's all dependent on a balance. A pure concentration is never an option. We, as humans, are amorphous shades of grey living, breathing, and interacting in a grey world. Have you ever seen a white brain or a black brain? No. That's what I thought.

It's important to get to know yourself. It's important to explore your shadow, and make decisions on the kind of person you want to be based on what you've go to work with and how it relates to your world. I think it's also important to acknowledge your basic human traits, and find ways to exercise them. Reading horror literature or watching zombie flicks has worked for a lot of people for a long time, but it's not the only way. It's all a matter of balance.

Illustration 4: Jay Reatard Article

2010-01-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Thumbnails:

Comps:

These are for class. Don't look at them.

Commission: Jason M. Vawter

2010-01-11T06:49:00.001-08:00

I recently got a commission for an illustrated portrait. Here's the original photo:

& here is my interpretation:

[click to embiggen]

How did I do?

822 v2.0

2010-01-11T04:08:00.001-08:00

I have three numbers tattooed on my wrist
next to the image of sickly green & yellow rose. I have these three numbers that I gaze at everyday, and I forget what they mean, sometimes. I forget why I put them on my skin permanently. I have this vague notion, this memory of a feeling, this fleeting air of excitement and sawdust and rancid beer and solvents that lingers in my brain. That is all that is really there on a daily basis; what I claim to be the daily reminder of why I am still putting forth my precious spare time, my short patience, my meager extra funds into something that everyone involved defines in their own terms.

822, those are the three digits that grace my left arm. "What does 822 mean?" asks every other Circle K clerk selling me a pack of Parliaments. "Uh, it's an address.. to a warehouse that I... used to squat in?" What kind of answer is that? It's the truth. I'm too rational at times, too logical, and far too goddamned serious for my own good. Yeah yeah, it's gotten me this far. I mean, how many 21 year olds do you know that have kept a 3.0 in full-time college, held down multiple steady jobs, run a bi-weekly newspaper, and still found the time and energy to found and maintain their own arts organization? Not to toot my own horn here, but seriousness hasn't done me too wrong.

I guess I just have to remember. Isn't that why we make memories? Isn't that why we try, in so many different ways, to document them? Isn't that why my walls are covered in cards, my flickr full of photos, my skin filled with ink? I have to remember the way I felt about a time and a place, even if I'll never experience it again. I forget to remember that far too often. My explanations need amending. 822 is an address to a warehouse that I used to squat in... with a group of the most motivated, interesting, and exciting people I had ever met, that I knew from the start would be my best friends.

I have to remember that. I have to remember the night that I got this tattoo; the way I felt. I knew that night if I thought about it too much, if I made it into something more serious, that I wouldn't go through with it. I have a bad habit of remembering why things fail, detail by detail, rather than hanging on to the memories of why I did it in the first place. Rozelle Artists Guild is this hip, city-renowned group of young progressives. Rozelle Artists Guild is 5 or 6 idiots still figuring life out under the guise of an entity. Rozelle Artists Guild is a failed business. Rozelle Artists Guild is a successful collective making a difference in Memphis. Rozelle Artists Guild is still figuring it out. Rozelle Artists Guild has it more figured out than you. These things are all true to someone.

822 is where it began. But 822 is not where it ended. Losing the warehouse was like breaking up with a boyfriend you've been with for years. It wasn't fun everyday. Sometimes it was difficult, sometimes it felt like more work than I was up for, sometimes I wondered why the fuck we had ever bothered, but at the end of the day, I just had to remind myself that it was worth it. That it was such a good beginning, I wasn't ready for it to die. I knew that night, standing in Studio 42, that if I didn't do something important, something permanent, something to always remember where this started, and how motivated and excited we all were, that the memories of bonfires, full studios, the workdays when everyone pitched in, the comraderie, the ideas, the thick atmosphere of creativity and naivete and determination would fade into the criticism of how 822 was lost.

I saw 822 yesterday for the first time in over a year. I remember crying when we lost it, thinking it would be low-income apartments, or boat storage, or condemned in twelve months. But it's none of those things. As Mark put it, there is yet another crazy asshole in there, trying to transform this old piece of shit building into something good. I'm glad to see that edifice standing, and vibrating, and improving, however slowly. I am glad that what little us 5 or 10 naive assholes did to that warehouse ended up being a few less steps for the next guy, rather than a waste.

And now? What does 822 mean to me? 822 is our roots, our history. And our future lies in a new address, a new building. And I'm terrified. What are these kids thinking? Do they really think they can take some old piece of shit building and turn it into some kind of arts hub? Do they really think they have what it takes? Well, I think we do. We did it before, we can do it again. Now, 822 means something different. It means mistakes we won't repeat. It means wisdom and knowledge. It means a full rolodex of contacts. It means half a city has heard our name, regardless of the association it carries. It means that this team, having grown from 2, to 3, to 5, to 8, to 30 and 40 and up, has finally settled into 5. Five people that are up for a challenge. Five people grown wiser and older and tougher through concrete and murals.

This quonset hut... It's an awful idea. It's a repeat. It's five young idiots who have the heart but no means. It's five idiots who will want it with everything they are, but will still get distracted trying to pay bills, find health insurance, put food in the fridge, and beg for recognition for the individual talents we all have. Separate, that's what we are. Just five dumbass twenty-somethings. But for some reason, when you put us in a room, or an abandoned building full of junk, all we see are possibilities. All of the sudden, we will work for free, we will blow off dates, we will sweat and toil and beg all for what?

That, my friend, is what you must wait for. We're not through yet. Chapter two is beginning. 822 is a ghost, but I am remembering what it felt like to think, This could really work. We could really do this. And it might be a longshot. We might be naive. We might fail miserably. But I recently came to the realization that letting the fear of failure dictate your decisions is a stupid philosophy for anything. And that even if we do, we're going to win anyway. Bankrupt us, overdraft us, evict us, cave rooves in on us, burn us, bake us, we just keep going. We always have, and we will until the end, whenever that may be.

822 means I'm not giving up just yet.

These are not New Years Resolutions

2010-01-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

When I was ten years old, I went to the doctor for a cough. I still remember my doctor's face: half shrouded by a salt & pepper beard, thick round glasses, and a typically bulbous Jew nose that foreshadowed his quick and nasally speech. He asked me to look at the ceiling, then recoiled in shock at the size of the lump on my neck. He tested my blood on a hunch, and correctly diagnosed me with Hypothyroidism, a fairly common gland disorder that most don't know they have until much, much later in life.

Since then, I have made several large additions to my medical chart. I am afflicted daily with the symptoms of many illnesses, all due to genetic mutations. As a result, I'm frequently sickly, weak, tired, and sore. I'm in different kinds of pain every day, I gain weight for no reason, and during the semester, I punish my already pathetic bodily functions with stress, caffeine, and sleep deprivation.

& I'm tired of that. I'm tired of just putting up with all of the little things that compound and make my days long and arduous. I will always have more to overcome to achieve the same goals as those around me, but I have no reason to make it any harder than it already is. I have read the books, and the websites, and I am not exaggerating whatsoever when I say I have seen at least fifty different doctors in the past five years. I know my options, and I think it's time I really try to make a change, and stick to it.

