buomhof & art

YOUREYESARELIES

2011-02-18T00:42:00.004-05:00

My first project for my drawing course this term. Our prof wanted us to do a "mapping" of some sort.

I wanted to explore the ideas behind the fourth dimension, the boundaries of reality, and the blurring of knowledge and truth.

After doing extensive research on this thing called Wikipedia, I decided upon the image of a tesseract, which is a net of some sort. (Recall the days of elementary geometry, when your teachers would ask you to cut out polygonal nets to glue and assemble in various 3D forms -the cube, the cylindar, triangular prism etc)

The net for the 3D cube would be a "t" shape assembled from 2D squares. Hence, the net for a 4D "cube" would be a similar cross shape assembled from 3D cubes. If one were to venture into the Euclidean space and somehow fold and assemble this 3D net, one would get a fourth-dimensional "cube," so to speak.

I came upon the idea of the 4th dimension through one of the most phenomenal works by Duchamp, entitled A Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, or The Large Glass. Duchamp worked with invented machines that occupied a fourth-dimensional space, painting his images in ultra-thin layers of pigment on glass (which, because it is transparent, would be considered to have zero dimension.)

If it is possible for a three-dimensional object to have shadows composed of 2-dimensional planes, then it should be quite possible for a four-dimensional object to have shadows composed of three-dimensions. However, we cannot observe this fourth dimension, so we are living in a world of shadows (references to the Allegory of the Cave philosophy)

What we are seeing, then, is not true reality. Truth lies beyond our perception and comprehension.

I had to give that entire schpiel to my class during critique. I hope they understood what I was talking about, because it felt so surreal (due to my extreme sleep-deprivation to finish this piece)

Graphite on mylar, structure made from bamboo skewers and hot glue. Thread was also used.

I liked the idea of translucency and obscuring one's vision to create an image.

My father criticized the merde out of this when I brought it home. Yes it is quite unpolished and sketchy, and at places rather crude, but I like the tension of organic marks against such a rigid, angular form. I'm quite pleased with the result, given the allotted time I had to make it. (2 days)

Perhaps one in a series, if I have the heart and time to come back to it.

Google

2011-02-04T12:06:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty excited about this. Google Street View changed a lot of how we see the world, and now they've given us an opportunity to see artworks that we can't travel to. It's not the same as being in the physical museum, but this is as close as anyone can get when they're stuck at home. And, c'mon, the high resolution photographs are a great plus! You can see brush strokes! I was never able to get close enough to paintings to see that kind of detail before a security guard would told me to move back.

Technology and art, what a beautiful couple.

Don't know anything other

2011-02-01T00:59:00.002-05:00

Shut up. Shut up and just do it. Do it because you cannot imagine a life without it, cannot imagine doing anything else. You will make mistakes. You will grow. And when you get caught up in perfection, recognition, fame, financial stability, it will break you down and it will bring you back.

It's not romantic. It's not about talent. It's about the nights you don't sleep so you can harvest a little bit of honest and truth. It's about working and reworking, wanting to throw it away and coming back to it refreshed and willing to do it all over again. There is plenty of waiting, but never idleness. It involves networking, but it's never about luck. And it's never about you. It's about the love that is greater and bigger and more truthful than anything that is manifested in you or your knowledge. It's wanting more and giving all. It is your voice. And if you want to be heard, shut up, and do it. Make your art. Live your life.

miniscule renditions

2011-01-27T23:17:00.003-05:00

I'm currently in a human figure painting course. It's a challenge, which is great. I like growth. I get frustrated easily though, especially when mixing colours for skin tones. But considering I've never painted the human body realistically before, it's expected.

Collection of small paintings for my first project. Acrylic on canvas paper.

Part two of project one, emphasis on hands. Acrylic on canvas paper. Strangely, the paintings look better as thumbnails. I did use Internet-found photo references for these two, I'd like to point that out. They were beautifully shot photographs, and very helpful.

I've fallen in love

2011-01-27T23:10:00.003-05:00

Lithography. Incredibly medieval, but beautiful. I hope it never dies. The labour and the pain and the fumes and mess are all worth it.

Hybrid project. Litho on paper.

Artist print, litho on vellum.

Rock paper scissors project, artist print diptych. Litho, mixed media on Japanese paper.

Believe me, these prints are way better in real life. There's an effervescence to the drawing material and the texture of the paper than you can't see in these photos.

I have a very limited edition of both prints, but because they are multiples, I am up to selling! The diptych, though, is not for sale.

an oldie!

2011-01-27T23:04:00.003-05:00

Blogger apparently doesn't appreciate landscape viewing. I think I should leave, they are not artist friendly.

Old mixed media from the days of high school. It's always nice to look at old work and see how far you've progressed.

SX-70s and plaster.

