Going Deep...Again

Some strange things have occurred as of late. By this I am referring to my artistic pursuits. For as long as I had been making art (a good chunk of my life), I had been pooped on by various instructors and developed a pretty good sized inferiority complex regarding my work, themes, and general abilities. Not that I have over come all of that stuff, even though it's easy to say "hey get over it". BUT a few months ago, I passed with flying colors my Midpoint Presentation; which is me pitching my thesis to a panel of instructors. Then I entered a shit ton of prints and one of my books into the spring show. None of my prints got in and I was super bummed (only like 3 people got a total of 8 pieces in which was fucked up if you ask me), but my book got in! Not only did it get in, but I won my category and got a nice prize for it as well.

Fast forward about 1 month later...

I display my work on a ton of internet sites, some you can buy reproductions others the originals (if anyone who reads this is interested feel free to inquire!) Well, low and behold I am at work and I get a notification that someone bought one of my pieces as a greeting card. That blew my god damn mind! Granted I got like no money from it, but still. A few weeks later, I get a notification that someone was (and might still be) interested in acquiring some of my work. That was awesome as well.
The most recent event occurred when I again signed up for some site to display my work. I had to have my work/profile approved and I hadn't heard back for a few days. Out of the blue I get a phone call from the woman (who was super cool) runs the organization; she tells me how much she loves my work and offers me to be in a show. That again, was super awesome!
I could be jinxing myself here, but to me it feels like I have turned a corner almost. I'm getting respect from peers, and those above me regarding my work. It's a great feeling and it makes me want to bigger and better pieces; prints and books.

P.S. This is like the one time a year I go serious and deep with this blog. For reals, cause this is One Terrible Blog after all.

Stay tuned for more terribleness...

Funny Story Time: Part Duex!!!!!

Place: The Silkscreen room at school.
Time: Oh let's say.....about 11:00 on a Saturday.
Event: I'm prepping some screens for class on Tuesday, and there is a school tour that comes through.

Not the "twins" he was asking about.

So I am cleaning and prepping some screens  while listening to Steel Panther and I'm there by myself: it's a god damn blast! I'm back where the big sink is, had the hose going, so I couldn't hear a damn thing; no Steel Panther, nothing. Then out of nowhere I hear someone talking to what seems like a bunch of people. Turns out a tour came through the studio. What song is playing? Super Sonic Sex Machine; which is just one of many hilarious Steel Panther tunes by the way. That must have been an interesting song to hear for the unprepared.
Anyways, so this tour guide asks how it's going and I tell her "super duper". She keeps talking, and I notice someone's dad in the background looking at my iPhone on the docking station, which happened to be playing the album Balls Out with the cover photo you see on the side. He then makes his way up to me and says this:

Guy: What's with the twins?
Me:  I'm sorry what?
Guy: The twins. What's with the Twins?

I'm totally lost. He then reaches up to my head and pulls of my Minnesota Twins cap. He was from Minnesota. He wanted to talk about how shitty the Twins are. Here I thought he was asking me why the woman on the album cover had huge boobs.

Raise Your Hand If You're An Artist, Not So Fast...

As I made the switch back into Fine Arts from Graphic Design in the winter of this year (2011, in case anyone reads this down the road), it got me thinking. Are Graphic Designers really artists? I'm not trying to discredit or insult them by any stretch of the imagination, this is just a means for me to ask this question. I mean yeah they do "artistic" things but does it really count if everything you do is on a computer?
Someone who works with type is called what? That's right, a typographer, not an artist. They work with type. Sure they follow the rules of design and layout; how you want the piece to look are pretty much the same thing. Give the piece a first, second, third read; a place for your eye to enter the piece; but does that make you an artist?
If you don't get in there and make something out nothing with pencil, charcoal, ink, paint, clay, metal, etc... but rather you do it with a lasso tool, can you honestly call yourself an artist? From my point of view, since I have been on both sides of the table, I would say no. Everyday that I was just a Graphic Designer, I felt more and more disconnected from being an artist, I just felt like a guy who moved shit around on a screen. My skills (which never were or are the greatest, but they work for me and I try to get the most out of them) seemed or at least they felt like they were eroding.
 I guess that I would have to say the closest way to combine them would be through book arts and bookmaking. Sure you could combine styles and things of that nature into your work, but on it's own, I would have to say that being a Graphic Designer does not make you an artist. And I don't say that or any of what I said as an insult to anyone. This is just something that I have been pondering in my brain.

