Saturday, December 20, 2008

Website and More

Website is up and running, although it might be shut down soon because the semester is over, so take a look while you still can!
digital.mica.edu/ff210_08/swolfe
note: If you're using Internet Explorer, the video won't run. Anything else should be fine.

Tomorrow I have a 7am train to NJ/NYC, going to see a show with Kristi, then possibly home.
Today I went to an abandoned haunted mental hospital.
I have so much stuff to do before tomorrow morning.

Monday, December 15, 2008

End of Semester Portfolio Highlights

Drawing I

female figure, charcoal

backlit jar, charcoal

male figure, charcoal

paper composition, charcoal

backlit sled through fabric, charcoal

chair, charcoal

mexican skeleton, charcoal

Painting I (there is more, but i haven't photographed anything else yet)

self portrait oil sketches

complicated still life, oil

better picture of self portrait, oil


All of this (and more) will be on my portfolio website which is my final project for EMAC meaning it will be up and running by Thursday at 4pm.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Six Moments in the Author's Life

Part One:
Walking off a train in the pouring rain with a final project and nothing to cover it with,
holding a bag of wooden stretcher bars 3ft. and 2ft., a laptop, and various other items,
and walking about a mile back to the apartment.
Did I mention it's raining?

Part Two:
Okay, well, my final project for Drawing class is ruined, but at least I can stretch this canvas and get that over with and feel better about my life.
Stretcher bars won't fit together-
find something to use as a hammer...glass jar full of rubber cement glue
...shatters

Part Three:
Noticing broken glass glued to my hand and the ground, with a nice mound of glue on the ground, when trying to get it off my hand, the glass cuts my skin and my hands starts bleeding.

Part Four:
Apartment-mate announces she is moving out. Proceed to sneak into her room with the intent of examining future single bedroom when I find a letter to whomever deals with these things explaining why the request to change rooms. Letter explains that I, and Gemma, are creating an environment impossible to work in, never go to class, never do homework, and basically are filthy bums that treat her like a mother and don't deserve to be here. Cry.

Part Five:
Realize the letter makes her sound stupider and psycho more than it makes me sound like any less of a person, but decide to call my mom anyway. Cry again because that's what moms are there for.

Part Six:
Eat some s'mores and feel a whole lot better. Make the nicest fucken home made canvas you've ever seen. work, work, work, work, work, work, work.




Dream Last Night (just because it interested me)
There was a long introduction, but I don't have to go into that because it was mostly feelings being visualized so it wouldn't make much sense to anyone that's not me.
As a foreward: College life is just summers between high school so I still go to LVPA, I'm just not there right now.
So the family is in the living room with the principal from LVPA, a very plump man, talking so casually to us about his very strong opinions a number of things and finally yells out something to the effect of "women have smaller brains than men". At that my brother, Bryce, gets so angry at him because he's my principal and that means he's not going to give me, being a woman, a fair education. So Bryce stands up and says fuck you strongly to him as he flicks him off. The principal gets so upset and offended that he says something about forget me ever going to LVPA again, it's back to Parkland for me. The very thought of stepping foot into Parkland ever again frightens me so much I start crying uncontrollably and am paralyzed. I have no idea what to do, all I know is that my life is going to take a very, very different turn when the time comes that I have to go back to Parkland.
After that, though we all go to the zoo. We pass a few animals, but then we get to a cage filled with miniature pandas! Seriously they're so tiny they could probably fit in your hand and there are tons and tons of them in each cage (there's two cages). The excitement over these animals makes me so happy I hug Bryce, but then am so happy I can't even control myself and forget about how angry I am and give the principal a hug. He just happens to be standing there, haha. Anyway, hugging him just makes me feel so much better because he's such a big guy, and I feel like a little kid, and I feel so happy.
Then I started to have real thoughts and woke up.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Oral Dentistry

stitches removed without any complications
the doctor called me 'a good healer'
=]

Monday, December 8, 2008

Goals for the week

Today - buy paper for drawing project, outline drawing, possibly more
Tomorrow - work more on drawing, hopefully, or research paper
Wed. - more drawing
Thursday - finish research paper
Friday/weekend - painting, ink drawing, drawing

Hopefully this works, at least I have everything done for my portfolio review today.


2 night Self Portrait, oil paint

I'm reading Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris is the funniest man alive. We (me, my roommate, and a few friends) have David Sedaris storytime a lot in my bedroom.
I'm also in the process of knitting a patchwork blanket. The patchwork part is done, but now I'm knitting a fuzzy lining so it'll be extra warm, and I still need to do the border.
Tomorrow I get my stitches out which is really good because every time I eat or brush my teeth all I can think about is the image of my stitches being ripped out by whatever I'm eating.

