Decluttering

I recently decided to do a massive cleaning job in my room--throwing away hundreds of pieces of art. Before throwing them away I decided to document almost all of the pieces and to put the photos on the web to see if anyone is interested before they go in the dumpster.

The artwork dates back from sophomore year in high school. Boy have I improved.

http://pleasebuy.carbonmade.com/projects/2405101#35

http://allworksells.carbonmade.com/

I posted these links on craigslist too. But the possibility of selling any of these is pretty slim. If you want anything it's yours (but speak quickly)!

Some Photos - Summer foundations at RISD and my last few days at Carleton

South Pacific Update

Hey folks,

A lot has happened since I last blogged. We finished printmaking in Auckland and then headed back into nature: Tongararo for a few days and then Abel Tasman.

The nine hour hike over Tongararo mountain was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I guess I don't have too much experience with that type of scenery, haven't seen too many volcanoes, because the first half of the hike was absolutely nothing like anything I'd ever seen before. Maybe if I was into The Lord of the Rings I would have recognized the area and it wouldn't have been so bewildering. Anyways I just kept on thinking of the song "I Like Giants" by Kimya Dawson when we were making the climb. She sang -and this is paraphrased of course-"when i go for a drive i like to pull off to the side of the road and run and jump into the ocean in my clothes. I'm smaller than a poppey seed inside a great big bowl and the ocean is a giant that could swallow me whole" and "I am grounded, I am humble, I am one with everything." Being surrounded by those huge volcanoes made me feel so small, in a good way. Also the experience has made me think about our relationship with nature. Personally this trip has made me realize how seperate I am from nature. On vacations I go on hikes and marvel at the sights but on a day to day basis contact is pretty limited. We exploit earth's resources - cut down trees and use up the fresh water supply - and I feel like most people (myself included) take these things for granted. It was easy before to blame large corporations or the government for our environmental problems but really we're all to blame and we need to take responsibility.

I realize that I'm babbling and am in no way informed on this subject. I asked a few people on the tripfor book suggestions related to the environment and I'm looking forward to finding them in a book store and reading them.

In a way thinking about these larger issues has made me realize how small and maybe even selfish my life is. At the beginning of the trip I was very absorbed in my drawing. I drastically inflated the importance of achieving a perfectly rendered figure or portrait. I remember, especially at the beginning, talking about drawing constantly with people. And now I have a somewhat lower tolerance for art talk. There are so many more important and more interesting things to talk about.

Right now Elissa, Sadie and I are in Picton on midterm break. Although I really love everyone on the trip it's great to be in a smaller group and to have complete independence. We went on a great hike today and tomorrow we're taking a train to Christchurch.

I miss you all! Sorry about the lack of pictures, this internet cafe (which is actually a video rental store) lacks usp ports.

-Erica

South Pacific Trip

Dad, this one's for you.

tree in Albert park, Auckland





Waipoua (us sleeping in the Marae, a Kauri tree, the outside of the marae, Manos Nathan and his kiln, and the walk from the beach to his house)




Rarotonga (making eis, Muri beach and picture from the cross island hike)



Hey folks! First blog entry from the south pacific, woo hoo!!

I think I may have waited too long to blog because now I have way too much to cover in one entry.

We spent the first week in Rarotonga, a tiny island that takes only 45 minutes to drive all the way around. The early morning snorkels (at around 6:30 am) were definitely a highlight of our stay. It was very shallow allowing for easy snorkeling and I saw some of the most brilliantly colored fish of my lifetime. We were staying in rooms of three and the meals were left almost entirely to us. Meaning we all had lots of fun experimenting with exotic foods. I expanded my fruit repertoire. My new favorite fruit is the star fruit, although the passion fruit is a close second. I also found that, surprisingly, I like coconut milk.

During the day we spent most of our time drawing (surprise, surprise!). Although I've now grown accustomed to the drawing-all-day-long thing, at first it was novel and it took a while for me to come down from my initial high. I just kept thinking to myself as I was sitting on the beach shaded by palm trees -- "this is school."

We also learned a lot about Cook Island culture. We made tivaevaes, quilts made to celebrate weddings, hair cutting rituals, etc. and we went to a dance performance. (we also had dancers model for us on a number of occasions, which was great because half of the time was spent watching them dance and the other half drawing). I really enjoyed going to church in Rarotonga. The singing was overwhelmingly beautiful.

The one low point of Rarotonga was when we lost two girls on the cross island hike. First of all it was the most challenging hike I've ever been on. At one point I was climbing up steep rocks with the assistance of chains and my waterbottle fell out of my backpack and went careening off the cliff. I was thankful that it wasn't me. ALso it started raining halfway through, making it even more difficult. Anyways, Fred sepnt the night searching for them, but even with the help of the police they had no luck. The girls ended up spending the night on the trail. The next day however a few people on our trip found them. Surprisingly, they didn't seem all too battered, unlike the rest of us who were traumatized by the event. We all spent the whole night worried out of our minds. As a result of our restlessness an entire pot of boiling spaghetti got spilled on one girl's leg--resulting in a pretty serious burn. It was a bad night, however, on the positive side it did bring us together as a group. The group as a whole is amazingly friendly and caring.

