this is the end

no more classes. two days of work. lots of packing. only ramen and oatmeal for supper. lots of goodbyes. a few last minute get togethers. evaluations. final party.
i think the semester is almost over! :(

Thanksgiving

happy day after thanksgiving!
so... unlike what i told everyone, i actually did have thanksgiving day off. i didn't think i would. but i did. and it was great.
whitney has friends over for break, so we all got up early and went downtown to watch the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade. it was pretty much awesome. except for the fact that my camera died right after ronald mcdonald went by, and he was the first float. :( oh well, others got great pics.
that afternoon we went to the field museum, saw sue the t-rex and a natural disasters exhibit and lots of other interesting things. for supper we went over to LaSalle apartments with a few others who are still here over break, had a steak dinner. very simple- steak, mashed potatoes, rolls, brown sugar carrots... and pecan pie! tastey. watched bits of the House marathon.
today i was back at work. not a lot to do, but we had quite a few visitors. amy bought me a cute owl ornament, since tomorrow is the last time i will see her. and then me, whit, and all her friends went to ed debevics (again for me!). lots of fun. i love that restaurant!
now we are sitting in the room, doing nothing; they're talking about hot guys' jawlines and drinking while i talk/christmas shop on amazon.com.
so yeah.... thanksgiving.

a great couple of days

so... megan was here yesterday! had sooo much fun with her, and her random Indian friend who decided to join us. i think his name is dhruv (we pronounced it like Drove). we went to MCA to see the Jenny Holzer exhibit (again for me). then we ate at Ed Debevic's, a restaurant that is known for the waiters being rude (as part of its theatrics) and then dancing on the countertops. the food is typical american diner, but rather expensive. good food, but people go generally for the rudeness. it's great fun. then we went to a hookah bar- mmm... mint flavored. so good.
then we came back to the apartment and just hung out. watched a lot of funny youtube videos. stayed up til 1:30. had fun fitting us all in the apartment to sleep. and we get to do the same thing the rest of the week, but for whitney's two friends.
anyway, other funness- before i picked up megan, i wandered around chicago and all its holidayness. lots of pretty things, christmas lights, decorative trumpets, window shoppers, salvation army bell ringers, the giant christmas tree at daley plaza with the candy-striped shops that will open on friday for the german christmas festival. they had pickle ornaments.
and today, after dropping megan off at the blue line so she could get to ohare, and dhruv to union station so he could get back to the suburbs, i went to the cs offices so i could work on my final art project. oh yeah! final art project! on monday, i started that. what i did was make a 3Dish relief of a cityscape on canvas, made with littler canvases (you'd have to see pics), and then i took that down to the jackson red line train station, and painted a landscape on it- grass and mountains, and a lonely tree. after painting it in the station, i left it in the station. it was a combination of non-theatrical performance, painting, and installation, documented by a few photos, and then put together with a few videos into a slideshow.
the video/slideshow stuff is what i was working on today. and the best part of my day is what happened because of that: i was hidden in a back classroom doing my stuff; i forgot about the change of hours for the office b/c of the holidays; the people working there didn't think i was there anymore; they left; locked the doors; i finished what i was doing and came out, realized i was locked in, and kinda freaked out. i called a bunch of people and finally got ahold of someone who could come back and let me out. i was lucky cause she had just left and was buying shoes nearby. it's funny now, but i felt so stupid earlier. who gets locked in the office, really?!?
well, i think that's everything.... i feel like i'm forgetting stuff, but... oh well. so that's my life the past couple days.

how i've changed this semester

so this is a list of ways i have changed this semester. i'll let you decide what's for better or worse...


*i love the city, and i never thought i would
*i wear make up almost daily
*i'm more comfortable being myself in front of friends and strangers
*i wear dressier clothes than i used to. still sort of uniquified, but.... i hardly wear t-shirts anymore!
*i like borscht
*i feel like, if i had to, i could become a vegetarian
*i go out to bars and dance clubs--- and sometimes dance!
*i like James Bond
*i procrastinate a lot more
*i don't mind not knowing where i am or where i'm going
*more uncertain about my future than ever
*i talk to people i have nothing in common with and try to be their friend
*i can (sort of) talk in front of small groups of people
*i don't have as much time for my art
*more independent
*i'm more talkative
*little things get to me more easily
*i look more like a professional than an artist when i'm going to work so-
*when i'm on my own i am even more unusually dressed
*starting to almost like airports (but not flying)
*weirdly, writing more often
*more leader-like
*more comfortable talking to strangers
*more comfortable asking for help
*more liberal
*talking on the phone way more often
*give more easily to homeless
*care more about feminist issues
*i like outsider art!
*can more easily (and more willingly) express my opinions

that's all i can think of right now. it's quite a list! makes it seem as if i've become a whole new person. i don't think i have. i think it all just adds up to me becoming more comfortable being me.

so.......

well, since our fine arts events are over, i have a lot less to write about. at least, a lot less guaranteed subject matter. so any blogs from now on should be (key work: should) shorter. but i still have stuff i can write about, so never fear! the blog will still be here! (forgive me, i just woke up.)
it's hard to believe that the semester is almost over! i just had my final evaluation at work (all 5s, thank you very much). we only have one more day of classes, and that's the 3rd of december. we don't have classes the day b4 thanksgiving. (btw- Happy Birthday, Karlee! i'll try to find you something special and bring it home to you.) so only a couple weeks left, and i'm outta here. kinda sad. i love chicago. but exciting b/c i get to go back to NWC and see my friends again and prepare to live in HOSPERS BASEMENT WITH DANA!!!!!!! (can ya tell i'm excited?)
but i won't be able to stay away from chicago for long. one of my classes will be taking a trip there/here next semester; and dana and i have tentative plans to kidnap drew david and roadtrip to chicago for spring break. oh the funness we have planned for next semester!
so, even though our fine arts events are over, whitney and i went to see a show thursday night on our own. actually, it was the show that the theatre she works at is putting on. Grey Gardens. it's a musical about Jackie Kennedy's cousin and aunt (jackie is a little girl in the show) who live in a once grand and famous house, but now it is full of cats, racoons, fleas, and garbage. this mother-daughter pair of once-socialites are "alone together" as the program said. they can't escape each other because they know nothing else, but they drive each other crazy. it was an interesting show, very well done, but i found it so hard to get into because i hated every character! bigots, brats, sexists, divas, and just generally demanding and annoying upperclass people. although the butler was a good guy. even though i didn't like the characters, i was surprised to find that i felt sorry for them at the end. it was a good show.
tomorrow a few of us are going to a poetry slam! i'm so excited, i haven't been to one in so long. should be great. and megan is coming on tuesday! got some fun stuff planned to show her around chicago. she won't be here long, so we have to make the most of it while we can.
well, i should probably go get ready for work. ttyl

Little Things That Make My Day

so after that rant about the apartment of doom, here are a few small things that make my day better:
*the handicapped homeless man who always says 'good morning angels' to everyone but never asks for money
*lunch with my boss Beate
*cleanslate workers with a smiling face as they clean each neighborhood
*the man who runs the snack bar at the clark/division red line stop and always tells me good morning
*the holiday decorations
*getting phone calls from friends at home unexpectedly
*zulfiya's laugh
*good conversations about art with stephen snyder
*saturday night live parties
*heather hubers' brownies
*reading on the trains, and in the train stations
*getting weird looks because of how i'm dressed/what i'm reading/i'm sitting on the floor of the train station
*nerdy conversations with jessica lundgren
*having time to make art

Why Our Apartment Sucks

so... once upon a time i moved to chicago, and got stuck in the last apartment available. this is my list of why it sucks.
*small
*expensive
*drafty windows
*yellow colored bathroom
*only a half fridge
*no counter space in the kitchen or bathroom
*broken electrical outlets installed at an angle
*ugly
*small beds
*no light in "kitchen"
*gas stove that sets off the smoke alarm whenever i use the oven
*located right next to the alleyway where drunk people fight and smoke and play loud music
*located right next to same alleyway where hundreds of dumpsters need to be emptied weekly
*located right next to same alleyway where all the bars' delivery trucks stop
*construction on the apartment across the way
*hot and cold faucets in sink are exactly the same- barely cold unless you let them run forever, then they get lukewarm
*hottest and coldest water is in the shower
*sink doesn't drain very well
*sticky tack doesn't stick to the walls
*no one told us we had to turn the heater on, even though they turned the heat on
*have to have the light in the bathroom on to use that outlet, and it doesn't always work
*light in the main room spazzes and flickers every time you turn it on
*windows get stuck open or shut- require force to move them
*no shelf in closet
*dresser drawers stick
*crappily constructed
*microwave doesn't always work unless you hold the cord just right
*rusty cabinets
*cabinets right above stove get really hot and melty
*no drawers in "kitchen"
*only one comfy chair
*no view
*other rooms aren't as bad as ours
and the biggest problem, which would make all the others less horrific:
*it's a room made for one person and they shove 2 in for chicago semester students!