Last night I had a dream that there was a big party at home and everyone was there all my friends from home, people that I'm not even friends with, but went to high school with or were friends of my friends, and all my friends here and people I'm not even friends with here, but see around a lot. It was lots of fun, but then I woke up.
Yesterday I dreamt that I was with Kristi and Margot and they told me to put the eggs we were going to eat in the washer and dryer and I kept saying that didn't seem right that you would wash your food with soap the same way you wash your dishes, but they kept reasoning it with logic and I felt stupid for thinking it wouldn't work in the first place. So we washed our eggs in the washer and dryer.

The night before last was a very strange one indeed. I had spent the whole day working on projects, it was 8pm and the heater in our room had put Gemma to sleep already so I decided to watch the graduate by myself and make popcorn. It was really cute, actually. So then Jackie and her boyfriend and all of her friends came in and were like "Oh, is that the Graduate?" and I asked them if they wanted to watch it with me, in an effort to mend our broken relationship. What I didn't realize was that they were all drunk and had no interest in watching the movie, but a lot of interest in talking about it really loudly so that I couldn't hear it, which it was my first time seeing it so that was muchly unappreciated.
In addition to this, they continued taking shots and drinking and such and bickering and telling inside jokes, so I just sat there and listened to everything. Gemma woke up, came out to see what was going on, couldn't take it anymore and went back inside our room. Finally, Matt turned off Simon and Garfunkel and put on his iPod, Flogging Molly, and everyone left...including me. End of night. Will our apartment-mate friendship ever be renewed? Probably not.

Also, Facials

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Money Issues

I don't know what to do. I woke up in the middle of the night realizing all of the shit I need to do today and couldn't sleep because of it. There's seriously so much.
So the plan was to go early to Utrecht to buy supplies, and then the whole day just work on things. I had a whole plan for what I'm going to do and in what order and everything. I decided to check my bank accounts first to make sure I had money to buy the things I need to complete (or even start) my final projects. But my bank account is in the negative 200's, and when I looked at transactions it doesn't make sense because they charged me insufficient funds fees for five or six things that i still had money for when i charged them, but because they charged me insufficient funds fees, now i don't have money. I don't understand at all, it doesn't make sense, I never actually went over, but I can't even call them because it's Sunday.
I'm already stressing out about this shit, and now I can't even do anything about it.
I can't start my painting without canvas
I can't do my two other ink drawings without paper
I can't do my 6-7 drawings without drawing paper
The only thing I can do is my research paper which isn't due till Friday, and everything else is due before that and it's the one thing I don't want to do at all, which is only going to make me more angry and I don't even see how I can concentrate on doing a research paper when I know I have all of this other SHIT TO DO.
I even want to do it and am looking forward to doing all of these other projects, I just can't.
And when I called my mother, she yelled at me about not having a job which makes me feel even shittier because I want a job, in fact I want more than one job, so it's like she's yelling at me about not being good enough to get something that I already want and am trying to get. We had decided together in the beginning of the year that I wouldn't have a job this semester because I didn't know if I would have time for one, but for money reasons, I recently realized I needed one so have been trying to get one, but how can she yell at me now for not having had one at the beginning of the year? I understand that I need money, okay? And in addition to that she wants me to pay her back for all the money she's given me for art supplies so even when I do have a job, I won't even get that money for next semester's supplies.
Right now, I don't even want to be in college. I don't want to fail my classes because I didn't have money to buy the supplies to do the projects. This is bullshit, fuck you bank.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

In Progress (work weekend)

JOBS
1. Attempted to go to an interview at 7 Eleven, but got there too late, which is really disappointing because I really want to work there
2. Hospital hasn't called me back, but I applied to be a full time third assistant chef! And also one of those people that deliver food to the rooms.
3. Possibly will apply to On The Hill, cute little overpriced cafe across the street.
4. AMC says they're not hiring, even though they emailed Kelly and said they would hire me...I thought.

--------------



Two of four in a series. The one on the left needs to get darker, the one on the right is close to being done, but not there are a few things that are bothering me about it. Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Each one is done to depict a different mood. They're done to different music in different settings, and with different techniques.
Left is anger Right is relaxation. Two to come are depression and happiness.
Anger has been done to Against Me! and Animal Collective hung on a wall with me throwing ink at it from across the room with a dark wash over the whole thing.
Relaxation was first done to Elliott Smith, Devendra Banhart, and Kaki King on the floor of my living room.
They're not how I thought they would turn out and I don't know if they're working, but they're so much fun to work on. Each one is 3 ft.
So again, any feedback, much appreciated because this is basically what I'm working on this weekend, with intervals of my drawing project. Maybe I'll post some of those, too.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Shana, the Chipmunk

I am now four less teeth.
More fun than anyone told me it would be.
The doctor goes "hey what school do you go to?"
And I reply, and the next thing I remember is stumbling into a bed.
And the next thing I remember is hearing my dad's voice.
And the next thing I remember is getting written prescription for painkillers.
The Novocaine hasn't worn off yet, so i'm not in any pain, I just look like a chipmunk, which you can see for yourself. OH! And I got a free t-shirt out of it! Sweet Deal, right?