Consistency is one of my biggest pitfalls, and it always has been. I am responsible, organized, motivated and hardworking. I don't miss deadlines, I don't cancel appointments, I don't skip class. But as much as I resist routine, my body is craving it, and I think it's time I reappropriate some of my time and money to taking care of it.

These are not New Years Resolutions.
These are promises I'm making to myself that I will try on a daily basis to keep.

1. I will cut down on cigarettes. I would like to reach a point where I only smoke when I drink. I'm tempted to say I will quit entirely, but I'd like to start small.

2. I will stop using deodorant with aluminum and toothpaste with flouride. It's overwhelming how many things I assume are innocuous simply because I was raised by people who assumed the same. My family are smart people but not necessarily the most vigilant healthwise. Flouride-free toothpase doesn't obliterate my stomach, and aluminum is linked with Fibromyalgia, one of my least favorite medical issues.

3. I will take time out to ride my bike, even if I don't want to. Although I'm very active, I don't actually engage in any significant cardiovascular activity, aside from taking the stairs instead of the elevator and walking extensively. And I have a sweet ass bike now.

4. I will limit my alcohol intake. I am terrible with money, and I think one good step toward better money management is spending less on things that are not necessary. My body is too fragile to be a heavy drinker. One night a week is really all I should participate in.

5. I will take all of my pills everyday. I am so bad at this. After ten years with a daily pill regimen, you would think that I would have it down. But I don't. I will find my weekly pill caddy, dust it off, and fill it up every Sunday night. And I will actually take vitamins too.

6. I will up my protein intake, and curb my carbs. This is one of those basic dietary rules that really helps with my muscle pain, fatigue, and weight stabilization.

7. I will lose weight. I'm not uncomfortable with my body, but I've got this delusion that I am incapable of losing weight, and I have a feeling that it's not really as impossible as I think.

These are not New Years Resolutions, because those are made to be broken by Valentines. These are promises I'm making to myself that I will try on a daily basis to keep.

Goodnight, 2009.

2010-01-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

Here's to 2009. May you die a painful death. Hello, 2010.

Thank you, Memphis Flyer

2009-12-31T15:46:00.000-08:00

This past week, I was forced to wake up considerably earlier than I wanted to, and to operate a motor vehicle at that, but rather than chasing the fantasy that bed might still be warm, I decided to power through the morning. I needed help though, so I stopped into one of my favorite midtown establishments, Otherlands, for a cup of a coffee and a bagel sandwich thing. Typically, I read as much of the Memphis Flyer as I can during the time it takes me to down a cup, inhale a bagel, and smoke a cigarette, folding the rest in half and tucking it under my arm with the idea I might actually finish it later. (Unfortunately, most of those newspapers are in the floor of the backseat of my car...) But instead, I decided to sit and slowly caffeinate, prepare myself for the day, and read the Memphis Flyer cover to cover.

Now, that in itself may not seem too terribly interesting, but perhaps for the simple fact that I had not taken to time to do so in months, sitting at a table by myself in a crowded coffeebar, unshowered and slovenly dressed, sipping on over-sugared coffee and reading articles that ranged from city budget allotments and public education to movie reviews, the sadly ever-shortening News of the Weird column, and the usual subtle yet hilarious jab at the Flyer's more conservative rival, the Commercial Appeal (specifically, its readers who log on to CA.com and spawn threads and threads of racist, ignorant shite) just seemed awesome.

No, nothing was specifically special about my morning (early afternoon to most of the rest of the world), and in relative terms, nothing was very special about that particular issue of the Memphis Flyer. But in an age and a society and a culture where information is limitless in its availability to everyone, where journalists find themselves adapting beautifully written articles into 140 characters for Twitter updates or Blackberry news tickers, it's good to know there are still writers out there that actually use paragraphs and grammar, and still have the venue to exhibit style and nuance. I had forgotten it's importance there for a second being that I have a special tone for my AP Mobile breaking news updates on my fancy iPhone, but it was a big blunder on my part. Especially for someone who likes to tout herself as some kind of writer, too.

So, thank you Memphis Flyer. Thank you for being free, for sticking it out through a recession & decline in paper news media, for giving spotlights to the little guys, and for always having a sense of humor.
Speaking of the little guy! Here are a few write-ups I came across during my slow midtown morning that caught my eye:

P&H Art Bazaar takes Bizarre Turn via Gadsby Creson

2009-12-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, December 12th, marked the date of the annual P&H Art Bazaar, an arts flea market for fine Memphis art patrons and daytime drunks to shop for holiday gifts. Although the turnout was considerably less than previous years, the loyal attendees were treated to a badass interactive performance piece hosted by Gadsby Creson, wife of P&H arts advocate Dwayne Butcher, and one of my personal favorite MCA staff members.

Gathering all of the unsuspecting guests around a pool table covered in brightly spraypainted beer bottles, vases, and handmade ceramic knick knacks (which appear may have been boosted from a elementary school art class), Creson led everyone in several too many rounds of Jingle Bells, all the while "checking on the turkey" in the oven, ensuring the guests of her "holiday party" all had drinks, and answering phone call after annoying phone call from the dreaded mother with no navigational skills.
After ten minutes of agonizing group singing and ten or eleven answered phone calls Creson, got flustered, grabbed an armful of vases and ran outside, leaving the four rounds of carolers trailing off in confusion. As we slowly herded outside, we found Gadsby chucking the glassware and a fireplace mantle made from cinderblocks, complete with tacky stockings, screaming in frustration about her mother's surprise holiday visits.

The moral of the story? No moral. But the point, Creson explained, was a response to the overwhelming stress and wastefulness of the holiday season. The breakables were hocked off for 25 cents a piece, and participants chucked them off the back porch of the P&H Cafe at the concrete fireplace in an attempt to relieve that stress.

No one could resist. Even in freezing temperatures and misting rain, it was two hours of consistent bottle smashing before the ammo was exhausted.

Hats off to Gadsby for thinking of such a fun way to blow off steam, and for keeping the P&H's take on art unconventional, interesting, and best of all, destructive.

And thanks to Dwayne Butcher for hosting another successful year of happenings at the P&H Centre for the Arts.

...and I apologize again for hitting your truck with bouncing ceramics...

Brief Interview with MAD Magazine Illustrator Tom Richmond

2009-12-17T03:08:00.000-08:00

1. How long have you been drawing? Did you always know it was what you wanted to do?
I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember, since before I started going to school as a kid. Comic books got me interested in drawing and storytelling. I've never wanted to do anything else.

2. Do you come from a family of creatives, or are you the odd one out? Were they supportive of your interests?
I am the only person in my family with any creative skills at all. I'm a total genetic throwback... or the mailman's kid.

3. Did you go to school for illustration? If not, what did you originally attend college for, and what happened to change your mind?
I went to the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN, where I learned traditional illustration and fine arts. No cartooning classes were offered.

4. When did you begin working regularly for MAD Magazine, and how did you get involved with them?
My first piece in MAD appeared in October of 2000. I've been working regularly for them ever since. I started seriously pursuing work from them about a year earlier, and after a lot of sending in my latest work, meeting with the editors and art directors and some begging, I was given a shot with a MAD job.

