Rules.

For my project critique class, we were supposed to write rules that we do, or should personally follow as artists. These are mine. 

1. Play is essential. 
2. Don't force concept. 
3. Let the concept develop from process. 
4. Plan only when necessary. (i.e. working with angles or expensive materials) 
5. Don't wait for inspiration, get to work and eventually you will come up with something. 
6. DON'T PROCRASTINATE. 
7. (Except more often than not stress can provide inspiration). 
8. Write down your ideas/ feelings/ anything. Get what is in your head down on paper so you can focus on what is important. 
9. Read. Read. Read. Another way to get out of your head, and get the gears churning. 
10. Do things that scare you. The most terrifying things you can do also end up being the most rewarding (i.e. welding, bronze pours, power tools). 
11. (Cheesy... but) Expect the unexpected. There is no way to tell where you'll end up in a few months, or years. Uncertainty is terrifying but an essential part of life, and art making. 
12. Be like water. Allow yourself to adapt to whatever situation may present itself. Even the smallest trickle of water can turn stone into a canyon in time, so be malleable. 
13. Allow yourself to take breaks. Drink water, EAT FOOD, and maybe even remember to go to the bathroom? Anything that can get you to step away from your work. (Which leads me to...) 
14. Step back. Spend time with your work. Step back both physically and figuratively. Place yourself in someone elses shoes when trying to actually see your work. It may lead you somewhere.

The Semiotics of Biking, post crash.

I wrote this paper as the final for my summer humanities class. The day we were assigned to semiotically analyze an object, I was hit by a car. After losing the object that defined my way of life, it seemed fitting to write about it for my final. It took 3 months for me to get any form of compensation for my bike, and to get a bike of my own. (I'm currently writing about how it feels to have my own bike again... Next post will be about that..)

     A bicycle is a not just a composite of parts, gears and thingamajigs. Nor is it just a machine utilized for getting from point A to point B and anywhere in between. A bike is much more than that. It can be your most loyal friend and comrade. Your chariot. Your means of making a living. Whether road bike, mountain bike, fixie or BMX doesn’t matter. It’s incredible that we have the means to propel ourselves places. I never thought quite so deeply into the semiotics of biking, until I got in an accident yesterday, heading back to Cousins from a delivery. 

     I was heading South down the Humboldt hill coming from North Ave, when my cap flew off. I turned around to get it, and headed back down the hill. As I was reaching the intersection, I realized this car that was turning left onto Commerce wasn’t going to stop. Luckily I squeezed my breaks enough to lessen the impact, but nonetheless I ended up smashing into the hood of this car. I was immediately in shock. Everyone asked if I was okay, and I kept repeating “Yes, I’m fine,” automatically. They asked if my bike was okay. I checked out my bike, making sure the tire wasn’t “tacoed” and my gears still worked. Everything seemed fine. I was so frazzled I almost sped off without getting information from the woman who’d hit me, but someone who witnessed it suggested we trade info. Getting her name and number, I hopped back on my bike and went back to Cousins. 

     After doing a full body check and icing for a while, my manager said I could go home if I needed to. My aunt picked me up in time to head to Cory the Bikefixer, where I had just been that morning to check out a new helmet. I decided against it, because it had been so expensive. I justified not getting it because I’d be working later and would most likely get enough tips to pay for it in cash. We pulled up to Cory’s just as they were about to close, and had them check out my bike while I coughed up the money for the helmet. Dune was running my credit card as Dan came over and told me my bike was toast. The impact had compromised my frame, and I hadn’t even noticed. Right by the fork on the bottom tube, the chromoly had pinched in a huge dent. My heart dropped. 

     The bike that I’ve had for the past 13 months was a Jamis Specialized Sport. White with teal accents. Countless scrapes from god knows what. Gov’t Mule’s “got mule?” sticker, as well as one from Kink BMX, Ian’s “Pizza Slut” and of course the MKEBKE underwear bike ride undie sticker. A back rack that I used to have panniers attached to. I joked that she had a fat ass because of it, and my friend aptly named her Jezebel. I don’t remember the last time I had a new bike. Most likely all the way back to my childhood, when I had my teal D.A.R.E. bike that I’d learned to ride on. All of my bikes since then had been hand me downs and fixer uppers. 

