NEW YEARS!

I'm so excited to have this year over. I'm catching a ride to my apartment and I'm gonna deep clean the hell out of it, make mochi cakes and set up the altar. super excited.

*not my creation above, waaaaay not talented enough to do that.

The New Year

Bei Badgirl's 'My Melody' from her  Red Apple Dessert Pie (Sugar Frosted), 2010.

As both New Years and the Chinese New Year approaches (27th Jan this year) I have been contemplating resolutions and where I'd like this year to go. Of course I wish to be much healthier and have a bit more general luck on my side, which according to my horoscope the Year of the Rabbit will be much better for me in health and wealth and general luck, however there was a note about avoiding water sports.

My horoscope also mentioned getting rid of my poker face and being more frank.

I also may need to reconsider my decorating, my feng shui may be off but I mean I kind of knew that with a print of a gun hanging over my desk, symbols of violence - not so auspicious.

I find it interesting that its supposed to be an auspicious year for health and wealth and be a much tamer year than that of the previous (Year of the Tiger - not exactly a tame year) when it was this year that I wanted to concentrate on career development and my future plans as well as continue my recovery from the accident and overall try to improve my habits for a steadier pace of lifestyle. I take it as an auspicious sign that my wishes for the new year will be supported by the leanings of my horoscope, going with the flow as it would be rather then fighting upstream.


So I guess if all goes well I'll have all the groundwork laid this coming year for a great 2012, my year, which will with all hopes include a move South.

Alice Neel

I watched the Alice Neel documentary this evening off netflix with my parents. I found it very interesting on many levels.

Hartley by Alice Neel

I do like Alice's work, it's not exactly what I would like to be making but some of them are very strong examples of what direction I would like my work to head. The above work especially, Hartley, a portrait of one of her sons has a lot of qualities I enjoy.

I also found it to be an interesting documentary as far as how it looked at an artists lifestyle, the sad story of poverty with the silver lining that she was in fact recognised at the end of her life, but not before her lifestyle had a severe at times effect on her sons. True she was born in 1900 so the path of her life will be different from mine, but had i been born in 1900 its hard not to see the same things happening and wondering if i would make the same choices.

I also wonder if thats why my parents watched it with me, some sort of clue into where this painting thing might lead, a view of what they would consider misguided choices would lead me.

I do know that I miss painting, I guess it's been 2 weeks but it feels like months. I wish I had siblings that I could draw. I don't have the courage to draw my parents, well I don't real feel that I can even ask.

hmm.

i miss dance, i think i'll start again.

because purple haze is twice as good on vinyl

Merry christmas me. Plugged up the lp player. Heaaaaven. Ill only leave this room under duress.

oh so 90s.

hm. radio. hmmmmm indeed.

culinary genius

that's right, thats home-fried atsuage. with peanut sautee sauce. yes I am a culinary genius and I went on later to bake ginger bread brownies with molasses in them and make a rice omelet for someone. shebang.

ahhhhhhhhhhh wah

I don't want to go back to the studio and paint more tonight. bugger.

The rights all wrong. Gonna take a step back from it and work on something else instead

This is why....

 No eye-lights in my self portrait. Sure enough someone will come along in due time to make me feel dead inside. I am dead inside.

I could have been a rotting corpse. I refuse to let people turn me into one.

my prof. said it looked like a David, reminded him of The Death of Marat.  totes blushed.

David's Death of Marat

unwell

I could be a mixture of one or all of the following:

strung out emotionally

freaked about going to the neurologist

experiencing some sort of flu - cold like illness.


AWESOME. finals what would they be without a lil extra inconvenience sprinkled on top?

road trip....

to NH for some sweet takashi murakami and nara for my holiday. definite plan in development.....

and why am i still up?

hideous flyer though...............

new piece

beginning of a new piece, going to be an exploration of tenebrism. Have a crit. tomorrow 1 finished piece and one in prog. my one of the host in osaka is going to be my "finished one" and this is the in prog. It's an interesting challenge painting backward, can't decide if i'll fold and scan and reverse the image or ir i'll just go with it - looks like an older version at the moment..... or what.

Came home and decided miso soup for tea at 2am. something about me an nutritionally void food (miso, jello, tea....)

Update. Idk.....

