I was busy doing close to nothing but different than the day before.

Yesterday in my English class my Professor asserted that we're interested in everyone. Men. Women. We're most interested in ourselves. I wonder sometimes if we don't interact with other people for the sole purpose of discovering more of ourselves. Would that be depressing?

My favorite pottery designer Jonathan Adler has come out with a book, "My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living." Apparently part of his prescription for Maximalist Merriment is "Get rid of all your boring, tiresome friends. Make friends with cabaret stars, exotic dancers, and down-on-their-luck royality instead." Hahaha. I've been meaning to start going to cabaret.

We're all excited
But we don't know why
Maybe it's cuz
We're all gonna die

And when we do (When we do)
What's it all 4 (What's it all 4)
U better live now
Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door

Tell me, are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down
Oh, no let's go!

Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Look 4 the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!

C'mon baby
Let's get nuts
Yeah
Crazy

Let's go crazy

Are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down
Oh, no let's go!
Go crazy

Degas

"Do we not all dream of being known, known by our backs, legs, buttocks, shoulders, elbows, hair? Not psychologically recognized, not socially acclaimed, not praised, just nakedly known. Known as a child is by its mother."
(we read this John Berger essay about Degas for my English class today)

I almost always recognize the people I know by their backs. To me, her back looks like a face. Degas painted her body not from his knowledge of bodies but as form as he discovered what he saw. Right now I'm painting bags. And writing about writing things down. And reading about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whom I used to quote in Extemp rounds. And practicing characters. And doodling.

Crazy Russian Artist.

Oh yeah. I finally figured out how to spell his guy's name and ordered his documentary off Amazon (thanks Julie!) This is what Wikipedia has to say:

"Vasya is an Andrei Zagdansky 2002 feature documentary about Russian underground artist Vasily Sitnikov,who was declared insane in early 1940’s by the Soviet authorities. A man without a passport, in and out of mental asylums, he was the key and often “larger than life” figure of the nonconformist art movement in the Soviet Union. Vasya interweaves passionate and often conflicting personal accounts of those who knew Vasily Sitnikov with short animated sequences depicting some of the most incredulous stories told."

I can't wait. Andrei Medvedev, the artist I met last March in Moscow, told me all about his teacher-- Vasily Sitnikov. He collected broken umbrellas he found on the streets and kept all his cash in them.

I'm posting a few of Andrei Medvedev's pieces so you can see how amazing his angels are. :)

Design.

I pour a coating of salt on the table
and make a circle in it with my finger.
This is the cycle of life
I say to no one.
This is the wheel of fortune,
the Arctic Circle.
This is the ring of Kerry
and the white rose of Tralee
I say to the ghosts of my family,
the dead fathers,
the aunt who drowned,
my unborn brothers and sisters,
my unborn children.
This is the sun with its glittering spokes
and the bitter moon.
This is the absolute circle of geometry
I say to the crack in the wall,
to the birds who cross the window.
This is the wheel I just invented
to roll through the rest of my life
I say
touching my finger to my tongue.

[Billy Collins, 1995, The Art of Drowning]

This poem strikes an emotional chord with me (unexpectedly, so did "Where the Wild Things Are" in reference to how hard growing up is). I recently explained to Harvey how I'm attracted to making things; it allows me to control and create an entire universe. Deep down artists are just control freaks. I love how when Reed speaks, he draws lines with his fingers as though he’s creating a mental grid to organize his thoughts. --You study and discover, you understand, and then you respond.-- My "art" is how I organize the chaos that surrounds me. It's all about space and the relationships between things. You should lead your viewer through your piece- show them where to take their shoes off, stop and look, trip, and open doors. More than anything Reed teaches seeing. I see so much more now.

I'm interested in Kiyoshi Awazu, a pioneering Japanese graphic designer as I embark on my next personal project. He unfortunately passed away this May but left a lot of art theory in addition to his famous posters. He too had something to say about seeing:

"We cannot escape from our memory of the act of seeing. Art exists only through the experience of seeing. At the same time, we try to see the unknown world to escape from the memory of seeing. But even if we try to discover the unknown world, our memory either continues to float in the unknown world or remains as an analogy. Creation is an attempt at seeing something. If we cannot see things, we cannot create things. If creation means seeing in an artistic sense, there cannot be a border between creating and seeing. Only differences among individual observers exist."

I'm going to do something that uses Chinese characters. I don't know how I'm going to make forms of out them. Stay tuned.

Stepping out of the frame.

"You Si explores new possibilities of ink painting by using an eyedropper to deploy colors and ink."

