Dear Stranger

In about 2 weeks I’ll finally be done with school for this year and begin a short break before the insanity of the next year starts up. I intend to go back to the normal comic-ish format once I have that break. It takes time to finish a fully painted page, and I haven’t had time lately. But I do have 2 pages started that just need color, and some others to work on when my time is mine again.

I don’t know why, but I’ve never been the type who was able to really devote herself to making art. I mean, I graduate from art school excited to finally have some time on my hands to make things my way– and within a year I go and throw myself back into school to study in a field that (at this level at least) has nothing at all to do with art. So I’m stuck trying to divide my time between attempting to memorize cell anatomy and statistics formulas, and mixing paints… Even in art school I couldn’t just settle into a life of drawing and painting classes, I had to stuff my schedule with HTML and ActionScript, or random ass architecture classes just cause I get bored so easily and needed a challenge.

I like to think that some day I’ll figure out a way to synthesize the vast database of random knowledge that’s stored in my head at this point. Instead I mostly just feel useless for knowing a ton of shit that no one needs to know all at once and not being able to put almost any of it to use in real life.

Ok, rant over.

is a great line… that whole scene kind of pulls at the heart strings. I’m the kind of person who looks back a lot, I burn bridges with people in the heat of the moment, because it’s easier for me to live with nothing than to have reminders of something I’ve lost. But there’s always a point where you stop being angry and scared, and you just want to go back to that last moment and pretend there was a real goodbye…

Clementine: Joely? What if you stayed this time?
Joel: I walked out the door. There’s no memory left.
Clementine: Come back and make up a good-bye at least. Let’s pretend we had one.
[Joel comes back]
Clementine: Bye Joel.
Joel: I love you…

but I’m working on a new drawing

This song: I wish that I could see you soon, by Herman Düne puts me in a good mood, the video does too. Reminds me a bit of Cat Stevens. It’s one of those songs that I keep playing on repeat and grinning to. I like the green men.

I’m keeping a sketch blog with my roommate called the wicker toilet.

I just posted some of the process work that went into this image:

“the suffering of others wins poetry contests and gets you laid”

I saw that over at secret vespers today and I really liked it. It reminded me of something I had written down while flipping channels and stumbling on the show “Intervention” on A&E. I meant to work it into a drawing or something eventually, but haven’t found the right image to really relay the thought just right:

“People are coming apart at the seams, and it’s entertainment.”

I play with the idea of confession in my own art quite a bit, and with suffering… but it’s always honest, it’s always my own to talk about, and it isn’t really with the intention of entertaining anyone. Just… in the hopes of offering some sense of connection. For you or for me, I’m not so sure.

Here are the stages that the drawing went through more or less. Click for larger versions.

(You can also read my rant about process on the sketch blog I’m starting with my roommate, http://thewickertoilet.wordpress.com )

I got a copy of anders nilsen’s “The End” this morning.

It’s sad. In that way that things are only ever sad when they’re really honest, so it’s beautiful, but you feel a bit guilty for thinking so- because under the beauty, it’s still sad, honestly so.

Which is to say I liked it a lot. I like most of his stuff. You should look it up.

I’m not sure why these photographs have been on my mind this morning but they have.
They are from a project that I worked on my junior year at Parsons called “Home Turf.”
As I remember it, the basic idea of all of the projects done in this class was to explore the relationship between a given institution, The New School, and those who utilize it. For my project I had interviewed a random sample of students across various divisions and programs at the school, asking questions about how the expectations they’d had for their educational experience compared to the actual experience of being a student navigating through the school. Towards the end of the project I worked on this set of photographs as a way of drawing this “public” exploration back down into a “private” or personal-to-me one.

I played with this one in a few ways. It was a particularly simple but striking statement to me at the time… and still, but for different reasons.

Not all negative sentiments…

But many were

I’m happily done with Parsons now and studying at Hunter College instead. I set the curve on an exam in my “Brain and Behavior” exam last week, which is part of why Dear Stranger hasn’t seen a decent update in a while.

There were other thoughts… maybe later. I’m baking a lasagna.