it's not completely terrible. it's livable. i mean, i can live anywhere for 3 months. this is just to get it all out there. room 212 in canterbury courts sucks!
:)

what a wonderful weekend!

hookay, so-
lots of good stuff to write about tonight. had a busy, wonderful weekend. but first, go back in time with me to thursday night. our art event was Radio Macbeth- a unique version of Shakespeare's tragedy, performed by actors as if they are rehearsing for a radio production of the play. but they end up "haunted" or something by the accursed play (for those who don't know, it's widely believed to be bad luck to say the name of the play in a theatre, or even to perform it in some cases. very interesting theories- check it on wikipedia.)
so here is my response to that:

Radio Macbeth. It was a lot different than I expected it to be, but I thought it was brilliant. I'm not entirely sure what was happening all of the time, but that is okay. It was an interesting concept, a little confusing for those who don't know the story of Macbeth. But I loved it.
The only thing I found frustating was that after reading reviews, I expected more of the "hauntedness" to be apperent and obvious. It was strange, and I'm not sure I would catch it if it hadn't been for the reviews. As it is, I'm not sure I'm correct in my thinking. But the way I saw it was that the radio actors were becoming too much the characters they were acting, and their actions in the recording studio were following too closely the story of Macbeth. That's how I understood it, at least.
I loved the beginning when it was obviously rehearsals, and they weren't "acting" Macbeth yet. so well done. I wonder how hard it was to do, if it got confusing for the actors. Because they weren't acting Macbeth. They were acting actors acting Macbeth. They had to be two characters at once!
And the way it ended, so powerful, so emotional, so intense. I was on the edge of my seat. The scene with Macbeth and Macduff and the chairs- loved it!
Overall, this is one of my favorite events. A little unconventional, but it's still Shakespeare. And the actors were all so talented! It made me want to reread Macbeth.
-------------------------------------------
after the play, me, whitney, pam, and mike went to see the midnight showing of james bond: quantum of solace. of course, we were rediculously early, so we went to walgreens and bought candy, which we smuggled into the theatre. still very early, but that was a good thing cause the theatre filled up fast, and we got to be nerds for a couple hours. it was a good movie, and we had fun.
whitney and i slept a couple hours, and then hopped on a plane to omaha, where my darling future roommate dana picked us up and drove us back to orange city. got to see most of my friends, got squealed at a lot, a lot of double takes, promises to never let me leave. it was kind of wonderful. if you ever question your significance, leave for a couple months and then show up randomly one day to get people's reactions.
got to spend lots of time with dana, hannah, and sylvia. saw my sister and grandma. ate chinese with kent and crystal, and it was like old times. went to see quantum of solace (yes again) with drew david. pretty much attacked tucker when i saw him. made fun of ben bees for breaking his leg, but hugged him extra hard to make up for it.
got to see terror texts twice! moshed both nights. and it's amazing. i absolutely love it. if anyone in tpe is reading this, you all did amazing and i'm so glad i splurged on that plane ticket. little sister and friend, and grandma also loved it! so you should all be proud. you really did wonderful work. *go light crew*
now i'm back in chicago, catching up on all the stuff i have to finish for this week. it's weird. i kept telling everyone how much i love chicago and how i can see myself living here in the future, but it felt so good to be back at northwestern, in the openness of a small town, with lots of space and no tall buildings, on familiar territory. where the stars are visible and there are leaves to kick in the fall. i do still love chicago, but going back reminded me of why i don't like cities in general. i guess i'll have to balance that out when the time comes. live farther away from downtown, near parks and greenness. or become rich enough to have two homes! :)
anyway, it's late. well, sort of. not compared to the rest of this weekend's schedule, but i should catch up on sleep and get back into a regular sleeping schedule!
goodnight

no one mourns the wicked

omg omg omg omg!!!! i finally saw wicked! after reading the book twice and listening to the soundtrack innumberable times, my dreams came true and i got to actually see the awesomeness. and it was totally worth the money i spent, and i want to see it again!
the singing and acting were incredible, the set and lights were astounding- i would love to be a part of a show like this at a theatre that can afford to do stuff like that. oh, fly systems! everything was perfect...except for my seat.
the placement of the seat wasn't itself disappointing. it was actually surprisingly better than i feared. it was the fact that the people who were sitting around me were rediculously annoying. i don't think i've ever come so close to strangling a stranger. first of all, i was by myself, so i didn't know anyone. the people behind me were only annoying before the show when they were trying to find their seats. easily forgotten. but there were people in their party, farther down the row, who were giggling during one of the most moving songs- For Good. i wanted to throw something at them.
but the worst was that the majority of my section was comprised of 9 year old girl scouts, and their suburban mothers. and i'm not sure who was worse- the girls or the mothers. arguing about seats before hand, complaining about everything, trying to control everyone, not paying attention to the fact that they are disturbing everyone else in our section. and then during the show they would whisper to each other, move around constantly, and not pay attention. and that was the adults.
the worst pair were right in front of me. a mother/daughter who kept leaning on each other, the little girl couldn't sit still, and they kept blocking my view. ANGER!
and of course there were the people with cell phones and cameras. why don't people ever respect the rules of the theatre? *special level of hell*
anyways, also today, i went back to the museum of contemporary art to see the new first floor exibit by jenny holzer. so good. also want to go back there. it was very political, about government documents/coverups/secrets when it comes to war and torture etc. what most of her work, in general, consists of are LED messages that scroll in and on public spaces. in the gallery, it was so much more creative, with the messages going in different directions, different speeds, in circles. it was dizzifying. but very very cool. lots of good use of lighting- made the whole room glow orange or purple or red. love her work, and was glad that one of the girls at work told me about it.
well, that's my day. should go to bed soon. we have presentation in class tomorrow. but after that we have another community dinner! mmm... italian.

oh opera

here's my response to our art event this week. we went to the auditorium theatre (a beautiful building with the best acoustics in the world) to see an opera. it was the story of Margaret Garner, a slave who escaped with her family, only to be recaptured. instead of having them go back to the life of slavery, she killed her own children. this led to one of the longest court cases involving civil rights at the time- deciding whether or not she should be tried for murder or destruction of property (since according to the laws at the time, Margaret's children were the property of the slave owner). her story, which actually happened, is also a book by Toni Morrison, called Beloved.
some of you may have read it. anyway, this is what i had to say on the experience:

"So, what did you think of the show?"
"I liked everything but the singing."

I said that at least twice Thursday night. And it's true. I had little experience with opera singing before last night, and I was never really impressed. And it has nothing to do with the talent of those singing, but the style itself. It's a strange, foriegn style for me, and perhaps with time and experience I'll come to appreciate it for what it is. And maybe I have to see the right shows. But where I am right now, I don't like opera.
Someone asked me early this week what the difference is between operas and musicals. They'd always thought that an opera was something that was completely composed of singing, little to no spoken dialogue. But then Caroline, or Change could be classified as an opera rather than a musical. The way I see it is a difference in the style of singing, the way each uses singing in the performance. Actors in musicals, and I'm borrowing this from a friend, sing when and because they are so passionate or emotional that merely speaking isn't enough- they have to sing. Songs, along with the music, in a musical are used to help convey those feelings, or help define setting and environment. They want the audience to understand what's happening, to feel it with them.
Opera on the other hand, and this is my own conclusion after last night and is probably an exaggeration, doesn't seem to want you to even understand the words! The more notes you can put into one word, the better. All the songs sound the same if you take away the music. There is no emotion in the way they sing. You can only get that by watching the actors- but because of the way they sing, I don't believe the way they act. It makes it very frustrating, for me at least, to watch an opera.
I also noticed that when some of the actors were singing major parts, they faced the audience, not the person they were supposed to be in dialogue with. And sometimes when two or more actors were singing together (not counting the choruses), they didn't seem to fit well together. Is opera supposed to be that individualistic? Where it's everyone singing the best they can, drawing as much attention to themseves, with no regard for their partners' voices? That's what was running through my mind most of the night.
I would have loved the show otherwise. The set was amazing! I loved how they used the fly system. The pattern on the walls and floor was absolutely gorgeous, and it worked so well and changed so much with every different lighting system. And the story was incredibly sad! But beautiful, too. Bittersweet freedom in the form of death. That's what Margaret Garner got at the end. It's all she had left. It was with a melancholy heart that I left the theatre. Even with singing I didn't believe, the sght of Margaret hanging there broke my heart.
It is disgusting to me how anyone could have even considered calling children property, especially belonging to someone who isn't even their parent. it's hard to believe that that was the accept, and expected, mindset back then. amazing that we've come so far in terms of eqality. we just elected a black president! even so, there is still a long ways to go until we are a perfectly equal, united country.

