Whew! What a wild ride it’s been! For the past three and a half years I’ve been going almost non-stop, doing work, making the art, payment in sweat, blood and tears. And now I have no idea what to do with myself. It’s been a week since I walked for my degree and since then I’ve been staring at my computer screen pushing icons around my desktop waiting for someone to give me an assignment, a syllabus, tell me what to do, please! Just kidding, sort of. I certainly have been getting my sloth on this week, taking a much deserved breather after an action packed final semester. The job search can wait until next week.

First off, let me wish all y’all a Happy Holidays! As usual, it kind of snuck up on us but we have our tree up and our meager decorations distributed appropriately around the house. And the cats haven’t totally destroyed the tree yet, good kittehs! We’ll be celebrating tomorrow with my mom and maybe hanging with friends tonight. We’ll see. Unfortunately, Sue and I have both been sick, beginning almost immediately at the end of the semester and are only getting over it now, so that has added to our lack of motivation. This has been a good week for catching up on sleeps.

As I said, the semester was an eventful one. I took a Music Theory class and an Intro to Film class just for fun, but most of my time was monopolized by my third Printmaking class and my Senior Project class. I turned out more prints this semester than either of the previous with four large 18” X 24” poster-sized pieces and five small pieces. My secret: the campsite I erected in the corner of the studio, a rock for a pillow and some large pieces of newsprint for a blanket. My hobo stove set off the sprinklers a few times but it saved me the inconvenience of going home. I focused entirely on relief prints since that was my favorite method and tried to conceive a theme for my work. Senior Project involved tons of work planning and producing our senior show including the postcard and flyers, along with producing all of my personal materials like business cards, letterheads and such. Just getting everything framed, mounted and cut took quiet a while. Our senior show went extremely well. Myself and my two fellow seniors filled the large hallway gallery in Newman’s De Mattias Fine Arts center with work.  I had three walls: one for graphic design, one for printmaking and one for painting and considering there were no other events going on in the building that night, the turnout was great. To see all the prints I did this semester, visit my site here. 

 

I received a very cool honor this semester, awarded Newman’s Sister Regina Buchholz Artist in Residence, which means I get to continue using the facilities at Newman, with some cash for supplies like paper and ink thrown in. I’ll have some responsibilities like maybe speaking to a class or doing a demonstration, but I’m very excited to have continued access to Newman’s presses, since those suckers are a tad expensive! It’ll give me the opportunity to expand my portfolio and I’m already planning a gallery show event off campus in the coming year, but more about that later!

Last Sunday Sue and I threw a fairly kick ass (if I say so myself) party at our house for my graduation. Even with all the folks who couldn’t make it, we had full house and everyone seemed to have a good time. Music was provided by our friends Raging Sea who laid down a couple solid sets, crowd surfing and setting their instruments on fire and such. People enjoyed them so much that we decided not to sue them for all the damage they did. (shrug) That’s rock n’ roll! Check out Raging Sea's music here. Of course, like most things in my life, it wouldn’t have been half as amazing with out Sue and all the work she put in, cooking amazing food which everyone, of course, raved about. And my Mom made one of her famous ten pound lasagnas too, which got more than a few compliments and was gone about thirty seconds after she put it out.

Sue survived the semester like a trooper but unfortunately this winter break is about a week shorter than normal so she’ll have to rest harder than usual to be ready for the coming term. At least she has something to look forward to: it’s her last semester as Division Chair! Woot Woot! Poor Sue, she already has the hundred-yard stare down, so here’s hoping it goes quickly, so she can focus on the aspects of the job that she enjoys like, I donno, teaching?

We had some bad, though inevitable, news at the start of the semester, when Sue’s grandfather “Pops,” passed away. We managed to go back to Pennsylvania for a few days to attend his viewing with Sue’s dad and brother, and put in a lot of work packing up his belongings and loading a trailer of furniture and boxes of stuff which came back to us. We also managed to bring his very large kitteh, Missy, back with us, stuffing her under the seat on the plane. Missy lived a very isolated and under stimulated life previously, so she’s been a little traumatized by the move and change in lifestyle. Scratch and Toots have welcomed her by chasing her around the house almost constantly. They mean well, they only want to play, but she doesn’t appreciate it much. On the upside, she’s lost three pounds since we took her in, so that’s a good thing.