2010-10-19T00:12:00.003-04:00

Plaster is not my friend.
Recent completed project. I was de-molding today and my tile broke in three pieces, and the mold itself is a waste mold, so it was not like I could just re-cast in time to meet the deadline. Luckily I was able to fix the final piece, but unfortunately the surface is all pot-marked with air bubbles. Which just stinks, as I was diligent in tapping the piece as the plaster was curing.
Mold-making is a fun, messy activity though, I don't hate doing it or anything. It something people should try. Bring hand lotion though, because being in the sculpture and print studio consistently and being in the kitchen, has made my skin is rough enough to grind my Bavarian limestone down.

clay sculpting, then made a mold of that, and then casted that shit.

the white nights

2010-10-05T01:07:00.002-04:00

We are only allowed to live by some colossial misunderstanding.

Did you go to Nuit Blanche? What is your opinion of it, whether it be organization, the art displayed, the hype, the weather?

I quite enjoyed the work over at 401 Richmond, especially the pieces of The Man with the Yellow Typewriter. Once I get the artist name up, I'll post a link to his work.

I'm working away on a plaster casting as well as a lithograph series, so updates soon, readers.

my brew

2010-08-20T01:39:00.001-04:00

I'm working on a manifesto. It's being written on a sheet of paper torn out of my third grade exercise notebook. I feel like an onion.

Stereotypes.

2010-08-05T23:58:00.003-04:00

Ok, I get it. I dye my hair funny colours and wear big glasses and enjoy eclectic music normal people haven't heard of, and go to school for art and enjoy fair trade products and usually dress in scarves and hobo-like clothes. I take public transit instead of driving, I bike more than I bus, I walk more than I bike. I relish in good literature and independent films and intelligent conversations. I'm nostalgic for shit that was popular long before I was even born.

But I'm not a hipster.

Fuck, maybe I am.

Photographs coming in the future.

body smells

2010-05-24T02:12:00.004-04:00

I got Keri Smith's

Wreck this Journal

as a birthday present from one of my best friends. So far I've been having debates about creativity, following instructions, and ignoring those annoying perfectionist habits.

It's a book. I don't destroy books.

From time to time I'll post whatever I do to this book on here art blog.

It's one of the few phenomenoms I really want to follow.

"Run! Run, my losers!"

2010-04-26T23:45:00.003-04:00

Portraits.

I know people say, "Oh, you think your family is weird? You haven't met my mother."

But I'm not exaggerating. My family's inherent weirdness is not cute or charismatic.

Makes for great stories though, and in this case, interesting photos.

Speaking of photos, in regards to the heavy updating, I've also uploaded new photos of the painted bottle as well as the Marie-Ange pieces.

painting update.2

2010-04-26T23:30:00.002-04:00

I don't have a title for this yet. I quite like it, and the more I look at it, the more I realize that it does have a certain Le Petit Prince charm, as my prof noted. It's a great book, if you haven't read it. It's my favourite story, one that gets better the older you grow.

Cotton fabric, acrylic, mylar, Home Depot paint sample chips, thread, wax.
I had an incident where I accidentally set my painting on fire when I was melting the wax. Horrible, but I saved it, and febrezed it until it no longer smelled of smoke.

If I have the time, I'll eventually install the piece like what I have in mind. The first layer is supposed to hang from the ceiling, so that it is detached from the canvas surface.

Painting update.1

2010-04-26T23:20:00.002-04:00

Inspired by Toulouse Lautrec's "La Toilette"

the one that caused me pain. I reworked this thing to death.

detail. acrylic, mylar, vellum, thread, coloured pencils, graphite, oil pastels, yarn. You name it, it's in there somewhere.

light drawings part two

2010-04-06T21:58:00.003-04:00

my love goes out to Phoebe "Trololo" Yeung

and also to Gayle, Katie, & Andrew for their help in this photoshoot.

St. Lawrence Market.

light drawings

2010-04-06T21:51:00.004-04:00

I was thinking of importing my photos into Photoshop and adjusting the tone, but I figured that would really show the bastardization of traditional photography. So I present them in their original forms, sometimes over exposed, sometimes under, sometimes just plain ol' grey.

lavish & lumber

2010-03-28T02:02:00.002-04:00

I like taking blurry, poor photographs of my works in progress. I like the shrinking of a large canvas into something smaller, so I see how it looks like as a whole, not just as fragments while I paint. It might be the art history studying speaking, but I get this feeling of the sublime whenever I work on something, the same way Barnett Newman wanted his gigantic 18 feet pieces to be viewed from a short distance, so that the spectator is immersed and can never grasp the entire image, so that s/he is only overwhelmed with the colour red. Does that sound a little bullshitty to you?
Today I saw my art professor while I was sitting outside of 401 Richmond, eating a burrito, as he was walking up the steps. It's so strange that I'm always caught "nomming" in an unattractive, quirky manner whenever the men I want to impress pass by. Which dampens my spirit a little, knowing that I do feel the need to impress the opposite sex so often in my life. Though I think it's not just the opposite sex I need to impress, it is everyone. But isn't that the case for a lot of artists? Do they not just want approval as well? Yes, your work is lovely, yes your work is provocative, it works, it is quite successful. Is art worthless until someone harvests the worth from it? I'm coming from the "product" view, but of course, the act of creating harbours enough worth. Worth worth worth worth. Psychoanalyze everything.
What ever, it's 2:30 am. I need to sleep, wake up in 5 hours and work on this painting.

