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Lately (well… at least the past 3-4 months lately) I’ve been spending a nauseating amount of time on school work. If I’m  not at work I’m at school/doing school projects and vice versa. Not exaggerating, I’ve had very little time to myself, so I could very well post about how tired, exhausted and burnt out I am.

Surprisingly, I’m not going to.

I’ve spent most the the past 5-6 days finalizing, printing and hanging up my piece in the gallery for the graduating class of 2008 Art Exhibition. And although I have cried, screamed, thrown stuff and given up at least 100 times (thank you to all those who put up with me during those trying times, especially Scott and Natalie), call me misogynistic but I can honestly say that I loved it. Maybe it’s just because I see the light at the end of the tunnel with the Show being 2 days away, but I really am happy with everything that I have done. My blood sweat and tears have all gone into making my first (and hopefully not last) gallery show a fantastic one. I know, going away from this, that there isn’t anything more that I could have done to make thing better.

The other fabulous thing about this show is that I didn’t have someone barking over my shoulder about how “this is wrong, you need to do it this way”. Did I get constructive criticism from my peers? Yes! Tons of it! All of it completely taken in and appreciated. On top of that, a professor from the art department had to approve of my piece. It was completely nerve-racking, and although I changed my mind about what to ultimately do (several times) the choice was always mine, and nothing was ever wrong, just improved upon. That’s what is fantastic about art. Art isn’t wrong. Art is art. It is a form of expression and introspection. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose the feeling of doing something that moves people instead of always just trying to play “catch-up” with my peers. I have found, in this short semester, that I really do have talent. Although Scott tells me this every single day (thank you baby, you really are my best friend), I haven’t felt that way in a while.

Anyway, enough of the super-analytical baloney for tonight. I’m tired and I’m going to bed. If you are reading this, and you do happen to live in or around the Boca Raton area, I would love it if you came to the show on Thursday, at the FAU Ritter Gallery from 7-9 p.m. I can guarantee that you will get a glimpse of my heart in the piece that I will be presenting that night.

I found out yesterday that a poster series that I submitted to the FAU Ft. Lauderdale juried show won the award of “Best in Show - Concept”

The series is a design concept for an anti-fur campaign. I chose to create imagery that the audience has been familiar with since childhood and linked those images to the absolutely horrendous methods that the fur trade uses to collect the pelts themselves.

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” Reads:

Garments made from the pelts of newborn karakul lambs—often referred to as “Persian Lamb,” “Karakul,” and “Astrakhan,” are a staple of the fur fashion world. Pregnant ewes are routinely slaughtered for these fetal pelts. These animals are held down while their throat is slit and stomach slashed wide so that workers can remove the developing fetus—the “raw material” for coats, vests, and other broadtail fashions.

“Pop Goes The Weasel” Reads:

To kill the animals without damaging their fur, trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp them to death. Animals on fur farms may be gassed, electrocuted, poisoned with strychnine, or have their necks snapped (referred to as “popping”). These methods are not 100 percent effective and some animals “wake up” while being skinned.

“Three Kittens” Reads:

According to people at the fur market and the factory, domestic cats are killed by hanging. They are hung from a wire while water is poured down their throats through a hose until they drown. A slit is made in the cat’s stomach, the skin is opened, and the fur is pulled over the cat’s head. The furriers say that the cats are quite often still alive while they are being skinned.

It was definitely an informative project for me to work on. I swear that I will NEVER buy real fur garments.

Bryant: I’ve gained so much weight, it’s not even funny

Vin: Then wake up in the morning and run instead of going to the f’in hospital all the time

they are the devil. period.

So, Scott and I are driving around near my neighborhood yesterday, and all of the sudden I see this church billboard out of the corner of my eye. I like to read church billboards, because the people that put up the quotes really try pretty hard to be cutesy and fun. I honestly wonder if the church people have huge meetings about what kind of quote should go up on the billboard next to entice the general public to choose “their” church to worship at.

Whatever the reason, this is by far the best church billboard sign I have ever seen in my entire life. Nothing like a little unnecessary damnation in the morning to make your day brighter!

Oh and P.S.
I’m pretty sure that if Jesus was on the Church Billboard Committee he wouldn’t have approved this sign. Just saying.