5. Do you enjoy working for MAD? How, if at all, is their working relationship with illustrators different from other employers you’ve worked for?
MAD is like most other clients in that there is an art director, an assignment, preliminary pencil reviews and direction and final art delivery. However the dynamic with MAD is different in that they expect a lot more input into the job than just drawing the images. Their artists function as visual "writers" as well, and an integral to the humor and delivery of the MAD experience. It's more involved and more fun.

6. Describe your process, from start to finish, on a completed illustration. Go as in-depth as you wish.
See this series of blog posts for that answer: http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2006/07/15/diary-of-a-mad-job

7. How has your process changed or evolved over the years? (For example, do you now use digital processes in place of handskills for some steps?)
I have incorporated new techniques into my work, while keeping the central look or "style" consistent. Certainly i think my skills have improved, from composition through to color use and more effective drawing.

8. Do you have any major stylistic influences? If so, name them.
The usual suspects among the classic MAD artists: Wally Wood, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis. Other comic book artists like Ty Templeton, Hilary Barta and Bruce Timm. Also illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta, Maxfield Parrish and especially Andrew Loomis.

9. Did/Do you have a mentor? If so, who, and how have they helped you?
I'd have to say if I had a mentor it would be Sam Viviano, the longtime MAD artist and current art director. He has taught me more in the time I have worked for MAD than I ever learned in college or through other experiences.

10. What are you working on now?
Currently on the drawing board I have a movie poster job, an advertising poster, a series of spot illustrations for a magazine and a graphic novel I am just getting started on.

11. What’s next for you?
Whatever comes my way. I'm getting involved more in the movie and TV business, so possibly animation and futher images for film might be in the cards in the near future.

MADly,
Tom

Tessellation!

2009-12-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

Plumed Serpent into a tessellatable shape:

& tessellated:

FIVE CHARACTERS!

2009-11-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

So, since I missed nearly a month of class for surgery, I feel like I have been working non-stop to catch up and keep up simultaneously. I am still so utterly behind it's disheartening, the most in Illustrated Story II. I feel as though I am finally making headway though, as I've at last finalized and fully developed my five characters, so I can begin actually writing comics about them!

Here they are (click to embiggen):

History of Type

2009-11-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

This is an assignment on a reading about the history of type. We had to condense around 5000 years of typography and written communication into 15 steps, so I chose to do a comic instead of the standard bulleted list, albeit that would have been far easier and I may have slept more last night if I had.

Five Interesting Articles

2009-10-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

The Tools of Doctors, and a Price for Patients
An article chronicling the development and widespread use of technology as a means of diagnosis for doctors, and how each new discovery and invention is met with different opinion in the medical community versus the public.
[See also: Knowledge of Shadows: Introduction of X-ray images into Medicine]

A New Electronic Reader, the Nook, Enters the Market
An article about book retail conglomerate Barnes & Noble's new answer to the Amazon Kindle, featuring a "lending" option.
[See also: Amazon Kindle]

Changing the World
An opinion column about the gross passivity of modern Americans and their beliefs that they as individual citizens cannot affect change on the present dismal state of affairs, and how this mode of thinking is what allows the status quo to remain unchanged.
[See also: Are Americans Passive Cowards?]

The Alluring Power of Blood in Spiders
An article which notes the level of attraction to the opposite sex in Evarcha culicivora jumping spiders increases with the amount of blood the spider has ingested.
[See also: Female Spiders Eat Small Males When They Mate]

Slaughterhouse Live
An article about a class offered in New York City that teaches ethically-conscious, borderline vegetarian, and financially frugal citizens how to kill and butcher their own meat.
[See also: How to Butcher a Pig]

New Blog & New Banner

2009-10-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

Recently, Live From Memphis offered to let me have a blog on their website. Okay, that was like in January. But I finally got around to setting one up during the excess spare time I had lofting around the house post-op. I haven't really squared down a theme or anything like that. This blog really doesn't have one, but so far on LFM, I'm trying to post Memphis related stuff, specifically social & cultural commentary, criticisms and showcases on the good & bad happening in this city, reviews on art shows, art happenings, indie movies, and other cool shit locals are doing, and other things of the sort. I drew something in the park the other day and made it into a banner last night. Check it & my blog out at: livefrommemphis.com/holtermonsterinhiding

H to Hammerhead Shark

2009-10-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

For this assignment, I had to take the first letter of my last name and morph that into an object beginning with the same letter in six steps. I think this would look cool as an animation, but as it is, it's probably the most fun thing we've gotten to do in Design Systems I thus far.

I am a spoiled child of technology

2009-10-17T12:04:00.001-07:00

With everything that happens automatically, why is it I still have to keep track of my money?

Stingray Sam is my hero.

2009-10-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

The 12th Annual Indie Memphis Film Fest is well underway and so far, though I'm there open to close, I don't really get to watch many of the movies. But today I got the chance to watch Stingray Sam, a six episode installment of the adventures of Stingray Sam, an outlaw cowboy lounge singer in outerspace in the future. And he's my new favorite hero.

Really nice looking black & white 35mm live action mixed with colorized collage sequences, illustrative animations, and robot hand puppets. Also, the writer and director, Cory McAbee is also the lead role, and the lead singer of the band who wrote & performed all of the music, The Bily Nayer Show. Oh yeah, did I mention it's a musical?

I can only describe it as like Monty Python meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets the Firefly series... meets Idiocracy... Did I mention it's a musical?

I got a chance to meet Cory and he's a very cool guy. His film, the American Astronaut, is screening at the festival Saturday night at 10PM, and I'm going to use every volunteer I have to keep the fort held down while I slip into that one. You should make time and put aside a few bucks to do the same.

I'm the type of person who likes to go into a movie completely blind and dumb of what I'm getting into, and that's means two things: firstly, I wandered blindly into a badass surprise this time, and secondly, I'm not going to ruin a damned thing for any of you that might want to see it.

If you're interested in researching a little more about Mr. McAbee, or downloading Stingray Sam, check out: http://www.corymcabee.com/

[ crossposted to livefrommemphis.com/holtermonster ]

Schedule THIS.

2009-10-08T02:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not trying to piss anyone off by writing this---I'm really not. But it's an issue that has irritated me for a while now, and having discussed it with others, I've found I'm not alone in my irritation. Memphis is a great city, at least I think so. Yeah, we've had a shitty mayor for 18 years straight, a crime rate through the roof, high infant mortality and murder rates and the absolute worst drivers in the country, but the arts scene, albeit small is strong and usually cohesive.

Perhaps its the fact we don't have a big booming art scene like the metropolises of the East Coast that has spurred on so many locals and undergrounds to strive tirelessly to get things happening in this city--like Live From Memphis, or Indie Memphis, or Odessa, or Five In One. In a lot of ways, it's an uphill battle. Since Rozelle Artists Guild starting in 2006, it's always been a struggle to do something cool enough for people to pay for that doesn't solely revolve around alcohol. You oftentimes end up having to trick your audience into showing up. You're constantly fighting for people to give a shit or give a dollar, and more often than not, we all end up being each other's support group. I mean, if the guys from Marshall Arts and Material and the Brooks and MCA didn't come out to our fundraisers, who the fuck would?

