Illest of Ill, 2011, at Ringling College of Art and Design
I'm writing this on my descent into new York city.
I still feel a bit dizzy from time spent at Ringling College of Art and Design; I've always been this way. When I go a place for a few days, and then leave, I feel as though I'm exiting through a cloud because I try to immerse myself within that space that I'm in. That's why it's difficult for me to work in-between the events on my travel itinerary. I feel as though that work pulls me out of the present, and staying in the present is something that I'm striving to do moreso in my life, but especially when I travel. It's a gift that I try to give myself, but as with anything I sometimes I have to compromise and address other commitments unrelated to the present. It's the responsibility of a freelancer; and so flexibility becomes a virtue.
I'm ruminating over the lectures that I gave and listened to while at Ringling over the past three days and part of me feels a bit saddened that it ended so soon. As with any intense experience it's as though they press into me leaving a mark at my core. I'm remembering conversations that I've had with so many of the students, conversations that challenged my perspective of illustration, but also those which I co-opted with my own philosophy (of it) in order expand my view of this discipline. As I mentioned in my presentation, I'm a perpetual student, who loves to learn new things, so that I can move towards becoming that Illustrator who I want to be, not the one who I thought that I should be. Thank you not only my fellow speakers, SooJin and Chris Buzelli, for leaving their marks-- their words -- on my brain but to the students at Ringling who have inspired me as well.

Don't Look Down
I'm not sure if coffee tastes bad at 4 in the morning, or if being awake at 4 in the morning makes the coffee taste bad. I'm already at the studio, I've been here for almost a half an hour already. When I shut down my computer last night, I whispered to myself, "I just need one more day." This weekend I tried to finish five final illustrations; actually that's slightly inaccurate because I did spend a few hours on Friday tightening the rough sketches in order to prepare for the final (digital) drawing. My neighbourhood at 4am looks and feels very different when I wake up at this hour to go to work, rather than coming home from God-knows-where. Actually it's been several months since I've been to only where God knows, but stumbling home towards my bed with a sandwich in my hand feels very different then waking up and walking the opposite direction towards the seat in my studio, where I spend most of my days drawing. I'm eating a scone that I bought from a cafe that I have stored in a plastic container near my desk. I purchased it on Friday.
Can a scone go bad in two and a half days even if I put it in a tupperware?
I check for weebles.
All clear.
I'm wondering now, why I'm even typing. I should be drawing instead of thinking and writing about it.
Be back soon.

It's Moving!

Here's the "Barf Monster" that I made using Processing to code the drawing and then to animate it. Part of me feels like I'm going backwards because my illustration medium is Adobe Illustrator, and I've dabbled in Flash and Adobe After Effects, so it's funny to have spent hours putting this drawing together when I could probably have done it within minutes using the aforementioned programs.

Still, the reason why I'm taking this course is because I want to know "how" things work. Why is it that when I put my stylus onto the tablet that a mark is made on the monitor? Curiosity is an important quality that I want to retain in my studio practice because it makes things go forward. However, the word forward makes me nervous because part of me is working on staying in the present, so flinging my thoughts and intentions too far into the future makes me wonder if I'm being dismissive of where I am right now; if I'm staving off the present to exist in some place that hasn't even formed yet.
This is where fantasies are created.
Or, it maybe it's goal setting?
I've wondered if it could also be equivalent to creative block; trying to do too many things at once, instead of focusing on one task at a time.
This seems almost counter intuitive in the age of multi-tasking, but I'd be lying to you if this never crossed my mind.
One of my favourite episodes of Ira Glass' "This American Life" is the one called "New Beginnings," that features Kevin Kelly who is the former executive editor of "Wired" magazine. He recounts his story as a young photo journalist who gets locked out of the place where he is staying in Jerusalem, and so he decides to sleep on the alleged spot where Jesus was crucified. Without getting too much into the details of it, he has a revelation which inspires him to create a type of experiment in which he is the sole participant. It's not a chemistry experiment where there are liquids, and beakers, and bunsen burners, rather it's more of a psychological one in which he strives to live only in the present for several months.

For most of my adult life, I've struggled to exist in the present.
Maybe it's because I come from a family where being in the present always seemed like a struggle, not because my parents didn't love us, they did very much, but it was trying to create a new beginning in a new place, and then to fight to exist on a level amongst our neighbours who always seemed to have more.
It's no wonder why Alice crossed over through the looking glass.
Social and economic classes aside, I understand how easily it is to become enamoured, or glamoured in a true-blood sort of way, by the shiny exterior to make you want to hurl yourself into its interior.

