I guess I could reword and repost it here, but why don’t you just head over to my own blog and read my little re-cap and requiem for Thing-a-Day 2008. And you can find out what the hell this thing is:
Thanks for a great month, everyone!
Dear Blog,
Today was a pretty good day.
I made these earrings by cutting up a cd, putting it in the microwave for a few seconds, then baking the crackly bits in the oven for a few minutes. Drilled holes when they cooled down.
Also, my brother and I made a subversive gingerbread house for Cale’s birthday:
<– Happy house eats happy gingerbread man. Has third eye.
<–Ben was in charge of the candy kill side.
<– My side may be a little more traditional…
<– Yep.
Also, the amaryllis is getting huge!
AND I made my first sale on etsy today! Huzzah!
AND I started an alternate blog, to keep going with this thing-a-day stuff. I suspect it’ll be like a cross between thing-a-day and a photo journal. Whatever form it takes, it’ll be: colorful, illustrated, full of flash photography and a little bit tacky.
If you liked what I did this month, come check it out 
http://molliefabric.wordpress.com
I’ve had a great time “getting to know you” through your crafts, you guys, and I do hope to keep in touch with some of you, and keep up with the wonderful things you are making!
Such an amazing body of work here, really.
Cheers to all, see you next year!
This is dated the 29th, but it is actually my thing for the 28th (it was just after midnight when I put the date in I guess). We get one more last one tomorrow.
Today I made a pizza (forgot to take pics >.<) Then I painted over an older painting of mine:
Then made a photoshop with a bunch of photos I had taken a while ago
lol I’m kinda nervous for this thing-a-day thing to end :O
I made a small poster tonight and matted and framed it, as well. It features one of my favorite phrases:
It’s from Horace’s Odes and it translates as “Now is the time for drinking”. As in, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” As in, get up out of your seat and do all the things you want to do!
I also made a companion poster which shows the proper response to “Nunc est bibendum”:
It means “neither delay nor rest”, also saying, “Fool, get started now!”
The rare lost poster artwork from the 1972 Bollywood remake of Masculin Féminin.
I created a short visit to Outpost for the express purpose of making this drawing, but the soy latte was a pretty sweet bonus. And I’ll take pretty much any excuse to visit Outpost.
Once again to make up for lost days, I’m putting up two things. This week’s “Oh-Ten” Gazette, and a poster I made for the guerilla art thing. I wanted to try to do something a little more hardcore, but I ended up making something that will probably be spotted as not-school-mandated and taken down fairly quickly. Ah well. At least I like how it came out. Two pictures of it because it didn’t quite fit in the scanner, and “to” is there twice becuase I couldn’t remember if I had included it in the first picture. >_<
The “Oh-Ten” Gazette
Your source for what’s not going on in Sophomore IB
Volume 2, Issue 23
How to Read and Understand Shakespeare
This is high school. This is the International Baccalaureate program. There is no way to escape that infamous, confusing, but apparently genius Elizabethan writer. Welcome back to Shakespeare. Julius Caesar is a little harder to wrap your head around than Romeo and Juliet, and not having the book to look over at home isn’t helping anyone. Try these tips so you won’t be biting your thumb at Mrs. Strate when you see your grades.
The main difficulties with Shakespeare are pretty closely linked: Either you can’t tell what they’re saying, or you can’t tell what’s going on. Shakespeare had an annoying habit of mixing the words in sentences in a way that Yoda would have difficulty understanding. To translate an odd sentence, locate the subject and the predicate (what happens to the subject) of the sentence, and arrange them properly in your head. Don’t do this when reading aloud, though, because it takes away from the poetic merit of the piece, and English buffs in your class will probably correct you. It also helps to read the notes in the margins. You have a lot less of a chance of understanding the combination of old vocabulary and figurative language if you don’t.
There are tons of things you can do to get a better idea of what’s actually going on. Pay attention when Mrs. Strate stops the reading to explain what has just happened. You may want to take notes when she does that, as she is probably telling you the answers to the next quiz. Ask questions about parts that confuse you, or write down the scene and line and ask the internet later. The copyright on Shakespeare’s work is way out of date, so you should be able to find any of his plays on the internet. Read the synopses handed out in class, or look them up online.
Maybe someday, in college, or as an adult, you will appreciate the beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry and prose. Maybe you are already beginning to. However, at the moment, it’s okay to just be interested in getting an A on the test.