So in a city with an art scene entirely interdependent, why would anyone grow an ego about what they're doing as compared to anybody else's creative efforts? Why would anyone think the seeds they're planting are any more important than the others being sown all over Memphis? I'm not going to get all middle school and name names, but I've heard some disappointing encounters between art gallery/organization owners butting heads and refusing collaboration. We do not have the luxury of being picky. If we, as this hodge-podge group of artists & art advocates, really want to see our collective goal of art flourishing in Memphis, everyone should be chomping at the bit to get another party into what they're doing.

Now, I'm obviously of the opinion that all the art orgs--MCA, MBMA, LFM, RAG, VINI, Material, Odessa, Marshall Arts, PHM, ArtsMemphis, NOMM, Pink Palace, AMUM, etc.---are after the same bigger picture endgoal, but I also respect everyone has their own individual subgoals. The Brooks & MCA are looking to engage international artists with an older, more sophisticated, more financially generous demographic, while people like VINI & RAG are aiming more for the younger, amateur, post-grad art kid crowd. Whether it's Cabernet Sauvignon in a Riedel or Pabst Blue Ribbon in a Solo, we're all respectively contributing to a nice well-rounded arts community, but we've got our own agendas.

And like I've already mentioned, not everyone is up for collaboration and cooperation. That's fine. To each his own. I was personally very supportive of the talks of a collective arts entity for the city that were happening at Material several months back, and equally as disappointed to see them bear no fruit for lack of agreement between all the reps. What I'm saying is, it's okay that some are open to joining forces, and others aren't, but it seems there isn't always the courtesy of respect either.

We are all so eager to draw the rest of Memphis into our events (although I'd like to think we all appreciate the interdependent proxy art crowd that show up to most of them), but we've got to make it easier for the rest to show up. No one between all these awesome arts entities is going to agree on a standard means of attracting outsiders--and rightly that we shouldn't. The diversity is what makes our tiny bubble so interesting. But can't we all at least have the courtesy to check each other's calendars?

Look at this weekend. We have the kick-off weekend of Indie Memphis' 12th Annual Film Festival (a date which I've had in my iCal for over six months) the same weekend as National Ornamental Metals Museum's Annual Repair Days (also a weekend long event) the same weekend at the Memphis College of Art Reunion the same weekend as the AIGA Design Conference (which can carry no blame as it is a nationally sanctioned event, not a local organizer) the same weekend as Rock O Rama at Odessa---and these are just the events I know of off the top of my head, having been isolated in Cordova recovering from back surgery the past two weeks.

Come on, people. Visual arts, live music, filmmaking, designing---it's the same crowd. I will be at IMFF this weekend as I'll be receiving a paycheck for it, but this is the second year in a row that the Film Festival and Repair Days coincide. I love metalsmithing! I was looking forward to attending this year and soldering some old lady's jewelry box hinge or retinning another copper platter. And the design conference which I will miss approximately all of? I'd love to go. I'm majoring in Design Arts and I have awful taste in fonts. It would have been a lovely educational experience. I'd also love to go schmooze with MCA alum from the 1980's or see my buddy Travis play at Odessa.

But poor planning like this weekend doesn't help anyone, it just splits up the already slim pickins of an audience. Three of my four roommates who would love to hit up IMFF will be at AIGA, because they're designers. Bill Price who probably wouldn't be opposed to hanging out with oldschool MCA students will be at Repair Days, because he's a metalsmither. Why don't we just throw in a couple art openings and a theatre event too?

I'm not blaming any one specific AO here. I don't know who scheduled what first and it's not really the point of this schpiel, but come on, Memphis. We've got to work together, if only just a little bit, at least when it comes to scheduling.

With all that being said, go to at least one of these things this weekend, and if you can, make it to more than one. Everything going on will be amazing and you'll be impressed wherever you go.

EDGEFEST 2009!

2009-10-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was the first ever Edgefest, an art sale, outdoor music show, and general good time at the Edge Coffeehouse at 1400 Overton Park. Although it was small, it was fun. Alex Harrison from the Warble played live, local artists came out to set up tables and booths, and the Edge got a bit more business for the day. I even made $50.

Amoung the vendors: VINI's Alice Laskey-Castle & Michael Andrews, Rozelle Artists Guild's Lauren Rae Holtermann, Shea Colburn, Derrick Dent, Taylor Martin, & Markece Brown, and others, Meaghan Chadouin, Alex Warble, & Rachel Holtermann.

Check out the rest of the photos on my flickr:

HLTRMNSTR

2009-10-05T06:40:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist.

Another Vector

2009-10-05T03:46:00.000-07:00

Did another vector today... of Miguelito X.

Something Good In Memphis

2009-10-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Watch the local news in Memphis and you get damn depressed. I can't watch it everyday. A bombardment of stories about dog fighting rings, stolen babies, corrupt politicians, drive-by shootings and stray bullets killing innocent kids, and even the good stories like the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center's billboards celebrating National Coming Out Day are ruined by ignorant hate crimes ripping them down.

And then there's Something Good.

Something Good In Memphis is a website that showcases the good stuff happening in Memphis. From filmmakers helping to document this city's musical history in the making to volunteers keeping non-profit organizations open to 80-year old MIFA Meal's delivery guys.

Check out the website for a pick-me-up next time the news brings you down. I've been nominating people for a while. Christopher Reyes has already made it up on the board:

Vectoring my brains out...

2009-10-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

I'm still in post-op recovery, which means I'm still at my dad's house unable to drive and out of school, which means I'm spending a lot of time bored on my couch. So I made this vector of myself today:

& some different color ideas:

EDGEFEST: Art Sale this Saturday

2009-10-01T19:04:00.001-07:00

Join us this Saturday, October 3rd from 10AM-6PM for EDGEFEST!

Memphis artists from Five In One & Rozelle Artists Guild, as well as local artists Markece Brown, Alex Harrison, Derrick Dent, & others will be selling art in the parking lot at the Edge Coffeehouse.

Guest musical appearance by the Warble!

Live From Memphis Flipside

2009-09-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Live From Memphis, or as I affectionately refer to them, Chris, Sarah, Brad & sometimes my roommate Tommy, have been doing Flipsides for the past year now? Maybe two? They're mini-documentaries of people and groups in Memphis that are doing cool shit, originally billed as a side-project branch of $5 Cover, hailed Memphian director Craig Brewer's latest claim to fame. I don't think a single one of them actually ever aired on MTV, or its website, or even had a sad link in the sidebar of $5Cover, but they are still really badass little videos that pretty much sum up why Memphis is cool, and why LiveFromMemphis is cool. They're helping us--the big us, the collective of creatives of Memphis us--look important, and feel important, and letting other people know, whether in this city or another, that Memphis is home to a lot of really creative and driven people, despite our mayor and crimerates. LFM is kinda like a motivational speaker for our city. They're that dude in the back of the crowd flailing his arms incessantly until people look, saying "No! Stop watching the news! Start watching this band!"

Anyway, point is, LiveFromMemphis is doing a lot of good in this city, and making a lot of shit happen, whether or not you're paying attention. Here's the Flipside LFM did of my little collective, Rozelle Artists Guild:

And finally, after something like fifty Flipsides about OTHER people's accomplishments and hard work, I give you the Live From Memphis Flipside:

To my friends Chris, Sarah, Brad, and sometimes my roommate Tommy-- Keep up the good work. You're makin' me proud.