I hate my painting sooooo much right now i just want to rip the f*ing thing off the easel and smashit and pour solevent all over it, but thats ok. The reason why im a good painter and will be a great artist is i don't need anyone to come cheer me on and tell me how great it looks. I know what first steps need to be taken to fix it so im gonna do them and go from there. The only person with more false positive attitude is tim gunn. "make it work".

gonna make it work in under 3 days.

oh that's right,

This is why I get up early in the morning, look great and eat great. 

The trick will be working out again so hunger actually gets me out of bed,

 which now I can do because my arms doing better! (^.^)

oh, it was rice with steamed green beans and a portion of pan seared salmon with a sprinkling of furikake, so yummmmmm.

ahhhgh....holiday facade has been shattered

Not my creation

bugger off, I have reading and studying to do. (T_T)

tumblr

i think i have a tumblr. haven't used it. however as much as i enjoy the visual mash-up that most tumblrs seem to be i feel it could get out of hand easily, and i don't like that i can't find the original source for an image.

update 'brighter'

update:

happy birthday.....

to me? i turn 22 today. surreal.

uni student life is sad

because you use a meat thermometer to check if you have a fever. Even more so when it confirms your suspicion but means nothing because it's not like you can just not do your work or go to bed early.

def some sort of pattern....

....in my 'lets look at bento supplies'. This time i'm not hungry but I don't feel like i should go to sleep and yet procrastinating from huge pile of work.... also silently admitting to myself that I probably won't get a bento tomorrow. pout. even though just bento is featuring a new multi-functional topping for veggies, walnut miso paste.

am slightly cheered by my lil fox (theme for gmail) he's like my little ever working buddy and this evening i finally caught hm sleeping and his ancestor ghosts playing Go on his lawn. it's sad that was a highlight to my day and sadder more that i think I should sleep because he is. i'm gonna give it a go, but only if i wake up at 6 so if it doesn't happen immediately back to work so i can sleep in till like...8? idk.

mate complained about staying up till 2am on a saturday doing work (gasp! oh no!) .....decided not responding was best. ..... (-.-)*

fight on right?  "がんばって!"

BUUUZZZZ

wow. coffee. hi, forgot about you.

がんばって！(GANBATTE!)

One week.

- 1 research paper
- one take home 10 essay question aesthetics exam
- one film to shoot
- painting to work on
- bags to pack
- sanity to retain

..... i can do it....right?

recent art

better image of pinku gyaru. too lazy/ wanna build up the suspense of ryoma.

"easter" or the finished urban facade

Finished urban facade aka "easter" in time for my grant application. That im mailing tomorrow/later today. Yay!


..... I love my little camera on my phone and my ability to instantly update my blog, but no joke the colour on these is horrid. from the digital camera:

nvm, i'll add it later. internet is being lame.

ta da!

inertia

the more things I have to do, the more I want to do. I was going to have a busy week already with the regular academic rigor and prepping for shooting my short film next week but now I'm also applying for a grant, trying to get onto this artist in aus so i ca propose him to someone in the SAAH faculty to then propose him to the sawhill gallery by next friday, continuing trying to remaster dreamweaver, have a research paper due next week, trying to have a social life, eat healthy food i've cooked for myself and on top of that - I WANNA BAKE A CAKE.

i'm nuts.

pinku gyaru finished!

taken with mobile phone

So I've finished my (last?!) acrylic painting..... well I haven't really chatted about it yet with my professor so I suppose there could be a change but v. v. unlikely. At the end of this week I'l post a proper picture from a real camera vs. my mobile.

Anyway that's done so back to ...... :

working on ryoma again

...and yes i'm painting pinku gyaru in as a billboard in the picture (^_~)

domesticity? or Gyaru?

well I might be turning into a japanese house wife.... oh well! Since it's going to be a long day, one of many this week, I decided to really enjoy breakfast. We have no toaster, so that means it's got to be asian inspired and I just love Japanese food! This is nothing crazy hard or exciting but delicious. Pan seared salmon, tamagoyaki, rice with nori furikake and some salted/soy sauced cucumber slices and a cherry tomato. I also had a glass of iced "green" tea and a cup of warm oolong. My body pretty much runs off of caffeine. And of course everything that was left over went into today's bento! Which has less than successful 'panda face' made of nori. True it might be a little tiring to have the same thing for lunch but crunched for time/ so excited about salmon for lunch I don't care.

