I do actually do stuff here sometimes

So um I guess for maybe the first time ever I'm going to actually write something about what I'm actually doing here in regards to school work (extension studies doesn't count cause that's different....).

It's getting to the end of the year and the 3rd years (seniors) are putting up their degree shows (senior shows) and each 3rd year is assigned a second year (junior.... me) to help them and basically be their personal assistant/do whatever they want, whenever they want to help them get their show ready. So I've been super busy helping my lovely 3rd year, Pat, get ready for her degree show by binding book upon book by hand. It's been great cause I'm learning so many new techniques and it just feels really good to actually spend time in Brighton working for hours upon hours. Feels a little like Mcad, awwwww. But it makes me REALLY thankful for the perfect binder we have in the service bureau... F'realz.

Apart from that, I'm really having fun because I am working on this new project and I've been inspired by the Kanye - Welcome to Heartbreak video and the Chairlift - Evident Utensil video to learn how to data-mosh. And it's SO FRUSTRATING sometimes but it's really rewarding to teach yourself how to do something. Andddd it's appropriate to the idea I have for this project, so hoooooray!

Here are two ugly dumb experiments I tried. They mean nothing and they look like poop but I MADE THEM and I'm proud of myself. And to all my family out there reading this and watching the videos: Yes, they are supposed to look like that. Your computer isn't really crashing.

Yesterday was a class trip to London to see the Changing Face Of Letterpress show at the London College of Communications that our letterpress technician, Rose had work in. But since we weren't supposed to meet until 3pm, Jenny and I decided to go get a full day's worth of entertainment in London!

We took a train up to London and went straight to the Natural History Museum. It was great!!!! So many animals! There were some weird ones that I couldn't possibly believe were real unless they were in a museum.... some looked like pokemon, some had the spindliest legs ever and I don't know how they could walk on them... it was great! We also saw tons of dinosaur bones and fossils, as well as a giant huge baby fetus in a dark room that was incredibly frightening...

After the museum, we went to go to LCC to find the gallery show. We eventually got there and saw a few of our classmates and our two teachers there, as well as Rose who's work was amazingggg!!! The show was really nice to see, lots of beautiful work, and it makes me want to get back in the lettepress studio back at Brighton and make stuff! We got a little tour of the gallery show and then looked around before getting a tour of their actual letterpress studio at LCC, which is HUGE! It was niceeeee and big and pretty. Then, since it was an open day (kind of like "experience mcad" days), Jenny and I figured we'd take the opportunity to go exploring around the school. It was really confusing but we had a good time seeing what it would have been like if we applied there instead of Brighton.

By then it was about 5 and we decided that since we spent money on our train tickets up to London we were going to make our trip worth the money and not just go back home. Sooo we decided to see a play/musical! Off we went on the good old tube till we found ourselves in London's west end and theater district. We ended up seeing Sunset Boulevard (the musical) at The Comedy Theater. But after we bought our tickets we had about 2 hours of free time to kill, so what else would we posibly do other than find doughnuts and smoothies for ourselves!?! As we wandered in search of a good smoothie, we passed Fortnum and Mason, an incredible store which I had visited with Sam a few days before. And I just knew that it was something Jenny needed to see and something I needed to see again. So we went in and basically were in heaven the entire time. I treated myself to a giant blood-orange macaroon which I ate on the train ride home. Yummmm. Then we found this nice little place called Cilantro Cafe that had smoothies so we went in and got ourselves smoothies AND A GIANT CHOCOLATE MACAROON which basically made my life complete. Beyond delicious. Then we found a doughnut place and headed back to the theater.

sunset Boulevard was great! I only knew a little bit about the plot because it's my dad's favorite movie but I'd never seen it before so I was so excited to see it and then tell my dadddd yayyyy! The storyline was reallllllly great and the main character is FIERCE AND INSANE AND MENTAL IN SUCH A COMPELLINGLY GREAT WAY! I really enjoyed it. The theater was really nice and tiny and old and beautiful too.

Then at the end of our journey we caught the train and made it back to Brighton by midnight. Another splendid day in London!

HIGH SCHOOL MASKICAL

Since people seem to be interested in it, I figured I'd post some images from my Community Arts class today. These are from some exercises we have done over the last few weeks.

Also, since our eventual final product will be mask images, we brainstormed on titles for our project and here are some of the more memorable suggestions the kids and us came up with. Too good!

"Masks R Us"
"Masks For Us"
"Masks By Us"
"Masks About Us"
"It's Mask Time!"
"Project Liam" (suggested by Liam)
"Project Me"
"P.P." (Personal Project)
"Mask Attack!"
"Close To The Bone"
"Me, Myself, and Mask"

And my two personal favorites...
"Mask Of Zorro"
"High School Maskical"

PS: Liverpool V. Real tomorrow... DREAM COME TRUE!