Show? Yeah.

2010-03-16T17:46:00.003-04:00

I have a show next week; how do these things happen to me, I don't even go searching for opportunities (which I should be if I want to "succeeeeeed."

That ugly horrible painting I finished last week is going up, and if my prof is nice, maybe I can get that 3X3 Embrangled hair piece up too. Well, the more I look at it, the less I like the door, but that can be fixed up since I no longer have a requirement to use an acrylic transfer.

Stretched a canvas today, I really enjoyed just doing something with precision, despite my usual character. It's nice to sometimes not have to do pictorial problem solving, to just be satisfied with having a taut, straight painting surface with cleanly folded corners.

EDIT: Whoops, the show is going to be at the Gales Gallery in ACW at York. It's really for graduating painting students, but since Yam is course director for the painting division, he gets a say on what gets to go up. I have misgivings with having my canvas up beside other kids who have had three more years of university experience, but I guess I can't live life by not being courageous somehow.

badness

2010-03-09T18:58:00.003-05:00

Artistic frustration mixed with missed deadlines mixed with disappointment and smelly jeans.

Taking all I can muster to not throw out the canvas and start over.

I found a heart today on the concrete.

2010-02-17T18:22:00.005-05:00

Man do the colours look washed out.

Just new sketches, and & some old ones that weren't scanned before.

I'm also over at the Winters Free Press Blog, so go on and take a look some time.

we have 3 dogs

2010-02-08T23:29:00.005-05:00

Here, cruddy webcam photo for your viewing pleasure.
Decided to not follow the guidelines, and place the watercolours into an envelope instead of making it like a little booklet.
Because this ghost moments dont' connect, and they don't create anything, except for a pile of moments that eventually make up a life.
And life isn't a book.
Whenever I say that, I think of that movie where Rene Zellwegghsggher yells to her father "You know, sometimes less isn't more!" *

*One True Thing. Meryl was really good in that one.

Ramu Bottle- Japan culture meets French painting style

2010-02-07T20:39:00.004-05:00

-----IN PROGRESS PHOTOS BELOW------

It's taking a while, but it's getting there.

You know what I really want to do right now?

Just watch 10 hours of SNL's Weekend Update, especially the ones with Tina Fey & Amy Poehler. I needta laugh.

update on the studio paintings.

2010-02-07T20:15:00.003-05:00

watercolours part 2.

2010-02-07T19:39:00.003-05:00

ghosts ghost

I read in a book once, where this woman felt the sudden urge to take her friend into her room, both of them gay, and take off their clothes and just be another pair of lovers in NYC. She wanted to sift through her memories with him, memories that were never stories or anecdotes; just let it all tumble out and look at them.

so. is my life these watery moments that have no connection to anything else? or are they someone else's memories?

word, son.

2010-02-05T22:16:00.003-05:00

I know I swear often, and I should stop using fuckhairballcocksuckershitpietitgalorenasalbangerhole.
But
the words I want to stop using so often
are actually

love

and beautiful

Because I use them often, when I don't really mean it.
and I do not want to see the day when I express something I don't mean
and not understand what love and beauty really is.

So I [greatly admire] the paintings of Gustav Klimt because they are [evocative of passion and highly decorative and decadent].

But really, how do you not love something so beautiful?

Gustav Klimt, Porträt der Eugenia (Mäda) Primavesi (1912)

the pot, the poet

2010-02-04T23:38:00.002-05:00

is
it a shark, you say?
we stare at a slide, enlarged, silent.
my hands are cut, and I relay to myself
about wanting to be your air that runs through your system
about not being noticed but being vital to the life you live

in this red darkness, the dead stares back at us with their
fragmented modulated dynamic secession
gui lt and gui tars

my hands are cut
and I want to be your air

sometimes, we will let down these ghosts,
the wild, the impressed, the expressed, the neo-depressed.
we read we read. but no one knows what really died
50 80 29 years ago

my hands are cut
and I long to be the air

it is not a shark
no
it is a guitarist
everyone is a guitarist
if he is painted by a cube.

my hands are cut
and I long to be there

watercolours

2010-02-02T23:22:00.003-05:00

Look man, once I install the driver for my scanner into this laptop, everything will be better. For now, both you & I settle for the quick & cruddy webcam.