Anyhow, after Rarotonga we spent a night in Auckland and then stayed at a Marae in Waipoua. We all got to experience the Maori culture first hand, which was amazing. We actually spent the night in the Marae (the meeting house). We brought our sleeping bags and slept on the floor of the room. We were staying with Alex and Manos Nathan, two brothers, one a metalsmith and the other a potter. Although it seemed like their real jobs were protecting the forest. Over the years the Kauri trees have been cut down and now pine trees (an introduced species) take their place. Timber is a major industry in New Zealand. During our stay we swam in the river, made a giant sandcastle, drew, played Maori games (despite being games taught to Maori kindergartners--they were quite difficult), watched Manos work with the kiln, and walked through the Waipoua forest, where we saw Kauri trees, some of which were over 1,000 years old and were MASSIVE. Apparently at that age they're usually hollow on the inside..which is interesting. By the time we left it felt like we were leaving home. The people welcomed us in as if we were part of the family.

Now we are back in Auckland, where our focus is print making. Our studio is in an art school that used to be an insane asylum. THe place is incredibly creepy. There's this long, narrow hallway that says in yellow letters on the ground that this is the skipping hallway and imagine that you're skipping through daisies (I'm paraphrasing). There's also this really tiny room that is covered with Chinese characters scrawled onto the wall with black ink and there is a red, see-through fabric covering the window giving the room a bloody feel. I'm doing my prints on the asylum. I was planning on doing them on trees in Auckland but I had such a strong reaction to the asylum, that I knew I had to do it. I want to capture how a place can carry so much emotion. Personally I find the hallways and rooms to be almost suffocating. Even though the patients are long gone I still feel their presence.

On a more cheery note I absolutely love Auckland. When I'm not in the asylum, I'm walking around the city or hanging out in one of the parks. The botanical gardens in Domain Park are gorgeous as are the trees in Albert park. K road is the equivalent of Portland's Hawthorne street. There are lots of small independent shops and many thrift stores plus a lot of hip cafes. Also there is a lot of street art all over the city.

Okay, that's all for now! Keep in touch!



-Erica

Paper Plane

Here's my third RISD drawing. I might put a little bit more work into it (pump up the contrast some)

So I took this photo with my new camera which has face recognition, and it actually recognized the face in the drawing!



Paper Planes

Camera

I try not to dwell on material possessions, but I got a new camera for Christmas, and I'm not going to lie, I'm in love. I take it everywhere with me (it fits nicely in my coat pocket) and take pictures constantly. Here are a few I took on Christmas day:



(my grandmother, my Dad, and my cousins)

Two Sided Drawing

So here is RISD drawing #2. The assignment was to make a drawing that utilizes both sides of the piece of paper. I thought this was a really interesting challenge and I had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for it. Actually I'm pretty sure I spent way more time thinking of ideas than actually drawing. There are a number of different approaches you could take for this assignment. First there is the time elapse. I had contemplated drawing myself on one side of the paper and drawing an elderly version of myself on the other side. Second there is the 180 degrees change in view. This tearing through the paper drawing is an example of that. I'd also thought about drawing a person wearing a hospital gown, from the front and from the back. And third there is the drawing that wraps around the paper. That idea never really appealed to me.

I would really love to see other people's drawings! They told us about one person who did a sketch of her drawing on the front side and the finished drawing on the back. I thought that was a pretty interesting idea. I guess it sort of fits into the time elapse category since it shows change or evolution from the front side to the back side. It's an interesting spin on it though because it directly addresses the process of drawing.

Speaking of process, I thought I would tell you all how I went about making this. If you've been to my house recently you've probably noticed that the doorway to the den is blocked by a gigantic piece of white paper and to get into the room you have to crawl through the three foot high gap at the bottom. This is pretty inconvenient. However, located directly at eye level (at least for me) is an exceedingly convenient hole through which you can peek in on a movie. My parents were watching sisterhood of the travelling pants 2 (hahahaah) and I just stood there watching them through the hole for a really long time. They didn't notice me until I started making sounds at them though.

So anyways if you haven't figured it out yet, to get the photo references for this drawing I taped a large piece of white paper up and then tore it to make a hole large enough for my head to fit through. I then had my Mom take a picture of me from the front and then crawl underneath the paper and take a picture from the back. It ended up taking a ridiculously long time to get the pictures taken. I'm thinking close to four hours largely because I like to be in complete control of my pieces and me being the model made that difficult. My Mom would take a bunch of pictures and then I would look at them and then change the lighting a little bit and then she would take some more and then I would change my expression some, and it went on and on like that. I'm really grateful for her for putting up with me and also for crawling back and forth over and over again. yeah..

Oh I also wanted to thank all of my friends who have come over and talked to me while I was drawing! Especially Abby who came and talked to me while I was drawing for two whole days, even after she was bored out of her mind the first time. Many good times were had listening to "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan" by the Magnetic Fields on repeat. By the way that song is now the number two most played song on my ipod (number 1 is Say Yes of course).