     Last June, the princess Jezebel and I started our ventures together. I saw her sitting in the racks at Cory’s and I was hooked. The test ride had me sold. Only a year, and I never thought I’d have to replace her just yet. That bike earned every ounce of love and miles we shared together. It’s strange how you can take something so incredible as a self propelled vehicle for granted. I had more sentimental attachment to this composite of metal and plastic than I’ve ever felt to any possession I’ve experienced in my life. Moreso than any work of art I’ve made combined. I lost a dear friend in that accident yesterday, way too abruptly. 

     It’s weird to name a bike. It’s weird to call a bike a friend. It’s weird that people form attachments to material objects. It’s weird that there’s a culture behind biking. Bikes are weird things! We use kinetic energy from our legs and arms, directed by signals sent from our brains, to move us place to place. We interpret the road between cars, the lines painted in the road, other bikers, pedestrians, stop signs and traffic signals. Not to mention the endless amount of potholes and glass you’ll find throughout the city. Our brains receive and send endless signals. 

     Within 5 seconds, the signal it took for my brain to recognize the car was not going to stop, and I was about to get hit head on by a car was processed. Then my brain sent signals to my hands to immediately brake, and also sent signals to my body to prep for impact as my front wheel hit the center of her front bumper, when the kinetic energy of the impacting of the vehicles threw me onto the hood of her car. Instantaneously, I impulsively grabbed my bike and ran to the corner of the sidewalk as my body sends signals to my organs producing adrenaline and putting me into shock. They kept asking me if I was okay, but I didn’t really know. The adrenaline was telling me yes, you’re not broken, the bike’s not broken, it’s okay. But my brain was questioning otherwise. 

     I’ve only recently figured out the reason behind my seasonal depression. Once it snows, I stop riding my bike. I basically stop moving altogether, stopping the endorphins from releasing into my body. I’m addicted to riding my bike, both physically and mentally. I stop exploring. Biking offers endless exploration of the city that hiding in a bubble of a car cannot offer someone. We can go places no cars could fit, and can explore the underbelly of the metropolis we live in. 

     The underwear bike ride has taken me places in Milwaukee I’d never known had existed. If the bike culture wasn’t so strong, I probably wouldn’t have explored as much as I have. 

Byrne, David. Introduction. Bicycle Diaries. New York: Viking, 2009. N. pag. Print.

It took reading the introduction to this book to help me realize that I was indeed addicted to biking. David Byrne claims that “[he] found that biking around for just a few hours a day-or even just to and from work- helps keep [him] sane,” (Bicycle Diaries 4). Which is also true for me. It’s because “the activity is repetitive, mechanical, and it distracts and occupies the conscious mind, or at least part of it, in a way that is just engaging enough but not too much-it doesn’t allow you to be caught off guard,” (4). Biking and the repetitive movement that is necessary to move a bicycle is meditative. It allows my conscious mind to let go, and have my subconscious take hold. If I’m angry, I’ll go on a bike ride to clear my mind. If I’m happy, I’ll ride my bike. It helps me reach a meditative state while being physically active, which makes my brain more active. Any day that I don’t ride, I’m more apt to be depressed, anxious, and wound up. David also writes that, “[he] felt more connected to the life on the streets than [he] would have inside a car or in some form of public transportation,” (4). Which is also another reason I’m so in love with bikes. You feel the wind in your hair (and sometimes the bugs in your eyes), and you’re not hermetically sealed in some sort of climate controlled bubble as you are in a car. It’s much easier to find parking, and a lot quicker to get from here to there. However much I despise cars (even more so after yesterday’s events), I enjoy the thrill and danger of being exposed. 

Klimes, Kasey. “The Real Reason Why Bicycles Are the Key to Better Cities.” Sustainable CitiesCollective, 11 May 2011. Web. 30 June 2013.