Watercolours, for Yam's class. & by watercolours, I mean watered down acyrlics.

(Golden Acyrlics-so no, this ain't cheap)

3rd part of the 1st project. I haven't finished any of the three components, and the critique is next week.

I was feeling sick today after painting class, and just went home sweating and shivering and writhing in pain, and left my paints & brushes at Pork U. Unfortunate, I would've like to work on this, and other things.

----

My birthday may be just over 4 months away, but hints to all you readers

A subscription to Canadian Art Magazine

A student membership to the AGO

is what I'd like.

(Actually, what I'd really want is to see Owen Pallett in concert, but exam period falls in the same week as the show, and school first, beautiful music second. )

of the champ?? (du champ)

2010-02-02T23:10:00.003-05:00

Talking about this motherfucker in my next art history term paper.

Oh man, I want to write a letter to all those dead genuises, telling them how incredibly remorseful I am that I mention their lovely works in my crap pile of a thesis.

MARCEL DUCHAMP, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) 1915-1923

holy sharkfarticles, tedium epitomized

2010-01-31T23:20:00.002-05:00

More van Gogh than Seurat.

I have a loooooong way to go.

Also, this evening I watched a doc/retrospective of Canadian painter Takao Tanabe.

I really dig the rang he has between his photographic landscapes, his abstract expressionist things and his prints. Quite a work, and quite a guy.

If you're in the Toronto area, definitely go take a look at his exhibtion

stuff'd

2010-01-24T23:26:00.003-05:00

I also sew (sloppily)

socks were artist's own, hat from Mexico.

template found somewhere around the interwebs.

it feels like home

2010-01-12T23:43:00.003-05:00

I'm painting again!
This term I have a wonderful instructor by the name of Yam Lau.
He's an established artist here in Toronto and in parts of China. (yes, also go search him up)
First assignment, paint the interior space of our studio, a la Matisse & Duffy. Loose, fluid rendering.

Acrylic on canvas paper. We're meant to just expand as we go, filling up space whichever direction we find fit, and adding sheets as necessary.

It's great.

Marie-Ange Guilleminot

2010-01-12T23:29:00.005-05:00

Paper, Mylar, graphite, coloured pencil, tread, tissue paper

Paper, Mylar, Tissue paper, thread, graphite, coloured pencil

She's a wonderful artist I learned about in my Critical Issues course, you can go ahead & search her up, and check out her website, if you're fluent in French.

I found inspiration in her artwork to create my own.

Merci, Marie-Ange

books.

2010-01-12T23:08:00.005-05:00

I had a final project for my drawing course last term, as aforementioned in this blog, and it did not turn out so well.

I just didn't give myself the chance to do fantastically. Chose to paint instead of applying drawing techniques, used really crumbly old books, was way too ambitious and didn't give myself enough time to execute the plans. It was just all rushed & in desperated need of polishing.

Below are two parts out of the five I did for the final piece.
"Good Wives" acrylic with collage, on a book.

"The Secret" acrylic, collage, book.
First time I decided to do a (part of a) piece on queer issues.
I guess I feel as though the more we talk about it and secularize it, the more "unnormal" we're making it. It's not like people do art about "straight" issues.
Sex is sex, and that's complicated enough.

at the tone, please leave

2010-01-12T23:01:00.003-05:00

TeleCity(E)Scape

Here's a secret, I have telephonophobia.
or, more accurately, a fear of speaking on the phone, not the concrete object itself.
(working as a receptionist one year when I was 16 caused me a lot of anxiety)

Watercolour (not a good idea) with mixed media on vellum. part of my 2009 drawing course.

the surburban landscape

2009-12-05T19:07:00.002-05:00

final project for my drawing course this term. I never give myself enough time to complete my "vision"

really, I've seen worst messes.

The roof of my "doll house". This did not turn out the way I wanted, but I am keeping it. It looks rather juvenile, and not in the "quaint, nostalgic" good way either. Like it was made by a third-grader who doesn't give a crap.
Think I should've made the strips thinner.

faaack, I still have four other books to slice up.

Artists of Note

2009-11-26T11:14:00.003-05:00

In our Critical Issues class, we often have "artist heroes" and working artists come in and speak to us, or we discuss their work.
I like that, to learn a little more about contemporary art.

Marie-Angue Guilleminot
Kevin Yates
Burckhardt (forgot his first name)
& any pre-1912 Piet Mondrian (sorry buddy, not a fan of grids)

A lot of my work that I've done so far is not really... my art work. It was more for school, so I don't know if I'm cool with showing it here. But I guess I will. I don't feel particularly that I put a lot of passion into them, just had to rush through them at 2am at night.

