Tuesday

What a day. Some girl stole one of my stencils in Book Arts and used it. Then, she told me she'd give it back later and never did.

Also - Its pretty hard to incorporate my own photos into these projects we're doing so far, but maybe soon I will be able to. I was hoping to make FIVE photo books at the end of the semester when we finally have free reign over the projects...but now Karen announced she wants us to work with some Lincoln poets and create imagery for their poems. I would rather do my own thing, and I told her that. She didnt seem to care.

Anyway.

Inside someone's car:

Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Wednesday

I am loving Walt Whitman these days.

I am working on a few projects at once. I have wanted to photograph crime scene areas for a long time, but the specific addresses aren't listed in Lincoln's crime records. However, when I was looking them up, I found about a million daily suicide attempts in Lincoln...within the last two months. Very weird that they list attempts, but I suppose it IS illegal to commit suicide, so you get in some kind of trouble for attempting it as well. I would like to photograph all of these places or people, but they are unlisted. One person attempted twice within a month and failed both times. Jayson Yesilcimen and I were looking at these listings together, and he said "If I really wanted to kill myself, I think I would be successful." Why are so many people attempting suicide in Lincoln, Nebraska and failing? Maybe this is normal for every city?

Maybe Im working on many things at once...Im working on portraits taken from my phone with a strange application that makes them look like they were taken from a toy camera. The colors are terrible, they are pixelated, bad quality...I want to print them as large as the airplane photos I did last semester. I also want to print black and white photos of crime locations (if I can ever find any, or maybe I'll just make them up) on newsprint paper. I also want to hand color photos after I take them to see if I can remember the colors...kind of like a memory test. It might turn out hideous, but it's just an idea I have. I also want to print on fabric (landscape photos/panoramas, which were traditionally/historically taken by men) and then also embroider (traditionally done by women) the photos/fabric...and make a book of them. There are a lot of things I want to try while I have the expensive UNL tools, but I feel like its probably bad to not focus on one thing...I should be done experimenting for now probably, but oh well.

OH...I am also starting a project of taking photos of whats inside strangers cars. It just started when I saw someone with syringes and energy drinks on their dashboard. Possibly the same person that tried to commit suicide twice in one month.

Anyway.

Here are some of the cell phone photos:




















































On a sidenote...I am reading an article on the "real" reasons men cheat. First of all, what does it matter, there's no decent excuse...and secondly, why am I reading this? It does remind me of my only forty year old friend named Teri. After her divorce was barely final, her ex-husband moved away with the woman he had been cheating with. He not only moved 1,000 miles away from her, but their three children as well. I don't know why this is on my mind.

January 18

I've been getting more into French books and movies lately...maybe because they are so hopeless and depressing. I spent over two hours watching "The Class" which was about a classroom of troubled kids...and it went nowhere. Nothing was fixed, everything was wrong and unfair, and then...The End.



I spend a lot of my time watching movies...I liked this one a lot:




Currently, I'm trying to move all photos from my old laptop to my new one so I can organize my portfolios...but its taking way too long. I don't even know if I want all of them because 80% are of Matt. I can't get myself to throw them away though.


On a completely different topic...My brother recently confessed that he doesn't really care about the people in Haiti. The death count of 140,000 just doesn't effect him. Is their culture too foreign and far away to be respected? Are they less human than us because they are underprivileged and less "advanced"? He told me he just simply couldn't get sad about it. What if that many Americans died?

Anyway.

I'm trying to plan what I want to work on this semester and it's nearly impossible. I can never plan what to do. I just have to start doing something and it hopefully ends up somewhere decent. I am trying to take portraits of people on my phone with this strange application that makes them look like they were taken by a toy camera. It's interesting to me and hopefully I'll print them large again. Or maybe small would be nice. I also want to finally organize my surface photos...pin them up and figure out their order. I have a lot to do this semester...I know it's going to fly by and before I know it, I'll be out in the "real world" without all of my connections to available art teachers and expensive tools.

Over winter break I met the principal of a K-12 school in Iowa. He said that their art teacher is retiring in May and there will be an opening, so he'd hold onto my name and contact information. I hate Iowa, but I'm still interested to see if anything comes of it.

I'll randomly end with this: