Death and All His Friends.

Title is a Coldplay song, because Coldplay is awesome, and should not be looked down upon.

          So that last Twilight zone episode put me in a funk. They pretty much took my biggest fear and explained it word for word. I am so incredibly afraid of death and what comes after it sickens me. If they put roller coasters and medical needles in there I would probably cry from all the fear (those are my other two fears)! I have a problem when I think far to much about life and reality and the world to the point where I get anxiety attacks and have to take one of my pills. I dwell on this subject a lot, I question reality and what is sanity far too much. Of course it had a nice ending, and I'm glad death came so nicely, but just thinking about the subject of dying put me in a weird state of mind. It is odd though although I am afraid to die I am still very fascinated with death, when it isn't me dying I think of it fondly. Even when I was little I always like that kind of morbid things. I would always make my Dad take me to the very old graveyards in Vermont by our house. I think of death as both a friend and an enemy. Maybe this is why I love the Halloween season so much.

Gravestone in a old cemetery in Vermont. The grave belongs to a woman who died in the 1700s named Sarah.

Catty Artists.

Today was not necessarily hard, but it still manages to fry my brain (when I got home I passed out and napped for 3 hours).  However, I will endure this to become better at seeing things and be able to do great things without the use of a grid.

My blue paintings are giving me the blues. Turns out my paint sucks way more than I thought. I couldn't even push the colors to gray. Everything came out muddy. Bummer.

The reading was very interesting to me mainly because I failed to realize how artist react to each other out of rivalry and envy. The idea of Da Vinci and Michelangelo making fun and insulting each other kind of makes me laugh. I honestly never heard of Fresco before so that is cool (FRESCO the paint for REAL MEN). I see how using Fresco would be more convenient than oil paints. Not only did they have to worry about color but how thick the paint was, I already have problems with color, another factor might drive me crazy. Coloring is always my least favorite part of doing something. I always manage to mess it up and ruin the whole thing causing aggravation. The whole painting with two hands, were they just as skilled using both hands or was it harder for one hand than the other? I think last year I remember using two hands for painting, not to speed things up, but to go crazy with what I was doing.

I am both excited and afraid for these next two weeks to come.

Expressionism and Practicing.

Expressionism!
Very cool. I think some of the artists did a bit of it last year (or was that impressionism....). If that was expressionism, then maybe I'll upload the pictures I have of the process. If that wasn't it. That was cool too. The opera was although sounding strange, morbidly beautiful. It must take tons of talent to do opera so that was amazing (however three hours! I hope I'd be able to last that long but I can't promise my 15 year old brain's attention span can be kept that long. I enjoyed the dances in the sense that the movements went from being really compulsive to something smooth, not exactly sure if that makes it expressionistic but I admire dancing for I am not lucky enough to have good enough coordination for dancing. I KNOW (adding some confidence to this post.) expressionism is an angsty, morbid, art movement that connects more with nature, mind, and spirit. I think it has more to do with the feelings and they way it is done, than how it looks. More of how it 'expresses' something. That could be all wrong (there goes all the BOLD CONFIDENCE I had before.). Last year we saw some of Egon Shiele's work, he was an expressionist. Newbies should look him up.  

     What Luke was saying today about how you don't really enjoy something if you suck at it really struck me because I was thinking about that the other day while looking at one of my favorite artist artwork she posted. She is at the point that she is so good that it looks like she has a lot of fun with her art. She can get more creative with it. I hope that by practicing and getting though the boring, aggravating practice that I can enjoy drawing more than ever! I really need to work on the anatomy I did improve a lot last year but I still feel I am a long way to go until I can draw more happily. I think I dwell on more if it is proportional than if it makes me happy creatively.

Question Sleep.