* You can see more of what my classmates and I have done in our Intro to Interactive Multimedia class at openprocessing.org. You can view the source code by clicking on the "Source Code" text to the right of the image. By the way, if you click on the animation you can make the water rise and the barf disappear. I know, I know... it's crudely done, but hey, save me the grief, I'm only at the beginning.

FITC TORONTO, 2009



This is from a previous post in the Summer of 2009 when I was invited by FITC (which produces technology and design focused events from Flash to motion and interactive art and design) to give a presentation at one of their conferences in Toronto. I assume I was invited because my art medium is primarily Adobe Illustrator, and some Photoshop, too. I don't claim to be any kind of expert user; admittedly, I learned how to use it through trial and error, allowing my own intentions and curiosities to navigate my decision to employ certain tools that would allow me to render my digital marks. It's very similar to how many of us learn new skills. I'm also fully aware that during those few times when I've given lecture-demos and workshops, that some audience members know much more "technique" than I do, which again, was the reason why I was so surprised to have been included in the roster of speakers within that conference.
Two years later and I'm finally (in a very basic way) learning the language, the code, the math, and the thought and working processes to create images that move, and interact with the user. It's a very abstract way of thinking for me. I was never very strong at math; my brain just never functioned that way.
Let x = my brain
y = math
x + y = cerebral hemorrhage
I have always been drawn more to subjects such as English, Visual Arts, and Music.
I categorized math as this cold and sterile subject.
And so I wonder, then, if I ever really gave myself a chance to be good at it?
~
Now,
Math is starting to become fun.
Fun is probably not an accurate descriptor at this point, but I hope that it will be soon.
Math is fun.
Can I say that?
Math is fun.
Again.
Math is fun.
I just spent about 4 to 5 hours this evening, working through my "Processing" homework assignment, as well as going to class afterwards. This evening, I learned how to program colours, and marks using, equations, and algorithms, letters and numbers. Right now, it's difficult for me to follow along in class because the speed at which the information is passed to us feels very fast.
I wonder if it feels that way to the others who are sitting in front and next to me?
Math is fun.
Math is fun.
Math is fun.

New Website (again)

I just finished making my new website. I seriously had to edit it because it was beginning to cause problems for users. It didn't work on iPhones, nor iPads, and I realized that the format was not showcasing my images the way that I wanted for them to be viewed. Although it's still not entirely complete, i.e., my "News" section is pretty slim, and I'm missing images in some other sections, I feel it gives a pretty good breadth of my illustration work.
I kept it pretty simple, using CSS to create a style sheet (courtesy of "CSS for Dummies, how-to book) and Dreamweaver.
Okay, massively full day today.
I'm out.
Enjoy your day!

Day One

My friend and I tried building a go-cart when I was about eight years old. He was a year older than me, if I remember correctly, and a pretty smart guy. I thought this because he talked a lot about things that I didn't know much about, like sex and computers.

He told me that I was born because my parents had sex.
I said that if that's the case, then his parents must have had sex too.
He said that they didn't.

The go-cart we were making was laid out on his driveway and front lawn as pieces of scrap wood, nuts and bolts, some other tools, and some wheels from a skateboard. I sat there and mostly watched my smart friend piece the random parts together. In my mind I imagined a wooden-box-shaped tub-on-wheels, coasting down Shady Hollow Drive like some episode of "The Little Rascals," or a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, but with me in it.

~

Today, I said out loud, "I want for it to change my life."
Those are strong words filled with so many expectations.
I've enrolled in three night classes this semester; two are in computing, and the third is in basic sewing techniques. Sometimes when I tell people that I am taking such courses, they ask if I want to become whatever professional person is assigned to that particular specialty.
Do you want to become and animator?
Do you want to become a fashion designer?
No.
None of the above.
I just want to expand as person, learn more, and live a full life.
I think I've been coasting on auto-pilot for some time now. This is not to sound aloof or arrogant, or even ungrateful, but it's the truth.
Why do you want to become an animator?
Why do you want to become a fashion designer?
I told you.
I don't.

Well not entirely, that is.