we just made history

Barack Obama, our new president. a black president. it's a huge milestone. and i was a part of it. i was in chicago when barack obama was announced president. i went to grant park with a million other people in support of him. true, i wasn't there long, and was only on the outskirts. i left before he arrived. but i cheered and yelled with everyone else, giving strangers high fives and smiling and waving at all the cameras, chanting obama obama obama. what a night.
watched most of the coverage on cnn/nbc/comedy central. heard jon stewart make the announcement. then 3 of us went downtown to be a part of the madness there. insane! i wish i'd had my camera with me. it was a great, everyone honking there horns, yelling out their windows. strangers coming together for one purpose.
it's surreal. a new president, bringing hope and change. it hasn't really sunk in yet. so what happens now? so much of the hype was building up to this point, and we got what we wanted- now what do we do? how much of his campaign can he pull off? we'll see. but for now, it's a good day.

go vote!

what an exciting day to be in chicago! obama is so close to being president (*fingers crossed/knock on wood*) and he's from chicago, so everyone here is for obama. pretty much anyway. there's a rally/party thing for him at grant park tonight, but they are saying that if you don't have a ticket already, please stay away. it's gonna be really really packed and busy and i think everyone is preparing for the worst behavior- whether obama wins or loses, people are going to get out of control. this whole election has worked everyone into a frenzy so no matter what the outcome, they are going to go insane. i'd love to be at grant park, but i didn't sign up in time to get a ticket. might be better to avoid all that anyway. no knowing what could happen when probably thousands of people get together for one thing to celebrate one man. security is going to be rediculous. even the building where i have classes is tightening up so you can't even get in after 5 unless you have a key. i even heard that there might be an alcohol ban for tonight; at least, it won't be sold anywhere downtown. probably a great idea.
i'm so glad i voted a couple weeks ago to avoid all the lines and people. i see people with buttons and stickers saying the voted today all over the place, signs everywhere telling people to vote and pointing them to the nearest locations. starbucks is giving free coffee from 5-8 for people who voted, and ben and jerry's is doing the same thing with ice cream. this is the most hyped-up, most publicized election ever, and i'm a part of it. i've never been able to vote before, so i've never cared as much about politics as i do right now. history could be made this week!
everyone needs to get out and vote today, if they haven't already. vote vote vote vote!!!!

Damnation of Faust and stuff

Our fine arts event this week was The Damnation of Faust at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Good music, opera singing, lots of people wearing black and white. this is my response to the event:

The Damnation of Faust this week was only okay for me. Not my favorite type of entertainment, but it was quality work. I liked listening to the music of the orchestra more than the singing. Maybe it was because the singers weren't acting out their parts, I couldn't believe their characters. It took me out of it even though they sounded really good. Plus they sang so little of the story that it was very fragmented and hard to follow. It took me out of the music to have to read the bits of story, too.
So I just enjoyed listening to the music and watching the performers. I liked how when they we all synchronized it looked like a rolling wave, or a field in the breeze. It was very calming to watch. Or when the choir stood up and sat down in unison. And the conducter was fun to watch, too; he was so energetic. The man playing Faust was bobbing his had to thee musc when he wasn't singing.
While the music was good, and very well played, it was more like background music for me. It was never powerful enough to fill my senses and make my soul swell. Not until near the end. So it was hard to keep my attention focused and I found my mind wandering all over the place. But the music was a good backdrop for my thoughts.



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other stuff:


been finding it really difficult to concentrate on homework lately. too many art projects swimming around in my brain, and if i don't work on them, i fear i'll either forget them or they will continue to grow and generate new ideas that i'll explode. i really don't want to do either of those things, so i have let out the creative juices sometimes, and then i forget that i have homework to do still until the last minute. kind of stressful.


had halloween funness tonight. played charades and drank cider and ate candy in some friends' apartment, then went to a Funk, a club where we get free drinks from 9-10 on friday nights. i went as Rorschach from the Watchmen graphic novel. pretty awesome. fedora, trench coat, and a homemade mask. looked awesome, but it was really hot and the mask wouldn't stay pinned. but the best part is that no one new who i was unless i spoke! and the guy at the bar was surprised that i was a girl. got lots of great looks cause rorschach is kinda creepy. the best was the people who actually new my character and told me they were excited for my movie (which comes out in march andohmygodiwanttoseeitsobadimightdie). *nerdfighters!*


didn't stay out very long cause i had homework to catch up on. (remember two paragraphs ago?) plus i'm kinda tired. woke up early yesterday to register for classes for next semester. taking some good ones: printmaking, philosophy of arts, tpe, layout and design, and Women in Public: Chicago Theatre and Film. i'm really really excited for that last one. it includes a trip to chicago! and it's taught by great professors. it's a nice, easy schedule. only 13.5 credits. i might add another class, on shakespeare. if i do, i'll take it pass/fail.

what else have we done this week? chili night on sunday, with cornbread and cookies. perfect day for it cause it was really cold. then we played scene it and my team totally dominated. mostly cause we had steven on our team and he's a huge movie buff. spaking of movies, wednesday night a group of us went out to the movie theatre and saw eagle eye. it was actually pretty good. lots of explosions.


this is a short film thing that i've recently discovered and fell in love with and watched a few times and you should all watch it. http://www.drhorrible.com/mushortio.html

well, that's all i can think of right now. happy halloween!

Woman Made and Intuit and other stuff.

This week's art event was actually at the gallery I work at and another gallery nearby: Intuit, a galllery I also interviewed at. Because I work at Woman Made, and another CSer works at Intuit, we were asked to give the "tours" of our galleries. It was a good experience, but rather difficult. I don't like talking in front of people. But stuff like this, and leading other gallery walks for work helps. what doesn't help is having to interrupt board meetings to give the tour, which is already limited because of the workshop going on on the lower level. that's right. three things at one time. so my class couldn't see the solo show because of the workshop, and we had to walk around the set up for the board meeting, which kindly took a break so we could have the tour. it was a hectic setup process, too. i didn't actually get to go to intuit because of all the setting up, but i've been there plenty of times already. anyway, here's my formal write up on the experience for class.

"Well, this week's art event was different for me. When I signed up for this class, I didn't expect to have to interrupt a board meeting to give a tour to 30+ students. I wish it ccould have ben a less hecctic day, but there are some things that are out of our control. But if it hadn't been such a busy day, I'd have taken more time and talked more about the history and mission of Woman Made.
But the class seemed to like it; at least the ones I talked to did. I'm glad. It is a great show in a great space. And I love the mission we have. There needs to be more awareness of the inequality of representation in the arts. It's not just gender, either, but race aas well, alternative lifestyles and interpretation of art.
Like Intuit. I love the shows at Intuit, especially Lee Godie's work. I wish I could have met the woman, she sounds like a real character. Her work is so crude and childish, but it is honest and real. I know a lot of people won't consider her work art, but I find it beautiful. She had such confidence in herself and her work.
The Sunday Painters collection always makes me laugh. Some of them are really good. Others are just strange. I wish I could have been at Intuit with the rest of the class. I wanted to hear their reactions.
It raises a lot of questions about art, questions we've already asked. What is art? Who defines art? What is 'good' art? I know that my answers are to those qustions are rarely the same as anyone else's, and my standards change from piece to piece. We all do that, judging what is art based on our feelings for a particular piece or show. If we don't like it, it can't be art. And it doesn't matter what other people have to say about it. If they disagree, clearly they don't know anything. It takes an exceptional person to see past their own preferences and look at the value of art objectively."
-------------------------------------------
as for other stuff, work is going good. i've got a great new long term project. i'm searching for and collecting information on artists that would possibly fit into our artisan gallery- ceramicists, jewelry and metalworkers, etc. stuff that's more "craft" rather than fine art (although that line is constanty blurred). so i take images and contact information for the artists i find and create pages for them that we will print and put into a booklet for the gallery to use when they want to find a certain kind of art, or want to get new items or more artists interested in our artisan gallery. it has been an interesting experience. i spend a lot of time just browsing the internet. it's great having deviantArt as a resource for it, too. I've contacted a lot of artists there for it. most of them are really excited for the feature, even though it is not a published book. i've gotten a couple requests from them for copies of it! i'm not sure how possible that will be, but i'll try.
let's see, what else is new? ........ we had a poetry reading at work last week sunday. the poets were from two feminist pubications: Dancing Girls and Switchback Press. i liked it a lot better than last month's, even though half of them still read poetry weirdly. i think that is how people are taught to read it, where they end every line as if it's a question while the rest is emotionless. Maybe i'm just used to poetry slammers- where it's more performance based, more theatrical. some of the poets this month did that, and i loved it.
yesterday we had a performance thing of music, poetry, and interpretive dance. pretty cool. one guitar player named victor did something really cool where he played his guitar but had a beer bottle in one hand near the strings. it made a really unique sound. and they had a cellist. i like cellos. cellos? celloes? celli? whatever. it was good.
tonight after work i tried going to a thrift store to buy a trenchcoat for my halloween costume, but the place i was looking for apparently isn't there anymore. :( so i got coldstone ice cream instead. i think monday i'll try again to look for more thrift stores.
i've got everything else i need for my costume. I'm going as Rorschach from the Watcman graphic novel. pretty awesome. not sure what we're doing for halloween. we're trying to set up a get-together of our normal group in one of the apartments. should be fun. it's already crazy here on division street (where we live). it's a big busy bar area, and covered in halloween decorations. already this weekend people are dressed up in costumes. next week is going to be intense. i can only imagine the crazy drunkeness i'll have to walk through to get home.
well, i really need to get started on some homework. love and miss you all! happy halloween if i don't post before then!

