06/01/2001 - 07/01/2001 07/01/2001 - 08/01/2001 08/01/2001 - 09/01/2001 09/01/2001 - 10/01/2001 10/01/2001 - 11/01/2001 11/01/2001 - 12/01/2001 12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002 01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002 02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 04/01/2002 - 05/01/2002 05/01/2002 - 06/01/2002 06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002 07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002 08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 10/01/2002 - 11/01/2002 11/01/2002 - 12/01/2002 12/01/2002 - 01/01/2003 01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003 02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003 03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003 04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 a firenze

Monday, April 28

7:31 PM
We did our presentation today and it went all right. I kind of did my part at the last minute, but we only had 5 minutes each so it wasn't necessary to go into too much depth. After class, on the way back to the parking garage, this guy Ian from my class whom I'd never really spoken to came up and started a conversation. It was weird, it was like a get-to-know-ya talk, and it was nice to meet him, but I have no idea why he chose now (the last week of classes) to introduce himself. We talked for 5 minutes or so until we got to our respective cars. It was nice, though. Not many people do that.

I am going over to sculpture to try to finish my projects. Stone carving takes forever and I'm way behind.

There are birds living in my air conditioner. I can't even get the fan to move anymore. I'll have to go check it out - I hope I'm not penalized by my landlord for not running my fan during the cool months and thus allowing birds to build nests in it.

I also called Cranbrook this afternoon and told them I was going there. Eek. I hope I'm ready for it.

Sunday, April 27

6:02 PM
This is the most well-rested and least-worried I've been in a while. I'm at the library, doing my part of the research for a presentation in macroeconomics tomorrow.

So the show opening on Friday went pretty well. I was getting stuff ready for it up to the last minute. A lot of people helped me with stuff I should have done myself earlier, but I put off so much of the work until that week. Chad built the pedestal for a floor piece I made (I didn't actually see the whole thing finished [my part, I mean - he built the pedestal plenty in advance] until that morning, but it turned out pretty much as I envisioned it). Mom and Dad came up from Columbus with the food (tons of it). Jean and Steve were there by the time it started, as were, surprisingly, the Atzbergers, who happened to be in town. I was barely there on time; I rushed home to shower and change and then I had to print business cards when I got back. I had planned to have cds of my music to sell - I'd already burned them, but I didn't have labels ready, so it was sort of lame and I decided not to put them. In retrospect it would have been a little tacky anyway (I probably wouldn't have been able to give them away).

Phil and Teresa flew in to Dayton and came up with Teresa's family (her sister Linda goes to UT as well). Ted missed his flight to Toledo so he had to catch one to Columbus, and he came up with Jim and Noelle and Mary. They made it up by the end of the show.

I usually awkwardly talk to Mysoon at shows, but there were people actually there to see me, so I didn't get a chance. She repeated her invitation to go have a drink sometime, which I will try to take her up on before I leave. Well, if I'm going to Cranbrook (I think so, yes) I could probably still see her occasionally, as she apparently now lives in Detroit.

I don't want to talk about people's reactions to my work quite yet because Shannon hasn't seen the show. She'll be here next week, so then I'll put up some images and write a little about them.

After the reception we all went to their hotel downtown and hung out at the restaurant on the top floor. Joy, Chris and Kate slept at my apartment, and the next morning we went to the restaurant again for breakfast, but it wasn't as fun because there was only one guy working and it took incredibly long (and the four of us were a little late and ate mostly by ourselves at a table apart from everybody else). Ted's flight was in a couple of hours so he wasn't around for anything else after that. He gave me a gift before he left which was very kind, and also one to Joy (her 21st birthday was on Thursday).

An awful thing happened though - Linda's car was broken into Friday night and her cd changer and all her cds were stolen. The thieves cut out the lock on her front door and opened everything from inside. A week or two previous she and her roommate saw someone hanging around their house outside, and when they asked what she was doing she said she was "just looking around". They wrote down her license plate number, so hopefully that will help in a police investigation. She lives on my street, but in the shady neighborhood right across from the university. I don't know if I'm any safer; on Thursday morning I noticed two cars in my parking lot had broken windows, one with the glass still freshly strewn on the blacktop.

