Was His Demise So Carefully Constructed

As a student of design, there are a few things that are drilled into you from the beginning. The first and foremost being that you are not an artists. You do not make art. Design and art are inexplicably seperated by the vasty seas of wanting to seem more professional than all the other wankers in the Art School.

At Herron, so pervasive is the cock-jockying that it is the Herron School of Art and Design. I am still an art student... everyone calls me an art major. Now I just sound pathetic trying to make the stupid distinction between the two. There is a definite distinction, and if you know anything about the two it will jump out and bite you in the face. (Designers are soulless corporate cum-dumpsters while Artists are self-important wastes of otherwise marketable water and carbon). But to the layman, that's like trying to explain the largely superfluous differences between AMD and Intel. The reply is always "Who gives a shit?"

So it is a hilarious irony that has us always describing things as compositions and pieces. I have to turn in 50 pieces by Friday or whatever. I could be in Drawing 35 for all I know. Except that my pieces are inane bullshit about balancing the use of light and dark and not about anything anyone else would give a shit about. An Art Student can take his Painting 2 shit home and mom and dad say, "Gee son, that's a beautiful bowl of fruit." I take my VC 1 stuff home, and everyone wonders why they are paying $20K a year for their son to arrange like... 15 colorful squares on a blank field.

Another problem is that even more so than art, non-designers don't know how we shit, let alone how we work. (and there is a very special designer shitting ritual.*) If I draw a dude, you can at least judge it based on whether it looks like a gremlin with down syndrome or a person. If you look at my page layout you don't really see the difference. If you can fucking read it, you call me a success and move on... which is like telling you that your food doesn't have botulism, there for you are a good cook. It's a nice feeling, but you clearly don't have a goddamn clue. (not that you should, this is the most esoteric , worthless field in creation, basically histories greatest con job, after philosophers).

Which takes me to the next problem: Designers like artists are a bunch of self-important, arrogant twats that want nothing so much as to have sex with themselves. That translates to dick in commradre and support for you fellow designer. If I get excited about my new design for my lead page of an art-book (for my not art), the only people who could even begin to understand why I have a boner will only tell me my dick is too small. Talking about design theory to designers is like talking about politics to guitar majors, they are quite sure you're an idiot and that you're just conforming to some one's stupid notion, when it's obvious the only reasonable thing is to conform to their stupid notion.

So this gives us a frustrated, twitchy Mike, who has a whole bunch of praise from people who love him dearly but don't know what he's doing, and a whole bunch of shit from holier-than-thou fellow design students quite sure they have solved the problems of the world with their newest san-serif font. All the while, I'm plugging away in various Adobe programs struggling to last through college and get to the other side where he can have the freedom to work from home away from all the assholes masturbating in front of their mirror.

-Chow

*there is no shitting ritual, I lied.

Beneath The Wormwood Ooh, Love Me So Good

I am feeling splendid, for no other reason than I have work again! Finally I have something to eat my time up again! A pressing, difficult task. I have to do a bounch of work for class tomorrow, and it is wonderful. I need this kind of pressure, I'm realizing, to feel fullfilled... and to do anything worth while. This is a mental problem in need of tackling!

I have decided on the topic of this November's Novel, and whoo-boy, I'm biting off more than ever before. The working title? "Liberating America." And I can assure you, it's not what you think.

In other news, Saturday's Barbecue was fantastic. I am a master of the grill, whipping up delicious food stuffs to pleasure your palate. Seriously, come by some time, and feast upon my foods.

I have found a new, extremely liberating philosophy. I start off with this assumption:
"I Am Wrong"...

...and suddenly learning is so much easier.

That Boy's Got Woe, He Lives With Woe

Last night I got some amazing photograph's yesterday.

A hummingbird had landed on the sidewalk, and ignored people when they came near. My sister and I even touched it. Eventually I coaxed it to fly. Initially it went under my car... but I finally got it to fly off in a vaguely safe direction. Then I went downtown with Katie Stevens (Dustin's Girlfriend [read: functional fiance]) and took a few pictures of Indianapolis at night.


Indianapolis Skyline mk II by ~XavierMontague on deviantART


Hummingbird In Repose by ~XavierMontague on deviantART

There are more images at the DeviantArt site, of both subjects. Let me know what you think if you could. Perhaps a meatier update later...

You Know I Want To Do It Again

So I have made a terrible, terrible mistake. I have done... a terrible thing. Never should I have strayed to Newegg.com. That was... that was a bad decision, and now I'm reaping my dark harvest of suffering. It's like I was trying to bring down a scalding rain of misery.