What have I been doing lately? Well for STAC LIVE I seem to be doing different things. First I started by working with the group doing the movie with the texting future self, but then I somehow strayed away from that and did quite a few poster collages, I seem to be done with that... I think I am done with that? I also told Caitlin I would help her with the Zs on the wall Thursday. Yet for some reason I feel unproductive. I really liked the couples thing from what I saw today I thought they were done well, and with a couple adjustments they made I think it will be great! The dance is pretty sweet from what I've seen. I really like how it uses the snuggies with the dance, so it isn't just a dance in snuggies, it is a snuggie dance. I just hope they don't damage Tim the skull!

Using what you have.

Commercial. Commercials. Commercials.

  Oh dear. Well, with a few screw ups and odd scheduling, we were practically left with nothing to shoot, all teachers we made plans to film with where rather nowhere to be found or had some last minute meetings. However we would not let that stop us. We asked everybody we felt would be good and got new film that we were not even planning. One teacher even asked if she could be in the box (obviously we let her). We even filmed between classes with me in the box in the hallway, so while people were in the halls getting to class I would pop and scare them. I found it really interesting how many people's response to seeing a box in the middle in the hallway was to kick the box (thanks for that).  In the end although I am not sure how the commercial will come out, I am actually proud of how much we did with last minute changes. 

Think happy thoughts.

Some are negative because others put them down, outer forces affect their opinions of themselves. I'm kind of the opposite, nobody hurts myself better than I do! I am always negative, always hating on myself for everything I do. I criticize everything I do, I am always disappointed in myself, because I feel everything I do is never good enough. 

         I spend a lot of time in my head, sometimes it can be a good thing but most the time it drives me to insanity. I enjoy being alone, being alone does not make me lonely, but sometimes if I am alone to long my mind kinda finds itself in dark places.

I am always trying to help others out, I generally put others before myself, but at some point I should start helping myself.

I'll stop here.

surpriseeee!

So today in STAC we started with ideas for commercials. My group was basing ideas off the limitation we got: same action, different place. We started off with the idea off knocking on multiple doors asking if that door led to the STAC room. We eventually went to the idea of me (I don't know why it has to be me) in the middle of a class in a box. Out of nowhere I jump out of the box exclaiming something along the lines of "Come to STAC live!" and then running out of the class. Doing that a couple times to fit the limitation. I hope it comes out looking good and not come off as stupid.

Honey, If We Are a Family, Its Only Natural to Fight.

So Friday was a bit hard to sit through...
with all the tough really deep questions, to the argument that went on.
I love everybody in this class to death, so this stuff really put my head into a pickle and drives me crazy. Half of the groups to seem to have major problems. The freshies seemed to have some 'Lord of the Flies' situation, the sophomores in my opinion didn't have too much problems, we just kinda drifted of did our own thing and came back together to make something cooler, the juniors seemed to have a great time, and the seniors seemed to be in major hell from what I see. I felt we were more open with our opinions than we have ever been before, causing more feelings to be hurt and more people to be defensive of their opinions. Sometimes I like to think of STAC as some artsy family, but there is no such thing as a perfect family everybody gets on each others nerves sometime or another but I think if get over any ego we have (not saying everybody is an egotistical jerk by the way) we can move forward and become stronger than ever.

By the way happy 'Sarah Eve' (aka the day before my birthday).

Be kind, Rewind.

Second time doing this, I wasn't sure what we were going to get out of my group's little movie, even though you have a general idea of how people will react to it, you never know. I think the movie we made this year came out better than the one I made last year, it was more fun filming and I think it came out better, even though it still kinda sucks due to the lack of editing and such. I think my favorite part of this is how if you mess up you accept it and move on, no time to dwell or worry upon some tiny mistake, after all the mistakes you make, the more enjoyable it is to watch back. This film I had to pick my nose, burp, eat with my mouth open, fall down some stairs, and become the world's worst policemen. Oddly, it was so much fun. I hope we can do more of these in the future.

Forever Lazy, in the fleece.

See what I did there? In the flesh, in the fleece (Punny right? Okay, I'll stop now.). I went to BJs the other day and found the 'Forever Lazy'. I just love weird unusual products like this.

Speaking of which do they still make Frankenberry cereal? That was the bees knees.