I just wanna write.

This day is long. I'm tired. The class I am in right now is going to be 4 hours long. My teacher is literally sitting right in front of me, lecturing and I couldn't care less. I wish I could go home and sleep. Do I have to watch this movie again?

But enough about my current winging. 

I am in transition and I don't really want to be. I want it to be over and to be able to breath again. 

During my spring break I was in Boston to have a meeting with a potential professor. Ya, I know. I'm writing on my NCSA (University, if you want) Art History commonplace and I want to talk about my transfer plans. 

Well, we went through the facilities and he seemed to like me. But...I didn't really talk to him. I talked, but not to the extent I would have liked. My mom talked a lot - probably because she wanted to ensure that he knew how awesome I am. As usual, like every situation or event that occurs in my life, I felt what happened didn't go well, I doubted myself, and I feel I didn't show myself or even show a good side of myself. So, I'm beating myself for everything.

Also, I felt like I was a senior again applying to college for the first time, my parents leading the way. 

Why can't I be independent? And why can't I stop hating myself?

I am completely loved. My family is great. I am learning every day. I'm attractive and healthy. I love many people. 

So...what is the goddamn problem?

Okay. Tangent time.

I want to fill my life with art. I want to love and to feel truly satisfied and happy. I want to be so full of these things, that the skin which holds my body together is bursting open. This world I live in seems like it could give less of a shit about my hopes and dreams. The art does care, my family cares, my significant other cares, but the rest of the world seems to hate me with all of its being. Why is it this way? I am currently very afraid for my future, the future of the world's animal life, and for the future of the world's nations. I am deathly afraid this standstill of relative content is going to dissolve into some horrifying chaos that nothing I will do can stop. I am full of this fear. And I want to stop it from happening. What can I do though? 

How many more questions can I ask? <- case in point

My Fridays here are good though. I love to have my  lunches with my good friend Yoko. It feels like a moment back in Japan, where things are simpler and the cicadas are singing, I'm on a bus to a temple, and outside I was the sun set with a green tea crepe in my hand. You may find this happiness trivial and silly, but it means a hell of a lot to me.

Food means a lot. Maybe thats why I'm a tiny bit overweight. Maybe thats why I'm happiest with the people I love, talking and eating. If you don't have good food, why the hell are you alive? Thats what makes me so fervent about eradicating hunger in the world. People deserve to eat and eat damn well. If I had the money I would hold a big dinner for all the hungry children in the world every day of the year. I want people to be happy. And I guess to me that means food. 

I don't want to watch Amores Perros again. It made me hate the world just a fraction more. No thanks.

And why the fuck can't I watch a happy movie in this class? Next week is fucking City of God. AGAIN? Salaam Bombay? AGAIN? Heavenly Creatures? AGAIN?

The Death ships and Icarus: Westermann meets Breughel

I visited the Lennon, Weinberg Gallery in Soho (it has since relocated to Chelsea) when I was eleven years old. Other installations were up, but they were of no concern to my mother or to Jill Weinberg who was showing us to the Deathship exhibition. For H. C. Westermann was my great-uncle and my mother had in the past two years inherited responsibility over his estate and artwork since his spouse, my mother's aunt, Joanna Beall had passed away. This was one of my first encounters with Cliff's work (his nickname and what he preferred to go by) as I had visited his amazing home in Connecticut earlier. It may seem like I'm bragging, but I have always been proud of being related, though not by blood, to him and though he was a difficult human being, like we all are, I feel his work has influenced me and will always do so. This series of sculpture and paintings had a massive impact on my perception of what art is. Until that time, I had always considered art a serious business. Though the topics of the exhibition were quite morbid and solemn, there was an element of playful detail to the works, especially seen in the Untitled (Death Ship) covered in dollar bills and The Kamikaze which twists the idea of kamikaze pilots on its head, where a ship dives towards an airplane in the middle of a desert landscape. These works were so important to understanding Cliff. They all came from his very real experiences of being a gunner on the USS Enterprise during the end of  WWII and his witnessing a kamikaze attack on the USS Franklin. The memory of these Death Ships consumed him so that he sculpted and painted these watery coffins for about thirty years. There is very real tragedy to these pieces and strangely, what comes to mind is Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, especially when paired with that last painting Death Ship in San Pedro. A battered and bloodied USS Enterprise lurches close to port, where on land a man walks by, rats scuttle past, and a noose like rope lies on the ground. The ship will never reach port and no one will come to receive it. It has been abandoned by those on land, for it carries death. In both of these paintings death occurs in the water, but this time the ship is the victim and not even many people are around to ignore it. Westermann was known for his surreal, violent, and often passionate landscapes. Where Breughel's piece holds some humor to it, Westermann's is hopeless, dark, and empty. But still with all of these pieces together in one room its hard to feel truly depressed. When I observed the works, I didn't understand the story and felt adrift in a watery graveyard of metal ships in wooden coffins. In my own work, I strive for this relevance of tone and content, but as well as the surreal and humorous nature Westermann's work possesses. His use of color is so odd; first it is subtle, then a moment or small object pops with some burst of color, like the lit window in the last painting. His breadth of materials is also stunning to me. Having seen other pieces at the MoMA or the Hirschhorn, his knowledge and mastery over wood, metal, and everything in between lets his work live and have a dynamic personality. I never met him and I am just starting to know him, but I feel in my heart he is a part of me like no other artist can be. 

Rococo - Sexy or Innocent?

First of all I would like to show you this comparative image.
This is a comparison of Fragonard's original "The Swing" and juxtaposed by Glen Keane's concept art for the newly in production "Rapunzel" by Disney. Glean Keane is an old world traditional animator and often looks to old masterpieces for inspiration in Disney films, for example he directly used Michelangelo's "Dying Slaves" as reference for the Beast's transformation scene in "Beauty and the Beast." Upon second glance, the influence is quite apparent. This film, Rapunzel, is unfortunately going to be his first film with 3d animation. 

PITY.

I also created my own work (pretty crappy I must say) which has two very strong meanings, at least I hope it does. 

Entitled "For the Love of God"

I looked at a lot of Pantocrators for reference on the hands, halo, and hair. Hope it makes sense. 

I'm beginning to really enjoy pens with India Ink, as the Brush pen I used does. It makes very strong lines and it feels much more comfortable than a pencil (ever since I broke my left middle finger). If you want to see more work, just ask me!