I've always believed that one's art and craft are extensions of themselves, whether aesthetically or conceptually, and so as a person changes, it makes sense for their work to do so as well. Within the medium that I have been working in (Adobe Illustrator) my work has changed considerably; however, I find that the more time that I spend using this material (because the software is the material and tool that I choose to use) I'm becoming less surprised by what this medium can do for me.

Today I used "code" or "coding" (gosh, I don't even know the proper jargon to use) to create a digital brush from an online open source, I assume that's what it was - a brush tool? - and I also learned how to create a circuit and then program the board to turn an LED light on. I have no idea how this is related to illustration, but I can tell you that the kid inside of me is skipping right now. I feel like a character in Dave Hickey's book "Air Guitar," the kind of person who can talk incessantly about things in their life that they love: like books, and surfing, and music to others. I met one of these people once at a framing shop in Manhattan, who moved to New York City during the early eighties from India. He was the son of Master Printmaker, who learned about this artform from his father. When he moved to New York City as a young adult, he continued to work in this field through some chance encounter with a stranger who also happened to work in a printmaking studio. That's a terrible and anticlimactic short version of the story, but more than anything, I recall the life in his voice, and the excitement in his gestures. That's what it feels like when I'm learning how to code. That's what it feels like when I'm learning how to sew. That's what it feels like when I'm learning how to animate.

~

We never did complete the go-cart. I think in our heads we imagined it would be done in an afternoon, and maybe it would've been if we had the help of an adult, but it was just the two of us mining through the supplies in front of us that we didn't know how to use, nor how to piece together. Still, it was a good day to have our imaginations fueled and sparked by the possibility of trying something new, trying and failing and then trying again.

* The image above was created using "Processing," a free and open source software that can be found online at http://processing.org

Come on Irene
The hurricane is expected to pass through New York City tonight. I've been loosely following the news and so far it's made it's way into North Carolina
~
This morning appears ordinary. Like any Saturday morning, there are random people walking on the streets performing their weekend routines, some are jogging, some sifting for bottle empties through recycling bags, and some milling on sidewalks, talking to friends and neighbours. The garbage truck passes by on its daily route, and the city workers push plastic garbage containers down the street in their blue uniforms. Looking towards the city, the sky is over cast - a soft grey with patches of lighter grey mottled together; I can hardly see the Manhattan buildings across the East River.
A mild breeze cuts through the humid air, cooling my sticky skin.
It's dim outside, but not unusual.

As for me, I just filled two glass jugs with water, and boiled another huge pot of one. I cooked a box of rice pilaf with raisins, parsely and orzo, and have pulled out the matches from the dark armpits of my kitchen cupboards. My headlamps and flashlights are in check from our trip to Costa Rica, my laptop and iPhone charged, and our green Jennifer Lopez LED lights are lined up along the tops of our black lacquered IKEA side unit.
...waiting for tonight...
o-oooohhh...

This is by no means extreme preparation for an impending natural disaster, but it's preparation nonetheless. We have a few canned food items laying around in our kitchen, but not too many. In the age of urban farming, and farmer's markets, organic this-and-that sans pesticides and preservatives, our kitchen is packed mostly with stuff that will go bad in a few days if the power goes out. Still we do have some peanut butter, rice cakes, nuts and seeds, and canned salmon, if necessary. Oh, and of course lots of filtered water, lemonade, and rice pilaf.
Emergency provisions at a supermodel concentration camp.

I laughed for a moment while I was mentally preparing a check list of the things that we would possibly need this weekend, but then acquiesced in my decision to do so.
I can feel my parents' protective instincts kicking in.
I wonder if the feelings and struggles that came from us having to flee Mozambique during the war trickled its way into my being. Not that I anticipate this hurricane to have the magnitude of any kind of revolution, but there's nothing wrong with having insurance, especially when it doesn't cost you anything, or much money for that matter. Some canned food, toilet paper, water, flashlights and batteries are not that big of deal to have in anyone's home. Fortunately I haven't grown into any kind of Chicken Little. Yeah, I'm uptight, and yeah I've been called names about being this way, but I know that I'm no chicken.
But, I am probably an ant.
And doesn't the grasshopper end up rooming with the ant near the end of that story?
Or does he eat the ant?
In any event, I'm by no means as prepared as I could be for a three day power outage, but two days?
perhaps.

*The illustration above was done for American Lawyer Magazine, "