Oh, I've also started dabbling in oil paint, so beware, I might put up some tiny canvases soon.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Theo Jansen is mighty spectacular. You will be fucking blown away when you first see his work. Google him. Do it for the sake of all innovation.

Is it you or me?

2009-10-22T23:31:00.004-04:00

Self-Portrait, 22X30 inches, acrylic ink applied via home-made stamping tool on paper

I'm not really a self-portrait kind of person. This was a requirement of my drawing course (which ironically enough works with more water and fluid media than dry, and we... spill more than draw) Plus we had to use grids, à la Chuck Close, except not quite, as you can see here, the grid is not visible at all and not integral to the piece. (Close works by aligning a grid of a billion squares onto a photo and then enlarging the image by painting abstract blotches of the colours in each box. Eventually what he gets is this glassy, pixelated effect that merges together to create the desired image when viewed from a distance, and just a bunch of squares with analogous colours when viewed up close)

I fucking hate grids.

Detail; work has this sketchy, cross-hatched look. Not really my intention. To be honest, I didn't give this project much thought. Finished it in a day; just sat down and stamped for 8/9 hours.

Though okay, I understand that the grid method helps the artist concentrate on representing work realistically, and it allows a heightened awareness of the position and proportion of forms and lines and etc. But humans don't see forms in grids. Computers do. Graphing calculators do. YRT bus transfer taped on to show scale of piece.

For some reason I have this perception that I look faintly like Mickey Mouse.

Academia

2009-10-22T00:14:00.003-04:00

Édouard Manet, Un bar aux Folies-Bergère ca. 1882, oil on canvas, 37¾ X 51⅛

Hello masterpiece that I will be analyzing to death during the following 14 days.
I make a pretty flimsy essayist.

Yeah.

2009-10-18T18:29:00.003-04:00

Comic for Winters Free Press, the new issue coming out in 2 weeks.

I love the ones I've seen on the internet when Kanye interrupts himself. It's the best.

Where Can You Find My Other Stuff?

2009-10-18T00:02:00.003-04:00

http://wfp.winterscouncil.com

Winters Free Press, college zine I contribute to.

That first comic sucks, I know.

Hey if you're an avid Photoshop user, maybe you can help me. NO MATTER WHAT I DO MY BRUSHES ARE ALWAYS PIXELATED AND THAT HAS RUINED MY LIFE. I've tried re-installing it and installing different version of PS and still no luck. I might as well be using frickin' MS Paint at this point. that is my grumbling fo' now.

The Potter

2009-10-14T23:21:00.001-04:00

A thing I wrote in last year's Literature class. Just threw in inspiration from many places, like most writers do...

Susan feels it in her arms, her bones and skin. It creeps up her spine and clutches her neck. What’s the word? Adrenaline? Anticipation? Some other “A” word. Anxiety, maybe. Her hands tremble.

Susan plays back in her mind, as she steps out of the shade of the tree, the day that she first met him – in person, not the previous acquaintances of his story or his reputation, his victims and predators. The real him. The man with the beautiful hands.

She can see it now, that day, clear as the wind on her skin and the sun in her eyes. The vases being tossed out from the window – one, and then the other. They smashed on the asphalt, as though the ground was the sky and the pottery the fireworks. It had been thrown from a second story window, from a squalid brown building with a peculiar chipping purple painted door. There had been a few thuds and yelps following, and out bursted from that door two kids, probably two or three years younger than Susan. They ran, laughing hysterically, as pubescent boys do, tripping over their shoelaces and reckless disrespect.

Susan crosses the road now, onto Main Street. The grocery boy, a few feet away from Susan, stops rearranging the apples by the store and stares at her. (Another victim touched by the dirty paws of the alcoholic artist. The boy is disgusted) She smiles coldly. She thinks, Today is a day for role reversal.

And then, she thinks of the day again, and then after the boys had run away, he emerged. The potter. He made pots, essentially. That’s what the name came from, anyways. But of course he made other things. Vases. Cups. Bowls. Plates. Sometimes – rarely, at least of what she saw – little intricate figurines and large sweepings sculptures, all made out of clay and the similar substances.

So there he had stood, in front of his purple door. He held a broom in his hand, and had no shoes on. He was unshaven, and his glasses rested lopsided on his face, his face full of a drooping mouth and dripping lines – movements that all led downward. He couldn’t be too many years over forty, but he carried himself like an old man, shut and tired. He was… Susan grimaces now that she realizes, that he was enigmatic. Strangely disturbing. That’s the thing. He disturbed people, with his sad, frail, but wild and unmanageable being. And with that sad, frail, and powerful body, he carried himself, limping, back into his brown building, slamming his purple door.