here's my response to our art event this week. it was a play based on a russian novel called The Brothers Karamazov:

Wow. Just wow. The Brothers Karamazov was so full of different themes that I find it hard to start a response. I think the easiest way would be to start with the technical aspects of the show.
I love black box theatres! You can do so many cool things with them. Theatre in the round is one of those things. When I saw that that was how this show was set up, I got excited. They did a pretty good job of blocking the show so that the actors played to all sides. Some of the scenes were too far in the corners for everyone to see them well, but it being only preview, hopefully they fix that.
One other thing that bothered me were some of the costumes. Some of them looked like they could be period costumes. Others were fairly modern. It was distracting when I noticed Ivan was wearing jeans. It bothered me for half of the show. But then someone else pointed out that a lot of the costumes looked like they all just went shopping at Hot Topic. After that, I began to wonder if that was, in fact, the concept. That would mak Madamee Khokhlakov's bright red hair make more sense.
The actors all did pretty well. The man who played Ivan was my favorite. He was so captivating during the court scene. The intensity, the way he was trembling, was all the more powerfu because he was so calm and laidback throughout the rest of it. And Dimitri's passion was done well. Sometimes I thought Alyosha was too softly played, But it seemed to fit with his monkish qualities. I felt bad for that character because everyone else always came to him, only trusted him. How hard would that be? But he always keeps hhis cool, even during his "rebellion."
There was so much in this show. Probably too much. 3 1/2 hours is a long show. It was hard to keep focus. I think they trid to carry over as much as they could from the book, but you can't do that in theatre and still keep it coherent as well as interesting. While the themes were all interesting, and kept me thinking, it became disconnected. I can't even remember now all of the thoughts I had while watching it.
But I do remember one big one, and it's my favorite. From Ivan's poem scene. "I believe in God. I just don't accept the world he created." How often have I struggled with that myself! What do you do when the God you believe in doesn't seem to care about his creation? That has to be where social justice steps in, where we take matters into our own hands. As long as we do it in a moral way, following God's guidelines, what could go wrong? Sadly, a lot still.
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would write more but i'm really tired and have a headache. no energy or motivation. had a good weekend, though. same old stuff of going out and eating food and seeing people and watching movies and laughing at stuff. going to bed now.

Toying with Death: An Afternoon with Jere Van Syoc

I’m not going to lie, I was nervous. I’d heard a lot about Jere Van Syoc: how interesting she is, how unique her art is. One person told me they were intimidated to be talking to her. Plus, I’d seen her movie: learned about her “Brothel,” her “Temple;” the fire and the windmill. But I still didn’t feel prepared to actually meet the woman.
On a Monday afternoon, I stepped off the bus and walked a few blocks, according to the directions from Google Maps. I found myself in a beautiful neighborhood, with stone buildings and numerous shady trees. When I found the right house, I was a little bit early, so I walked around the corner to catch a small glimpse of the area in which Jere resides. Behind the house, I found the van Jere uses to transport her artwork around: the Death Toy Art Bus. That made me smile, and I felt a little more comfortable going in, having seen something I recognized.
As I climbed the stairs to her second floor apartment, I was greeted by Minnie, a rambunctious puppy that likes to chew on things, like the wooden handle of a screwdriver and my arm. Jere wisely banished her to the porch for most of the interview, giving me time to look around. It was a smallish space, but felt bigger because it was very white and well lit. There were knick-knacks, books, and Death Toys everywhere. The Death Toys created a harsh contrast to the rest of the surroundings, being very crude looking, insect-like creatures in dark reds and blues. I sat on the couch and pulled out my notebook.
When Jere came back, she sat down in a chair across from me, very comfortable in her paint shirt and sweat pants. I could already tell that this would be very informal. As we start talking, her voice has a calming affect. It sounds so familiar, having watched her film. It takes me back to that setting, that story-telling atmosphere. And Jere has quite a story to tell.
“Born with a talent for foolin’ around with stuff,” Jere has always been involved with art, having a fondness for contraptions and toys. During the war as a child she would make guns out of wood. Even then, death as subject matter was developing. That has been a popular theme for her, and so has sex; a lot of her work is based around those ideas. When asked why, she replied, “They keep most people’s attention!”
Truthfully, though, she is motivated by events in her own life: her mother’s remarriage, dealing with a new family, and her mother’s death. When her grandmother died, Jere took the ashes and created a sort of altarpiece for it. That recycling of a loved ones remains seems morbid, but for Jere it is a renewal. Art pieces like her Death Toys series are sculptures of things that had once been alive but are now dead, whether that refers to animals or mechanical parts that used to run.
These Death Toys are very much not toys. They look like twisted mockeries of children’s toys. That is pretty much what they are. All are mobile- whether on a skateboard, a wagon, a stroller, etc. They take the forms of dogs, a rocking horse, a pilot. Using found objects and mixed media, Jere creates these things that some might call monsters to talk about the primitive and destructive behavior of human beings: animal cruelty, domestic abuse, gang warfare, etc. She then takes them out to public venues for people to see.
Death also plays a major factor in the project she is currently working on. Not to give away too much before it’s finished, but it would basically be a device to play music at her own funeral. And she seems very comfortable with the fact of her own mortality. I admired that in our conversation. She is very at ease with her self: answering my questions honestly and with sincerity. It’s like her work- very personal.
Perhaps that comfort comes from her longstanding relationship with Death in her art, as well as her history with the Feminist movement. She was just starting college during the Women’s Liberation, and that had a large affect on her work. She added an aspect of protection to her work then, with undertones of anger towards the abuses of women.
Women’s Rights aren’t the only issues that Jere was advocating for in her art. In the 1970s, she was part of a group that created a windmill, as a sort of recreation of Stonehenge that also had environmental capabilities as an alternative resource generator. She wanted something big- in size, impact, and concept; something almost mythical o legendary. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay up. Jere said that everyone hated it, but for her it was a great success.
This is only a brief telling of Jere’s story, and I would encourage anyone who’s interested to check out her movie, The Brothel, The Temple, and Art. It gives a wonderful, personal description of Jere’s art and life, much better than I can do. The part about the fire is particularly interesting. It destroyed much of her work. I asked her how hard that was to deal with, and she admitted to it being a great setback. But it also turned into an art of renewal. “It was the worst and best experience of my life.”
“I know many people say ‘you’re really making art’… but I never know that I have made it this far, where I’m ranked.” Hearing a woman like Jere, who I have come to admire, say that about her own success makes me wonder how I’ll ever judge my own work in comparison. What is success, anyway? But if I continue to work, day by day, I’ll improve. And one day, if I reach a level of art as deep and personal as Jere’s, that will be my measure of success.

