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weird dog

You're right Hugo, that is a weird looking dog.

The Exposure Project: An Image A Week: Alessandra Sanguinetti

The Exposure Project: An Image A Week: Alessandra Sanguinetti

I am ever more impressed with Alessandra Sanguinetti's work and I'm growing to admire the Exposure Project more each day.

moving the cranes

this large wall sculpture i've been working on

I have this large wall sculpture I've been working on, and then not working on, for a few weeks. After a dry spell I just now got some ideas for how to continue it. Thought I'd post what I'm working on just because I felt like it.

Next pop star obsesson

Hugo and I have old school pop star obsessions.

We went nuts over Janet Jackson in 2004.

This year we've gone gaga for Prince.

I'm still completely in love with Prince (Nothing Compares 2 U, Prince), but... I'm starting to wonder if it's time re-discover our next icon?

I think the only criteria for a pop star obsession is that we missed the craze when it happened the first time around (even though, I'd like to note that Prince is in his prime right now).

Who should it be next?

Should we make pop star art? I'd like to write fan letters.

paint

Today I painted one kitchen chair "sun" yellow and my steamer trunk "apple-a-day" red.

Laurie's been wanting one chair in the house that is yellow. Whoever feels sad can sit in the yellow chair, she says.

The steamer trunk is big and old. My mother bought it for me as a kid for a toy chest. Now it's so red, so so so red, I can hardly stand myself. I'll stock it with art supplies after we move this Friday.

completed Mexican Peck

We did it!

leaf painting

I found this in the woods near Grand Marais, MN. I've never seen a creature do this to a leaf before.

the randomness of connectivity

I found this text message on my phone when I returned from vacation just now:

Aye this is rashad..
Brob told me u get
off at 930 .can u
get me and benson
into a movie at
945? Ill pick u up
4rm rainbow
...thanks dogg

I love the randomness of this. Rashad probably just mistyped one digit of his dogg's cell phone number so I got the message instead of him. I wonder if he and Benson ever got into their movie at 9:45.

I get random e-mails for other Lauries a lot at work. Some of them are quite, um, well, personal. I've left them in my e-mail account not wanting to throw them away because I love them so much, but I always feel like karma is about to stab me in the foot every time I think of posting one of them. I think about how embarrassed I would be if one of my e-mails fell into the wrong hands.

guilty confessions of pleasures at the expense of others more normal than myself

I am about to publicly confess to consistently stalking an old classmate on her blog for the past few years. This is her fiance who is a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia. This image could probably be in Mongolia, but it is not; they just met for vacation in Seattle where this image was taken and posted on her blog.

Hugo and I met in a creative writing class in 1997 and the classmate I (sometimes we) stalk was also in this class. We call her YY, which are her initials. We found her incredibly normal. So normal that we found her to be really funny. We have laughed at her for years. It is cruel, I know. By now I just don't care though.

Oh my god this image is so hilarious!!! People can be so funny just by being normal.

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Full, half, full.

Hipster High scene

“Let's play a game,” Luke said.
“Okay, what?” Gwendolyn asked.
“What do you hate the most here?”
She thought for a minute, bit her lip while her glance roamed the room. She settled on a pack of boys sitting on the cafeteria tables, all wearing trucker hats and worn-out sneakers that squeaked on the laminate benches.
“Laid-back people,” she said.
“God, yes!” Luke agreed.
“I mean, can't they have at least one psychological issue? I hate it when they're so cool with anything. Nothing bothers them. They're comfortable anywhere. And of course they're funny, and charming. Give me someone with anorexia, fear of heights, or bad skin. Then I'll talk to you.”
Luke smiled. “Is that why you talk with me?”
“Yep,” Gwendolyn said. “You got issues. You've got substance.”
“Speaking of funny and charming,” Luke said. “My turn.”
“Go for it.”
“Irony,” he said. Gwendolyn slapped his laugh. “Get out!”
“This place is dripping with irony. Everything is juxtaposed so that it's funny because of its context,” Luke said. He pointed over to the girls smoking in front of the NO SMOKING sign. “See? They're standing there on purpose. Just so those laid-back guys notice and laugh.”
“Nothing is sacred to them,” Gwendolyn added.
“Everything is ironic to them.”
“Yeah,” she said, and bit into her lip again. She looked at Luke, then looked away. He looked away too, watching the girls form ribbons of smoke to match the ringlets in their hair.

Notes on a movie

I saw the movie Notes on a Scandal tonight and was very impressed. It was based on a novel, and I love movies that keep that "book" feeling, if that makes any sense. I thought the characters were fascinating, and reminded me of some stories I have written - or have aspired to write. I was particularly drawn to a scene where Cate Blanchett dresses up as her former rock star self. It seems that at that point she has the clarity to understand the motives of another character.

The Diagram

Hugo turned me onto The Diagram. I've been enjoying it very much. Now I'm ready to share it.

