Poor papers, undeserved As and poetry

I got an A on the first paper for my Advanced Writing about Literature class. I did not deserve it. Really. I spent little time and even less thought. I think I took advantage of the fact nobody in the class gives even a hint at the slightest inclination to actually read words on a page, much less talk about those words in a semi-intelligent way. Or even talk at all, for that matter. My poor professor, after the first week, actually angled his desk towards mine. It's a 3-hour class where he and I delve headlong into story after story. Oh, how they must hate me. It's not thier fault, young and full of want and impatience as they are. Also, it's a shitload of reading. And I do enjoy the class, and the talks, but it's not for those reasons that I pipe up with my off-the-wall theories and distinctly left-field opinions, it's my because of my need to validate a teachers work. Yep. I've done it since grade school, through high school, and through all of my many times in college. Silence in response to a Professor's questions is an unbearable sound. Grating. Like teeth on a popsicle stick. I can't not say something. And if you know me in real life, that's not a problem, I've always got something to say. This need to please teachers is also the reason that I do my homework, write good papers, maintain As. I just don't want them to think they're doing a poor job, it's such a hard and underappreciated job.

Yeah, so this paper. An A I shouldn't have received. It's not something of which I'm proud. The paper is embarrassing. The ideas and theories posited are solid, but the manner of conveyance is pedestrian and poorly edited. I'm not sure why I didn't put more into it. Bah. Not a shining moment.

Sadly, we're out of the short story segment (after reading 60), and into the poetry portion. Of which I will not shine naturally. I used to love poetry, reading and writing. Of course, this was back in my long skirt and woman with a Y days. I thought I was so good. Looking back now I realize my self-indulgent blathering (heh, don't think I don't see the irony here) had no rhythm or reason. Oh wait, it did have rhythm, lotsa rhythm, lotsa terrible, angsty rhythm. Oh lord.

Nowadays, I just can't get into poetry. I don't want to be this person. I just am. I don't know if they don't provide me the time I need to walk around inside the story, the people, like a story or novel does. I can read and read and read books. I can talk about them all day. Even intelligently. However, with poetry, I lack the skill, the language. Feet? Meter? Enjambment? I find myself skipping over whole stanzas, trying to pick up just the gist. Behavior I deplore in others. Deplore. You can't get the true feel of a story, or a character, without letting all the words wash over you. I believe this. And yet here I'm reading the beginning of Gray, skipping to the end, reading the epitaph, thinking oh, yeah, someone died, got that poem, bring on the next. Feh. Shameful.

My image of myself is becoming murky
outlook not so...perky
...
Did I tell you I was from Nantucket...

Studio Saturday

I call it Two point perspective in Cumin. It's big (you can see it bigger with just a click of your lil mouse)! Notice the pen in the upper left corner. Motherfuckin' B-I-G (notorious), especially for such a pungent wee spice. It's not done yet, I'm still working on the background and the 2nd bottle. If it seems weird (and if it doesn't, who the hell are you?) you'd have appreciated that very faucet of it had you been around for crits in a class of 18 two-point perspectives of the school campus library. B to the oring.

This week has been crazed. My short list looks much like my long list and those deadlines keep closing in. I've been working all week on making some hat kits. These two yarns were spun for sample hats and my own knitting experiments involving them. Both are currently galavantin' around town as actual hats! The kits will have yarn, patterns, and a snappy little suprise for each hat! They'll be an official unvieling next week, I plan on wearing pasties and a cape for it, netcast, even.

Also, B-ill set me up a handspun knits gallery! Check it on the right sidebar! Crazy like a fox, eh? Yeah, so all you knitters out there that have insubordiknit yarns knitted into beer cozies, nose warmers, and thongs, send me a pic and you too can be featured!

So, while I have been all spinny, there's not going to be a shop update this week. Sorry. There are some yarns still available though. I've also been experimenting a bit more with bamboo and soysilk. I tried to make a supercoiled soysilk yarn but failed, terribly. Really. I did, however, spin 120 yards of the most gorgeous handpainted bamboo single ya ever did see. I'm not sure what to use it for, it's a bit stiff. Anyone else experience this, uh, stiffness?

Oh, I've yet to mention the smitting. We've been smitted(?) smited(?) by the all-powerful lord, apparantly. The rain will just not freakin' stop. To the right you'll see a very large bowl, not cumin big, but at least double batch of cookies big, full of a yellowish, green water that smells just a bit less rank than it appears. I've dumped it 5 times since this rain started last night. All thanks to this hole/crack/hellmouth in the kitchen ceiling. Hey, if anyone wants to come put a new roof on my house, I'll don the pasties and cape once more, I'll even let ya netcast it!

Clearly, while I've been spinning, knitting, drawing very large spices, and dumping rain water, my son has been practicing the two-board technique so popular with the young kids now days.