Doors, doors, their whole lives were carved out from doors. Susan furrows her brow. Shutting doors away from strangers and breaking down doors to people’s private lives. Doors that led to mediocre suburban homes with mediocre suburban families eating their mediocre suburban TV dinners, thinking they are safe. Doors that led to dark, unfamiliar places. Doors that led to beauty, to unfathomable beauty. Susan wants to cry.

She is almost there. Something inside her is rattling. She thinks of his peculiar shy way of offering her a gorgeous delicate blue-glazed ceramic mug, after she had taken the time to pick up the larger shards of his smashed pottery on the floor. She had given it to him in a box, and he had grabbed it, slammed his door. Later, that week, when she was walking home, he hobbled out, shoeless again, and thrusted the mug into her hands, and left, without saying anything.

She wonders now, what compelled her to do that, pick up his broken pieces, when she knew fully what the town thought, what everyone thought…She does not want to think about that, the words and the lines people drew to shut themselves further, and the cowardice and spite. She cannot bear to even think of thinking that. She walks on, her legs heavy.

One step, two steps, her feet on the cement, closer still. She took one step, two steps, into his dark, damp pottery studio, not saying much, besides a raspy “Hello.” Funny that he let her stay, given his reputation that he did not like anyone from town. He let her watch him work, slicing a slab of soft, cold clay from a giant block, gliding that wire through the yielding, malleable gray substance. He worked quickly, throwing the clay onto the wheel, and dipping his large beautiful hands into the slip; they came out covered, dripping with artistic gravy.

He had these beautiful fingers, and Susan thinks, no one else has long, slender fingers like that, with the nails neatly cut and the veins and bones showing through his papery skin. No one else could pet clay and have it come out a piece of art; no one else could gently beckon and mold and caress anything and have it turn out the way he or she wanted, not like the potter. He sat next to the spinning ball of clay, and very tenderly, patiently, stroked it, massaged it, until he finished his vase. Susan watched, enthralled. She jumped when he threw a hunk of clay onto the wheel next to her and said, “You make something.” Susan could never make anything as stunning as his works; everyone could just tell by looking at her she didn’t possess what others called talent. But he waited until she started poking around with her stubby fingers and he started on putting details on his vase. They worked silently, comfortably. It was unlike anything Susan ever felt, a sense of freedom that she could perhaps help in the process of beauty. It was many things she couldn’t put words to.

Now she is nearing his studio, his purple door. But she sees something that makes her stop. It makes her lock her feet onto the ground. Outside the potter’s studio are boxes and boxes of smashed pottery. Boxes after boxes, probably ten. Filled to the brim with shards of ceramics, glazed and unglazed. Littering the asphalt are broken amber-coloured glass – his beer bottles. And there, laying in two is the purple door.

She breathes. The door is splintered, like someone had kicked it down. The doorway is nailed shut with plywood. The windows are smashed. Plywood windows. All the clay pots. All the clay cups, vases, bowls, plates. She sees a head of a figurine. She stares at the building. She knows she can’t. Go in. See if he’s still here. But of course he wouldn’t be. He is gone. Forever.

Finally, she moves. She goes home. She thinks about that Charles Bukowski poem. About how people were afraid of strong beautiful men. How things like this would continue all over the world. She breaks every dish in her house.

If you wish to know the poem I was referring to, click here.

imagine me.

2009-10-12T01:15:00.002-04:00

www.imaginarythefilm.tumblr.com

a story from a time.

2009-10-12T01:06:00.003-04:00

She doesn’t know what to write. For the first time in her life, her mind is desperately blank, like God took an eraser and rubbed it over her brain in rage. She is poised above the typewriter, a smooth robin egg blue Underwood. The paper is already rolled into place, the ribbon has been changed, the light turned out, and the door shut.

She takes a moment to calm herself. Sometimes she overreacts. She knows that. Her hands tremble over the white keys. She imagines them applying just the right amount of pressure onto the beautifully simple circles, and tries to urge that pleasurable wave of words to wash through her fingers. She concentrates on the memory of writing, concentrates on the ballet movements of her spidery digits as they become independent from her mind. No such luck. She sits at her desk for a moment, in shock.

“Leo!” She flings her door open and rushes to where her partner and occasional bedmate is sitting. He is reading T.S. Eliot and sipping coffee.

“LEO!” She grabs the mug out from his hands and slams it on the ancient table beside him. A torrent of black liquid springs over the sides of the cup and spreads in a puddle on the wood.

“Gah! Jesus! What? What is it?” He pushes himself as far back into his chair as possible, as her frazzled frame looms over him.

“I can’t write, Leo. I lost it. I lost my words. There are no words!” She fights back her tears.

Leo sighs.

“You are just over reacting again.”

I do not even remember writing this. I would like to finish this, but it seems trite and contrived, and painfully forced. I try too hard sometimes.

a filler.

2009-10-11T02:12:00.002-04:00

Gift project for Critical Issues class
made it for a girl who loves art, travelling and van Gogh.

