I’ve been in Tulsa for Thanksgiving break since Tuesday afternoon. I’ve enjoyed being home, but it has hardly felt like a break. Knowing that I have to spend the next three weeks working doesn’t make things much better. I like the majority of the work I have to do, but there’s just so much of it. I’m overwhelmed right now. And I haven’t been sleeping very well. Perhaps going to bed now would help…

Been meaning to post some photos, but that will happen tomorrow.

Just made this film last night. Spent two hours painting over an old Cingular network map. I have no idea why I was so detailed with it, because it’s not entirely necessary. It was kind of soothing and at least now it’ll be really convincing. Anyway, the print is for an exchange called Love + Misplacement. It’s about long distance relationships and is tentatively called “It’s All Downhill From Here” (haha, I crack myself up). There are five more layers (three text layers, background, an image in gloss). I’m really excited to print this, but I don’t know when I’m going to. I’m really glad that process is so calming to me.

A page from a book that I’m making for Letterpress. The assignment is actually a xerox book (a way for us to focus more on concept rather than technique), so I’m spending more time considering all of the pages rather than running around trying to print them on time. This is only two pages out of 64 (sixty-four!). I’m about half-way done right now. I’m working with the idea of discomfort and how much information I choose to reveal about myself. I am creating maps of what is revealed versus what is covered up – perhaps an abstract method of calculating my discomfort? I’ve written so many pages about this and yet I don’t feel like I completely explain it. Scatterbrained.

From the sketchbook, collage sketches. Thinking about the xerox book.

Two sketchbooks for two separate projects. Inevitably, I will come up with ideas for a completely different project than the one I’m brainstorming for. Keeps it organized this way.

My desk, which is very small.

There aren’t very many weeks left in the semester, which seems so strange because it still feels like we’re just beginning. Next thing I know, I’ll have graduated and I won’t know what to do with myself! It always works out in the end, but this transition period is pretty awful.

I just have to say, that I’m loving my internship. The MICA printmaking department runs a professional printmaking/letterpress shop (Dolphin Press & Print) and every semester, a few students apply to work on a project. This semester we’re working on an accordion book for Christopher Whittey. Thirteen feet? Sixteen feet? Something to that extent. The text for the book is letterpressed and the images are lithographs which are printed separately and tipped in. As interns, we function as a production team – putting together the book and assisting with odds and ends. I’ve been helping print the lithos lately and it’s making me realize (more and more) that this is what I want to do. Maybe not lithography, but definitely work at a printshop (Own a printshop? Too far in the future for me to fathom right now). Nick (a prof. at MICA, who I am helping with printing) is setting up a screenprinting shop capable of doing 4×6 foot prints and it’s giving me the itch to print (and to get my dinky basement setup going). Hopefully, I’ll get to check that out before leaving Baltimore.

The uncertainty of the future gets me sometimes, but I know that if I really want it to happen, I’ll find a means to make it happen.

A poster I did last year for my Graphic Design IV class. Promoting the Smart car to college students. I like it alright, but I should have spent more time working on the concept. Let’s just say I was really frustrated with that class and I just wanted to make something that I liked. All that negative space underneath the block of text is for a sticker that would contain info specific to whatever school the tour was going to. You know, to save money and all that.

Flickr did some strange things to this image when I uploaded it, so the color is not entirely true (check out the differences between the original and the resized! blech!). It’s supposed to be a bright blue.

I’ve got Adv. GD in a few hours, so it’s back to creating a storyboard for my roarin’ 20s/graffiti inspired lighting catalog. More on that one later.

Proofs from my current intaglio print. It’s a two plate/two color deal, and it’ll be the first multiple color intaglio image I make. Nerve wracking, but I’m glad I’m giving it more thought. For the key image with the actual map, I’m in the process of burnishing the dark aquatint. I think it’ll give it the softness that I’m looking for. Thinking about doing a light aquatint in some areas of the land. Not sure if that’ll be too overwhelming with the texture layered over it. I’ll probably work on the burnishing, print a proof with both actually layered and go from there.