I've become fond of Johathan Kessler, and I really like the first part of these five stories.

bubbling oil

This is not at all what I thought it would be, but I like the result. I made a video of bubbling vegetable oil with my cell phone.

type the sky

I don't know what they're talking about on this blog, but I'm really into type the sky.

thinking like a child when I'm almost thirty

The happiest days of my life
realize when I have worked and worked
done and done
so many things
that I collapse
inside myself
in the night
and have nothing left. I imagine most creatures
besides humans
spend every day like this.

Shrimp, toucans, larvae:
reverberation inside the central cavity
a tiny pitch lower
blood and water pushing hard against their familiar containers.

Today I realized
why I recoil from attention
and when I told you, you said amazing.
This is all I need to almost believe
in reality
and reality's insistence to be believed in.

24 flavors of... soft serve

I now live in the Midwest. I think I am the only one amazed by this. I hear they might have one dairy-free option.

I took this photo this morning and I just love it.

visit this blog

A secret admirer (and I'm thrilled we have at least one) commented the other day with this link. I just got the chance to explore it a bit.

I really loved the first posting on the page titled New Post-Secret Mini Movie. I loved the idea of making art from other people's secrets.

Since I am about to start a Master's in Social Work, I've been thinking about how to combine creativity and therapy. For that reason I doubly appreciate this.

what do they contain?

I found a tapeworm project on mnartists.org today. I wonder what is recorded on the tapes. Where do you think they are now?

Sketch it up

WOW - this is just the coolest tool ever. I have always been intimidated by CAD software, and this looks like the perfect solution for a novice designer. I will be designing some woodworking projects in this for sure. I just downloaded it and went through the tutorial!

Google Sketch Up.

Lori Grinker

I admire the work of Lori Grinker. She just launched her site. I'm especially fond of her portraits.

We've moved on, why can't you?

I found this site today. From their about page:

We embarked on this project about a year ago when we found ourselves surrounded by artwork that seemed to be hopelessly lacking in sincerity, inspiration, and mystery.

WNYC radiolab

I love radiolab and I love that WNYC offers it as a podcast. Each time I hear one I think about it for days. The last one I listened to is Beyond Time. A portion of the show talked about a painter who makes images of horses, empty plains and a young girl. The episode talked about his memories of that place.

There was a point in his career when he let go and stopped trying to make beautiful art. At this point, his art became wildly successful and people started to pay him for his paintings. He painted the horse, the plain and the girl for years before he consciously remembered them.

I can't get this out of my mind.

David Lynch

I'm really getting into David Lynch films. I just watched The Elephant Man, which was quite different than some of his other films I've seen. Highly recommended.

love child of the violin and turntables

This was originally seen on VideoSift.

Chickens before final assembly

Hugo, we made this just for you. It should all be done in a few more days, then we'll post a final video.

bbcck-aaaa!

cutting the mexican peck

Hugo sent a bizarre Japanese paper animation kit called The Mexican Peck. When we're done, we'll post a video of the results.

most enjoyable

I found a most enjoyable set of photos from the "We love Martin Parr" group on flickr.

sleep poem

Some lines of poetry floated in my head last night in that stage between sleep and awake. So I wrote them down to expel them. They are so strange and nonsensical to me now. I've done this before (constructed lines of words in that particular state of sleep) but never written it down.

Here it is:

In this agreement
who gets more air?
Who gets more
refrigeration?
The net woven will
partially remain,
partially change.

vacation game

We dream of traveling to all these places and then some, so we played a creative game last night to narrow down the options for our next vacation. It was really fun.

Vote for your recommendation.

Index card art

Colored pencil art.

Danbury!

Alpha and I went to Wisconsin this weekend to canoe down the Namekaegon river. We spotted this rare Wisconsin beast, the Laurilope, in the canoe outfitter's office.

Kittunpuss.

Kafka no likes espresso!

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We made espresso!

Gift box.

Origami box.

mud

I love the first image on this week's Self Portrait Challenge.

mediocrity

Lately my daytime hours have overflowed with mediocrity and mind-numbing boredom. I will keep the complaining to a minimum. In essence, my summer job is painfully empty of productive tasks and I must sit in 5 m.p.h. traffic for 40+ minutes to and from.

I fantasize about creativity, efficiency, communication, productivity and joy. Every minute of every workday, I sit on my ass and feel angst and yearning to simply do something, anything.

This afternoon I will not take the freeway home. Instead, I will find another path to travel - I will wind through neighborhoods I have not yet explored and likely get lost, then eventually find my way back toward St Paul, whenever I end up getting there.

Later I will make dinner not from a recipe but from my own intuition of what would mingle well together in a pot. I will jump around and wiggle when it's done and has unexpected un-recipe'd flavors.

Tonight I will get out that godforsaken fantastic camera Laurie bought me that I'm so afraid of and take a ton of images.

I will post at least one.

I am tired of this mediocrity.