Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Riff, Wild Beasts, Bauer Letter, Animation, Zine

Below is a new riff I made and am playing with. It's a rough bit, but I like where it's going. Mostly I enjoy how these things really do hit me like an epiphany. So take a listen!



In addition to that stumblage of good riffage, I was introduced to the Wild Beasts, whom I have not stopped listening to since I first heard their song "Hooting and Howling". They have a very warm sound, but are definitely jammin at the same time. Check out their video!



Now for the mass of feel-good news!

It all started on Monday morning. As I was finishing my drawing something inside me clicked back to its normal state of optimism. I was ready to go! I went to Drawing class and fully enjoyed working in there, which doesn't always happen. My portrait of Ryan turned out pretty splendidly, and I left in a chipper mood.

Walking home, I noticed the boys rolling on the skateboards behind the apartment buildings. 'Twas a gorgeous evening and the sun was balancing on the edge of the world, thus I decided to take a seat and bask in the fair weather while I could. Carl and I had a short heart-to-heart and then Fowler joined us. After a an urging to check the mail via a phone call from my mother, I headed in.

A week earlier my dad had called me and asked for my address and website information. I inquired on the reason, but was left quizzical. I didn't think on it again until I checked the mail on this flouncy Monday, and when I held the letters in hand, it suddenly dawned on me.

Now, one must know that my dad works in a twenty-story condominium, whose residents are the millionaires and billionaires of Kansas City. Since he started we've been furnishing our house with their leftovers and attending baseball games with their extra season tickets. I really believe his good character and giving personality has made a huge impression on these sometimes haughty people.

And thus the letter.
It had no return address and was not in my parents' handwriting. On the back it had a green embossed "Bauer" in the center. This was from one of the residents from my dad's building. I thought to myself, "Man! It would be so awesome if they randomly decided to give me some money!" (Before they had opened a scholarship fund for my sister and she made bank, so my thoughts were kind of there....) And so I opened the letter with no real expectations. I read the note and in essence it said that his daughter (34) had passed away and that he thought she would have liked this money to go to me to help with my education. And behind the note was a check for $1,000.

I was a bit caught off guard, to tell you the truth! Also in the envelope was, what I'm assuming was, the card given out at her visitation, a newspaper clipping about her, and another paragraph of information about her life. It was cool to learn about someone I hadn't even heard of before, and to have been blessed by her life even after her death.

Following this shocking mail, I got a lovely letter from Erin, complete with mixed CD, kreeture doodles, and letter. It was a perfect start to my good week. I love her so much. She really knows me, in ways that she herself is the same. Sometimes I'm in disbelief at our likeness to one another. And it boggles my mind that we have spent more time apart than together in the entirety of our friendship. That's really something.

So later that night the pallies and I played some Catch Phrase for Recess Club. It's been dwindling, but that's partially my fault, not being able to make it the past couple of weeks. Tomorrow night, however, we're playing our annual Halloween costume Ghost in the Graveyard in the MIA courtyard. I can't wait.

Tuesday was one of the best days I've had in a long while. It was sunny and warm and I had no classes. I woke up at my leisure, signed up to work the art sale, had lunch with Charlotte, sent out some mail, and began my animation. I worked from 1-8 and then headed over the girls' for a bit of a retreat. I ended up bringing my workstation there and we watched The Brothers Bloom whilst finishing homework. At midnight I came home and kept working until about 2 and then headed to bed, really satisfied.

This morning I woke up and added some finishing touches on my sound animation. I wanted to do a few things differently, but that's usually how it goes. All in all, I'm very proud of it and am even more reassured that animation is for me. You can watch it below. The assignment was to take the provided sound clip and make an animation based of it.



And then tonight I had to do my Language project for my Ideation class and came up with the solution of a zine after many Plan Bs. Basically I used the phrases and lingo of my friends and had them each draw the word and whatever else they wanted on one page (as to give it their own "voice"), and then combined them into a zine. It's not my favorite piece of work, but it'll do. Eventually I want to combine these and more into a book (which was my original idea) and make it more polished. Below are some images from that.

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1 comment:

charlotte ferguson said...

DIGGIN THAT ANIMATION GIRL.
i am impressed by your skills!