Week 2

Hmm... how to start. First I guess I should mention that I dropped Printmaking. Not because I don't want to learn printmaking but because I care about my own health. The teacher I had was horrible for several reasons. A)there was a language barrier between me and her. B)she critisized everything I did without giving me advice on how to make it to her liking. C)only a masakist would take that class. So now that I have dropped the class my load is a bit lighter in a way but then overloaded in others. Since I did drop a class I can focus on my other classes a little more. It turns out that I am way behind in my writing class and I didn't notice this before because I was focused on printmaking. I am also a bit behind in drawing class too. No worries though because I have today and tomorrow to try to catch up as best I can. We are reading and writing a paper on Aristotle by Tuesday in my writing class so wish me luck on that. ha. I hate aristotle and could really care less what he thinks about rhetorics.

Oh so friday we didn't get to go to trolley night because the whole city pretty much closed down due to an ice storm. Photography was sadly cancelled because of the storm also. But me and Emma did go out into the ice covered world to take pictures and enjoy the white snow/ice.

This is me and em's footprints in snow rendition of Picasso's "The Scream"

Friday evening Emma decided that I should be the one to drive to walgreens so we could pick up some items. Just so you know I have never driven in ice or snow and I'm not really sure how dependable a 4cylinder mini van is in that type of terrain. First is took forever to scrape the 4 inch thick ice off of the van and em had a good laugh at me when I couldn't figure out how to get it off. See she is from the north so she knows what to do in this situation while I, who was raised in the south, does not. After that I drove very slow to walgreens and everything was fine. Now on the way back as I was turning to the left onto another street I felt my backend slide quite a bit. I calmly put very little pressure on my brake and turned with the motion to straighten my vehicle without letting it control me. Dad's advice came in handy in this moment. I love you dad. It really wasn't a big deal but it was scary in the moment. Emma said she wasn't worried at all. Yesterday we went on a "family" shopping trip to krogers. The Family includes me, Emma, Izamar, and Yao. Me and em shopped for 3-4 weeks for and will only have to buy more milk, bread, and maybe chicken before the next trip. It is amazing how much groceries come to for just two people. We spend more now that we are eating less frozen, healthier homemade meals. Today ice is melting like crazy. It is 25 degrees outside and the sun is shining the brightest it has in a week. Huge couch size ice sheets are falling off the Metz apartment building and the other buildings nearby. It is quite scary and I hope no one gets caught under one.

 Well I suppose I will get to work on this homework I need to get done. Peace.

New Beginnings

We are now in the new year of 2010, which means a new semester has started. I am now in my second semester of freshman year at Memphis College of Art. Last semester I did pretty well, received all B's and an A. I hope to do better this semester, but will be just as happy if I can manage the same as last semester.
I made it through my first week of classes without any physical damage, not so sure about mentally. It was a lot to take in and I already have a ton of homework due next week. Again I have 3 sketchbooks to keep up with. I don't particularly enjoy doing assigned sketchbooks, especially 3 at a time, but they do help significantly. Printmaking class is sure to be the death of me. My teacher is Puerto Rican so there is already a language barrier plus I know very little about the process. I've researched the process of etching but nothing explains better than experience so hopefully after one run through I will be able to improve my sketches to match the process. Other than that she just expects a lot from us, more than other teachers(which is already a ton). A couple of the older kids in the class have had printmaking before so they have been checking up on us freshmen and giving advice when we ask, which has been very nice of them and I love them for it. My drawing 2 class was pretty fun. We are doing charcoal erasure, this is the process of blackening a white paper with charcoal and then erasing the highlights to get the image instead of drawing the shades to get the image. I'm not great at it but I do enjoy it. Photography was awesome. We made photograms. I'm not so hot at explaining this process but basically you place objects on this special photo paper, shine a light for 3 seconds, and then develop the paper to get a black and white photogram. My writing 2 teacher seems pretty cool. He is from Ireland and had very different views on teaching writing than any of my other english teachers. Art History 1 feels like it is going to be much easier than Art History 2 was, so that is a good thing.

These are the photograms:

Friday night me, Emma, and Izamar went to bowling night with the MCA crew. We had fun but we were all so exhausted from the week that we were tired after one game and we still had an hour left to play. We made it through though. When we got home we told Yao this elaborate story that me and Izamar had made up for Emma initially. The story included Izamar defending Emma's honor and getting slapped by a boy for doing so. Yao totally believed the story, unlike Emma, and was ready to find this tall, skinny, left-handed Joshua to give him a piece of her mind. We did tell Yao that the story was fiction and we all had a good laugh about it.

Next week is Trolley Night! I love trolley night. It is the last friday of the month, all downtown trolleys are free for the night and they take you to all the art exhibitions and galleries open that night. It is a ton of fun and is a good way for us younger artists to network with gallery owners and other artists. Networking is a huge part of being an artist.
Well I better get back to my homework. I will check back in when I have time. Peace.