My gyaru and host paintings must be getting to me because I'm also wearing pink shoes and glitter eye-shadow. Oh well, it's just my childhood expressing itself. I mean, I used to wear pink all the time. My room was pink, I actually really like pink. shhhh! it's a secret. (^.^)

rumble rumble

I must be hungry I'm looking at kitchen supplies online......

monday!

my mother's favorite day of the week is monday because it's a new beginning yadda yadda yadda, and I might just have to agree with her this week. Going to get back into the proper pace of things - first step a bento. fairly simple one but the stuff in the flower cup are these real fruit chewys of strawberry and mango I got from Target. yummy, desserty but also healthy and wont go bad on you sort thing so I highly recommend them for bentos.

I haven't REAALLLY worked out this morning but I'll dance around a lot and then plan on a light run this evening. won't lie woke up a bit late. night time sniffle relief really knocks me on my arse.

anywho.......   がんばって！(GANBATTE!)

uhhhgh. fall back an hour and get a new perspective.

This week has been ridiculous. My return to a social life caused a huge imbalance in behaviors but now I feel like I'm back. I was so excited about not having any work directly hanging over my head but now I need to get back in the game and realise I have quite a few long term assignments I need to be ontop of. I finished the pinku gyaru painting and will update with a photo by monday at the latest. Next I suppose it will be final touches on Ryoma will be done and I'll finally do the last details in the Urban facade. It's going to be a v. v. productive week. Much less shenanigans.

eerie.

It feels so weird not having anything that needs to be done RIGHT NOW. So I watched some David Bowie interviews. I think I'll go to the studio to do some work....... I kinda wanna drink but feel like been hittin the sauce a bit - relatively hard since I've had like none before late last week.

???

what is in the water in this town?!

Pinku gyaru nearly done.....

still have yet to paint.

the compulsion is strange. everything seems heightened today. there's a pressure and a tactile over-awareness. somethings become far more important whilst others diminish entirely. I try to act normal around others but in moments by myself i'm overrun.

3.15 am

it's 3.15 am and i am overwhelmed by the desire to paint, to create, to remember. I will sit on the porch with a cup of tea and recall the overwhelming of my tactile senses.

another restful night...

not. spent it in agony from my back again - why? idk, until i just threw in the towel at a lil past 4am and took a vicodin. woke up on the floor with minute sto get my arse in gear and out the door to catch the bus for work this morn. so here's hoping it goes better tonight. I might also re-locate to a tumblr account since I'll be playing with one for work.....?

painting update.

why do i spend hours at the studio when i have other thins i should be doing? ahhgh.

sundays are strange

Wish my evening could have gone like this....(photo actually taken few days ago). Ya know, late but laid back night at the studio...... I just cannot get enthused about my videography class. so instead i made my bento and one for a friend for tomorrow/ today. They are a 'little' more extreme than what I normally do (i mean my rice looks like a panda....?!) but it was fun and calming? idk. i find cooking to be relaxing and it fulfills some domestic goddess anxiety i have. anyways - uber-kawaii lunch of nutritious goodness to fight off an-anticipated-evil monday.

lunch for my mate, same as mine really but more (might be part dinner for her).

-tempah thats been brushed with some soy sauce and sprinkled with some ground ginger and baked.

-sesame carrot 'salad'

- tempah, grape tomatoes, sesame seeds, and green onion sauteed in sesame seed oil with a 1/2 tab of butter a bit of rosemary and a secret ingredient. 

....so most of this i have never tried before/ made up on the fly. feel like i'm turning my mate into a guinea pig..... so i included some green tea candies and 2 usagi-apples.

procrastinating......

