Spinning Uncensored

Some guy told me that Art School Confidential was an interesting movie and that I should watch it. Somewhere along the lines I heard that the film was a fairly accurate representation of art school. This movie was so far removed from the truth that it was a complete joke. It wasn’t even a good caricature. Not the faculty, not the critique, not the models, and certainly not the students. 1. faculty tend to actually teach you something 2. models don’t waltz up to students buck naked and ask “how’s it going?” If how it happened in this movie happened in life, the model would have been fired that day 3. critiques actually mean something more than, dude, that painting sucks 4. I’ve never met any of those students or even the remote possibility of those students and 5. the acting was horrible. Oh and the who plot line of the “survey?” that the best student just might get their own show at a prestigious restaurant? As a Freshman?! Oh god, it just kept going. I was squirming in my seat and, poor Jake, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

I’m sorry guys, but if this is your picture of art school…. well. At least they got the drawing horses right and the guard and request for ID. [sigh]

I’ve had this idea for a while to paint a really big panel/mural/painting/reproduction of a drawing from a manga strip. So When we moved into the loft, there was a pseudo wall (really a wooden panel) poorly anchored into the actually wall. I pulled off the damaged plaster board, took out the screws and sanded the edges. Jake and I went and bought canvas that is 120″ by 3 yds, gesso,  and a staple gun. We were pretty giddy that we got a humongous piece of canvas to stretch. Jake and I then stretched the canvas over the panel and put on two layers of gesso. All this weekend.

Anyway, it’s our first art project in a long time. I’m going to post pictures of our progress in the gallery so that you can see how we pull this off and take this panel from ugly to spiffy. Click on Jake below to see the rest.

Check out Bear Cat playing in the canvas. 

This is my first video ever posted to YouTube. Go Web 2.0!!!

Here are my latest sewing endeavors. I’m actually happy with the results and intend to get a lot of wear out of both items.

The first is a cotton print button-up shirt. It has gathered sleeves and cuffs. I’d never done shirt collars or official button holes before, so it was a good challenge. My new sewing machine is living up to expectations and I think that the finished product is much much cleaner.

I also made denim wide leg pants. Again the machine did really well with the weight of the fabric. I also tested out a decorative stitch on the pocket flaps.

A quick run down of my holiday break. Heh…

1. To Portland for X-mas

• Family time, tour of a farm dedicated to sustainability and education, time with the 2 yr old twins.
• Surprise chance encounter with old friends in front of Jake’s grill. Much back slapping, chuckling, and jaws to the ground. Later, video games at a retro arcade.
• Rain, and more rain. Then snow.
• Tiger killing at the SF Zoo
• Jake has cold

2. Home for a break

• Cat adoption
• Much sewing accomplished
• Jake makes a doorbell
• Obsessive watching of the HBO series Rome
• Mia has cold
• New Year’s eve at a friend’s house with spaghetti, great view of Embarcadero fireworks, and dozing just before midnight.

The black cat in the pictures is a new addition to our dink (double-income no kids) household. He was adopted from the Oakland SPCA, is a year old, as mellow as can be with a dash of kitten mischief. He came with the name Pip, but no history. Pip doesn’t really fit his personality and somehow we’ve landed on the name Bear, or Bear Boy or Bear Cat. Bear Boy comes from Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick. And I got to that point because he looks a bit like a cat bear. In A Dirty Job: A Novel by Christopher Moore the Russian nanny calls the hamsters and other household pets “like bear.” So that’s how Pip becomes Bear.

Either way, both books are excellent reads. Heir… takes you on a pretty strange ride, A Dirty Job is just funny as hell. I laughed so hard I cried.