It All Counts: A Morning with Dorothy Hughes

Monday, October 6, finds me sitting in a small apartment with a cup of hot tea, surrounded by ceramic pieces, mixed media paintings, and a large fiber hanging piece. Dorothy Hughes sits across the table from me, dressed in olive green. She lives in the loft above this showing space, and works in the studio below. This is only the third time I’ve met her, but she welcomed me warmly into her home for this interview experience.
“I was just totally addicted…It’s never not been there.” Dorothy and I start our hour and a half conversation by talking about her beginnings as an artist. Her parents were always supportive of her passion. As a child, she was always making art. She even attended Saturday school at the Fort Wayne Art School. After high school, she attended the University of Illinois and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Having married and had children young, her options were limited school-wise, but she still got in to some of the best art departments available. But at that time, a lot of things had to be managed at once. She doesn’t resent it, though. “There’s not a single thing more important to me than my family.”
In college, she focused her work on ceramics, with fiber work in the background. She recalls the clay work from this time as very conservative- simply wheel-thrown ceramics. It wasn’t until she started teaching at the Art Institute and Evanston that brought her fiber work out of the background and into brighter focus. Fiber pieces were having a break through in the art world, unlike clay. She also started working in mixed media, using plaster and twigs to bring an essence of story to her work.
Nowadays, Dorothy is teaching ceramics classes in the Cultural Center in Chicago, a program called Artscape. Everyday she is working, whether in physically or speculatively. “You spend so much time preparing for work that it’s not separated from making art.” And she works a lot. Some of her large fiber pieces, the size of an average wall, can take months of work. She works in dozens of clay pieces at a time to fill her kiln.
Working so much, you would expect to get burnt out, run out of ideas. I know I’ve hit that block many times myself. But as Dorothy says, “You constantly need to do things that stimulate you.” Every other year for 12 years, she has been going to the International Design Conference in order to be in the center of activity, to gain renewal. This past summer, she went to Italy to take a painting class, which is something she does not practice regularly.
But she said that getting out of her comfort zone like that makes a huge difference. If you get stuck in a rut, you need to involve yourself in a new creative situation to nudge you out of your normal work. “You are profoundly influenced by having this opportunity to be exposed to different things.” You have to take chances, even if the money comes out of your own pocket. If you don’t, you’ll get stagnate.
She also involves herself in things that are not art. Her and her friends started a book club ten years ago that is still thriving. “The library is my single favorite place to go.” She also claims to be a movie addict. She tries to balance the concrete of Milwaukee Avenue with natural green spaces like parks. But for her, “art life and everyday life work together.” She takes what she sees in nature and works it into her art. I can see the influence looking around me. The ceramic bowls and vases are very organic.
This integration of art and daily life is very important to Dorothy. “Everyday, all of us are around people that are very much not involved in the creative world. And I feel like something is missing in their lives.” In her classes, she has students who are not artists as a profession. “I can see that it’s such a balance to their other world.” She is very grateful that art has always been there for her as a means of expression.
She also appreciates the need for community in and outside the studio. “You need to have people feeding into your life…we all affect each other.” You have to get out and have a social life, a family. Besides, you never know the connections you might make! For Dorothy, a couple visits from a writer in the 70s became a small article in a newspaper, which spurred her career to new heights. Now she gets commissions from businesses like Shure (“That really was a thrill!”) and Household International. She has a piece in the Art Institute’s permanent collection.
If there was one recurrent theme in our conversation, it was this: It all counts. “All the different aspects, they all matter.” Especially good writing. A well written article, like the one previously mentioned, can make all the difference. But you have to make your own opportunities, and take what comes up, no matter the risk.
My favorite thing she said was this: “Everything gives you something, but some things give you so much more.” I had asked her about having a back-up plan if her career as an artist didn’t take off. She never really had a Plan B, but she supplemented her income by working in an accounting firm and a hospital. And while they didn’t give her experience in the arts, they still had something to offer- more than just a paycheck.
And I think that is something we all need to understand, artists and non-artists alike. It ALL counts. No matter what you are doing, you can learn something great from it. It all counts.

3 good shows

this weeks fine arts event was a musical: Caroline, or Change. about a black woman, a maid for a Jewish family, in 1963. she has to deal with the changing time; being poor; relationships with her kids, employers, friends, and herself. here's my response for class:

I LOVED Caroline, or Change! Probably my favorite event so far. it was beautifully done. stunning. i cried. from the moment caroline started humming, i was hooked. and then she started singing! such a voice- so deep and longing, strong and real and full of pain. all of the actors sounded good, but caroline blew me away. noah was adorable, though, when he was dancing, getting femmy. he was funny and sweet- he stole my heart. all three off the kids we saw were great. and the young woman playing emmy was just as good as caroline. each character was so believable, even if they were a bit cliché. the one charatcer i didn'tt like was the father, Stuart. he was acted wonderfully, but i just wanted to hit him! make him take care of his son and new wife.
i really liked the personification of inanimate objects (i.e. the washer/dryer, the bus). it's like, for caroline, they are what she associates with most. not people: her kids or friends. so she gives her radio and her dryer personalities. it's sad, but that's where her time is spent, where she's most herself. she has to be strong and tough for her children, obedient to her employers. but on her own in that basement, she is free to remember, free to feel and hope. in that lonely space, the dryer and washer and radio become her friends.
the set was great, sunken in for the basement, the stairs going up to the orchestra. having the orchestra on stage is always good. and this one sounded great- not overpowering. lighting was so good- adding mood, temperature, drama. beautiful. not just functional. and when they made it rain on stage- *nerdgasm* -that blew my mind. i can only imagine the work that went into setting that up. the visual it created, the sound. so refreshing, cleansing, but also sad. and it mirrored the repeated line of being underwater. that imagery was so powerful. being underwater, drowning, not being able to breathe. but at the end, it becomes a comfort.
the story was so moving, so sad. the way caroline was so trapped in her life, but fearing change. it was hard to see the end as happy when caroline ended up back where she was so miserable. but the hope comes with emmy- her mother's strength and resilience lives in her, plus the spunk of youth and the daring of her generation. this handling of change by caroline and emmy is paralleled with the more tactile plot of noah's bad habit of leaving change in his pockets. they tie together so well. one is what creates and enhances the problem of the other.

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on tuesday, i went on my own to see Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train. it was about a young latino man, angel, who shot and killed a religious cult leader. in jail he meets lucius, a murderer who found God while in prison, but still has a temper. then there's angel's lawyer, risking her job to keep angel out of prison b/c she believes his motives were honorable.
it's a great story- trying to figure out if bad actions are acceptable if done for good reasons; if wrongs are canceled out by the Ultimate Right.
it was really well acted. it was only a preview so they had a few mistakes, but the emotion was there, the power. it was a good story w/o being preachy. it was angry, loud, moving. the ending wasn't exactly happy, but it was hopeful for angel's inner piece.

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opened our new show at the gallery today. Objects of Desire. there are a lot of good pieces in it. lots of people came to the opening. spent a lot of time talking to other interns, a couple of the artists and visitors. still not good at mingling with strangers. plus i've got this stupid cold! my voice is much better, but not completely normal.
my feet really hurt- worked 12-8:30 in heels, running around all day, going up and down the stairs. should go to bed...

i've got paint in my hair again!

and it feels so good! it's been awhile since i've been covered in paint. i kinda missed it.
so the reason i've got paint all over is cause we are in between shows at Woman Made and we are making the gallery look nice. friday we took down the old show and packed it up, into boxes according to artists' various instructions and multiple levels of obsession with packaging peanuts. we also took out all the pieces for the next show, making sure they looked good. 2 came broken. :( and i spent a lot of timing giving a golden baby a lotion bath. that night amy and beate planned out the arrangement. i got to help! sort of. they asked me for my input at least! :/ it was interesting at least to see the process they went through.
yesterday, the preparator Emanuel came in and put everything up where it's supposed to go. and today we sanded and spackled and painted. i love painting. we had to redo some of it cause the color got mixed wrong. it was a nice, informal day. went around barefoot in a tanktop with my painting jeans. felt good. more me. we still have a lot of work to do. sweeping the floor, putting up labels, putting up the solo shows, etc.
this whole week is going to be busy. monday (tomorrow) i get to interview 2 artists. i'm excited. kinda nervous, cause one of them i've never met but she's supposedly really cool. it will be a good experience. i've got a lot of good questions ready. maybe i'll post the answers here, or at least the essays i make out of them. on tuesday, my practicum group goes on a neighborhood visit to auburn gresham for the day. should be a good time. that night i'm going to a show called Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train. i'm going by myself- got a free ticket online. there were a lot of shows to choose from. you could only pick one, and most of them sounded really good. it was hard to choose.
wednesday is classes like normal. thursday at work will be a lot of cleaning up, fixing things up, etc. our art event that night will be a theatre production called Caroline, or Change. no idea what it's about. then on friday we have to opening for the new show. it's called Objects of Desire. there's a lot of sculpture in this show. it's pretty good. there are a few pieces that i would not have chosen, but there are some that i love. check it out: http://womanmade.org/show.html?type=group&gallery=object_of_desire2008&pic=1
well. this was kind of a lame post. nice and short, though.
peace out

dancing tomatoes and a mermaid child

just got back from our weekly art event. it was called "Dr. Egg and the Man With No Ear." and it was 75% puppets. about genetic experiments. and it originated in australia. and it was AWESOME!
i was kinda nervous about it, it sounded weird. i'd heard that shows at Redmoon theatre are kind of hit or miss. but i was pleasantly surprised how good it was. they combined projections, puppets, and silent actors with music and a storyteller narrator. the narrator was exaggerated and funny, had a jim carey quality to him. it was good. the puppets themselves were incredible! they moved so well, so realistically. for one scene of a girl swimming, it took 3 puppeteers to move it. they way they had to dance around each other must have taken a lot of practice. the mix of projections and puppets that switch to actors worked so well. and the music added a sense of wonderment and mystery, made it light and childlike.
all of this makes it sound fun and happy- but it was NOT a children's show. it was played out like a children's show- the exaggerated acting and clown makeup. and the story itself was very simplified, with humor that a child would enjoy. but the theme of genetic modification, growing body parts in a box, a mutated mermaid child that almost gets killed: these things bring up very mature questions. how far is too far when it comes to science? what should be allowed? can we halt progress and discovery for fear of creating monsters? what is ethical? what do you do with a genetic mutant if you create one? who decides what is moral? i found the contrast between the way it was presented and what its message very interesting.
the show was fasicious and exaggerated to show it's point, and some people might find it to be "anti-science," "anti-progress;" but i don't think so. i think it just warns us to be careful how far we push. there are limits- there are boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. the result probably won't be a tomato with chicken legs or a fish with ears. the result would be a loss of consciousness of right and wrong. this argument has been carried through the years, this fear of what science is capable of. mary shelley's frankenstein said the same thing.
it was a really good show, and it was done wonderfully.