Studio, ahem, saturday

Here's my studio Saturday post, it's, uh, still Saturday somewhere, right? This week we learned one-point perspective and had to do a big ol drawing using said perspective. This is drawn from a rough sketch and photo taken at the smithsonian train station on the way home from the peace march last week. I can set you up with the towering anit-sam-tall-drink-of-water, he's local English prof and light guy (for rock bands) and according to rate my professors, his very voice can make the girls orgasm.
Notice all the sketchy lines (especially if ya click on either of the pics and check em supa sized, though pay no attention to the hand deformity) and failed first attempts at angles etc, my teacher has us do the whole thing in ink so that she can see it all. I really like it. Much like Jodi speaks about, and I'm probably butchering her sentiment, the draw of art, is often in the history, the journey that a piece took. I don't yet feel that about mine, but I can see it developing. Oh, by and by, this piece is about 50 inches x 30 inches, yeah, call it taped-to-the-wall-to-draw.

I've got more posts in me, much knitting and some exciting pics of homespun, knit by me and, gasp, by another! Maybe tonight or tomorrow. Yes, I'm all about the drought and then the flood.

yarnhead and squarewords

Hubba hubba. Does my yarnhead turn you on? Heh. I will make this yarny bit work. I'm feeling a bit higher and not just because we got to lead the magical creatures parade to the neighborhood fair today. Yep, all marchy and stompy and magical, we were right behind the fire engine and we rocked those 3 blocks!

Nope, I'm feeling better all around. Givin' it time, workin' hard, makin' secret plans. A few people let me know that they'd love to see handspun in larger quantity, and that is what my original plan was, so I'm gonna start (though it's too late this week) doing some larger lots, maybe 200-500 yards.

As for Studio Saturdays...
Have I mentioned my cutie little elfie Design I teacher. He's just adorable. I wanna tweak his nose and have him dance around me making little clucking sounds. And his class rocks! I wish I had the project we did last week but he collected it. I'll post it when I get it back. However, I do have this week's assignment. Which was to make a bunch of thumbnails of 4 black squares on one white square that represent 10 different words. Then you choose your best 6 thumbs and did larger one, but still only 4 inch by 4 inch. The black squares could be any size and overlap or be cropped on the edge. Then we were supposed to mount 2 on 3 pieces of bristol board, either using a thick black boarder of paper, or a thin border ruled off by pen, and the word written under. Hem. Lots of explaination, eh?

Here's mine. Do they evoke? Invoke? Revoke? Revolt?

The words are, from left to right, top to bottom -- playful, falling, bold, order, lonely, and congested. You may have to click on the pic to be able to really see.

Typical art 101

Studio Saturdays with Jacey.

This week in my Art 101, I did what every art 101 student should do, I drew plants. and hands. and feet. and more plants.

Drawing class this week was very cool, and very cardiovascular. After a haunting look from all the perfectly drawn eyes (including eyelashes) of most of everybody else's blind contour self portraits (yeah jodi, you think i cheated, i think some of them actually had eyeliner on!) we moved on to gesture drawing. Two models shifting poses every 30 seconds while we sketched and erased, sketched and erased. It was great fun, though I may have been the only one to think so. Then we moved on to plants scenes, typical art student fare, eh? Still gesture drawing with my Prof. changing their postions. Then on to more detailed drawings from the gesture drawings. and on. and on.

For my weekend assignment, I had to arrange 2 plants, sketch them from 3 different views, pick one, do a blind contour of it on newsprint half as big as me. Then switch to slightly nicer paper (same biggie size) and do a gesture drawing followed by some detailing of it. She wanted to be able to see lines more than just the drawing, it's history, if you will. I like that idea. Below are my drawings, first the blind contour (which didn't translate to the computer well), then the other (which I'm proud of as my first real-life-like-ish drawing). I'd like to draw your attention to the single detail that makes me happy -- in the left drawing, to the far right, right about in the middle, one of the leaves of the ivy is backwards. I didn't know I could do that shit!

I also did a few hands and feet in my sketch book, we've gotta have 50 of each by the end. Here's a few of the ones I liked -- my feet (yeah, i know), and b-ill's hand abstraction.

Yarn update tomorrow, lotso knitting tonight. Speed knitting, in fact. Secret speed knitting.

Blind contour in need of chiropractor

click for a closer look

That's my first assignment in my Drawing 101 class. It's a blind contour self-portrait. In case you, like me last week, don't know what that is, I'll describe what I did -- I set up a full length mirror, placed it next to my paper, looked at my reflection in the mirror but never looked at the paper (the blind part) and drew the contours of my body. You see why I need a chiropractor, right?I had to stop a few times, take a break, etc. during those times I looked at my paper jsut to get a starting point, then began blind again. As you can see, the face was a bit easier, all smooshed up like it is. The body had a few problems. I think I've 2 sets of knees, and did you see my feet? yikes!

I'm joining the lovely and talented Jodi Green in these Saturday studio postings (shhh...pretend it's saturday, okay?) Take a look at her studio, her self portraits are amazing, and opposed to mine, actually resemble her. My own studio is a room we've been using as a family art room since we moved into this house. We thought it was important for a kid to have access to all different art supplies/projects at all times, so that he could respond to whatever vision was inside of him. Most of the art in the latter pic is by him, except for the watermelon watercolor, we did that together.