I can't decide whether I would describe myself as generally decisive or indecisive. I make decisions with certainty but I often change my mind. My mind is never made up. Maybe this is a sign. However, I have decided that I like cats because I need to feel needed. For now, I have settled for a fish. I have also decided that you make a decision to be happy; you don't discover it. And now I'm off to my mid-term review with the man. Robert Reed. We shall see what he thinks about my proposal.

Toodles,
M

from the art library.
excited about the Garfunkel (of Simon and Garfunkel) Master's Tea this afternoon.

Harlem with Harvey.

P.S. I'm still on the hunt for chunky ghetto-fabulous earrings.

Hello, Friends.

This has been my life the past few days.



making a collage (like this one) of my "life story"



eating soul food in harlem, meeting a kitty, and browsing over-priced antique toilets



studying with the love of my life

After December..

:) I will have visited a good chunk of the world's countries. Actually, I don't think it's a good chunk. So much more to explore!!

Perspective.

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
— Anaïs Nin

I was thinking this in figure drawing today and when I was writing my paper. I see myself in everything I make, especially the details I choose to include to tell my stories. My American Lit prof from last term was there drawing naked people too (the class is open to the whole university). I didn't feel awkward. I've been drawing naked people since I was twelve. He on the other hand looked like he might have felt a little awkward turtle.

I'm on an Anais Nin binge right now while I procrastinate mid-term studying fun. Can you tell? I can't wait until I really have time to sit down and read her diaries.

another good one and so true:

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
— Anaïs Nin

and now I promise to really get back to studying. yes. I think I've convinced myself that the only way to make decent writing is to write in diaries that you know nobody will ever read. I'm not liking this editing voice that makes everything sound constricted and boring. I should play tricks on myself. What do you think?

Studying for Cold War...

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."
— Anaïs Nin

I can't wait until I am free at 2:30 tomorrrrrrrrrrow.

Musings and Ramblings

I think I could make a good Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction) for Halloween... Anyway great day in New York. Apparently I've been in denial about my stress levels. Harvey helped me get something that will help me stop the serious teeth grinding I've been doing in my sleep. I suppose that explains the headaches and jaw pain. Today felt like the first day of the rest of my life today. I used my Sudler fund money to buy a massive supply of oil paint and these two 36 x 60 " canvasses, which we transported between taxi cabs, apartments, restaurants, cars, trains and dorm rooms. I think secretly (or not so secretly) I have to just prove to myself that I can accomplish a crazy feat every once in a while just for the sake of absurdity... We went to Guggenheim and Moma. I examined Kandinksy's and Cezanne's brush strokes up close. I thought about how they held the brush and felt the objects they were painting. I finally feel like a painter. I'm not sure how I feel about the world "artist." I feel like any time not spent in the studio is a waste of time. It's become my home. I even sleep there. Someday I want to have a room someone in the world with big windows where I can wake up to the sunrise and paint in my pajamas. Sophomore year I am finally living "my life." I know who I want to spend my time with. I know what I want to do. I still need to work on doing those necessary things to graduate, which aren't necessarily things I want to do... ehh. Photos are Harvey's. Oh P.S. Snig and I started a photo-a-day blog:

http://susashimi.wordpress.com/

Ciao,
Love ya
M

Kandinsky and more.

Waterfall

This one is at the YUAG. I love covering up the title and asking my friends what they think it is... Sniggles thought it was a girl with a ponytail :)

Stuff.

Reflections on Zhongguo and my hair..

I googled Beijing salons online. I decided on one that also sold hair products. I wrote down the address for my taxi driver in characters. Just the English name, “Beijing Hair Culture,” was alluring. After you have been in China for a while, anything that has an affiliation with the US or Europe becomes disproportionately appetizing. Their website advertised private rooms with massage chairs and DVD players. This may have been my dreadlock delirium. I hailed a taxi outside my dormitory and explained that my salon was inside the Hyatt Regency hotel, thinking the hotel would serve as a landmark. My driver rolled down the window each time a fellow cab driver pulled up, and even stopped the car to walk down the street asking people for directions. When I asked him if he knew where he was going he said “dangran” or “of course!”