5 More Tales of Heroism

• When I was in 8th grade, we took a class trip to a farm for a hayride I believe. On the way back from said trip, I was sitting in the middle of the bus and I decided to pull the window down and hock a loogie out the window. About 10 seconds later I hear someone in the back scream. The wind pulled the loogie back into the bus and hit someone right in the face.
  
• In high school I took 2 years of German (sprechen sie deutsch?) and in my first year of it something glorious happened. We all basically cheated off of each other and for some reason everyone thought that I knew this particular assignment, well guess what? Fucking no, I didn't. Not even close. So anyways everyone in all directions of me copied this particular assignment. The next day we got called up to the board to answer the questions and wouldn't you know it, everyone who got called up had copied off of my work. We all looked like tards.
  
• In this one, I think I was like 7(ish). I lived in Montana and it was the winter. So we had a big neighborhood snowball fight. Well, I really knocked some kid out with a throw. I stood up and celebrated and laughed my ass off, you know like anyone would do. At the same time I had opened my mouth to laugh, a guy threw a snowball and it landed exactly in my mouth; almost as if it had a homing beacon on it. The sports equivelant would be this: nothing but net. I'm sure you can imagine how it felt.
  
• This one didn't happen to me, but I was there and saw it happen in my mind before it happened. My friend and I met up with some other friends at a frolf course (I hate frolf). We were standing at the basket and one of my friends was about to throw the frisbee and the friend I showed up with was standing at the basket with me. In my mind I saw him getting hit in the face with the frisbee. 3 seconds later I took a few steps to the side and proceeded to watch him get hit in the face. Everyone laughed and I then said I saw it coming, which made everyone laugh harder.
  
• In one of my undergrad art classes, I think it was called Concepts of Art, we had weekly assignments we had to both print off and email to the instructor. They were discussions based off a book we were reading for class. Well, I typed up my assignment at work and meant to print it off at home. So I had to go back to work to email it to myself which I did, only when I do that for myself I put dumb stuff in the message line. Sounds fine right? Well after I did that I emailed it to my instructor like I was supposed to only I forgot to take out my dumb message line. It went something like this : HERE YOU GO YOU BASTARD! Surprisingly it was totally okay with him and he said the following to me "Ha, don't worry. That's not the worst thing someone has emailed me."

Spring Cleaning

As I was doing some spring cleaning today/throwing shit I should have thrown out a long time ago, I decided to go through my portfolio and I was surprised at what I found. I found drawings and prints from what seems like another lifetime ago (even though it was only 5-6 years ago). Since I had a drawing instructor who was a Grade A dick/butthole/turd, I was under the impression that everything I had done back then sucked big time. I was actually surprised at what I found. I mean yeah sure some of it did suck and still does, but some of it wasn't half bad. It also brought back memories of the classes and experiences of things I was going through. I mean I found a picture of something that I used for reference material in my first ever drawing class in college; that blew my mind! The drawing was long gone, since it too sucked.
Under my bed, I was going through crap from my graduate school time (which is still ongoing btw) and found a bunch of sketch books from my time studying graphic design; whew. Those things were filled with some stinky shit. Yeah, some good to great stuff came out, but damn that other stuff, what a bunch of shit. I also looked at every print that I have ever done (just to keep everyone up to speed, I'm a printmaker). That was nice to look at. More so than my drawings and definitely more so than my graphic design work, I can see a nice and very steady progression through my work. It made me happy. It also gave me the motivation to keep going and get better.