Passion Pit + The Community

Tonight I saw a concert at Audio, it was fuuuuuuunnnnn! The first band Bear Hands actually turned out to be my favorite. I mean who isn't a sucker for multiple drummers on stage, maracas, and abnormally good looking bass players? I KNOW I AM!

Passion Pit was good but not as good as I was hoping... but honestly I think a big part of my experience was that the world's most annoying group of people EVER were infront of me so it made the music harder to enjoy :( The band was still great though!

The next band, Hockey, was pretty allright! Their music was fun but honestly I was too distracted by the lead singer looking like a dirty hipster version of Carrot Top to pay too much attention.

In other news, I had my extension study Community Arts Training again this morning and I am continuing to love that class so much! Since the kids didn't have school today due to a midterm break, we met as a class back in Brighton to discuss and figure things out. I feel like everyone was in a really good mood today and we all just had a good time! We worked together to create new project ideas and activities for the kids to do next week. And we have to lead them! It's going to be a lot of fun, I can't wait!

Fireworks at Lake Michigan

This morning I was feeling a little homesick. And what I do when I feel homesick is stare at google street view for hours. And watch the "Homecoming" video on repeat for hours. And stare at MCAD's flickr for hours. Actually even though I was feeling down and homesick and whiney like a dumb baby, I just listened to homecoming a few times and didn't even get to wallow over street view or flickr because I had a very busy day today! OVER IT!

I learned how to letterpress today which I was really looking forward to. And mannnnnnnnnn oh man is it COMPLICATED! I thought it'd be a breeze. Little did I know there is a lot of math involved. It's like a giant confusing puzzle. But it's fun and it's so satisfying to see the results in the end. Jenny, Ramzy, and I spent hours getting our induction and then creating out page and printing and we have to go back in again tomorrow to finish our second color. Good thing it's fun!

Um other than that I worked at school for a few hours finishing a typography project that I'll have to print before critique tomorrow morning. And then I went home and immediately went grocery shopping before the store closed at 9. And it was actually really nice because on my way walking back I ran into a friend who I have only met once before over a week ago and as soon as he saw me he was like "Julieeeee!" and stopped to talk for a minute or two which was lovely and nice! I love it when you find out people remember you when you don't expect them to. So yeah that was fun :)

Ok enough about my boring day.

Community Arts Training Week 2

Today was the second day of my extension studies class "Community Arts Training" where we work with 12 year old students from a local school to eventually create a celebratory art piece together. I already love this class so much it's not even funny. Ok well maybe it is a little.

We started class pretty early and we began by us university students showing our work to groups of the high school students (not the same as high school in America obviously... I think they are like 8th graders? Maybe younger? I don't know how things work here still....eh. They say they are grade 8 but I don't think it's the same thing. I'LL NEVER KNOW!). So we each sat at a table and the students came around in little groups of two and three (there are 9 of us--only 7 of us were here today, and only 6 of us stayed the whole time, and 9 or 10 of the young students) and looked at our work and asked us questions and and wrote notes on these little note pads they got.



Ok so back on track, the students are so tiny! Well some of them are bigger and more mature looking but seriously I forgot how tiny grade school kids are! Precious! It was nice to see some of them actually showing genuine interest in art and when they got excited to tell me about similar projects they had done it was really cute! After a short break we regrouped and this time it was our turn to ask the kids questions. We grouped into pairs and went around from group to group of students and talked to them and continued getting to know them which was nice. The first group was these two boys... haha mannn its funny to be around boys that age. Reminds me of kinds i used to know in grade school. As me and my partner asked them questions one of them drew funny pictures of our faces, and continued to ask me a billion random questions about America like "do you like cheeseburgers?" "How many cowboys are there in Chicago" "Is everyone in America fat?" and he kept saying "Howdy, partner". Oh, and they kept asking me to speak with a British accent. Which we all know I love to do buttttttttttt not then, haha. It was pretty funny!

Oh we also looked at the exhibit in the gallery at school together. I spent most of the time doing that with one of my friends and one of the students and it was really fun to ask him what he thought of the work and hear a completely honest kid answer. One piece he totally hated and said "My 4 year older brother could do that!" hah! And then he rated a bunch of work on a scale of 0-10 and it was just really interesting to see what someone who hasn't been all jaded by pretentious art talk 24/7 has to say about it.

After that we had lunch and then headed over to the Brighton Museum which I visited briefly a few weeks ago. It was really great because we got to go to this special room and sit there and learn about African masks that are up to a century old! And we got to touch them and put them on our heads and stuff, hahah it was great! I love tribal masks (Kate, if you are reading this, I kept thinking of you and our trips to the MIA to look as African masks all day!). Then we got to draw the masks and man some of those kids are better drawers than me. It figures. After that we explored the museum a little more and one of my friends told me about a friend of his who is obsessed with taxidermy and stuff and owns tons of old surgical equipment and uses old scalpels and stuff to butter his toast. Hah! By then it was like 3:00 and we were done. It was such a nice day getting to know my classmates and teacher and the new little kids we are going to be working with! YAY.