After having gone on a two week trip through the Southwest entirely focused on how man and nature have altered the face of the earth in some way, shape, or form, my views on the world have changed entirely. Seeing the landscape from the view of the airplane is much different from seeing it from the view of a moving car. As it is much different from being on your own two feet to a bicycle. Being in an airplane and car, you are moving too quickly to fully appreciate the world around you. But when you walk or ride your bike through a place, you get to experience it much more than you would have in a motor vehicle. Thinking about how much of an impact the roads have had on the way our world looks never occurs to someone on a daily basis, because we have never known any better. But once you realize that all of this asphalt and concrete are relatively new inventions, you start to think differently about how the landscape looks as you pass it by. In the Sustainable Cities Collective’s article, Kasey explains that you “cannot approach the average citizen and explain the innate intricacies of land use and transportation relationships, how density is vital to urban sustainability, how our sprawled real estate developments are built on economic quicksand, how our freeways shredded the urban fabric like a rusty dagger, how deeply our lives would be enriched by a collective commitment to urbanism.” But having visited Arcosanti, and lands where the only real landmarks are the power lines that stretch as far as the eye can see, this becomes an incredible achievement that normally goes unseen to the average eye. It doesn’t make sense for people to live so far away from their jobs, or to work so far away from their homes. Our cities are so stretched out that it makes finding a job a hassle unless you have some sort of motorized transportation available. Every day I notice something new about my surroundings. Generally it goes something like, “Oh, I take this street all of the time for the past few years, but have never noticed that building,” and I can’t imagine how much more passes people by, just for the sole reason that they are driving and oblivious to the world.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. “The Flow of Creativity.” Flow and the Psychology of Discovery andInvention. N.p.: Harper Collins Publishers, n.d. 110. Print.

Personally, the experience of biking as a whole is a flow experience. MC describes that what keeps people motivated in doing what they love comes from “the quality of experience they felt when they were involved with the activity… [They] described the feeling when things were going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness,” (110). This is very true for me. Let’s say I was headed to the bank. I pull my bike out of the basement, get on my bike, and ride to the Chase ATM on Capital. The route I take is essentially programmed into my brain so deeply that I don’t even think about where I’m going to turn. My bike takes the reigns and my brain settles into a trance of sorts. 

Sylvan, Robin. “Trance Formation: The Religious Experience of Rave.” Trance Formation: TheSpiritual and Religious Dimensions of Global Rave Culture. N.p.: Routledge, 2005. 77. Print.

Another aspect of the bike ride which is meditative is the fact that it is much more easy to escape your ego by being completely submersed in your body. And while this book writes about the rave, the experience is very similar. While they fall into themselves while dancing, I fall into myself more so when pedaling somewhere, or nowhere in particular. One raver explains that “there’s a tendency in this culture for our consciousness to be mostly directed outside of the physical body. And what I’ve found is that there’s another direction, which is to go in the physical body and to really inhabit the physical body from another space, so that you’re feeling your own consciousness participating with physical matter, so that consciousness starts to rest within physical matter,” (77). I have thought about this before, but they put it into words much more eloquently than I ever could have. It’s not your brain and your body, they become one and synchronize in such a way that only physical activity or some sort of meditation can cause.

It’s beautiful when someones words so perfectly describe your sentiments. And yes, a bike is after all a material object, but it is an incredible feat of engineering. The fact that matter condensed can allow that object to maneuver in ways that make you physically and mentally stronger is insane! When I say that my bike was a loyal friend, I mean it. In those states of flow, the bike, the road and myself would all merge, and I thank her for the miles we traveled together. 

Upcoming Dates

Some pretty awesome features coming up for this gal within the next few weeks!

Tomorrow (Wednesday the 13th) I'll be live painting at Via Downer as a part of my apprenticeship with Timothy Westbrook. 20% percent off for anyone who walks, rides a bike or takes the bus. I'll be there around 5 til whenever they kick me out if it gets too busy. Come hang out with me, but be warned that I might paint you if you do.

Unicorn's Apprenti

Thursday the 21st from 5-7 pm, is the opening reception for the Currents, Tendencies show in MIAD's fourth floor Raw Space! (The reaction to the Current Tendencies III show I was talking about yesterday). If you miss the opening, the show will be open to the public during normal gallery hours until the Sunday the 24th: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 5 pm.

Friday the 22nd starting at 6 pm, I, as well as Brie Keane, and some other artists will have work up at Villa Terrace (2220 N. Terrace Dr.) If you're feeling generous, I'll most likely be selling prints! $5 Admission, and you get a FREE drink ticket for Yield Bar. My good friends Antler House are playing an acoustic set at 6:30, with the after party to follow at Yield at 9 pm. 

