Fitting Quote

“One of the most formative realizations of my academic career was noticing how my design students were always ahead of the game. They always seemed to know instinctively what the latest trends in academic thought were, without necessarily being able to articulate their ideas very clearly. It was as if fashion had some sort of advance warning system to sus out the next hot topic in cultural theory. Their intense interest in identity, and in particular individuality, went with an aggressing assertiveness that clashed with any attempt to contextualize the impetus for self-expression as a social symptom. The only aspect of cultural studies which sparked any interest in them were transgressions of the order imposed by sociological analysis. They were impatient and dismissive with interpretations that explained the way certain styles arose at specific historical moments; they just wanted to do it – to be innovators.” - Judy Attfield

Yeah, that sounds about right.

My First Threadless Submissions

My type teacher says I should put my type finals on threadless, so here you go:

Vote for me!!

The Believer

Here is a drawing I did in painting/drawing class today. It was a long pose and I got bored with the model.

I named it The Believer because I got The Believer, a monthly mag from McSweeney's in the mail.  Hooray!

The end.

Little Boxes

Society works hard at defining the people that live within it, which makes us (or at least me) feel like we need to define ourselves in the same way.

There are so many ways to define a person and making judgments are easy when you’re considering someone else, but what about when you’re making judgments about yourself? Who are you? What are you about? What characteristics do you associate with yourself? I feel like people get so caught up in these things that they forget to consider to like anything outside of what they have imagined themselves to be.

But what happens when one day you want to step outside of your defined box? Do you feel like you’re being untrue to yourself? That you have never associated yourself with these things before and now that you want to associate yourself with them does that mean you are a different person? Or maybe your tastes have just changed? Do you have to redefine yourself now?

I am as I’m sure many others are, a victim of self- definition. I try to put myself in a box of things that define all things about me, which is (especially for me) nearly impossible.

I dabble in all sorts of different things and I feel like an asshole for not being fully true to any one of them, but why? What’s wrong with not being sure who you are or where you fit in? We are so complex how can we even be expected to do that? People say that your teenage years are the time when you should find yourself, figuring out who you are and what you’re about. But that’s what life is for. You can’t expect me to figure all of that out in 20 years, especially since I’ve only been self-aware for 6 of them, which is being very generous and have only been aware of my actual interests for 2 years. Up until about age 18, I was a completely different person than I am today.

I’m kind of going off subject here but I can tell what I do and do not like in a split second by looking at it and I feel very strongly about things I do not want to be associated with. And if anyone says something about how I am associated with those things I don’t define myself with, I get annoyed. I feel like I’ve spent all this time working up who I am and who I am not yet it takes other people longer to decipher what I am about. For example, the easiest one, rainbow. It annoys me when people give me brightly colored things or rainbow things when they get me a present or something. It’s not about rainbow colors. There is so much more involved. There is an aesthetic design element that is pleasing to me, which everyone else apparently cannot see.

Back on subject,

Seeing other people around me I feel like I have to define myself to fit in because then I can show who I am which would in turn let others define me in regards to how I see myself. But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Does everyone feel like they fit into some sort of category? There are thousands of different things I want to be, different kinds of people I want to be, different interests I want to have, but it’s always impossible to be any single one of them, I always have to be a little bit of all of them. It is worth it to change? Is it even possible? Maybe that’s just me, maybe my definition is a combination of a bunch of things, or maybe I’m just indefinable. But what’s wrong with that? I’d rather go through life thinking that I like what I like and I do what I do and just being happy in knowing that my moods and feelings will change and will agree with different people at different times than going through life always trying to place myself in some sort of imaginary box society has made for me to put myself in.

But most of the time I still feel like I'm walking around in an odd fitted mental suit.

Soul Pancake

Dwight Schrute, our favorite cast member in The Office (at a close second is an obvious Jim Halpert) who's real name is Rainn Wilson who also starred in the movie The Rocker which was awesome and good in many ways launched a new website!!!  

SoulPancake.com... yeah!  

Soul pancake is a website that attempts to bring people together in the hopes to talk about topics such as spirituality, creativity, and philosophy.  And while there will always be that person who makes everyone else on the site mutter, "I hate these assholes" at least its better than listening to your friends complain or worrying about how much work you have to do, so go SIGN UP, it's free!! which is a nice thing to come by these days... and get deep.  You could even be that asshole!!  Believe it!!  Go signn up.

Check me out

Today in lieu of drawing/painting class with Alan Reingold we had a scavenger hunt in manhattan for 11 original paintings including Norman Rockwell, Gustav Klimt, Valazquez, N.C. Wyeth, and Bob Peak to name a few.  Winner got $100 and a set of Windsor Newton oil paint (ooo ahh) I was the go to girl for people to call when they found them all while also in it to win it myself.  Needless to say, not an easy job.  I'm still working out the winning groups which neither of them, sadly, include me.  I had good times hanging out with my friend Josh all day, so all's well that ends well.  Then I called my friend by the wrong name.  Oops.

Can't win 'em all...

BUT I do win the mustache award for the day, Check me out!!

Look familiar...?

How Design Conference

I've been getting these e-mails from Adobe telling me about these events where you learn more about existing adobe products/ get the scoop for the updates to CS4 and I really wanted to go but they were always during the week when I had class.

I found out about the How Design Conference which is in Austin, TX from June 24th- 27th.  It looks totally sweet and I really want to go.  This is the website:

www.howconference.com/GeneralMenu.  

I have a small number of friends that are interested in this kind of thing that live in or around Chicago.  It would be totally lame to go my myself and as much as I want to bring mom or dad along, I would much rather go with someone who actually wants to get something out of the conference too.  It's rather expensive, but you get a hefty discount if you're a student, especially if you register before April 1st.  There is still a bit of time and I'd have to plan around it with my summer work schedule, but I totally really need to go.  So if you're interested or questioning, check out the website.  I'll be here... waiting...