Kathleen Turner Overdrive

2009-09-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm not really one for celebrity gossip schtuff but I was just watching Californication and saw Kathleen Turner playing this really unattractive, hoarse-voiced, scarily masculine woman. It actually frightened me. I love ole KT but she really hasn't aged very gracefully. Guess that's an inherent issue with being a hot young starlet...

Sport-Stacking, you say.

2009-09-26T04:23:00.000-07:00

I have never heard of Sport Stacking. There is apparently a league for the sport of speed stacking plastic cups. Seriously. And it's actually kinda cool. What's even cooler is that the second place winner for the World Sport Stacking Association's 2008 Championship and the American Egg Board's newest spokesman is this 14 year old kid named Luke Myers. He's also the first person to get a "5" on camera, or a perfect stacking routine in less than 6 seconds.

Check out his video on his YouTube Channel: YouTube.com/SlimJimXXL34

Mom & Dad Save the World

2009-09-26T01:37:00.001-07:00

Mom & Dad Save the World is not a "good" movie. It's pretty horrible by film standards. It's got an inane plot, really terrible acting, and a measley 4.7 out of 10 on imdb.com, but it's still one of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen it, it runs in the same vein of campy, make-it-up-as-you-go, sci-fi comedy as Idiocracy, only in my opinion, much more bearable to watch. The best thing it's got going for it?

The set, costume, and character design. I would have LOVED to be one of the artists working on this movie. It's kinda like the Labyrinth's puppets meets Tim Burton's signature Nightmare Before Christmas curves meets the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie. I can't really find photos online from the movie, unfortunately, but it happened to be on cinemax at four o'clock in the morning. Anyway, if you're looking for something stupid to waste a Friday night with, hit up Black Lodge and rent this little gem. It's worth it, if you can look past the whole, shitty movie thing.

BONUSES: Kathy Ireland is half naked most of the film, if you care about that; This is Thalmus Rasulala's last film before he died, and he sports a pretty sweet pre-Wolverine flarey sideburn beard.
CONS: You have to see a lot more manthigh than anyone should ever see, and it's mostly Jeffrey Jones'; Eric Idle's role is unexpectedly small.

Man V. Woman: Advertising

2009-09-25T00:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, usually I'm not an advocate of the whiney, feminist crap, and I'm not starting now, but... an observation, if you will. This commercial for Centrum Men's Vitamins I saw today is as follows: An image of a powerdrill, a barbecue grill, a nice leather recliner, and then the vitamins, with the narrator saying "Of all the things made just for men, this may be the most important."

Powerdrills? Just for men? Cushy chairs? Just for men? I can't say I know how to grill for shit, but I can sure as hell use a powerdrill, and I sure as hell have a bad back. I don't think those are really all that gender specific. It's 2009, Centrum.

Surgery: Post-Op

2009-09-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

So, usually I try to keep my blog limited to updates on my work and opinions on stuff going on in the world. Not that I don't think what's happening in my daily life isn't important, but it isn't necessarily important to anyone else but me. However, given the nature of my present situation, I thought I might break the mold and update the world on my life as it stands.

On Monday, I had surgery on my spine to repair a herniated disc. I've been lounging around my dad's house since. It's been... boring. Thankfully, I have a squishy couch, a decent stash of pain medications, HD cable television, my laptop, and a stocked fridge, so I'm more than set in creature comforts. But I am quite bored, nonetheless. I have another week and a half of takin' it easy. We'll see how it progresses.

New Character

2009-09-14T01:09:00.001-07:00

I really didn't like Benny, so I made up some new characters. This is the first of many. He's a little Chinese war vet. I'm still developing him.

Book Reports are different at Art School

2009-09-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

BLANKETS by CRAIG THOMPSON
Lauren Rae Holtermann / Illustrated Story II / Joel Priddy / 09.13.09

Blankets is an illustrated novel written & illustrated by Craig Thompson which chronicles the writer’s two first real connections—his close friendship with his younger brother (and what he considers his failures within it) and his first love as a teenager. Though these are the primary focus of Thompson’s story, it is more a tale of a boy coming to terms with his own perceptions of identity, religion, relationships, family, love, life calling, and the subsequent contradictions that present themselves between them.

In the book, Thompson is portrayed at different ages and stages in his life: as a young boy around 8 or 10, a teenager around 17 or 18, and an adult in his twenties. However, it is not written chronologically, but rather, in more in a series of flashbacks when appropriate. For instance, when Craig goes to visit his first love, Raina, a girl he met at church camp, for two weeks at her home in Michigan, he is torn between an overwhelming physical attraction to her, and the ideals of lust, temptation, and sin instilled in him through his highly religious parents. The writer then takes us back to a time when young Craig’s busdriver finds a drawing he had done of a naked woman, and returns it to his parents. They tell him that he has a gift not to be used to do the devil’s work. In the creative mind of a child, he imagines the portrait of Jesus in his parents’ room turning away from him in shame and disappointment. This non-linear method of storytelling, I feel, is particularly effective because rather than presenting a perfect recount of his life, childhood to adulthood, we are only exposed to the parts of his childhood which he later finds important or relevant to his subsequent maturation.

The portrait of Jesus is also a significant storytelling device. In his teenage years , in Michigan, he finds the same portrait in Raina’s room, but feels Jesus is proud and approving of his half-naked, hormonal encounter with his girlfriend. The exact same portrait existing in his parents’ bedroom and Raina’s alike may be an embellishment by the author rather than a factual aspect of the story, however, that’s really irrelevant. Its storytelling purpose is clear. The portrait is a representation of Craig’s perceived adherence to Christianity, and Jesus’s image acts as a literal scale between utter blasphemy and complete faith. The fact that it is the same image suggests that Craig’s perception of religion is continuous, not dependent on his surroundings or company. However, I believe that the scene in which he and Raina are twisted around in the throngs of passion, when he sees Jesus smile upon what would be considered in Christianity to be a lustful, sinful act, is the point in which Craig’s faith is first tested and begins to morph. Having been a part of the Christian faith, questioned it, reinterpreted it, and eventually denounced it myself, I can relate to this stage in Thompson’s life. The faith is easy to follow before being exposed to the rest of the world outside of family, home life, and the church. When you have the opportunity to either resist or give in to temptation, it takes a big life-changing decision moment, because the choice to take your shirt off with your seventeen year old girlfriend or stop and sneak back into the guest room of her parents’ house isn’t simply that; it becomes a matter of fully embracing your faith or embracing the rest of what you are as a human. It’s confusing, but in Craig’s experience, he had at that moment personalized his faith. Although the sequence is without dialogue, the descriptions provided makes me think Craig has rationalized his actions… How can something that feels so right be morally wrong?