CAVT Collective Presents Antler House!


Hope to see you there!

Oldest to most recent paintings/ prints I've done (that I still enjoy looking at). The three linoleum cuts are available as pillows, shirts or prints.

11/11/13
Alright, I've finally made this into my own blog. It's been a while since I've had anything documented online, and it's about time. I need to get my thoughts out through a mode other than just writing it down in my sketchbook.
So what have I been thinking about lately?

I submitted a proposal to get into a juried exhibition between Marquette's Haggerty Museum and MIAD, and I got in! This means I need to finish a piece and submit it online by Friday. If you didn't know already, there's a show up at the Haggerty called "Current Tendencies III." A friend of mine, Willy Carpenter, a few teachers from MIAD, (Jason Yi, Tyanna Buie and Evan Gruzis), and other artists were chosen to create work that reacts to the museum's permanent collection. 

I've been in a fibers class all semester, and recently we were introduced to crocheting. (For myself, re-introduced, but regardless, I'm getting back into the swing of crocheting). The last project I finished for this class I was dealing with chain stitching in relation to the power lines that continuously connect our world. While on the Altered Landscapes trip to the Southwest from the end of May to the beginning of June, I noticed that the most prevalent man made landmarks in the desert were the power lines. They were strangely beautiful, spanning the landscape as far as the eye could see, and then some. Coming back to the city, I realize that it is something we don't readily pay attention to, and I wanted to include these sentiments in my project. So, I crocheted about 90 feet of chain stitch and installed them, only alluding to the idea of power lines and their connectivity of our world.

Now, I didn't know why, but for the past week or so, I've been obsessing over chain stitching the rest of the yarn I have. Why do I feel so compelled to crochet these chains? 
We are so used to having everything prefabricated for us and don't even realize how much time and effort is put in to creating things that we use on a daily basis. I'm using this time consuming craft of crocheting yarn to represent the disparity between beginning stages of production and final product, such as our clothing. When you buy something, do you ever think of where it came from? Or who made it? I'm questioning the fabrication of the world around us, from our clothing to the buildings we live in. We take for granted the things we use daily that others have put time and effort in to, just for us to be comfortable. But why is our society so fixated on the comfortable? We go out of our way just to have our needs satiated. I'm not yet sure how the final product will come together, but I'm thinking the yarn chains will be intersected with some metal structure.


5/17/13
Forgot to post about the MIAD Senior Thesis Exhibition, and the MAM After Dark Show...

Sadly I only ended up getting pictures of two of my friends thesis', but their work for the exhibition was phenomenal regardless. If you didn't manage to make it down to MIAD for one of the 3 days the artists were there with their work, you truly missed out!

The lovely Hayley Jane Eichenbaum with her 'Pilot' performance.

P.S. witnessing the use of electromagnetic levitation is AWESOME.

http://www.hjecreations.com/performance.htm

I definitely missed out on seeing Cheryl Casden face paint folks in her 'Bodhi' room, but I'm still buzzing from the after effects of this piece. So grateful to have had such a beautiful place to center myself at MIAD for those few weeks! (Wish MIAD would have paid this beautiful soul to have this room as a permanent installation, we could really use it!)

http://cherylcasden.weebly.com/installations.html

So through the ISA (Integrated Studio Arts') Integration and Intersection II classes, we collaborated with each other, and the art museum for one night!

Nick Kinsella and his freshman collaborator performing outside MAM.

Fierce ladies Kayle Karbowski and Kirstin Schmid during and after their black and white performance. (Made them pose for me with their opposite inner arm tatts!)

Welp, this is the only image I ended up getting of my collaboration with Luke Arndt, Krister Larson and Angel Falcon. I'll give you a little background of what's going on here. The steel structure has fabric, and mirrored plexiglass overlaid on top of it. We placed a light in the opposite bay, which would cast a shadow from passers by onto the sculpture. Behind the sculpture, a camera would pick up the silhouette, and project it back on to the sculpture from behind. There was about a 2 second delay between the interaction of the camera and projector, but I think I liked the delay all the more. It was about the immediate, and distorted interactions with the self. Wish I would've gotten a video of this!