After an hour, I accepted that we were not going to find my salon. I begrudgingly paid 42 kuai (about five American dollars, a lot in China) and opened the door of the cab. I walked up and down the streets trying to find a shop that appeared as if it cut hair, or a well-groomed person who might know the place to go. Every person I asked seemed to know the difference between a comb and hairbrush but they lacked leads to a supplier. I finally stumbled upon a shop with the characters I knew for “hair”: “头发。”

This was definitely not the fancy western salon I had envisioned, but I thought to myself “this place could work.” I could hear Chinese pop music inside. It was simple enough that I understood the lyrics—the chorus was “wo ai ni” (I love you). Before my hand reached the door handle, I was greeted with smiles from at least ten employees. They were wearing matching bumblebee yellow smocks, black pants and shoes, and matching yellow hats. They swarmed around me, showing me pictures of all the colors they could dye my hair, and styles they could mold it into with scissors. One suggested a trendy bowl-cut with feathered sideburns like MianMian, a popular but banned author in China. Their excitement increased exponentially when I answered in Chinese. The swarm ushered me to a plush leather chair with a footrest where I explained that I wanted a brush and not a comb. One leader exclaimed that he knew where they had a hairbrush. I was advised to sit back, put my feet up, and wait for my Excalibur. I kept hoping they would offer green tea while I waited but they didn’t.

The salon’s street was five blocks south of Xidan, one of Beijing’s chic shopping centers. It was a business district. The salon air had a palpable fuzziness. It smelled like a laundry room. The vinyl floor was a shiny black, reminiscent of the patent leather boots. Very American 1980s. I imagined these floors in a Madonna music video. They are at once sticky but so shiny you can see your reflection in the squares. I thought to myself—the floors are probably black because the majority of their customers have black hair, it would be less noticeable on the floor. How practical, how Chinese. Each of the hair cutting stations had a ceiling-to-floor mirror where you could monitor the progress of your new look. Chinese magazines with glossy photographs of Shanghaise girls sucking lollipops and sporting neon eye shadow and ribbon-knotted pigtails lined the tables, promising coolness. Their skin was pale and smooth. The Shanghaiese girls had crooked teeth. Black lacquer-framed posters covered the black walls with heavily airbrushed Chinese models—male and female—posing with attitude and pouty glossed lips. Some wore shortened uniform skirts and un-tucked oxfords. Unabashedly sexual, yet childish. They weren't from Beijing.

The smell of leftover Hunanese noodles wafted from the back room. All those leather chairs with footrests were empty, and the sheet of dust made it seem like they hadn’t had a customer for a while. The employees were happy to pass the time flirting and giggling with one another. The girls sat together on the front desk swinging their legs and the brave boys made them laugh. It reminded me of the lunchroom in eighth grade. For half an hour, they tried to sell me various conditioners and length-increasing serums. Finally, the leader emerged to a reception of applause with a hairbrush in his right hand. He smiled as if he had just pulled the brush out of the belly of a dragon. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he found it. It would explain what took him so long in the back room. The hairbrush in question was obviously a used one, out from which he was pulling old hairs and dust bunnies, as he negotiated a price with me. With a straight face he attempted to convince me that this hairbrush was worth 100 kuai. He told me it was “made in America.” They all looked up at me eagerly in anticipation. I said no thank you and continued on my quest.

Sashimi

Since I can't sneak Muffin into TD... I got a beta fish affectionately named Sashimi. Cristina bought his brother, Sushi. Or maybe his sister? I guess you can't flip fish over and find out like you can with hamsters.

TGIF

So I've decided the minibus is the way to go. I got up before the sun was out to finish my sixteen lovely paintings for Robert Reed today. Great plan for winter when the it's too cold to walk twenty minutes carrying a cardboard dinosaur. Then again, maybe I should just bring a sleeping bag and yoga mat to the studio? Hmm. Ilana, the Sniggles and I have grand plans to create a carrot cake this weekend in the TD kitchen. I'm judging Extemp Sunday for the high school tournament.... It's going to be weird being on the other side of things! Right now I'm painting really thick. Think Goya. Think Rembrandt. Reed told me to "indulge" myself with paint. Last night I knew it was time to get some sleep when I caked the background paint on my paints and started applying it to the paper. He wants us to "stop trying to disguise the fact that it's paint." Here's a picture of Rembrandt's slaughtered ox. Cheers!

Dreams

I should start a journal of my dreams maybe then I'd figure out what my subconscious is telling me to do with my life. Anyway, I set out early in the morning on this pilgrimage to climb this amazingly (taller than the world trade centers were) tree. Maybe it's a metaphor or something but I kept climbing and climbing without looking down. When I was ten feet away from the top the bark started to feel soft and I couldn't find a place to reach up and put my hand. I'm not sure how I ever planned to get down off of this thing. I just kept thinking over and over in my head "I'm going to go..splat. I'm going to go splat.." I apparently forgot that I was wearing some sort of harness and a friend with an Australian accent rappelled me down. I think the setting may have been a forest in northern Australia where I did this amazing zip line off a cliff. Except with Sequoia trees that are even bigger than Sequoia trees.