Here's two photographs for you out there. What you may not know about these images is they define two separate times in my life. 1 just out of high school and going to college far away from home. This was what people call a turning point in their life. Being young i felt invincible nothing could stop me and everything went so slow. Like i was racing to be an adult but so naive to the responsibilities.  I caught this picture of carolyn on an afternoon looking for nothing, but trying to make it everything. Kevin, Carolyn, and I found a sunset while playing around this hill and for some reason that was the world to us at that time, nothing else mattered. Kevin had opened my eyes up to photography. I feel like he taught me or at least influenced me on how to see things.

This second photograph comes from state college, Pa. Some where someplace i was lost driving around. I was going through something that caused me to be disconnected from others. If i looked into old journals i could explain in better detail, but i know i was alone when i took this picture the first time. I was at a loss for friends and retreated into myself and  i would become an escape artist. I tried to find that spark I had going back in Pittsburgh, and all i found were these two trees. Things have changed a lot since these times and i could look back now and know that it isn't over. 

The over dramatic couple.  The mans like "what i do?" and the woman stares with a look of dissatisfaction. 

The work on the right is by a Valentina  Henao. 

 I was looking through some old pictures and came across this one. Yes the tree is growing out of that impossible little hole in the concrete wall.

                        "flying Machine" 2007

This was a project i was working on last fall for a metal arts class at Penn State.  At this point in my work i was using a lot of found objects and compositional skills. I had stepped away from construction and craft of an object, and began focusing more so on the relationship of objects and their implied function. Looking back at this picture now I'm beginning to see how the drawn line is constructed through the chalk and the objects, opposed to a line in the sketch book. 

Besides that i loved the character i was playing while making this piece- a crazy person who wants to fly. I didn't know if this guy was just completely insane thinking he could fly with the birds in this inadequate machine. Or was he really trying to make it happen through all the trial and error he has graffitied in chalk? The odd fantasies of a painted runway and "Need chrome exhaust tip: See Frank." Is this man part of this world or lost somewhere in history between a dust jacket. 

When i was standing there in my critique i knew he was out for lunch or looking for some nuts and bolts. Waiting for these people to leave so he can get back to thinking.

Some on going work i began about 2 years ago. Birch tree bending.

Mondays

                          

Sam woke up this morning thinking it was sunday. He walked down the street with his headphones on humming along. The sidewalk was being taken up by big steel machines on tracks and wheels. You would think he'd put the cig down after getting a disel toke. Without looking he crossed the busy street, almost murdered by some old lady driving an old oldsmobile. He didn't bother to look at the heart attack she almost had, but the packed gas station got on his nerves. "extra caffiene in my coffee" he mumbled to himself sipping the $1.89 cup of extra large goodness. The clerk said "credit or debit." "ummm.... credit," it's fucking credit all the time Sam thought. Right outside the stickered door, right in front of another old lady pumping gas into her old junker he sucks down another sip. Puff, step, puff ,step, this is his marching song. Drill sargent replaced by metal music, uniform traded for second hand clothes, and a back pack filled with all kinds of contraband. Key in lock, slam! Key in lock.Locked! Bit of bounce in his step from his caffiene dreams. Jacket off, ass in chair, confusion.

FUCK! It's monday!

Store of stories

Here are some fantastic ramblings of a girl i know. 

sloth advocate:

due to a recent illness among the highest sloth supporter- Roberto Fernando Georgio Armani-Smith, you have been appointed to the position of Sloth Soobah. this position entails that you and Juan travel to the habitat of our dear friend Sloth and cohabitate among he and his people. please, do not overlook this request, but take it as a word of caution. not many have survived this risky task and lifestyle. 

you will need: parachute (specifically orange- any other color excites the sloths), bull frogs, tweezers, one sock, cd's from 1984- (sloths particularly favor this year in music), bird droppings-(blue jay)... and of course, an ak47.

thank you for your cooperation in this manner. 

sincerely,
panda support agency

AND...

I'm really starting to get sick and tired of you stealing pork chops from the maple tree. do you not appreciate the hard work of the aardvark, making sure pork chops and grow freely with the slightest hint of a maple sweetness? 

i'm still taking sloth & sloth to court. i've done my research and what you're doing is called Discrimination. i'll be there to save the pandas whether you and your feeble sloths like it or not. 

Matilda Bagwright

I don't know how to give any proper explanation about these short messages other than an absurd conversation Rachel and I have created between one another. She has a way of constructing the absurd through changing a few words in an seemingly normal sentence. Keep posted for the weekly update of our dialogue.  ENJOY!

                      360* of the installation.

This is a drawing cast in resin and is free standing.

Blogging?

So i'm new to this blogging thing and trying to wrap my head around it. I haven't really looked at to many to see how most people use them, and what they use them for. So i guess this is my statement of intent. I don't have a website yet for my portfolio but after discovering blogging i'm going to get that going sometime soon. I've used facebook and myspace as my constant for publishing my new work, but it's getting old and tired. I like the idea that the blog is an online sketchbook and journal to record what's been going on in my world and the world in general. I hope to use this space to promote the idea of " being lost." 

It all started with a conversation i had with a fellow  artist Helen O'Leary. We were talking about recent work and trying to discover were it comes from and how. I mentioned to her that i'm always lost when i'm drawing these pictures, and taking notes, but it is something i must do to keep myself aware. She told me a story about how she was in the woods over the summer and she would walk around with the goal of becoming lost. That immediately reminded me of times when i was a kid and my dad would say in the car "I think were lost". My insides would turn and i would need to find the way back to the right road, because being lost was frightening and asphyxiating. Helen was not becoming lost out of fear but to allow herself to find her way back.

So from this short conversation we had, i decided this is one of many places i'm working from. This blog is going to be a record of all things found on the way, from being lost. This is my Guide to Getting Lost.

sketching and sketch

I just bought some nice paper so some of these sketches might turn into something over the christmas holiday.