When Thompson takes us back into his adolescence and teenage years, there is a big gap between age 10 and age 17. Raina brings up this discrepancy, to which Craig explains that the relationship with his younger brother had disintegrated around the time that they got their own beds. This also brings up the title of the book: Blankets. The title is obviously a metaphor. Blankets as a symbol, are an easy interpretation: a symbol of comfort and familiarity, but not necessarily of consistent happiness. In Thompson’s autobiographical tale, he jumps between different phases in his life, but each seems to be defined by blankets, or moreso, by the people he shares a blanket with. This recurring symbol changes meaning, corresponding to Craig’s age, maturity, and priorities. As a young child, blankets are sails on the ship of his bed of which he and his younger brother Phil are captains. Blankets are also the joined warmth of brotherhood in the cold winter months when his poor family cannot afford the comfort of heating in their drafty shared bedroom. However, when he gets older, blankets are the binding connection between he and his first love, Raina. And through their relationship, the blanket symbolizes their love, personified in the handmade quilt that Raina meticulously cuts and sews for Craig. In his twenties, the blanket is a representation of memories destroyed. The room that was once a roraring ocean, navigated by Craig and Phil as small boys has been stripped of blankets, and Raina’s quilt, a symbol of innocent love has been stuffed into a garbage bag, hidden away in a closet to be forgotten. When Raina and her blanket are retired, Craig fills the void with a reinvigorated relationship with Phil, although blankets are not now the center of their connection. Blankets, in their absence, seems to serve as a symbol of his maturation. In his twenties, when Craig is lastly portrayed, the comfort of faith and shared beds are not evident. He has grown out of their need, finding solace as we all do post-romantic fancy and childhood magic… in the small moments of life, in the “holidays as a ritual with meaning, and the seasons as an increment of measurement.”

Illustration 3: Silhouettes

2009-09-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

[ click to embiggen ]

For this project, I had to take silhouettes of objects and turn them into something else. The first is a wrapped candy turned into a little girl, second is the wave from Hokusai's Great Wave print turned into a Chinese dragon, and the third is a butterfly turned into a two-headed calf.

Published in Memphis Magazine!

2009-09-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

[ click to embiggen ]

If you pick up the September issue of Memphis Magazine sometime this month, flip to page 38 and you can check out my first serious publication! I did an inkwash drawing of a former KKK Grand Dragon preparing to burn down a church, accompanying a story about a former klansman living in the Mid-South. It's a decent article, too! Go me!

MLK's Assassination Site: Glorified Injustice or Humbling Experience?

2009-09-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Civil Rights Museum to drop a key off to a friend and I ended up sitting on a grassy knoll drawing, something I haven't sat down and done in a while. It was nice, even though it was unbelievably sunny and humid and my bandana was sticking uncomfortably to my unwashed hair. When I leaving, I noticed that lady that sits on the corner near the museum boycotting the museum. She's been there, on that corner, for 21 years and 239 days, as of today, boycotting the museum on the grounds that it is a monument to a great injustice.

On one hand, I can kindof see her point. It is a little odd to purposely and meticulously preserve the shitty motel where one of the greatest orators & civil rights leaders of the century was gunned down. I had to mull it over though, on the way home. I mean, it isn't completely unheard of to build museums or erect monuments commemorating the site of a great revolutionary's death. There are war memorials all over the South immortalizing great generals, prepared to go into battle, right where they were eventually slain.

But more importantly--and this is where I feel I get a little controversial--I feel like Dr. Martin Luther King's death was just as much a part of his career as his politicking and orating. I mean, it would be different to sanction off the patch of grass where someone like Ted Bundy died. But for a man like MLK, a man who made his career on preaching love, acceptance, equality, and peace: being killed by an act of ignorance and hate is... in a sick way, poetic. I mean, would his impact have been so immense if he had gracefully aged into the new millennium? I think standing in front of that small, frumpy, mint-green motel in the middle of what was a pretty undeveloped area of Memphis in 1968, seeing that tiny balcony, and realizing all that enormosity associated with MLK, his ideas and his philosophies, all ended in its human form with one tiny bullet, on that tiny balcony. It's... humbling. We as a species need visual explanation. When someone says that the national deficit is $11 trillion, I have no idea what that looks like. I don't even know what a thousand dollars looks like. If someone said a trillion dollars in one dollar bills in one hundred stacks measured as tall as the Statue of Liberty, I'd get it.

As sad as it is, 'martyr' is not a concept outgrown by mankind. We still need drastic examples to drill points home. Whether you're against black people or against white people, I bet you're against murder more.

Illustration 3: Six Topics

2009-09-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Learning to teach students to learn to teach to...

2009-09-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of college students in Memphis. Having grown up here, I know a good 300 or so just from high school, plus everyone I've met at MCA, and through Rozelle Artists Guild. They all have a very broad range of majors, from American History to Philosophy & Religion, to Printmaking. It's really cool to have that broad range of studies available to you and the chance to hone in on one of them so seriously for a few years, but everytime I hear someone spout off a major that isn't law or medicine, I immediately have to ask, "...Soooooo, what are you going to do with that?", to which almost all reply, "I don't really know, probably teach."

I'm in no way against the proliferation of knowledge. Contrary to that cliche high school argument "when am I EVER going to need to know this?", I really do think it's important to learn the basic principals of physics, geometry, American history, the selected works of E. E. Cummings or whatever else you're forced to do in those four years, even if you literally never use a calculator or read a poem again. It's about training your mind to think in different dimensions, and it's about exposing yourself to a shitstorm of different things with the hope that, by the time you turn eighteen, you will have found at least one thing that interests you enough to continue your education.

That scope will linearly lead to a declared major in college, a degree in it, and if all goes well, some career that employs it. But aside from the few lucky exceptions like those guys that preserve really old documents at museums or the old, sage men with PhDs and smoking jackets who write weighty books, what can you really do with a degree in history? What career is there for history freaks? What, other than teaching?

It does seem a bit off that there are so many kids today going to school for things that there is no secondary use for. I am all for education, and lifelong education is not an idea I'm unfound of whatsoever, but isn't the root purpose of education the preparation for real world application? In this age, I find that more art students, as hard as it will be for them to find good jobs, have a bigger advantage when it comes to venturing out of the teaching possibility post-grad. We're all just learning some specific sect of knowledge to pass down to the next generations, in hopes they might find it interesting too, so that they'll have something to declare as a major in college, so when they get out, they can teach kids the same thing.

It's a cycle I really don't have an opinion on. I'm for it, if anything. I'll always be supportive of an educated populace. I'd rather a world of teachers who are also students than a world of people that never found any reason to go to college themselves. Even with the stress, lack of sleep, doubt of a future career, and insurmountable debt incurred, I think it's worth the trouble.

Tibetan Monks visit Memphis

2009-09-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

The monks of the Loseling Monastery are in Memphis for the week. Wednesday night, they had their opening ceremony where they sang, chanted, and played these badass instruments I've never seen before. There is a shrine to The Dalai Lama set up in the main gallery at Memphis College of Art, and a few feet away, a table on which the monks are carefully constructing a sand painting of a mandala. They are working 10AM-6PM Thursday, September 03-Saturday September 05 2009. The closing ceremony is on Sunday at 1PM. Also, Sunday, September 06 at 7PM, the monks are performing at the Shell in Overton Park.

[click to visit flickr set of the monks]

Project Sketchbook Catalogues are here!

2009-09-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

And they look so good.

64 full color pages, 7.5x7.5 inches, softcover, saddle-stitched. They are $30 each or $25 if you're an artist in the book. E-mail rag@rozelleartistsguild.org to order a book, or swing by the gallery at 511 S. Main to check out the show & buy a book from the gallery rep.