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Midnight Hair Removal Adventures

I really really really should be drawing considering class is at four and we have an in-progress crit., but hopefully the nude model will distract the teacher from our work and we won't reallllly have a crit....! Monday our model was a woman named Tina, who was probably in her 40's or 50's and she comes in wearing a robe (normal), but my teacher is talking to us and not to her at all so you can tell she's confused as to when to take off her robe because he hasn't told her what to do yet, so she doesn't want to just stand around the room naked, not posing. So here's Tina in the middle of this circle with all of us staring at her, half taking off her robe, then putting it back on, then starting to take it off again, all the while my teacher, Sam, has his back to her, not noticing this happening, talking to us. So every time he sounds like he's going to stop talking, she starts to undress, but then he just keeps talking again. This is going on for a good ten minutes or so and then finally to make things more awkward for them, funny for me, he turns to Tina, she rips off her robe, thinking he's going to give her a pose, and he asks what her name is and starts to make small talk. And I'm just standing there the whole time like "wow, imagine stripping down in front of a stranger and the first thing they ask you is your name, how you are, etc." I don't know, maybe she's used to it, but personally I thought it was one of those extremely awkward, but so funny encounters that I long for on a daily basis. The next thought of mine during this strange encounter was that this woman is in her mid 40's to early 50's and has no pubic hair. none. Completely shaved. I mean, I don't see that many naked middle aged women, I just thought by the time you get to that point in your life, you wouldn't give a shit. Apparently Tina does, though, I misjudged her.
So this is me avoiding my drawing project.
My elements project is so much fun, I really just want to work on that-throwing ink and water at 3 foot pieces of paper while listening to Elliott Smith. But if I work on that I won't work on my drawing, but right now I'm not working on either one...bad Shana.

LAST NIGHT
we went to 24 hour Rite Aid to buy body wax. okay, I really need to start this story earlier than last night. So Lauren was in the hospital like two months ago because her appendix burst...sad. So she had to get surgery and they shaved her stomach where they were going to operate, like in the game, but when the hair grew back it was darker and she was like what the hell guys, my stomach. So last night we were bored at like 11:30pm ISH and decided to go to 24 hour rite aid to buy body wax to erase Lauren's newly grown happy trail. We decided to get bikini wax because it was cheaper, and we assumed would do the same thing so here are a group of girls holding one box of bikini wax, probably making really awkward conversation about it and this boy in front of us starts talking to us. Basically I ended up holding his spaghetti for him and having a long (not so long, but I like to think it was long) conversation about seasoning spaghetti, how good spaghetti is, and how it tastes better with beer (he threw that part in which led me to believe he was offering me beer which lead me to believe he wanted to get me drunk and make sweet sweet love to me). I also somehow thought he offered us a ride home, but he walked there so that was also misinterpreted. Moral of the story: Art school and lack of guys makes us read so much more into every interaction with a male. For anyone (meaning Devan) who watches Gossip Girl, he looked like Aaron Rose, I know, I know. So back to the body waxing. After successfully burning all of our fingers trying to test the temperature of the wax, we eventually removed Lauren's happy trail, but still had a whole thing of wax left, so what better to do than remove patches of hair from shana's hairy legs? Not only do I have squares of hair removed from my left shin, but I also now am the proud owner of a heart shaped hairless patch of upper left thigh! Be jealous.

Shana is now selling haircuts, scarves, and hats, btw.
All of which are custom made, with love.
This is Lauren, before and after. haha, maybe this is a bad representation of her new haircut, but trust me, it looks good.
For now, that is all.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

to do list for Tuesday 12/2 (no class):

Buy Supplies

18x24 paper
2 more pcs. 3ft. watercolor paper

Final Project for Drawing I

1.series of family portraits (18x24) concentrating on hands
-studies of hands
-at least begin finals on 18x24
2.work on old drawings if there's time
3.finish 1 landscape and 1 perspective drawing

Final Project for Painting I
1.self portrait in the style of edward munch
-sketches
-settle on drawing
2.indirect painting
-add another layer of glazes
3.finish 18x24 self portrait
4.work on old paintings if there's time

Final Project for Elements
a series of four ink/watercolor drawings each to represent an opposing emotion (3ft. each)
-some more detailed ink drawings on them
-cover areas with water to be darker

Art History Paper
-get to library and check out books!
-start writing whatever you can

At some point, hopefully, eating and showering will be involved.