I need a new computer. My mom is going to order some RAM to make my Laptop functional, however... this is not enough. This is enough that I will be able to run Photoshop without turning my motherboard into a pool of molten silicon. However, as a not-so-closet nerd, I am very likely to need some Gaming performance, and you don't get that in a Laptop. You just don't.

Now the computer I built on Newegg for $1,097.96... that could work. That would work. That would be freaking amazing. It would have... a lot of very nice things. And at the prices Newegg offers, I could actually keep it up to date. This is terrible. This is a very bad thing that has happened here. I am going to be miserable for at least 4 hours thinking about this.

In non-nerd news, I'm getting run ragged here. And I have to admit, I may be loving it. I'm challenged... really challenged, for the first time in a long time. This is hard but it's exhilarating! I'm liking learning again, and it's intense. Experimenting and not worrying if the result is total shit. This is really building up my confidence, helping me loosen up. I'm always about a minute away from passing out... but for peace of mind... I'd stay this way for ever.

~Chow

I Never Asked For Ordinary

I'm about to begin the recovery period from today. It has been a long, hard day, but a rewarding one, I must say. Art, Love, Work, Love, Art. It plays out the same in both directions.

I was exploring Spray Paint as a medium today, for my class tomorrow. I am so woefully low on options that I can really use, so this is what it comes to. It has been interesting, and the work sucks, but it's about learning the media, not making a masterpiece. If I can add this to my repertoire then that's one more solution to a potential problem.

Today was a good day for telling people I love them, in a meaningful way.

I learned a lot today, hopefully tomorrow will be as good.

Exhaustion claims this post.

~Chow

You Brought Me To My Knees, Your Art

Lets talk about Herron. I was wrong, lets get that out right now. The in class stuff is interesting and even engaging at times, even if some of my class mates do make things drag out beyond all limits of reason. The work load is incredible. More than I've ever had before in my life. I have to make 55 pieces of art by Monday, write a 4 page paper by Friday, and have something for Tuesday that hasn't been assigned yet. May we call that intense?

So lets look at my assignment for Image 01. That's a course that is focused on making an image, and all that goes into it. Our assignment was to compose fifty 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch compositions. Each composition was to be composed entirely of a mark. Each mark had to be very different from all the others, in as many ways as reasonable. 30 of the marks had to be "natural." This was defined as meaning something I made with my hands, either directly, or by some hand held implement. 15 were to be mechanical/alternative, which was defined as any means that was not by hand or computer. Finally, 5 were to be by computer.

For the natural ones, I initially used as many "traditional" media as I could. Mechanical Pencil, 4B wooden pencil, vine charcoal, charcoal pencils, acrylic and oil paints with a variety of brushes. Then, when I had exhausted the traditional media in my apartment, I went to the stranger things. Ketchup, toothpaste, mustard, and the ink from a shattered pen. I even used the coloring from mashed plants.

For the mechanical ones, I have burned them, stepped on them and stamped them. I'm working them out as best I can. These ones are more difficult for many reasons... mostly involved around finding non repetitive mark making. It's only possible to make so many stamps, and finding things that actually make marks and aren't really media is hard. So it's a struggle.

The computer marks will be extremely easy. I have been using computer media for a long time. And I only need 5 different kinds.

The idea I've really taken hold of on these ones is to try to show as much of the potential for each media I use as possible. I vary pressure and density on every mark, as much as possible. I'll load up some pictures later, so you guys can see how it goes.

Lets Start This Off Right

At 8:56am, Wednesday the 22nd of August in the year (of our dear blessed lord) 2007, I started my tenure at the prestigious Herron School of Art and Design. HSAD is a part of the not so prestigious Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis, affectionately dubbed by the locals "IUPUI" (which is often phonetically pronounced "oo-ee-poo-ee").

I am a "Visual Communications" major, which is a very special way of saying I will make pictures that say things. I have found that people in a certain field will do anything to obfuscate their profession, because we tend to have a healthy respect for that which we do not understand. Thusly, we give "artists" more respect than "painters", even though, in the grand scheme of things, they are same. (also: more respect for "philosophers" than "thinkers", and "politicians" than "bullsh*tters") But as I am wont to do, I digress.

I came to Herron with the full expectation of being completely unprepared, out of my league, and bound for years of uphill struggle. Despite my nervousness, I was looking forward to this. Thus far... I have been disappointed. I am dissapointed because I am every bit as prepared as my peers here, and entirely within my league. I may be bound for uphill struggle, but it will be at my own prodding and not because of some sort of institutional might.

I say thus far, because it is now 8:35am on Thursday, August the twenty-fourth, year (of our dear blessed lord) 2007. And so, I am roughly 25 minutes from starting my SECOND day at Herron. With hope, it will be at least as satisfying as yesterday, and hopefully more.

-Chow