Monday I'm headed out with 8 other peers, and two teachers at MIAD, for a 2 week journey in the American Southwest. AND I COULDN'T BE MORE EXCITED!!!

We'll be updating this blog, so check in on our travels :)

http://almiad.blogspot.com/

5/10/13

It's been a damn long time since I've had time to update this! Done with school for a few weeks :)

I'm such a foundry junkie. Can't get enough. Helped out Michael Davidson's metals class with their bronze pour. I was on chain, which controls the height of the crucible holding the molten bronze.

Printmaking final. Made a woodcut of a sloth saying, "Don't fear young one, I am here." Printed on muslin, then sewed pillows out of em.

DNR knocked down one of my favorite trees in Kern Park. The pops and I salvaged a decent amount of wood for projects.

Schnoz.

Air compression die-grinding, aka my best friend during the process of this carving.

Early stages. Mostly just chisel and hammer up to this point.

Brought the texture the chainsaw created on the wood by using a wood burner.

First layer of danish oil varnish!

Confronting the spirit of the tree via singing bowl meditation. Probably the worst critique of my life, but that's what happens when you bring your spirituality into the art school setting.

My teachers put him in our wood classes wallway show!

Guardian of the sculpture lab wallway gallery for a week!

Know I'm missing a few projects here and there, I'll update what I've been working on since schools gotten out in a few days!

3/24/13
Pretty eventful last few weeks. Last Sunday was St. Patty's day, and I took the opportunity to convert my kitchen into a printmaking studio for the night. I finished my woodcut about meditation, printed 20 of those, and printed 4 t-shirts for some friends!

 (Shirts printed from linoleum cuts I've done within the past year. I need a better way to figure out the registration though. It'd probably be easier if I could get someone to teach me how to do photo-emulsion screen printing).

(Our prompt was to create a print on how we spend our time. I chose to do it on meditation. In meditation, the sequence I tend to see is the transition from physical self, to conscious self,  to subconscious self).

Thursday I went to Rock The Block, which was an event for the SGCI conference that was in town. MIAD students put on the event at the Polish Falcon in Riverwest, and had many interactive booths set up to allow the audience to become part of the art themselves. My friend Grace had people paint her back, which she then transferred onto paper. They had wheat-pasting and screen-printing booths as well. Prescott Sobol, a teacher at both MIAD and UWM was DJing when I got there. I left relatively early to get to Yield to see my friends Antler House play a set. The 3 guys that make up the band, Sean Anderson, John Johnson and John McCabe went to Shorewood with me many moons ago. They play awesome folky music, y'all should check em out.

Yesterday I came down to MIAD to get some work done. In the sculpture lab, a group of fellas had set up a printing booth called "Death Metal Press." Staying true to their name, they were blasting metal music, while using fire heated aluminum plates to burn into paper and leather. Ayla gave me one of her wire wraps to trade for a print, which I gave to my pops.

3/12/13
Spring break, finally. In the past 3 days, I've joined a gym and convinced my dad to come to yoga with me, caught up on some much needed sleep, and learned to crochet. Not to mention went to the Mind, Body, Spirit expo by the airport on Sunday, which blew my mind.  

Here are a few shots of my latest ventures at MIAD.

       In my opinion, this is one of the most solid works I've made while at art school. A combination of my first installation and performative pieces. Having resided in Milwaukee for my entire time on this earth, I've come to notice just how far out of the way people will go to avoid looking anyone in the eyes. I've decided to turn my art into social experimentations as of late. 
       Showers, and bathrooms in general are private spaces, where eye contact usually is avoided. By fashioning a shower curtain of sorts, with a gap in it, I was inviting my class to become a part of this private space. They could see me, and I could see them, only through a hole I cut at my eye level. Out of the whole class, one person approached the slit in the curtain, and looked me in the eyes for more than 3 seconds. A few of them wouldn't even look at me directly. Only after this performance was said and done, did I notice how creepy my shadow looked. 

2/3 colors of my reduction linoleum cut for "Celebrate People's History." Buddha eyes and Om Mani Padme Hum. Black soon to come, covering the eyes, text, and adding Tibetan knots in each corner.

Woodcut self portrait.