It's a felt passport cover, details with acrylic paint (not good idea)

Obviously not my best work, but I promised myself I will show what I do, good or bad, so I can see if at the end of the year or term or moment whether I've matured as an artist or not.

I am sorry Vincent that I destroyed your face and artistry.

I think I've gone too.

2009-10-09T23:11:00.002-04:00

THERE IS SOME OF MY NEW ARTWORK ON DA WAY, NO WORRIEZ.

Mainly sketches and crud from drawing class. and a self-portrait that, might I say, is not too shabby, heh.

BUT news first!

I am currently involved with the short film Imaginary written and directed by the wonderful Gayle Ye.

This chick is only freshly 16 and already has the makings of one who could go to Sundance. Her work is dreamy and nostalgic and has a personal ephemeral feel to it, a sort of quiet fleeting moment of clarity that one would keep to one's self. Look at her youtube page, it's rather impressive, for a young artist or not.

oh bother.

2009-09-12T22:12:00.003-04:00

School has started, so hopefully the art things will pick up again. I get rather lazy during the summer, I know.
Be hopeful! I went to the art supply store today and got myself more acrylic paint, so maybe an actual canvas piece will show up.

"[Art] is more than an abstract intellectual idea, but a way of life."
Make the commitment and love it until it hurts.

hard to be soft, tough to be tender

2009-07-26T22:07:00.006-04:00

All my life I've wanted to be a redhead. I wanted that hair so badly, to be fair-skinned and almost translucent so my blood would stain my lips and my eyes and my ears and cheeks, so I always looked warm or flushed. I wanted to be a flame.
Anyways, I think I wanted more to just be somebody else, and perhaps this girl I painted last night. I like to think that she's strong, and bruised- a fighter. She had the courage to leave, or at least the ability to take control of her life. I like to believe there's a hero inside every character I create.

the old dreams were good dreams.

2009-07-18T16:30:00.007-04:00

Untitled.
2008. Watercolour,
Ink.

And I'll Sing Once More
2009. Mixed Media

What We Can Fathom
2008. Charcoal, graphite, mylar, ink

Embrangled

Mixed Media Painting, 2009

"Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie."

-Jean Cocteau

Remember the times when little girls’ hairs would knot up, and when left untreated, would worsen and create a mesh of fibres that pulled on delicate heads. Remember when mothers were too unwilling to comb through that thickness, and instead pulled out the shears and chopped off jaggedly the strands that had once shone in morning light. Remember how little girls cried for the sake of their naked heads, and tears dripped onto the clumps left on the floor-- clumps that had once been flowing and free, an extension of their movements of poetry, a symbol of liberty.
In turn, what melancholia that bubbles inside can become the same strands of hair that grow on one’s head. A single weaving may swell into a nest of ugliness, eventually taking a form of its own. These emotions, these mental braids, left unattended will turn savage and greedy and will swamp a person. They will overwhelm one’s body, and take away her identity. If not cautious, a person can disappear in that furry darkness. A person can become entangled in that hirsuteness, and never come back.
Auspiciously, not everyone has the chance to disappear in that wreath of hair. There is a door within us all that leads to this shadowy place, and some are born with it open, some closed. Those born with it open are, sadly, more susceptible to leave through that door, to walk into a space where something so familiar can become a threat to their existence. This is a place where things silently crash, where people drown without struggle.
In this painting, hair is still hair. The girl is almost completely gone, underneath the nearly fluid chunkiness of her hair, her hair that she let grow out of control. Airplanes, from texts (because information is powerful) swoop from above this mess and collide with her. Out of all this chaos, the viewer can see a door, from which the girl came. Sinking, eyes closed, the girl green with an innocence that comes with most childhoods, is embrangled in something too thick and horrendous to try to untie.
Learn from this girl. She was able to survive and knows that how imperative it is to comb through what is knotted, to pay attention to things that may overwhelm her. She knows now, that if she ever has an urge to leave that door to the choking metaphorical tresses, to come back. There is so much more worth fighting for on this side of the door.

There's Only Us.

2009-07-18T16:12:00.012-04:00

Book City Sculpture. January 2009. Discarded book, medium, acrylic.

*you have to excuse me for these horrible photos. The reason it looks like I took them at the crack of dawn was because I did take these photos at the crack of dawn.

PS. I am too lazy to fix the colours on PS.

"....
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd..."

this scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

2009-07-18T15:51:00.006-04:00

live through this, and you won't look back
I've one thing to say, so I'll be brave
you were what I wanted; I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you, I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save
I'M NOT SORRY THERE'S NOTHING TO SAVE

(advertisement for angst smoothies. try one today!)

(this was in reference to a BSS song..)

thank god it's fatal, thank god it's fatal.

