fav/least fav personal space tuesday

my favorite was definitely chelsie's!!!!!!!!! she makes such a good skunk! it was a really funny idea and she totally went above and beyond with it! first of all, her costume was supreme, obvy, and her face paint was awesome too - super legit effort to go all out! and the ass spray, hilarious!!! but i especially liked the character she adapted; how she scurried around and would post on random things or on the ground or next to someone  or the garbage and then would wait there, waving her tail gently and like went all over campus! it was so funny she was great!!!!

my least fav that comes to mind was jenny's rainbow luck craft thing. i dunno it was just lame and i doubt anyone participated in it other than or class. it just wasn't fun, it was super lame

week 9 art show

i'd have to say that the main artshow/artsy thing i've been experiencing this week is the new access i have to the mackey family home videos. i grew up with lauren marie mackey since i was 3 months old. we were cared for by a babysitter from mexico who didn't speak any english. because of this, we grew up speaking spanish as fluently as english, until we were about ten and we have remained best friends for 20 years. she is basically my sister. anyway, her dad recently converted a ton of their family home videos to digital and put them on a movie account website. they are so awesome! although i'm in only a few and not the main star of the footage, it is so cool to see lauren as a little girl and myself as well. there is one video when we are only 2 years old and we are speaking tons of spanish, just going back and forth between spanish and english between each other and mami judy (our babysitter). they continue til we are about ten, at least that's as far as i've watched. there is one video that made me tear up where lauren is holding her baby bro, rod, for the first time when he is only 1 day old (he is now 6'11"  :/   ). first she's reading to him (not really reading but making up stuff that cards and books say) and it turns into a sing-songy reading dialogue thing and then the next take is of her holding him on the couch. she begins by saying his mouth is so little and then continues to name a bunch of other things that are little - it's so cute because she's only like 3 years old herself. and then she says that he likes "you and you" (mom and dad) "and me?" "he likes all of us" or something like that. it is such a sincere, beautiful moment i can't help but cry. adolescence is so innocent, oblivious (in a good way), and bursting with curiosity. i love lauren and rod and her family and i love watching these videos of them and me and other friends when we are in them.

friday free form 5/27/11

so thrilled for the weekend! not to mention the three day weekend!!!! saturday night i am having dinner with my boyfriend, jonny's, parents! i'm super nervous!!!! i met them in december and stayed with them for 2 nights over break before jonny and i drove back down to sb, and that was totally great! i think they really liked me and all, but not i have to follow that up with even more incentives for them to like/still like me!!! especially since both jonny and i got arrested on floatopia...i really hope they don't bring it up but just knowww his mom will...i'm not sure if they view me differently now or what they think, but i sure do feel rather nervous to talk about it if she/they bring it up!!! i don't want them to think i'm a bad influence on jonny or anything!!! other than that, my godbrother is coming for the night on friday which should be fun! he's a jr in highschool so his parents want me to show him around ucsb! it's weird because i hadn't seen him in years until last weekend, i mean i saw him often when i was young, but he is fucking HOTTTT now!!!!! so weird because he's sorta like a cousin, except not, and he's so good looking that i even get a little nervous/weird talking to him!!!! ahhhh!!!!!! anyway, i hope to show him a grand old time. other than that, i just need to prepare for my finals, a.k.a. do all the reading i haven't done in my classes since midterms, and prep. it's nice to have our 7a final waaay out of the way so that i just have to focus on the personal space project for it!

fav/least fav alt. identity presented for thursday

umm my favorite was definitely natalie's observation of ucsb students in their natural habitat. it was super funny! i really liked her accent, her costume, her props, her mannerisms, her vocabulary, her ideas, and her documentation. super funny, super creative, just a good whole hearted laugh!

my least favorite was jenny's. first of all, i think faking a stroke is crossing the line between what is ethical and what isn't. i get that she was taking it seriously and all but i still think it is rude and fucked up. it is also fucked up to have and allow other people, especially strangers or people who actually have had strokes, to assist you and believe and feel sorry for the damage caused by a stroke you actually didn't have. also she talked WAAAAAAAAY too much about really unimportant shit for like 15 minutes and it was just like shut the fuck up!!!!!!!! i lost interest after the first 2 minutes and as i think everyone else did, so next time cut it short and people might actually care.

wed week 9

reflecting on this theme of alternate identity in technological space age that we are in, i would have to say that people are living as different personas left and right. let's start with facebook. i personally detest facebook. i deleted mine at the beginning of winter quarter so, i've been without it for almost 6 months and i feel so much better.  the thing about facebook is that everyone just tries to make themselves look a certain way. key word try - they are not profiling themselves to look exactly like who they are. rather, they are creating an image, an alternate persona basically who they want to be, or who they want others to think they are.  people say that it's about keeping in contact with certain people who you otherwise would have lost track of. this may be true, but i feel as though the people who you really want to stay friends with and the people who really want to stay friends with you, will remain in touch with you no matter what. similar to twitter, posting statuses is just stupid, it's like NO ONE FUCKING CARES about when you shower, brush your teeth, fart, poop, shop, have sex, whatever. you are all just making yourselves look like retards. especially in pictures. pictures where people pose a certain way so that their boobs look big or their ass does or they look buff or whatever. not to mention how annoying it is why you're trying to enjoy a nice dinner or are on a ride or at a party or something and all you see is FLASH FLASH FLASH and hear "FACEBOOK! *CLICK*" "FACEBOOK *CLICK* *FLASH*"!!!!!!!! and i hate being asked to pose in photos and re-takes and more re-takes when people around me are eating or reading or doing something in which they would rather not be disturbed. how do you think someone who you haven't seen in a long time is going to react to you if you look nothing like your pictures?! not well! lastly, i think fbook and twitter can be the foundation for a lot of bullying as well as for making people feel badly about themselves. also, the daily nexus did an article about 'last night's hook up turning into a perverted stalking situation' or something like that...SOOO TRUE.  here's a vid that i think illustrates why people need to give up the nasty habit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UouP8cRYZ8&feature=related

week 9 documentation

<alternate personas>

Agents Veronica Santos and Ellen Sloan:

fav/least fav alt. identity presented for tuesday

my favorite piece presented today was andrea's. although it was like 10 minutes and normally i would not be down to sit through all that without falling asleep, it was HILARIOUS!!!! not to mention it looked like the most fun alternate identity to live out of everyone! just get super fucked up for 48 hours and do tomfoolery rapscallion boyish business!!!

my least favorite would probably be the girlscout one. i like the idea, but it just seemed boring and i mean was she knocking on doors in the two towers for 48 hours straight? or did she go to the dining common and to school dressed like that passing out healthy shit?? who knows...

respond to final exam and TA presentations

in my well-revered opinion, the final sucked. first of all, it's not like i didn't know/recognize the pieces - i knew all of them and information about them as well.  i did not, however, remember the majority of the artists' names. perhaps if kip provided a list of artists the identifications would have been more feasible.  this along with the title of the works.  i don't quite remember, but if we were supposed to include the year too, well then that's just preposterous.  i feel as though knowing the title, artist, and year of all TWELVE of those works would only be plausible if kip put the lecture slides online. if this were the case, i believe there should be no leniency in the grading. but, since it was not the case, i do think the grading should be done fairly easily and as long as the student knew a couple things about the pieces, then they would do well.  my bluebook was also way disorganized, which i apologize for - hopefully you can read all the tiny writing in all of the tiny spaces (it moved so fast that i wrote shit down and then when i went back to elaborate more on each work, there was not enough space to do so cohesively).

as for the presentations, ours definitely kicked artsy-ass!!!! the first one made me want to crawl in a hole and make all the weird noises the soundtrack was making. and the last one was just like eh bleh...same with all those in between. our flash mobs definitely shat on everyone else!

monday week 9 response to final and ta presentations

that final suuucked. i really was not able to prepare other than having the knowledge in my head already - since the slides weren't online or anything it was difficult to study so i just went in with as much as i have learned and although i don't remember all of the titles of the works or the artists' names, i do remember learning about them so i was able to write what i remember....except fo r the last one, i think i missed that lecture :/ so i hope it's not graded that hard because there was no way to study for an A. since we were in our alternate personas, i drew a map of the mission my partner veronica santos and i were embarking on once it we finished.

of the ta presentation, it is so fucking  obvy that OURS KICKED ASSSSS!!!!!!!!! we definitely had the tightest section, capable of the tightest things. our flash mob video is hilarious and i think the rest of the class totally enjoyed it! they were probably jealous they didn't get to be in tues/thurs 9 am section!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i did like the video of some section following and mimicking people walking on campus, that was super funny! they were so good at it! ttfn :)

suday: mission vallejo

counterparts veronica santos and i, ellen sloan, embarking upon mission 5499, requested by Applegation. departure 0600 hours from base camp, scheduled arrival to safe house, 01700 hour. case: largic kenundram. objective: locate and capture alfonso serium, code name laffidatus. guilty for robbing and destroying ATM machines in central and south america. believed to be residing near panama canal where escape route is convenient. important note: has backup, many under-cover assistants who aid in the locating of the machines, robbing of them, destroying of them, and most importantly transporting of the money to a location where it is then divided and utilized to purchase various drugs, primarily cocaine. employ aliases and get close to assisting agents in order to obtain information regarding operations and, more importantly, when and where they are/will taking(e) place. usual backup protocol. attempt to complete mission and have laffidatus in custody approximately 2 weeks after departure date. report to base constantly and consistently.

weekly documentation week 8: flash mobs

so i'm just going to post the video of our class doing flash mobs because i didn't personally take any pics or vids or whatnot, so here she be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ezbsi8kU5Q


video credit: kate sternlicht

kudos: i came up with the library tunnel thing!!!!!!!!!!

if i could be any artist.....

if i could be any artist, any type of artist that is, i'd probably be a collaboration of things. first of all i primarily would be famous, not like in the tabloids exploited and shit, but an extremely well-revered, talented artist. i would love to do acting. that would be supreme. realistically though, i would like to end up being a high-end fashion designer and/or stylist. this would be in addition to artwork i create from home. i love fashion. it is so much fun. i really enjoy putting together and sporting new, unique outfits every single day. there's just something about having cool style and rocking a different appearance on the reg that is fulfilling for me. clothing is wearable art and i am passionate about expressing myself on a daily basis. this expression stems from a variety of things whether it be mood, weather, season, occasion, if i'm in a hurry, if i'm high, and so on so forth. whatever it is, i enjoy coming up with new combinations and methods of combining articles of clothing that keep things interesting. i never wear the same outfit twice, EVER. if it is somewhat the same, it is definitely different in tchotchkes, frippery, jackets, shoes, hats, and other elements.  here a photo of two of my style icons:

week 8 art show: venice beach

so awesome to go to venice beach! my aunt and uncle live in the neighborhood on the canals (suuuuper sick wit-it) in a sweeet crib. every time i visit, i have to go to the beach! it's so entertaining and the whole scene is a giant work of art composed of endless works of art combined! when you start your walk, you are hustled by a whole bunch of dudes who are trying to get you to buy their rap cd demos or video demos (for example, ty crane tried to get me and jonny to buy his basketball highlights dvd ahah. ty crane plays a part in coach carter, he is the enemy on the opposing team...obviously he didn't make it to fame, but i don't know why he's trying to sell his bball "highlights..." who's going to buy that?). but yea, they usually put headphones on u super quick if you haven't learned to dodge them and try to get you to take their cd in which case they say "we take donations" and give you shit/don't let u have the cd if youdon't have any money to "donate". all along the passage  are other artists - painters, beach-artifact sculptors, sand artists, portrait artists, henna tattoo artists, real tattoo artists, body piercers, performance artists, dance artists, hobo artists, psychics, freak show artists, vendors, crafters, fixers, and much much much more. overall it is a grand old time and there are lots of little trinkets and doo-dads you can pick up for a very low cost...all of the vendors are excellent bargainers who try to throw at you as many deals as possible so you spend the whole $20 rather than just 5 of it. haha so much fun! and there's incredible graffiti everywhere!!!! love it!!

super villain!!!!

if i could be any super villain, i would absolutely be bellatrix lestrange from the harry potter series. first of all she is just plain awesome, and helena bonham carter is the best actor out of everyone in all the movies, in my opinion. she is perfect for the role and is the reason why bellatrix is so appealing to me. she is extremely evil, eviler than any other super villain i can think of. she is the one true servant to the dark lord, she will do anything for him, unlike the rest of the deatheaters who when facing life-threatening situations or despicable tasks will back out rather than carry out voldemort's orders. this is why i think she is so supreme - she has no fear, has boundless magic power, is extremely intelligent, diligent and effective in all her tasks and ambitions. she is also a down right BITCH!!!!!! and i love it!!! she is so heartless!!!! and her cackle is supreme! here are some photos yo:

she's so beautiful and hot and fucking BAD ASS!!!!

if you could be any super hero, who would you be and why?

if i could be any super hero, i would be Neely from Baywatch! she is played by Gena Lee Nolin and is absolutely gorgeous! this would be the ideal superhero gig - diving and scuba diving to save people in the ocean and in my spare time running around slow-motion in a red, high-thigh-cut and low-chest cut one-piece swimsuit looking super hot as my goods bounce perfectly up and down and my blonde mane swishes back and forth behind me. also in my spare time, tanning, being sexy, being "bay-watched," not to mention spending all my time at the beach, hooking up with hot, tan, muscular dudes, just being an iconic flaming hot life rescuing super hero, or should i say super-BABE!!!!! she is super dee duper dee fine as fuuuuck...here, take a looksee:

wed free form

right now there is a mosquito eater hangin out in my room with me...i don't feel like opening the door because i want to be in solitude, but i feel bad. i honestly don't know how he/she got in here, unless there is a hole in the screens on the window, because it's not like he/she was here earlier, it just showed up all of a sudden. hmmm peculiar. very very peculiar. i kind of like having it in here, it's a living creature to keep me company and in good spirits. i just don't like it when/if it buzzes in your face - yuuuck! not to mention uncomfortable and surprising!!! here's a pic of my little friend who i shall call mr. wiggle bunny:

  i actually just learned that its proper name is the Crane Fly...hmmm interesting, very very interesting

tues free form 5/17

last weekend i went to la with my boyfriend, jonny, for a job interview he had to do at UCLA. he is applying to be a rec-counselor at a kids' camp called "steve and kate's camp," in the bay area. we stayed the night on friday with my bff lauren marie mackey, who lives in some on-campus housing made for classmen other than freshman. it was super fun except he and i literally got lost for like 3 or 4 hours. what should have been a 2 hour max drive took us about 6 hours. unbelievable. we ended up in longbeach first, then almost got to riverside, and finally got to where we needed to be, which was really late so we didn't get to do anything but watch a couple episodes of the simple life and sleep. we got up suuuper duper early to go eat breakfast at the dining common (YUUUMMMMMY ENDLESS FREEE FOOOOOOOD) which was awesome, and then jonny went to his interview. afterward we went to venice to cruise the beach and say whatup to my aunt cheryl who lives on the canals in an epic, super contemporary, 3 story w/ balcony and roof balcony, multiple stair-cased house. we also got to hear her rehearse for the Topanga music festival she was playing in the next day. that was great. here's venice beach, i got an amazing piece of peacock pyrite which i will also include  a photo of:

 has numerous powers

Response to kips lecture #7

Kip's lecture was tight today. before i get into it, here is a link to an AWESOME FLASH MOB:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxI46nl9pkc


This was cool, we saw La Jetee from 1962 by Chris Marker.  We talked about integrity.

Hans Haacke coolness

http://www.artnet.com/artists/lotdetailpage.aspx?lot_id=AA69981DE42656F2CA5B1D141DEB9BE6

I was really into Duane Michals' work. In particular, the one that starts with lounging, taking some mysterious pill, shrinking, a giant woman sitting on him and then the dude has a boner at the end....classic.

this is blawesome.

mon 5/16 response to lecture

today kip talked about some buildings. he talked about mores which are accepted conventions taht embody the fundamental values of a socio group.  he talked about different personas. some examples he gave or reiterated were tehching hsieh and nikki s. lee. i really like nikki lee's work, here are some photos:

from trailer trash, to stripper, to chola, to ghetto, to prissy rich, to lesbian, to old woman, to skater girl, to everything in between, nikki does it all and does it damn good.

free form

the rest of this year and next year are going to be crazy. june 20, just ten days after my last final, i'm going to sweden, and some time in norway, with my family. my dad's heritage is all of scandinavian descent, primarily swedish, and we practice many traditional swedish practices. we are going to be gone for 20 days . Then, just a little over a month later, i am moving to florence for the entire school year. it's going to be sweet dude! i'm going to take amazing art and fashion classes. lafe's gewwwd. here's a pic of the university i will be attending:

5/10/11

there are a few other classes i am taking in addition to 7a. i am taking anthro 2, intro to cultural anthropology. it's pretty cool, relatively easy, n.b.d. then i'm taking an intro to fem studies class which is iight, not my fav, but it's easy as well. additionally, i am taking a soccer class, which occurs twice a week right after our 7a section, which is why i always look so sporty and have my cleats with mehh cuz i'm BALLIN'. i'm also playing for two IM soccer teams.

wednesday Free Form

here's a really good cover for "I Want You Back" (Jackson 5) by Discovery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLmZ2hLakJ0

i've been suuuper into this song lately. i just blasted it earlier because right now we have these enormous speakers in my house that we borrowed. they're really huge, fancy, propped up on stands, with a sound managing board. it's been awesome blawesome extra awesome on the awesome blawesome to have them! i hope the dude doesn't ask for them back for the rest of the year! here's a pic of me jammin to this song demonstrAtin them speaks earlia 2day:

what i was also doing earlier was figuring out my classes for florence, italy in the fall. my plan is to go to florence for fall and take art and fashion classes and then go to barcelona, spain for the rest of the year to take regular classes. after talking with my mom, however, i'm thinking i should maybe only go to florence for the entire year because everyone says that just when you get to know the place you're studying in, you have to move. also, florence has a fuck ton of art and fashion classes that we do not have here, and i would really like to take as many as possible. some of their art classes include anything from water color and pastel to fresco painting and restoration to mosaics to marble sculpture to digital sketchbooks and on and on and on. they even have an entire category of jewelry making classes, art/building restoration classes, photography, fashion photography, all sorts of fashion and design classes, interior/exterior design classes, and oh so much more. it's also cool because you take field trips to places, such as the costume design museum for one of the fashion classes i'm applying for. anyway. this is awesome blawesome extra awesome on the awesome blawesome.

time sequence narrative shiiit

what I ended up doing for my time sequence thing is different than the ideas i posted, but it has to do with the photos of my disposable camera that i talked about. i tried to get the walgreens people to give me a cd but they messed everything up a bunch so i had to take pics of my photos to post here (but will have them in person in class to show). the original photograph (i mean they're both originals, but the one i took first) was taken last summer one morning before summer school as i was leaving the house. it is a photo of an eaten rose with one solid flower standing high and proud next to a ladder and its adjacent shadow. the photograph is one of my favorite photographs i have ever taken. just earlier this week when i was sitting outside, i noticed that the ladder was positioned next to the rose again, only this time the rose has all its leaves, none eaten at all, and it was in the afternoon. i did my best to retake the photo, but ostensibly it is different from the one last summer in the morning. of course i like that they are different and like the positioning of them together.

the story behind this rose has to do with a girl who lived with us last summer. her name is jessica, sicka as we call her. she and her boyfriend adam were hopelessly in love, true soul mates in fact. the rose was purchased by adam for sicka after they got in their very first fight of their whole relationship. i remember this distinctly. the fight was about gay marriage, which adam was temporarily against, and sicka (who is bisexual) being mad at him for this and not wanting to be married in and under a catholic church while adam, who grew up in the religion, always assumed he would. the next morning i remember well. adam came over with this rose plant in his hand putting his finger against his lips saying "shh" as he snuck in her room and put it by her bed. it was a small rose plant, no blooms yet, in a plastic pot. it was planted by the side of our house a week later.

the poor plant struggled for a long time with the aphids who just tore apart its leaves and none of us thought it would pull through. but the rose persevered, proving us wrong as it shot up a little bloom against the wall and grew into the beautiful flower in the picture, janky leaves and all, charmingly juxtaposed with the ladder and its shadow. and their love continued to grow; sicka left to move in with adam and her sister, amber, took her place in our home.

to this day, every once in a while, a single bloom springs up against the house, always in the same exact spot, always alone. 

too soon is too soon, even for soul mates. adam and sicka's relationship ended about 2 months ago in bewildering heartbreak, unanswered curiosity, and tremendous sorrow. for both. 

sicka moved back to santa cruz, she graduated last year and was working hard and waiting for adam to graduate while she was still here. this rose, however, lives on at my house and is the symbol of a beautiful tragedy. i like to think that the growth of this plant's leaves is a sign of adam and sicka's personal growth apart from one another. 

2 months ago they said they will still marry each other in 5 years. i wonder if they will. and if not, their love survives in the living beauty of this rose bush. 

Respons to kips lecture #6

this was sah-weeet!!!! dude. i LITERALLY TELL EVERYONE I SEE TO COME TO MY ART LECTURE WITH ME BECAUSE YOU WILL BE MIND BLOWN. and still, no one has yet to come despite the fact that the mindblowing has yet to cease!!!! i did not expect to have performances at all! i really enjoyed all of the spoken word student performances. i especially liked the 1st one by chanel, the one by some dude with the glasses, and the one about her "pineapple". it was so powerful to watch these people who are regular, normal kids (you can tell before and after they present) transform into some powerful embodiment of language that completely transcends all that you previously sub-consciously presumed. Beau Sia was cool too. i was not too particularly moved by his pieces but he did warn us that this may be the case and we should have seen him the last like 5 times he performed. spoken word is one of the oldest forms of creative expression (oral tradition), predating the written world and includes everything from monologues to storytelling to performance poetry and all that lies in between. this actually relates to chapter 9 of understanding comics when scott talks about how all media of communication are a by-product of our inability to communicate directly from mind to mind. "media is meant to convert thoughts into forms that can traverse the physical world and be re-converted by one or more senses back into thoughts," spoken word is a prime example of this.

time sequence narrative shiiit

so i'm not sure if this worked or not, but there were supposed to be four videos that were over a period of time of a couple hours that show just how fast how the hours go by, but i'm two or three got deleted and i don't even know if these vids i uploaded will work or not....so fuck it