Rumor has it . . .
Oh Shakespeare, long may you create awkward moments for high school students. As various female characters kneel at the feet of their would-be husbands and declare themselves whores, one begins to wonder why students are subjected to this humiliation every year. While IB sophomres struggle through Elizabethan drama in one class, they continue to teach each other the curriculum in another. Bets are being taken as to when certain teachers will actually begin teaching. Meanwhile, an ailing absentee teacher finally returns, with new enthusiasm to assign group projects and forget to grade them. The question remains: will anyone be able to successfully spell and pronounce Mr. Sczepantzki’s name on the first try?
In Case You Were Wondering
102 days/74 school days until the last day of school.
The Writer is feeling lazy and is looking for someone to help write next week’s Gazette. You know who to see.
The Polish sub’s name is probably spelled wrong here, too.
A while ago I was in a mediocre burger restaurant and I noticed they had mediocre abstract paintings on their walls. The paintings were roughly 12″ x 5″ and completely unremarkable. The price tag underneath read $150. This got me curious as to who purchased these paintings and why? They clearly were not being purchased by any serious collectors. For one, there was nothing unique about them. Secondly, they were unsigned as far as I could tell. Yup… pretty much worthless as a serious investment.
The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I grew. To whom were they going to sell this tiny, worthless painting for $150? Who in their right mind would buy such a thing? Finally, after much pondering, it struck me like a golfer teeing off during a thunderstorm; I resolved that the ideal patron for a work like this is someone with too much pecuniary income and no taste. In short, they were selling it to some sucker with tacky taste to put over their couch or to match their color scheme in their bathroom (or something like that). Whoever made this painting and set that price had figured something out that I had not. They must have realized that whomever was buying this type of art didn’t know any better and was vainly trying to buy social status (Or at least, I hope they figured that out. It would be sad if they felt their painting was worth that much).
Any which way, I thought about it some more. Hanging art on the wall is one way to let people know, “Hey, I have money!” Unfortunately, when you’re hanging a crappy painting in the crapper, most people don’t say “Hey, that tiny thing is artwork. I bet they spent, so, like, $150 on that!” No, they probably are thinking to themselves, “I shouldn’t have ordered that strange Lebanese lamb meatloaf.”
Here is my point: People are spending obscene amounts on these works of art to pretend like they have status and taste only for it to be lost on their audience. It is lost on their audience because if they need to reinforce their rising social status through the acquisition of bad art, their audience is either individuals of an inferior social status that could care less, or, worse, of a superior social status and think that people who purchase such works are buffoons. I feel that rarely will they be entertaining social climbers that are on the same rung of the social ladder and able to grasp the significance of such a statement. This means that, as a functional object, the painting is very weak since it does not explicitly convey the information that the patrons would like to express; namely, “I spent a lot of money on a small work of art to match my couch! Look at me! I have money! Look at me!”
My solution: Paint the price-tag over the crappy abstract painting. This way it is explicitly clear to all of each and every individual that subsequently glances upon this work just how much the patron spent in its acquisition. In addition, their painting will be signed in a unique handwriting and part of a series done by a serious conceptual artist (myself). As such, not only should they reinforce a person’s need to express their social status through consumption, but they should also increase in value over time.
How I determined the price: Judging by the prices on the paintings in the mediocre burger joint, a painting is worth the square of its width. This seems reasonable to me. I like making money on art and people like spending money on art. It all works out.
Would you like to purchase a painting? Leave me a comment.
the slightly menacing result of being left alone in a room with clay and nails.
http://flickr.com/photos/23386160@N08/?saved=1
Keiko Oikawa’s Nordljus is one of my favorite food and travel blogs. Her photos are simply divine and exquisite. I can’t help but make a couple of banners out of her photos and along the way, I made myself a new wallpaper too.
You can see one of these two banners in action here. I haven’t decided which one to keep on my blog for now. I guess I’ll just switch back and forth.
Download available for 1024×768, 1280×800, 1600×1200, 1920×1200.
This image comes from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Durer). It was conceived to be a 4 color separation using 4 stencils. Well it turned out that i only had silver and bronze spray paint when i went to view my handiwork, so the effect is rather… odd… anyway, i think it holds some promise, for when i have some other colors and with a little refinement. i’d been working on the stencils over a few days, and was excited to make my proof today… alas, it was not as exciting as it could have been with more colors.