2009-07-17T00:35:00.006-04:00

Hi. I gave up on scanning my stuff. But did find my camera battery charger, after the eons of its absence. I give you my m o l e s k i n e. I know, it's an expensive, hipster and trendy sketchbook. But I love it. It's well designed, and might I say, classy. I think I need a little more class in my life, the trucker-mouth that I am. Apparently it's pronounced (mol-a-skeen’-a) . Wikipedia confirms that.

*click to enlarge

when we started, both broken-hearted..

2009-07-13T23:23:00.004-04:00

Haven't posted lately as I didn't have any work to post. It's not that I haven't been creating anything, I just can't show it, 'cause I don't have a scanner or a webcam or a digicam in my house.

Anyways, did do something very interesting this past weekend; went to the 48th Annual Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition @ Nathan Philip Square. Had a wonderful time. I love free art shows.

There was plenty of talent present, but I had a few favourites, such as
Hayden Menzies, (I really love this guy's characters in his paintings, and the sketchy, gritty and almost child-like execution of his work.)
Tania Boterman Wonderful watercolour work, and really fantastic and detailed realism.
Sophia Choi This girl paints on glass, and the work comes out with a whimsical, illustrative depth. Really creative use of material.
Tony Taylor Gripping political oil paintings on (my favourite material!!) Mylar.

All the links have galleries, but you should've seen the work up close. I didn't speak with any of the artists, but they all seem friendly and passionate about their work.

Anyways, I lied, I do have something of my own to show

I drew it on the odopod sketch website. Really great, specially if you have a tablet.
If you want to see the sketch in action, just clicky here

P.S. Did you guys go to the BSS concert on the Harbourfront Saturday night? Was it not the most fantastic thing ever? I love seeing all the hipsters together.

some things never die.

2009-06-25T21:47:00.007-04:00

I've been feeling really good and loved as of late.
Which is rare for me.

Do you remember the time when everything came into existence?

I remember when I was young and green, only fourteen. El Tango, graphite. 2005

Shoe Contour, graphite. 2005

A man named Frank Smith was my first high school art teacher. Wonderful man.
Two years later, a beautiful person (who I guess does want to remain anonymous in the internet world) came into my life and groomed and tended to this slightly wilting art passion in me, and it blossomed into what I am now. I would call her the best gardener in the world. I would call her many things.

leaving this crapster ville.

2009-06-23T15:24:00.005-04:00

I'm graduating today, so I thought I'd share what little I've done for this piece that I was supposed to have finished before I leave high school.
It's meant to represent what my school encompasses.... grey people and brain vapours.

(oh fuck I just realized that this looks EXACTLY like a Broken Social Scene album cover. FML)

my art finally makes an appearance!

2009-06-22T16:19:00.006-04:00

If you recall from one of my pervious posts, I wrote how I will someday upload my artist trading cards from my grade 12 art summative. Well here they are. I don't have all of the ones I created, but after a year of hard work and fun times, I have this collection of small art to remember my classmates.

For this project we had to choose a theme to go with our cards. On the day of trading, we each had to explain briefly our themes, but I got too choked up and teary to really give much of an explanation.

My theme is decay. I don't want to go too much into detail, but I felt decay was essentially the theme of my life this year. I just seemed to be surrounded by it, with relatives who developed tumours, and going crazy, and someone very dear to me whom I love also go though a rough tumble of health problems. And me, I had an incredibly rough time dealing with my mental health and its subsequent toll on my body and function as a human. We live in decay and rot; it comes from the plastic that saranwraps us and kills us, it comes from people slowly breaking you down. Nothing stays forever. eventually we just fall apart. We are delicate creatures, not meant to resist time, weather and disease.But in rotting and breaking apart in smaller pieces, is a chance for growth. So grow we will.

Here are the three pages of cards from my collection. Let's see if you guys can pick out which ones are the ones I created.

The following cards are from my two favourite people:

art art gotta catch 'em all

2009-06-13T14:59:00.001-04:00

I haven't really created a lot in the past few weeks.

so here's some old stuff that I've uploaded to the ol' fecesbook.

portfolio
2
&three

yes it's called laziness.

I did make some artist trading cards for my HS class. I don't have the photos with me (this blog is starting to feel rather pointless...) but I promise I will upload something soontime.

we needed a new start.

2009-06-08T23:24:00.001-04:00

hi.

more narcissism being manifested in cyber print, but i became tired of my virtual surroundings.

in time there will be more here, mainly creative writing pieces and artwork. I'll try to stay away from really generic/intimate posts that usually appear to be ripped out of my personal diaries, like the garbage I wrote here and there

i got my inspiration to start this art blog from one of favourite people, who is so talented and beautiful in so many ways it blows my mind. Canadian Afterthought

my photoshop is broken & i don't have a scanner, so uploading artwork will be tedious. bear with me