Her Mark

i know i just blogge yesterday, but i had a good day at work today and i wanted to talk about it. i'll try and keep this short!
anyways, every month at Woman Made, there is a group gathering called Her Mark. it's for members only, i think. or maybe it's free for members and anyone else pays a small fee. i don't really know. but beate thought it would be a good idea for me and loren (the other intern on saturday) to go as well, sit and listen, see what they are about.
it was a small group- 9 counting loren and me. but it was good. we went around and talked about our art, what's new with it, struggles, some people brought samples of their work. one woman's was really cool. she hand makes hebrew marriage contracts. beautiful beautiful designs and writing. we laughed and discussed. it was uplifting, supportive, friendly, and inviting. it's a good place to talk about art and what is happening in your life related to art. a good point they brought up is that you can't discuss art with everyone. you need other people who understand art, people you can have intellectual conversations with. it was really good.
the group was mostly made up of middle aged women, a couple older, me and loren and one other younger woman. i can't remember everyone's names but they were so nice and supportive. i really liked one thing that Sue said, in relation to the changes and progress of style, reinvention, etc. "how often do we have to become butterflies? cause it's certain as soon as you do, you're a caterpillar again."
mostly i wanted to write about this because i love what the group is doing. building community between artists, supporting each other and giving feedback. i'd really like to have that kind of a group at northwestern. i know there used to be one, my freshman year. i was never a part of it, though, and i think after certain people graduated it stopped happening. but maybe some of us can bring something like it together again. i know most of my friends are artists and we are always doing that kind of thing when we see each other, but this could be bigger than one circle of friends. more perspectives, in a more organized setting. if anyone from nwc reads this and thinks it's a good idea, let me know! i'd love to hear feedback, and maybe i could happen for real.
that's all i wanted to say... i told you it'd be short. relatively. :s

lots of stuff

so, it's been a little while... what's happened since last week thursday...
on friday, we had a movie night at the boys' apartment. we watched a really interesting german movie called run, lola, run. i like it. also got entertained by some drunken misshaps of one of the guys trying to catch a bus home. that was funny. saturday was a progressive dinner, where 9 rooms provided parts of a meal (3 appetizers, 3 entrees, 3 desserts) and you go from room to room eating. it was so good. made me realize, though, how many chicago semester students i don't know, or don't see anymore. especially the student teachers. sunday i went back to improv olympic with a girl named heather to see a friend of hers perform. it was awesome! 3 hours for $5. doesn't get much better. and it was good to spend time with heather cause i rarely see her, even though she lives across the hall. she's a student teacher.
on thursday this week we went to see Disavowel, a david dorfman dance thing. it was supposed to be about john brown, a white civil rights activist/borderline terrorist who was hung for his actions. the dance visually was really good. very modern/post-modern and improv/freestyle. they had this one bit where each dancer had a bucket with a light in it. beautiful. actually, the lighting for a lot of it was good. lots of silhouettes and shadows. no color though... and i liked how the dancers came into the audience, tied people together with string, pulled people on stage. and when there was "dialogue," it was very poetic. that was all good. but it was also very very abstract. i like abstract things most of the time. (i.e.jackson pollock's paintings, or small change that i saw in london). but as a dance that was supposed to be telling us about this man's life, it left nothing for us to grab onto. there were themes that could be pulled out of it relating to the civil rights movement. but it was completely over the heads of most of the people there. i'm not sure i liked it. i can see the value of something like it. and i don't think they should have to force feed us meaning. but i just don't think a show that is supposed to be about a specific person should be so undecipherable. it does generate discussion. it does cause us to think. but it was frustrating to not know what was going on. i wish i knew what the concept was originally, what they were going for. did they feel like they succeeded?
yesterday, though, a group of us bought tickets to see mama mia! it was wonderful! the singing was beautiful, especially the woman who plays donna. the set was cool, rotating walls. and the lights! brilliant. very saturated colors and disco-y for dance scenes. loved it. and at the end, after the curtain calls, they basically had a mini-concert, as if we were actually seeing abba perform. it was really cool. we all stood up and sang along. it was a really happy, feel good musical.
tonight, some of us went out for chinese (in Chinatown, of course), and then to a jazz festival. awesome night! just a small group of six. talked a lot- about everything. especially waiting in line to get into the jazz thing. the place was packed! we had to wait for over an hour. but it was so worth it. great musicians. and then we went to baskin robins for ice cream. it was a good night.
work is going really good. i'm doing a lot of copy-paste work into excel files, scanning slides still, etc. but we are also starting to get a lot of pieces for the next show. so whenever the ups guy comes, it's like a birthday and we get to open up the packages and find the artwork inside! i've visited some really good galleries for work, seen a lot of good art. museum of contemporary photography is my fav so far. for anyone who remembers the central photo for the grapes of wrath design- that was a photo by dorothea lange, and she had a lot of work at mocp while i was there. although i was interrupted by the fire alarm going off. had flashbacks to the tate britain...
classes are pretty good. have to write a 5-7 page paper by wednesday. i haven't started. it's on frank lloyd wright. not terribly exciting. but we have really good discussions in my art class. i love it.
so for one of my classes, we have to keep a journal. this week's entries are based around our relationships... i'm gonna pick a few things out of those entries and put them on here as well. (can't put the whole entries up cause that would make this exceedinly long!)forgive me if i'm repeating things from past entries.
i really like the group of friends that i have accumulated here. we seem like such a random collection of people: nerds and socialites, business and arts, sporty jocks and quiet wallflowers. but somehow we all came together. three of them are actually from northwestern. i knew and liked one of them at school. i worked with her. the other two i didn't even know. we had completely different circles. and now we hang out at least once a week. it's great. movie nights, weekly meals, sometimes dancing or going to a bar. music festivals happen all the time.
having a bit of a hard time with my roommate. we get along okay, but there are things that annoy me. (it's getting better since i originally wrote this in my journal!) it's a lot of little, petty things. like how much perfume she wears, the way she calls everyone scooter, laughing at her computer... there are bigger issues, too, like the fact that i am always more interested in her day than she is in mine. she talks forever about her day and rarely asks me about work. and we never really talk at all. most nights are spent in silence, each with our headphones on. i feel as if we will never be the kind of friends i see other roommates becoming. we have a lot in common, but very diferent personalities...
and the people i work with are wonderful! my boss, beate, is so funny, sweet, and strong. i really admire her for all she does. she is very motherly- making sure we eat, take breaks. she offers water and pop to the ups guy when he comes. walks us through step by step when we are learning something new. she does the same thing with artists, too. amy, my other boss, is great. very friendly and helpful. she gives me great assignments to work on, and really supports what i want to do with my internship. we talk a lot about art, school, politics. kristin is the other employee, a senior at DePaul. took some time to get a connection with here (we have different personalities), but she's pretty nice. always good for suggesting artists to look into, or events happening in chicago. there are also 3 more interns, who each only work 1 day a week. it's harder to get to know them, but they are all fun. i think i get along best with lindsay. not sure why... there are so many other people involved with the gallery- artists, jurors, volunteers, etc. i haven't met all of them. but the ones i have talked to are are great. quirky, inspiring, creative, polite, funny, sincere, interesting. i feel blessed to be able to meet just a few of them.
well, i don't think there's anything else...
love and miss you all!

Amadeus

so, the past few days have been wonderful! lots of fun and good times. let's see...
on monday i wandered up and down michegan avenue by myself, taking lots and lots of pictures. it was awesome to get out and see the public art, to spend time on my own downtown.
on tuesday, i went to a couple of small galleries as part of my work assignments. one was crafts and the other was photography. i really liked the photography one. really good exhibit.
on wednesday, we had a surprise party for a friend's, kim, birthday. zulfiya, kim's roommate, came to our apartment to bake the cake and make all the plans. she is so funny! she freaks out about the littlest things and is so excitable, i can't help but smile when i'm around her. then at the party, we played the most competetive, most epic game of musical chairs i've ever been involved with. cheating, pushing, anger, and the longest last round ever! it was hilarious.
and then work today was great. it was a slow morning so me and beate had a long lunch break (cheese and crackers and hummus and pound cake!) and just talked. about family, religion/faith, school, etc. she asks so many questions, tells so many stories, and gets off an explanatory tangents that it's hard to get a word in myself, but it was good. i like her a lot. she's a strong woman. the afternoon was a bit busier- for her at least. she had a lot of meetings. so i got to train another new intern! her name is lindsay and she's pretty cool.
and then tonight, our weekly fine arts event was seeing Amadeus. it's a show about Antonio Salieri and his rivalry with Mozart. it was a great show, and beautiful space. small, thrust stage theatre. we were so close we could see the spit fly. and there was a lot of spit! the actors for bot mozart and salieri perform on broadway, so they were incredible! the rest of this is what i wrote as a reflection for the class. so i don't have to say it all again...

i loved the show. it was beautifully done, beautifully designed. the raked stage with the painting on the floor (michelangelo style), and the mirror above it, was stunning. i loved the way they used lighting to set the mood- the strong contast of light and dark during salieri's dark moments of anguish was breathtaking. and the costumes! salieri's coat in the second act- the green and gold paisleyish one- was my favorite. i would wear that coat. i really like period costumes. the wig designer did a great job, too, although mozart's pink horned one was iffy... but i really liked the way they paralleled mozart's grey figure and salieri's shroud during the 'present' scenes. i hope that was intentional. because it was perfect.
and the acting! mozart was positively rioutous! so flamboyant, childish, crude, and lovable. i wanted to hate him at times, seeing all of his personality flaws. but he was too playful and fun in the beginning, and too pitiable and desperate at the end. i was close enough to the stage that i could see the tears running down his face during his death scene, and i cried with him. the actor did an amazing job. but salieri was absolutely incredible. anger, delight, anguish, sadness, deviousness, stoicness, feigned graciousness- it was all there. the power of his voice was captivating, the little inflections in the soliloquies making it almost a conversation with the audience. the emotion of his pain, the depth of his hatred pulled at my heart.
but even with such serious themes, it was humorous. i didn't expect it to be that much of a comedy. but it was, even in salieri's attempted suicide. i loved it. like mozart, a lot of it was crude, low brow, humor. but it was good.
one thing i found intriguing, and unfortunate, was the fact that all salieri wanted was fame, and if he couldn't have that he'd settle for infamy. in the play, that, too got taken away. but that juxtaposes the fact that we are sitting in a theatre watching a play that's all about him! he has his immortality! unfortunately, we find humor in his very real pain. even his failed attempt at death. it makes me feel really sad for the real salieri. because, really, he's not that well known now, either. how many elementary/junior high students have heard of mozart? almost all of them. how many have heard of salieri? i know i didn't know anything substantial about him until college. i know i just said that he has his immortality, on stage and in history, but he is still outshined by mozart. he can't escape it.
i really appreciated getting to meet some of the actors afterwards. it makes a show feel over better that way, especially after hearing david lively talk in class. we got to see three sides of him that way. before a show, on stage, and right after a show. when we can see the people underneath the makeup and wigs, it makes the actors more real, separate from their characters. that's important, knowing that they are real people.

i guess that's it... bye for now

quickie

what a dreary, soggy weekend! not a lot happened thanks to the rain. i wanted to get to the celtic fest and an arts fair this weekend, but with the rain i didn't feel like going anywhere. oh well. it wasn't a bad weekend. we still had fun. and work is going good.
let's see... new tasks at work... more filing, adding necklaces to the artisan gallery, i learned how to scan slides. that's actually a semester long project- scanning all the slides from past shows way back when, and putting them in archives on the computer. got two new interns now as well. one, clarissa, only works saturdays. she's really cool, junior art history major. the other girl, loren, was supposed to work today; but apparently she was so completely soaked when she got to work that Beate told her to go home and take a nice bath! so i haven't met her yet.
saturday was supposed to be the MAAC (Milwaukee Ave Arts Corridor) Gallery Walk, where we lead community people through the 3 non-profit galleries in the area. beate asked me to lead it! so i had to brush up on info on the 3 galleries. but saturday came with downpouring rain, so we figured no one would show up. but me and clarissa, the new girl, went anyway. we start at a snack bar called Love's. wait for anyone to show up. no one did. then we walk to ARC Gallery, Woman Made, and Inuit. since we work at Woman Made, we bypassed it and went from ARC to Intuit, and ended with Woman Made. it was good to see the galleries, good for her to know how to get to them. they are both really interesting and you should look them up. i especially like Intuit's current show. but i think we have an arts event there in a couple weeks, so i'll wait til then to talk about it.
and today was the monthly poetry reading. that was pretty cool. so work was mostly setting up for that and listening to poetry for an hour and a half. they were pretty good. mostly environmental (to fit the theme of our current exhibit), but there were other themes woven in that. i didn't talk to any of the poets afterwards, but i did talk to a man who came to support a poet. he was sweet- puerto rican i think. got to talk to Kristin (one of the main volunteers) a lot today, too, so that was really nice. ate a lot of cheese and fruit.
so that's work (even if it doesn't sound like it). for fun, we had a saturday night live party last night. that was pretty cool. afterwards, mike pulled out a Trapped in a Closet. R Kelly's rap soap opera thing. it's hilarious to watch, especially cause it's not supposed to be a comedy. it's absolutely rediculous. i hope it's on youtube.and then today we had our weekly get together/supper thing. breakfast for supper. it was so good. played games afterwards.
and that's really about it. not so much a quickie, but still shorter than most blogs i write!
laterz

art galleries and stuff

so peeps...how's it going? it's hard to believe that life continues without me back in Iowa. just imagining all the stuff i'm missing on campus, new friends people are making, new classes. whenever i think of that i wonder why i feel so at home here in chicago. but i do. i've figured out a bus route to work, as well as the train route. i know where a lot of stuff is downtown, and i plan on going there for picture taking eventually. i really need to get to millenium park!

although i am feeling at home, i also feel like i'm being changed. i knew that was going to happen. i expected to grow. but the change i'm feeling is more like i have to be someone i'm not. i have to dress up for work. not too much, it's pretty casual. but i can't wear just anything. and i'm wearing makeup and jewelry on a regular basis. and not the funky eclectic way that i like. i have to look respectable. plus, i had to buy an umbrella. if you read my last blog, you know how well that turned out. but i love the rain. i love walking in it. but because of the way i have to dress and appear, i have to stay dry.

whenever i'm on a bus or train dressed for work, i see people in casual clothes, clothes they like wearing and are comfortable in. and i wish i could do that. i wish i could just be me in every way. i find little things, like my key ring earrings, or a scarfy bandana, to feel like myself. but the way i dress changes the way i act. and i don't want to become someone who gets dressed up and fusses about their hair and owns more shoes than some countries have. if i come back next semester like that, someone please slap me! i don't want to be that much of a grown up. not now, not ever!

so yeah. art galleries. went to museum of contemporary art yesterday. i was there for a few hours. it was awesome! made me miss london a little bit. okay, a lot a bit. there was a jeff koons exhibit, alexander calder, bruce nauman (one of my favs!), kara walker, and lots of other good stuff. i enjoyed the first couple hours on my own, then went back through with other people. we had good discussion about some "graphic" pieces...

plus i had a strange experience of walking through a room of kara walker's pieces with a friend who happens to be an african woman. if you don't know anything about kara walker, look her up. it's really good, really intense on civil rights movement, blacks in the south, etc. my friend, michellee, was really affected by it. it was interesting to see her shocked reactions to what was on the walls. she understands a lot more than i do what that is about. she is not an american (she's from ghana) but she knows what african americans went through during that time period. i think it was hard for her to look at those images, but she couldn't look away until she had seen them all.

the rest of the gallery was a happier experience. loved the nauman works. jeff koons is outrageous as always. william kentridge had a stop action video/drawing piece. you can look up his work on youtube, i think. i love it. it was a good day.

today in class, we went to the art institute. just as good a gallery, but a less good experience. this time we had a tour guide. i don't like tour guides, especially for art. every time she asked a question, it took me out of the painting. which sucked, because they had a lot of great stuff! and we didn't get to look at hardly anything. although we did spend a lot of time with some abstract expressionists. de kooning, joan mitchell, jackson pollock. especially jackson pollock. some of you may know about my obsession with jp, so that was happiness. but we skipped over degas and picasso and john constable and i don't even know what else. we didn't even look at american gothic! got to see sunday on la grand jatte, though, by seurat. more patronizing questions that try to get us to engage a piece, but only take me out of it. i like looking at a piece, experiencing it on my own, and talking about it later. i'll just have to go back and experience it more in depth, on my own.

classes are pretty good, other than that. i like my practicum group, for the most part. a couple people are too high maintenance for my taste. i tried not to judge them on first impressions, but second and third impressions haven't changed them much at all. for one especially; she's only gotten worse. maybe she's having a hard time, maybe she's a great person. maybe she'll end up my best friend. i don't know. but right now she seems to have an attitude problem and an "i'm too cool for this" expression all the time. but everyone else is really awesome.

so, i just went on this long rant about how much i hate my computer...and it kicked me off internet for the 3rd time tonight. HATE!!!! need a new one. *coughchristmascough* i can't stand this one anymore. slower than death, can't multitask, keyboard rediculously messed up, not enough space. i seriously want to throw it out the window right now.

luckily, blogger saved most of what i wrote. not all of it. i'll paraphrase the rest. i had mentioned another class going on a bus tour seeing architecture and public art. tour speech blah blah blah didn't listen. drove through greek town and china town, almost went to obama's house but couldn't find it. and then i think i started my computer rant, which i trimmed down to the few sentences above.

anyway... internship is going good, still. having a lot of fun working, and just living in chicago. also, a couple of people have asked me to design stuff for them, so i have extra projects to work on! and i'm still trying to keep up with my art. senior show next semester!!!