Features a page each from sketchbooks by:

Jennifer Absher, Ryan L. Arthur (KS), Daniel Berish, Markece Brown, Baxter Buck, Fred Burton, Dwayne Butcher, Dail Chambers (MO), Kayla Cline (VA), Shea Colburn, Maritza Davila, Derrick Dent, Hamlett Dobbins, Will Drummond, Eric Easterday, Sara Estes, Adam Farmer, Jon Fayette, Rachel Fitzpatrick (NY), Richard Fudge, Adam Geary, Caitlin Goodman (IA), Greg Haller, Tiffany Harmon, Jon Hart, Bryan Hobein, Natalie Hoffmann, Kiefer Holtermann, Lauren Rae Holtermann, Ian Hudson, Ashley Leem, Stephanie Less, Ashley Luyendyk, Tommy Kha, Michael Kline, Lisa Maners, Taylor Martin, Shane McDermott, Pamela McFarland, Evelyn McMillan, Stephanie Miller, Carl E. Moore, Willie Nelson, Ashley Odum, Maria Parham, Bob Pearce, Chandler Pritchett, Christopher Rex, Michael Roy, RS70 (CA), Jenni Saiani (NC), Booth Sartain, Ryan Steed, Vincent Tabor, Claire Torina, Billy Welch (MO), Cole Weintraub, Susan Younger, and Eric Zeltner.

Illustration 3: 100 Circles

2009-08-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

Our first assignment in Illo3 was to draw 100 circles and make them into individual drawings. I only did 53. I think these three are my favorites:

...And here are the rest. As always, click to enlarge.

Illustrated Story: Comic 01

2009-08-31T04:51:00.000-07:00

This is my first character of the semester, Benny. She's a morbidly obese waitress in a truckstop diner off Exit 42 in Arkansas. All of her thinner (yet uglier) sisters got married off and never finished high school, but she never found a mate, so she graduated and now works at the Eat-N-Go and reads books at home. She's secretly very intelligent but ashamed of it because she doesn't think men like that. She wears sweet ass cateye glasses she stole from her grandmother's house when she died but has never worn them in front of anyone. She was raised traditional Southern Baptist but is beginning to question the role and validity of religion through her evening reading. She's like a dainty, thin woman trapped in a huge bulging body--small hands and feet, delicate features, very pretty in the face, very graceful, eats like a bird, it's almost as if she's accidentally fat.

[ click to embiggen ]

& here's the first comic of the semester. I'm not sure how clear it is, but not bad for a few hours of work, methinks.

[ click to embiggen ]

Top Five All Time Pet Peeves

2009-08-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

1. When people give me advice on beating some sickness while I'm ill.
I have an auto-immune disorder. Basically, when I get a virus or an infection, my immune system literally attacks my white blood cells instead of the intruding organisms, so I continue to get sicker, and sicker, and sicker, until I have the time and money to hit up a doctor and get badass antibiotics, which work about half the time.. Nothing drives me more insane as when I am pushing myself to the absolute limit, walking around school with muffled ears, coughing up shit, with a snotrag permanently plastered to my face, and having someone go "OH ARE YOU SICK? YOU SHOULD DRINK ORANGE JUICE. CLEARS IT RIGHT UP" or "OH TAKE TWO SUDAFED, THAT SHIT WORKS DUDE" or "SNORT SALT WATER AND EAT SHARK MEAT, MY GRANNY SWEARS BY IT". Dude, fuck you guys. Do you think I'd still be a mucus monster after three fucking weeks if goddamn orange juice helped? You think I'm just outside rolling around in cold mud, starving myself?

2. Rich kids with no sense of the value of things, like their cars, homes, or expensive educations.
My roommate Ryan Steed recently renovated an enormous seven bedroom, five bathroom house in the richer area of Midtown. TWO rich little college girls are living there, with their respective daddies splitting the THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR PER MONTH RENT. They have only been there for three months, and have already put holes in the drywall, broken three toilets, and put huge holes through their fancy little screened-in island porch out back. Likewise, the kids I hate at school the most are not the ones who take up the Sleeze-N-Slime couches all damned day to talk about anime, or the kids who bum cigarettes but don't inhale-- No, it's the kids who come to class DRUNK, and HIGH, the ones who can't refuse a beer on a schoolnight and are always ready to spend daddy's money on Adderall to make up for the past week of idiocy the night before a huge project is due. I'm not even talking about the freshmen who are abusing their newfound freedom; these idiots somehow make it to upperclassmen status, but still can't say no to going out the night before their final exam, and THEN! AND THEN! BItch about how they made a C! Or blame it on a professor's 'trick questions'.

3. Idle bitching or complaining that doesn't contribute or lead to the execution or pursuit of a solution.
It drives me crazy that kids at art school consistently bitch about how they don't like this policy, or how this rule is unfair, or how security did this and they don't think it's right, yet, they never take any of the right steps towards FIXING the issue at hand. As the editor of the Black & White, the school's newspaper, I have had ONE singular goal in all my writings: to force my peers into realizing that they DO have a choice, and a voice. To remind them that this is not high school; you are not being forced to go to school anymore. You CHOSE to go to the school, and you are paying thousands and thousands of dollars a year to do so. Thus, if something isn't up to snuff, you have EVERY right to complain, or ask why. You, essentially, are a customer paying for the service of an education. Something as simple as relinquishing the limit on Art History courses, or having your cafeteria account funds roll over to the next semester, or having a particularly unfair professor's teaching methods examined by the administration, or proposing a reevaluation of a security policy-- These are all insanely easy things to investigate. IT takes a letter, e-mail, or visit to the right member of administration, a logical argument, a few students who back you up, and determination to not be ignored or brushed off. Standing in Smoker's Alley bitching about it over a Camel Light and then going back to class five minutes later literally incites no change whatsoever.

4. People that play videogames while they are supposed to be entertaining guests
This really gets on my nerves. I'm not much of a video game person in the first place, but I really loathe it when a person has people over, I'm talking like five people, and then starts a video game with one other person. Now, to be fair, we used to have Rozelle meetings at a friend's apartment, and afterwards, we'd all take turns playing Super Smash Bros. BUT, that was four-player game, and we all switched out every match, or every fifteen minutes or so, so nobody was ever stuck watching everyone else play for more than that amount of time. I don't think there is anything ruder than two people playing a serious, serial two-player video game for hours on end, with five other people in the room that can't even have side conversations because the game is so loud. I know some people don't mind watching video games, or actually enjoy it, but I just don't believe in putting a video game in a room where you are not entirely positive that everyone present WANTS to watch you play. I.E. IF I'M IN THE ROOM, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

5. Vegans, hippies, ravers, alcoholics, stoners, & hipsters that give art students & artists a bad stereotype.
I've written about this before, when I posted my extremely long and unforgiving diatribe against Sanssouci [read it here], but I absolutely loathe these idiots that do ecstasy, throw house parties where everyone dances to hipster bullshit shirtless until the wee hours, lecture people about eating animal products but happily use silver gelatin processes to develop their trendy black & white photography, wear glasses with no lenses, have orgies because free love is sooo natural, or any of that other crap that HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MAKING ART. I don't believe in that "everyone can be an artist" bullshit, because it gives idiots like this an excuse to lump themselves into a category with people that truly love to draw or paint or make music, just because they take polaroids or make collages from National Geographics while tripping LSD.