Went to the Baltimore Museum of Art on Saturday to take some photos for my History of Modern Design paper. Photos starting here. Of course, I gravitated to the Rauschenberg area:

Gotta love it. I have some ideas for mixed media paintings that could translate into a body of work for next semester (Adv. Screenprinting project perhaps?), more on that later.

Got emails from Geoff of the Decoder Ring and Jay of the Bird Machine yesterday (while still panicking about the future) which my made my little heart burst with glee. Hello and thanks, guys.

Thinking about the future might nearly kill me. I realized this year that I have no idea what I’m going to do. And that is frightening. Considering grad. schools (for printmaking):

University of Texas, Austin (I like the attitude of Austin, there’s a lot to offer in terms of printmaking and design, SXSW!, ACL & live music capital of the world?, Decoder Ring Design Concern, not too large of a city)
RISD (Hahahaha. Maybe I’m still a little bitter. Can I afford it? No.)
SAIC (Chicago? The Bird Machine? What else is there?)
University of Wisconsin, Madison (The “graphics” program is like a combination of printmaking and graphic design. Little Friends of Printmaking?)
University of Tennessee, Knoxville (For the very little chance of working at Yee-Haw Industries)
Tamarind (Because I’d rather be a master printer than a graphic designer and I think that grows to be more true every single day)

I have no idea. I change my mind every few minutes.

I’m going to start posting images that inspire me and snippets from my notebook. I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile and I think I could really benefit from it right now, because my head feels like it’s going to explode from all of the unorganized thoughts.

I stumbled upon David Maisel at the beginning of the summer. It was on one of the many blogs that I’ve been reading (I cannot live without Google Reader) and I was instantly hooked. The photos above are from Terminal Mirage and The Lake Project. The photos are aerials depicting areas of the landscape that have varying concentrations of chemicals.

Nick Butcher of Programmable Press. He did a print with the Decoder Ring Design Concern in Austin, TX and there’s a gallery featuring some in progress shots of the print – here. All of the images above are actually his paintings. I love the different whites and the texture.

The map images are from Ace Jet 170, a great design blog that has lots of found type, vintage maps and all that good stuff. I’ve been looking at lot a maps and aerial photographs lately trying to pick up on the visual language. Road are surprisingly difficult to fake. When it looks wrong, it looks wrong and I can’t say that I can pinpoint why at this point. I guess the fascination with maps/aerials started as a new way of looking at landscape. I wanted to work with the idea of fictional locations and constructed landscapes – something less literal than what I had been doing. So I’ve been working on pieces for my show this summer (at Artifacts) which is going to be called Truth or Fiction. I haven’t quite hit my stride yet, which makes me a little worried, but it’ll be okay.

One of the problems I’ve been having is that I have so many different thoughts and ideas that I’m having difficulty focusing on one thing. It’s like the concept is all there (or maybe not?) but I can’t get it organized enough to write a decent statement or anything. I’ve been writing down all the thoughts when they come to me. Here’s a selection:

- fictional locales that could be taken as reality, real places. vintage, old world maps in combination with aerial views, a hybrid? not completely literal.

- in transit, in between two points/places, not at the final destination

- what is the significance of fictional locations/maps?
–personal connection: an effect of my upbringing/childhood to create worlds for myself
–a reaction to the uncomfortable – telling lies, half-truths &c., dissatisfaction with an environment leads to creating your own?
–hides discomfort. a method of projecting confidence when it’s not really there? (how would the viewer know if you’re actually telling the truth?)

- maps that lead nowhere/are cyclical, maps that are confusing/are not able to be read or deciphered, maps that are combinations of places/based off of memory of the location &c.

I really want to see if I can do an independent study next semester with a printmaking faculty and work on some etchings. Given that I have only worked on etching for less than a month, I might be wrong, but it feels like it could be the right medium. Or at least the right medium in combination with something else. (It’s always hard for me to limit myself to a single medium.) I’m not even sure if that’s something I could do. I guess I should look into it instead of just talking about it. That’s all for now.