well, before my pain-in-the-ass computer blows up, i'm gonna finish. until next time, y'all-
love and kisses

first few days of work, plus some fun

well, i've been broken in to the gallery now. worked 3 days. thursday was the first. it was good. kinda busy b/c of the new show (which opened yesterday). lot of cleaning, straightening, putting up labels. cleaned walls. got the mail. rearranged/organized the gift shop (Beate said i have a good eye for that!). lot of simple (some might say boring) things but i enjoyed it because i enjoy being at the gallery. finally got to meet amy this day, and she's really nice.
day two was more cleaning, putting up galler titles (on large sheets of contact paper that has to be perfectly level at the right height for Beate to be happy). met Kristin, a volunteer, and Sarah, another intern. they were both really nice; both artists as well. unfortunately it was sarah's last day before going back to school. we toasted her with champaigne before the opening. the opening was really fun. met a few artists, talked to them a bit. mostly just greeted people and ate cookies. looked after the artisan gallery- helped people if they wanted to try on any of the jewelry. the show is really good- you can check it out on the website (link in last blog).
today (yes i work weekends) was a short day. almost as soon as i got there, an artist walked in and i chatted with her for a bit. mostly about her ceramics studio and how i should visit it when i have time and possibly take a class there. it would be really cool, but i think it clashes with a cs class. got to visit ARC Gallery, just around the corner from Woman Made. it's another woman run gallery; they had some good stuff, too. sent out a few emails. did some filing. took some notes on a piece that got broke by kids running around during the opening yesteday. then i got to go home. early, even.
btw, here's my schedule:
thurs/fri= 12-7
sat/sun= 12-4
mon/tues= 5 hours each anytime between 9 and 5 at the CS offices. or whenever i feel like it if i am visiting other galleries. as long as i get 5 hours each day. this is basically my weekend.
wed= classes 10:30-5

so that was work stuff. what else have i done? well, on thurs i went to the circus. it was our first Fine Arts Event. Zoppe Family Circus, a small one ring show run by the same family of Italians for 6 generations. very quality, old time style circus. funny and impressive for being so small. saw a father who juggles his kids with his feet. basically, one child sits on his feet (he's on his back) and he flips them and catches them on his feet again. but they do twists and land perfectly. sometimes the littler kids stood on his feet and did perfect flips. it was good to really get into it and feel like a kid again. hadn't been to a circus in a long time, and i loved it. it was great! .....
other than the fact that it was freezing! raining and windy. all day. bought an umbrella that morning that broke as i was walking to the circus. and then it started raining harder. i was on my own, coming straight from work (still in work clothes). followed the directions we were given and figured out pretty quickly that those directions were wrong. turned around, missed the street i was looking for because my glasses were rain spattered and foggy. thought i was gonna be late, soaked all the way through, stepping in puddles, in a strange neighborhood. asked for directions and kept walking. (btw the directions we were originally given made it sound easy and quick to get to. they lied) when i finally got there (an hour and a half after i left work), i was greeted by 3 soggy figures that turned out to be our professors. they surprised my by telling me i was the first one there! i couldn't believe it. but soon the rest of the class wandered in, in varying states of wetness. a few actually got there late, after the show had started. of course, Nino the clown made fun of them for it! but we all survived. and the professors shuttled us to the train stations afterwards. while waiting for a ride, a bunch of us crowded under a roof/shell of umbrellas, trying to keep dry and warm. it would have made a good pic, but no one had a camera.

so those are the events so far. tues we go to museum of contemporary art!!!!

I am starting to feel at home here in chicago. took my first solo bus ride to work and back and i survived. getting my bearings directionwise. the people are friendly enough (except for the bus/cab drivers). we're going dancing tonight. the apartment is...well, it is. that's about it. we hear every delivery truck, every garbage truck in the mornings. every fire truck, police car, and ambulance in the middle of the night, and a few drunks in the evening. i set off the smoke alarm making pizza rolls last night. that was fun.
been doing reading for class, plus finished 2 pleasure reading books already. got a lot of travel time to read. so far, chicago has generally been good to me. but i miss my friends still! need to hear from people. call me! *coughtuckercough*

well, i think this is long enough. love you all!

*sigh* Internet at last!

okay all, so... i've been in chicago since last week monday (aug 25th) and i can finally sit down with my computer and write about the last week and a half. i'm at The Corner Bakery where they have free wirless and really good oatmeal. i'm gonna be here a lot.

any. for those who don't know, i'm doing Chicago Semester this fall; i'm interning and taking classes until the first week of december. orientation started last monday. kav (stepdad) dropped me off at the hotel the CSers stay at during orientation, and i was on my own. super nice hotel, nice rooms, very modern lobby decor, wine tasting every night. had to wear business casual whenever we were outside our rooms. kind of annoying but ya get used to it.

anyway, we had meeting after meeting, some getting to know you games, how to get around chicago sessions, interviewing tips, safety reminders, and all that stuff on monday and tuesday. everyone was really nice and helpful, but we were all still a bit nervous. the map of chicago they gave us is literally the size of my bed. daunting, but i think pretty simple once you get your bearings.

on tues, we found out our list of interview sites. i'd already had two phone interviews over the summer, so i only had to go to one real interview that week, plus visiting one of the others. wed through friday most people had interviews. wed i interviewed at Intuit: Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. http://www.art.org/ very cool, and the interview went really well.. Wed i visited Woman Made Gallery, the internship i really wanted and eventually got. i didn't ever get to visit the other place i had a phone interview with b/c they were at a convention or something all last week. that one was DuSable Museum of African American History. it sounded like a cool gallery but the work i would have been doing wasn't at all what i wanted. it would have been a lot of organizing and filing, cataloguing and things like that.

at woman made, i get to do everything from washing windows to setting up galleries and interacting with the artists. i get to go to other galleries and compare them, do research, update the websites, etc. i get hours for galley openings and stuff that is more fun that work! i'm really excited, and the people i work for are great.

i should probably say something about woman made: it's a small, non profit gallery that supports and raises awareness for female artists. they have some really good art up right now, but i think they are putting in a new show soon. check out the website, though. http://womanmade.org/index.html

wednesday of orientation week we also got apartments set up. (we just moved in sat. morning). small, $500/month each for a two bed studio. but they are a couple blocks from the beach and there are a lot of bars/restaurants/cafes nearby, plus a barnes and noble, walgreens, grocery stores, and a cta station. i'm living with whitney powell from dordt. met her on our london trip this summer but didn't really get to know her that well. we like a lot of the same things so we decided to room together. we live on the second floor which is nice for going up and down, but there's no view. :( oh well. lots of other CSers live in the same building so there's always someone to talk to/go to the beach with.

on sat, dad and grandma came up with the rest of my stuff. we went to navy pier- took a short cruise around the lake, then went to sears tower. lots of waiting in line, lots of people. but the view at night is gorgeous. sunday and monday were chillaxing days. beach, grocery shopping, unpacking, buying forgotten items, more beach. Zulfiya, Michelle, and I had a drawing party at the beach on monday (yesterday). sunday night we went downtown to grant (?) park for the jazz festival. awesome. stood in line for free organic delicious dark chocolate. then listened to great jazz music. after that we played in a cool fountain and went out for ice cream. last night a bunch of us went to another CSers apartment and had a pasta dinner, everyone bringing a little something. it was fun. the other students are pretty cool. i haven't met everyone (there's 60 of us), but i recognize most faces.

all the leaders are really nice. especially cynthia. she's kind of my go-to person. i was in her group for the interview process and she made my internship possible. (there were complications with hours). and she is going to be my practicum group leader. our practicum groups are the small groups we have for discussing our semester each week. they happen on wednesdays along with classes. speaking of classes: i'm in the arts in the city seminar, where we go to a different event each week and discuss it, write about it, reflect, and we have a final project at the end of the semester. the other class is metropolitan: public art, where we discuss and look at architecture, sculpture, etc and it's impact on the city and city life.

so yeah.... what haven't i talked about yet? the cta trains are pretty simple, even if they don't go all the places i'd like them to. buses are intimidating but i think i can figure them out. good places to eat- had thai once during orientation, and went out to a pub once for supper. mostly we've gone to cheap places though, and now we can buy our own groceries. i've only been out to a bar once with a big group of people. some people have been out a lot. it's just too expensive!

oh! and i "discovered" a great place for tea: Argo Tea. it's like starbucks, but tea instead of coffee. delicious. great atmoshpere, friendly. and we found where wicked is playing, and jersey boys too. oh, and we saw an improv shakespeare show. BEST EVER! i don't even know if i can explain it properly. it's too much awesome. http://chicago.ioimprov.com/io/shows/14

well, for now, i think that's it. sorry it's long- i had to make up for the time lapse.

enjoy some pics- wherever they show up! love and miss you all!

p.s. my address is 1220 N. State Parkway (not street, sorry if i already told you it was street)

Chicago, IL 60610. and if you don't have my phone number yet, shame on you. 712-210-1179