Why'd You Have to Go?

I work with a bunch of dead peoples' stuff. I historicize their papers and documents, and sanitize the lives and various experiences of all these people into a little Word document that is then made available on the internet.

Today, I became fundamentally sad when a lady that I was working with...well, I was working on organizing her journals and letters and stuff... when she died.

I went home because I was so sad about it- I couldn't go on working.
I just couldn't do it.

It funny because I was thinking to myself, this woman is so boring. She spent years and years crocheting a continuous quilt that I'm pretty sure wrapped around her house five times and watched tv. She talked about 'A Star is Born' a lot.
That was so sad.
In her journal, the last twelve years of her life, she wrote the same thing every single day. 'I did the work.'
Then at the last week or two before she stopped writing, she changed that to 'Elaine did the work.'
The last entry read 'Elaine did the work and went to the store for me today. I feel awful, just layed around.'
I don't know why it made me so sad- I hated her and how boring and how mundane and how very very meticulous she was about everything.

I felt like crying the whole way home.

I think I realized something about the profound brevity of life, and about the supposed fullness that makes it what it is- it's the human predicament, I guess- to be aware that we will one day be different, and that we will one day die. One day I will not do the work, and that I will one day feel awful and just lay around.

It is sad to me.

AHHHHH... The Interwebs.

I was looking around for some things today... zooming around, looking for stuff of interest and just kinda web surfing, or as i call it, 'research'. I'm accessing the thing that the French philosopher, Lacan would call my 'Social Order.'
I would someday (soon) like to write an ode to web surfing. It is a joy and one of the small mathematical 'jollies' of my life.

My results for the day include, but are not limited to the following.

1.I encourage you to participate in this one... it's good.

Basically this (http://wdydwyd.ning.com/) website asks you why you do whatever it is that you do... I like it. I think it's good and thought provoking. So tell me! Why DO you do whatever it is that you do? I'd like to know. and give me something meaty. I want to make art about it.

2. I am recently really interested in the idea of women in art... mostly because I'm enrolled in a class by the same name by a wonderful feminist and mother/scholar the discussions we have in that class are multivalued, intense, draining, enlightening, empowering, and intense. It's a good one.
So I've been looking into topics for a term paper... the possibilities are endless. I don't however, want to write something easy-I'm ready for a challenge here! I don't want to do a biographical sketch of some hidden woman-artist...I need some social commentary and some real meat... Something about the infrastructural problem- I'm tired of feminists treating the symptoms of the problem, rather than treating the disease. I'm tired of the disease, and I want to see how women REALLY fit into the social fabric of culture, and see why it is that they are relegated to to the social status they now hold.
Here are a few options.

a.http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/newsletter/fall2008/president.html

b.

http://www.native-languages.org/assiniboine.htm
http://www.tpt.org/powwow/womjingle.html
http://www.gatheringofnations.com/educational/powwow_dancers/index.htm

(A note on that last one, anyone interested in going to the PowWow with me?)

3. I'm in a History of Photography class. For the most part, I am extremely bored with the class thus far. I feel badly about it, but, well, I can't help it! Nevertheless, I am trying to find something that interests me in the topic... so far, I've only found this:I like this guy's ideas about stuff... about the idea of seeing people for whoever they are in a moment of truth when they jump. I like that.
A lot.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/halsman/index.htm
http://www.luhring-design.com/information/essays/dali-atomicus/philippe-halsman.html


I love the internet.
It's a magical rainbow that connects you and me.

Oh, the life of an intern...

Guess what I did today for the internship of dreams!?!?!

You guessed it!!!!!!!
I blew up MORE balloons.
I'm getting really good at it. REALLY REALLY good at it.
the opening is tomorrow, so with any luck at all, this trial period of balloon mania will be short lived. I am excited about the prospects of new projects and to be involved with new art.
My hands are tired of tying those damned balloons.


They once looked very nice.

They will soon look rather not-so-nice, I'm afraid...