I really should be writing my art history paper, since i've put it off so long and it's due this Friday, but honestly it's probably not going to happen since i'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled Thursday and I already emailed my teacher that I probably won't be in class and she didn't mention anything about emailing her my paper this week. I should do it though, really....
Same with my elements project, but I really do want to do that one, I like ink drawings, it's just a lot of money for the paper, and I need to rent out a studio again, but I can't do that until Sunday and I have elements on Friday.
I've just discovered Jango and I'm in love with it.
Last night we had a nude model in painting...finally.
I came home at 10 and was used for a video Gemma is doing.
I keep getting really terrible headaches, like ones where I can't move or do anything but curl in a ball in a corner somewhere and cry. Tylenol doesn't do anything either. I'm hoping they're being caused by my wisdom teeth, meaning they should go away by the end of the week. The pain always starts in my mouth, but it's not near my wisdom teeth, it's near the front, but I don't know anything about how that works, so I'm trusting the doctor on this one.
It just sucks so bad though, it's almost every night now I get them, and everyone's always over having a good time and I just have to go hide in my room, there's nothing I can do.
On top of that my throat is killing me, and I can barely speak today. I wonder if they're related, but I doubt it.
Our apartment is basically falling apart, too. The kitchen sink had been clogged, our shower was backed up, our kitchen sink got clogged up and wouldn't drain, and yesterday our toilet overflowed.
Ending with some art
I found these two pieces on my computer, done probably a year apart.

Monday, December 1, 2008

First Blog

It's 11:11 and I decided to make a blog...something else to do while I'm avoiding homework.
There are about two and a half weeks left of classes in the first semester of my first year in college right about now and it's gone by so fast. I can't believe it's almost over, I feel like I have made a new life for myself and I can't even imagine going back to how things were at home. I am so happy with who I am living on my own, having my own apartment, creating a schedule for myself and doing all of my projects without anyone telling me to or not.
I'll be going back for my second semester that's for sure, but I have no idea what's going on next year at this point. It seems like it's a little bit out of my control. In the beginning of the year it was a comfort to me knowing that I could transfer if things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, I don't think I actually expected to transfer though. Once I told my mom my idea though of possibly transferring if things didn't get better, she confided in me about the money woes my family has been having and now I feel a sort of responsibility to my family to transfer schools, but I don't think I want to anymore. It's hard for me to tell what I want anymore though because it seems like the decision is going to be made without much consideration for what I want.
Here at MICA I have such a close group of friends now. We make a family and we do everything together and tell each other almost everything. We've been through a lot in the three months we've known each other and I can't imagine starting over AGAIN to make a newer group of friends next year. But at the same time, it's about my education and I can probably get a similar education at any top art school in the country so if I get in somewhere else and it'll be cheaper for my parents, would it be selfish of me to not want to go? Carla probably isn't going to come back next year either. It seems like our little family is falling apart.

In other news, last week I went to NYC to see Kristi and Stephen and then Virginia with the fam. NY is always fun with my best friend, but this time was kind of a disappointment. My reason for going was to visit schools, particularly The Cooper Union and Pratt, but I also wanted to see Kristi and Stephen. Also my friend Becca was going to come with me to visit her friend at Pratt so I figured that would give me a chance to talk to someone that goes there and see what it's really like. Becca decided she needed to spend the weekend doing homework, so I left Friday night by myself, went to some party with Kristi and had a fun time, then left around 1am to go to Stephen's. The next day couple days I spent being terribly sick at Kristi's, didn't see Stephen again and didn't get a chance to see the schools I wanted to because I couldn't even get out of bed. All in all it was pretty shitty, but I did get some good facepaint out of it.
I was especially disappointed because I knew the next few days I would be spending forced family time in Virginia which always ends with each person wanting to kill everyone else. This year, though, I actually enjoyed the time I spent with my family. We played games, watched movies together and all in all enjoyed each other's company. I am so happy it went so well. I love my family and I think it's such a shame that we all end up hating each other after being forced to spend a few days in a house together without seeing friends or anything. The food was good for Thanksgiving and we only left with a handful of arguments, all of which were settled.

Also, I told Devan to make a blog too, so if you are reading this you should read hers as well dparkswcu.blogspot.com

These should improve the more I write,
hopefully.

Shana