I'm not even procrastinating like a pro - the megalith rationalisations that involve laundry, dishes and cooking. nope. just sitting and surfing the net. i want to think that after admitting it i'll get up and get the laundry going and do the dishes and finish my room and start my bento.....and then do my work? see this is terrible. not a huge fan of sundays. it's nearly 2200 and i should be in bed before midnight but .... sleep pattern all thrown off now that i don't leave campus till after 1900 lately. it's one week though and normalcy will almost be complete..... well i'll have a car so my life will be significantly easier.

would it be silly to say i really wish i hadn't been in a car wreck last month?

ageha update (v.early sunday)

so finally got in a groove/ adapted to materials and got something laid down. really not how i planned for it to look....... guess i'll see how it goes. i think now that i've gotten this far i feel less overwhelmed by it and i can probably map out what specifically is really causing a disjoint from my original idea and see what i can do to adjust/distract from it. Ideally I will be laying in the glitter, rhinestones, etc. on this thursday.....

However the painting did fall on me today, of course on the 'bad' side of my head - one with fractures, and bad shoulder - one with broken collar bone attached to it.... so that was kind of my stopping point. reckon i won't bother with going in tomorrow- take a break from painting tomorrow and get my other work squared away for the week. perhaps I will go in early monday morning.... depends on my other work obviously.

anyways - will be excited to be done with this one and be back working on ryoma...... and forgot to take a photo of my urban facade... which i should name - 'urban facade' sounds pretty hip....

have to write an artist statement this week of sorts... hmmmmmmmmmmm.

ageha painting update. (at studio now)

this painting is killing me. I started it so i could have something very fun and different and light/PINK to play with to counteract all the intensity and somber mood of my life lately but instead idk. It has plenty of conceptual space, would play into my interest in the relation between art, sex and consumerism in japan. but idk. really its just the medium thats bringing me down. Acrylics dry much to fast for my style of painting but i need the water and polymer based medium for when i start getting into the more playful textural aspects of it (glitter, rhinestones, pearls, big-arse blobs of paint).

really i don't have to be here working so hard on it right now but..... i don't want to be at my apartment. I want to paint, it's what's important to me and enjoyable and I'm not enjoying a whole lot lately......

pout.

oops.

need to update the urban landscape too....will get on that this arvo.

5-6 hrs of work and nothing to show for it.......acrylics suck.

X ?0: ]?n ??^?Au8(V ??n??l~?? q} J???2?L ???q?>F?Ptt?????oP;=????v?j???? $.??? ? v??e2?? ??l6?????f ?}.??e9(? ?A?4 d ?A?:??????1?N???

update from late thursday night v. v. early friday morning

ditto.

All of this below? tech. Tuesday......late night.

Painting update

To be the 'texture' assignment. acrylic (ick) will have iridescent/pearl'd pink with pearls glitter and rhinestones- very ageha/hostess flyer which is the inspiration...needs some work. not enjoying the acrylics.

cont. work on Ryoma portrait which is going well i reckon. pretty psyched but need to get other rup to speed so tore myself from it earlier.

dinner.

Gnocchi meet golden curry!

actually a  fairly successful combination.... and means i had reheated japanese golden curry for every meal today. I'm ok with that.

happy columbus day.

wow.

WOW! I have a follower, and lots of golden curry. win!

......and now i'm coming down with cold. Sniffles. Throat. Great.....

omg.

why didn't occur to me earlier to try cutting my tofu into cute shapes? (duh!) hahaha.

p.s. painting update

Proceeding quite tentatively as i meditate more on whether i want my original vision, an organic completion that would be stylistically similar to my 'big hair' self portrait, or something more specific.....

being good may not be so good.

I was being good. I was gonna wait till my follow up CATscan to have an alcoholic beverage...... but the week was too much, yesterday and today was too much and the prospect of what could happen tomorrow..... too much. I've been so upset, edgy, frustrated and on the verge of tears so often lately. Well I cried today and decided that was enough. waiting till the 27th? with all this stress and not being able to workout? to some levels some of my problems will not be getting better soon, this year, or ever. So i had a porter and the effect has been great. I can take a deep breath, carry on, and be calm.

I could have made it the whole time - but would anyone still have been my friend? I've been so wound up and up tight that I was either down right short or alienating to everyone. now i'll be fine.

played with scale a bit today and then made a rough decision and blocked out most of the shapes  and dark areas in the background. considering how polished i want throughout the whole before proceeding too much. wanted the coat to dry down real well before i start into it with local colour but suspect my first action will be to either put in the signs or white out the signs first....idk.

super stressed. Can chase after squirrels bc no running allowed.....So im sittn under a tree hopin they come to me.