I wish it were summer

I wish that it
were summer so bad right now. I think if it were, I would've spent the day like this:
1. Wake up around 9.
2.Make some eggs for breakfast (It's very important.)
3. Get dressed.
3.5. Read in the hammock.
4. Hang out with Joe, Jasie, Joey, Keri and Dani if she was in town and not in some exotic locale.
5. Ride my bike around town and say hullo to folks i see.
6. Hit up one of the mandatory, multitudinous and amply available parties.
7. Got for a dip in Mona Lake.
I miss Mona Lake the most. I think it's magical ,and one day I will tell my grandkids about the mysteries of that place and about going skinny dipping- definitive moments were made there. I want to swim, and my shower just isn't cutting it anymore.

I wish it were summer.

Grad School?

I'm looking at Sotheby's Art Institute, studying for a Masters in Contemporary Art in London...
http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/video2.html
http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/video1.html

I'm thinking about the Masters of Modern and Contemporary Art at the London campus of Christie's...
http://www.christieseducation.com/

and then I read this advice:
http://gradschool.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.upenn.edu%2Fcareerservices%2Fgradprof%2Fgrad%2Fgradart.html


I need to go to the library and start working...

Interning; Day 1

So I got a super-sweet internship in the BYU MOA (http://moa.byu.edu/).
It's really great, and I'm so excited about it...
I would really like to one day work with modern and contemporary art- it's the field I'm trying to get into for many various reasons, so the opportunity was a really exciting one for me.

The work that's currently on display is by the artist Dan Steinhibler. (http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=28142&int_sec=2) It's really groundbreaking to have a space for contemporary art at BYU where tradition has come to mean so much to so many people.

So today, my mentor for the internship, Jeff asked me to be there at 4pm. I showed up and went to his office only to find it empty (much to my dismay). I went downstairs to ask the front receptionist, and on my way, Jeff called out to me by name (I was happy that he knew who I was/remembered me...it doesn't always happen...). He regretfully informed me that there was an emergency he had to attend to, and that another museum employee would be showing me my first day's duties. I gracefully accepted.

What followed was a taxing 2.5 hours of blowing up balloons using an air compressor that had way too many PSI for the delicate operation, in a room where nobody ever went. It was a sad, silently lonely experience. I loved it.

I remember the exact moment that it hit me: one day, when I'm successful and on my way to my certain millions, I will look back and remember this very day- the day I started on the road to what I want. Internship: Day 1. I was inflating a corpse grey balloon for the D.S. exhibit and looking out at the waning light of day, working its way out of the tiny window in the basement room I was working in when it happened.

So if you're inclined to, the show runs through the 6 of June this year. The works are really amazing and ephemeral comments on the brevity of mortal experience and the idea of death and containment- really eloquent soliloquies about consumer culture and the impact we have as a contemporary society. The statues and pieces created in the gallery are many varied and wonderful, maybe even an answer to something you've been needing. I thank Steinhibler for offering me the opportunity to be involved with his art making process and the moment to have extremely happy, sore fingers from hours and hours of balloon tying.

I'm going back tomorrow.

I'm catching up. I'm on episode 4 of season 4. I'm on my way, and I am ready for next season. Make it a good one, eh, ABC?

I'm proving it.

The second post in a day. I'm proving my loyalty to this second chance, because I'm serious. seriously.

It's the second week of school- so far so good.

I want to go to seattle.

soon.

I want to write an ORCA grant (see more here: http://orca.byu.edu/) about which I have two important and probably pretty good ideas. Plan to hear about them. I will tell you- in small doses.

I was walking to the wilk today, just minding my own business, and I saw a fat tabby cat running. It darted in and out of the crowd. I don't know what it thinks it was doing, but it was so funny to me. Do you think you're late to class? Gotta go meet up with 'friends?' What gives you the right?!?! (i hate cats...)

I feel good. Elder Holland spoke today. He's my favorite church celebrity. I love the way he speaks- super powerful.

good.

Try Again?

I know my incessantly inconsistent blogging is annoying. anyone that might still be interested is probably annoyed, and bored... let's admit it- I suck at this.

I want to try again. It's a new year, and some people would forcibly argue that a second chance is a human right. There guys got one... and they committed heinous crimes. I've never done such a thing!! I think that I really do have something to tell you about and something good to bontribute to the blogo-sphere. I wanna try again.


I want a second chance!