Bad Design

2009-08-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

So, by force, I'm taking Design Systems I this semester. Over the weekend, we're supposed to find some examples of bad design to think about. I'm not required to bring anything into class but I thought I'd post a blog of the few examples I thought of off the top of my head tonight.

1) Sunkist's logo redesign.

I don't know what was wrong with the old logo. I realize companies like to redesign their identity from time to time to reinvent their public image or increase attention in advertising, but I liked the old logo. It was simple and summery; it said orange soda to me. The new logo says jam band. And it's hideous.

2. Comcast's website.

This is the worst designed website I have ever seen. I absolutely loathe it. Things are not organized into an easily navigable order. You literally have to hunt through several pages to find the section you need. Even the FAQs are disorganized. I can see they're attempting to go for some 1950's schemed theme, but I hate it. The banners aren't even saved at a decent resolution! I hate the site more than I hate the company.

3. Baskin Robbins' redesigned logo.

Okay, to be fair, I actually kind of like this logo, just because it combines the name of the company and the 31 for the 31 flavors BR offers. I also really like when logos have a full name version, and a smaller image. I just.. don't like this odd, angular approach to the letters. It's supposed to be all funky and fun, but I think it usually comes off kindof amateur or tacky.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are the few I saw today on my trek downtown.

Home?

2009-08-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking extensively lately on the concept of "home". I think that everyone around my age has, is, or will go through that weird transition point when you realize that your parents' house is no longer what you would consider your home, yet simultaneously, there isn't really a whole replacement yet. As per my roommmate, Ryan Steed, & I's many deep backporch discussions, lit by a citronella candle and smoking Camel Lights like they government is going to bust in and steal them, "home" is one of the ideas that we often revisit, as if we'll find what we're looking for if we just talk it out one more time. What do you consider home? Is home the house you grew up in? Is home where you store your shit, and sleep, and get dressed in the morning? Is home, like I've heard it described, the "place where you complain the most & are loved the most"? More importantly, is home a physical location to you? Is it a house, or a building? Or is it a feeling? This post will not be extroidinarily insightful, as this is still something I am pondering, and plan on discussing more with whomever is willing in the future. I think I have come to some sort of definite answer to the question, for the time being.

To me, home is where I'm comfortable.

I think it breaks down into several aspects to me, and at one point, before I turned 18, all of those aspects were present in one location. Now, having lived on my own for three years, at six different addresses, with fifteen different roommates, they are scattered. To me, my home is where I put my shit. Not just my cereal and my blue jeans and DVDs, but everything else, actually. Anywhere I have ever moved in, I have always covered the walls in photographs & postcards, and the windowsills in trinkets before I put my clothes in a dresser. It's funny, but the things that I have around me in my bedroom that really transform that space into my space are things I wouldn't pack to go on a trip, because they're not utilitarian whatsoever, except that they make me feel at home. Polaroids of my best friends, cards from art shows from roadtrips, souvenirs from jobs and parties and family; those are the things I need to have around. Also, secondarily, and along the lines of comfortable physical space, I need sanctioned boundaries where I am allowed to be me. In my new house, I have a about thirty square feet of space that is just for me to paint, and draw, and blog, and leave plates with crumbs on. That is one of the most important things to me. A sense of freedom within an enclosed environment. Perhaps spatial relationships also feed into my desire for comfort. Our living room is massive, but even if I had had the option, I still would have picked to cram all of my inks & paints into that corner rather than sprawl everywhere.

I think the biggest second aspect to the comfort of home is the people. Steed & I have similar views on our childhood homes. He doesn't have a bedroom at home, nor do I at my mother's (& although I do have one at my father's, I oddly enough usually sleep in the guest room), and beside that, the physicaly edifices don't hold the real value, as they are not the setting in which we lived our entire lives, but only a portion, whereas our roommate Katie has lived her entire life in the same house, where she still has her same bedroom. This is where we differ, and perhaps may have been the spark to our first discussions. Katie can go home and stay for consecutive weeks comfortably, while neither Steed or I could hang on to sanity for more than a few days. Not to say I don't enjoy my dad's company; on the contrary for sure, my father is one of my closest friends. Part of my heart, if that's the cornball expression I'm going to choose to employ, is at that house on Concord Green Cove in Cordova, TN, because it is comfortable. Because it is predictable, and safe. Because my dad will always do that shrill voice & eyebrow raise when I sit on the couch with my keys still attached to my belt loop. Because there is always V8 and garlic pickles in the fridge, and fifteen boxes of half-empty spaghetti in the cabinet. Because there is always a huge pile of mail engulfing the counter for me to look through. Because there is always a cop drama recorded on the DVR, just waiting for us to take our seats on the leather couches with bottles of Ozarka and blankets and watch them until the wee hours of the morning.

In a way, though, I consider where I'm closest to my sleeping brother's room to be home, because of the many times I would go into his room before I slept to find him slumped over on his bed, sitting indian style, fast asleep with his nose in the corners of a book, and I'd lay him back, and turn out the light, so he wouldn't get in trouble for reading late in the morning.

I'd also consider wherever my cats, Truman or Bill (R.I.P.) are around to come beg for attention to be home. Or where my grandmother has set out those godawful pilgrim salt & pepper shakers for Thanksgiving. It's a distinct piece of familiarity.

It's odd. When you're young, and nearing adulthood, you can't wait to get out of your parents' house. You can't wait to get your own apartment and make your own home with your own rules. Then one day, you have it, and you realize that painting the walls, and buying furniture, and stocking the fridge do not a home make. It's like we spend 18 years trying to get out of that comfort zone, and we'll end up spending the rest of our lives finding and cultivating our own.

Me? Stuff is a big part of that for me. I have always been a "stuff" person. I collect a lot of things that are useless, but I love to have them around. I think I'm a lot like my Mimi in that respect. I think when I'm in my fifties, I'll have some huge house that is much too big for me, and therefore always messy, and it will be just filled to the brim with stuff. Paintings and photographs and old wind up toys and broken jewelry and sculptures and lumpy furniture and fifty hand crocheted rugs from my mother. And that is one of the most comforting thoughts I can think of.

So while I picked my current roommates very methodically, in an attempt to create a sense of home by living with what I consider to be a second family, I also have covered every surface in the house with my knick-knacks, yet still have boxes of clothes sitting in the foyeur a month after move-in. But that's just me.

Objectified by Gary Hustwit

2009-08-17T23:23:00.000-07:00

You may have heard of a film that came out last year called Helvetica, a documentary on the creation, evolution, and eventual ubiquity of Helvetica, the font. If you haven't, it's definitely worth 80 minutes even to someone not in the design art field, if only just to be blown away by the impressive list of logos and everyday signage that uses Helvetica. [For more info, check out: helveticafilm.com] The film's creator, Gary Hustwit, is currently knee deep in a trilogy of design documentaries; the second of which is the new film, Objectified, which explores the connection between ourselves, manufactured objects, and by extension, the designers who think them up. Check out objectifiedfilm.com for more goodies, like a free (& badass) tote bag with the purchase of Objectified on DVD. Also, if you're in Memphis/Nashville area, it's showing in Nashville at the Belcourt Theatre from September 11-17th, 2009. Check out: belcourt.org for event info.