So while the Broerings were talking to the police we went to the Van Gogh landscape exhibition at the museum. It was actually really great; a couple people I'd talked to weren't that impressed, but I'm really glad I saw it. He was an artist who just kept getting better as he went along. The last year of his life he painted some of his best stuff.

Next we all went to Tony Packo's, which I'd never been to. I thought I was hungry but I could barely eat anything, and later it made me kind of sick. But I'm glad I got the experience out of the way. Then we went to Maumee State Park, which I'd also never been to. It's right by Lake Erie. It's very pleasant, I don't have much to say about it.

Everybody had to leave by that point, and I was getting really tired. I got a ride home with my parents and Kate and I went to bed soon after about 7pm. I woke up around midnight and stayed up for a couple of hours, and slept again until around 11 this morning. I feel pretty great right now. Still worried about grad school, but I think I've justified Cranbrook in my mind enough and I'm ready to send off my acceptance tomorrow.

Friday, April 25

12:58 AM
We hung the show on Wednesday. There are still lots of details to take care of, and the reception is tomorrow night. Right now, I'm literally sick and tired. I shouldn't be taking the time to write this. Later.

Friday, April 18

4:57 PM
Stress stress stress.

Saturday, April 12

8:25 PM
I went up to Ann Arbor today with some people to see an Andy Goldsworthy exhibition at the museum. Surprisingly, it was my first time in that town. It was nice, I guess - the weather I mean. After a while the college town atmosphere, where absolutely everyone was dressed perfectly and the street looked like a movie set, got to me. The Goldsworthy show was pretty cool, but it was mostly photographs from a series he did in Japan in 1987. A large work made of sticks arranged on the floor was blocked by metal rails (dumb). But there was a nice arrangement of rocks in a line that looked pretty good, even though they were on a pedestal.

At the museum also there was a show called "Art of Zen" or something, and they had Chinese and Japanese artworks from the 15th-17th century or so. Most of it was really great. There was one image of a "Taoist immortal surfing the waves on a sword".

After the museum we got something to eat, and then we went into a gallery that turned out to be a show by U of M undergrads. Some of it was awful (inexplicably, the most mediocre work won all the awards) and some of it was quite nice. There were some lovely artist books.

Then we walked by a major chain bookstore which had some interesting artwork displayed in the window, and said that there was an exhibition of employees' work (!) upstairs, but when we went inside we couldn't find any artwork at all. Still, we stayed and we all bought things. So I feel kind of suckered. But no big deal, I guess.

Friday, April 11

11:37 PM
Phew. Busy busy. Getting down to the wire (twooooo weeeeksss) on my BFA show. I framed one drawing and it looks pretty good. Next week that's all I'll be doing. In the meantime, I'm still getting good ideas for drawings, so I'm trying to wrap them up (figuratively) so I can frame them.

Last weekend I went home to see my sister in the musical Carousel. I recognized some of the kids from the play last year, but of course it's been so long since I graduated that I've never met any of them. I only knew a few people in the audience too.

It sucked getting home though. I won't go into details but it involved towing.

Tuesday I went down to Cincinnati to talk to the art dept. They have a cool building (enormous), and the facilities look good. I wasn't blown away by the students' work (again), but it wasn't bad. I put the facilities slightly below MCAD, but above Cranbrook. People tell me how Cincinnati is "conservative", and maybe it's so, but I don't know if that would really impair what I want to do. I don't think my work (right now) would cause much controversy. It's so hard to tell, though, how you'll be influenced in the future by teachers you haven't met yet. I might be signing a creative death sentence if I pick the wrong school. I think I'm going to write more in depth about my feelings about each school later on.

Oh yeah, and when I went home last weekend I got a letter of acceptance from Pratt. No offer of financial aid; hopefully that's just an temporary oversight. Now I'd really like to visit the school to see what it's like, which would mean going to NYC, the first time since I was very small.