Anyway, Happy Holidays to all, wish me good luck on my upcoming job hunt and we hope to be able visit people soon, maybe by the summer. Love ya!  

Happy summer to my peeps, crazy weather and all. Ironically, despite the national drought, it hasn't felt as bad here this summer than last to me, but if there's any doubt that we're in a drought condition, one only needs to walk to the banks of what was once the Arkansas river. It miraculously filled up with water earlier in the summer just in time for River Fest, and then immediately reverted to the miserable, dried up, waist of a river it normally is. There are pretty much permanent colonies of dry-land crops growing in the river bed now.





On a happier note, it's been an action packed summer for Sue and I. Well, not having to teach any classes meant that Sue actually had more free time than she normally does, but I managed to pack as much stuff into the past few months as I could. I got my last two Gen Ed classes taken care of, Faith and Society and Oral Communication (yay public speaking, my favorite!). I'm still working at Newman and got to design some cool projects, like new light post banners for the campus, five-foot tall photo montage posters for the dining hall and a snazzy "coffee table" sized brochure for Newman's new core curriculum. Click here to check out an online version of the booklet. In addition to that, I've also taken on an additional internship for the local chapter of Catholic Charities. While those who know me best may note that this is somewhat ironic, it has been a very good experience so far. They've been great to work with and don't seem to mind that I'm a heathen. And I'm getting to design Christmas and Spring appeals which will go out to tens of thousands of people. Can't beat that for a portfolio item! We're almost ready to print the Christmas appeal and they seem to be very happy with it, so it's a win for Team Me!


Along with all that, I couldn't pass up the chance to learn a new printmaking method, a popular process which isn't taught at Newman: lithography. It was a (non-accredited) class taught at Wichita Center for the Arts and I walked away with two new prints, one a simple one drop to get my hands dirty, the other a more intricate three drop piece which took a few weeks to complete. Lithography is the most complicated process I've tackled so far and would probably take many more hours of practice for me to feel remotely comfortable with. It involves drawing or painting with wax based materials on a flat stone, and then using water to control where the ink goes, being repelled by the water and sticking to the wax image. The special thing about litho is that it reproduces the image almost exactly as it was composed. Kind of cool.

As if that wasn't enough, Sue and I took an eight week archery class at O.J. Watson park and learned to stand out in the grueling Kansas evening sun and not pass out from heat exhaustion while firing arrows at a target. It was actually a lot of fun even though we pretty much got our butts kicked by a bunch of little girls. And since our targets were leaned up against the side of a barn, making fun of someone for missing the target was a no-brainer! In addition to the intensive physical workout that is archery, I've gone back to Kim's Academy Taekwondo this summer and so have managed to move my ass slightly more than I was previously. Miraculously, I've avoided any injuries. Go Team Me!

Of course, the highlights of our summer were when Sue visited her Dad and bro in California and spent time hiking and hanging out in some beautiful mountainous settings, and when Sue and I spent a week visiting Pops and our friends in Pennsylvania and New York. Sue seemed to really enjoy taking time to hangout with her fam and spend time moving around in nature. And I definitely savored the chance to see friends and to hangout in NYC. Almost my entire gang of friends converged on the Reading area for a surprise Birthday party for Shaun and the weekend included kayaking in a refreshing nearby lake. Later in the week, we stayed a few days in Brooklyn and saw an awesome (and extremely loud) performance by A Place To Bury Strangers. I also got to go to my favorite summer art gallery/dance party at Long Island City's PS1 and a grand time was had by all. Check out a pretty cool video someone shot of that day here, or above.

I guess that pretty much catches y'all up on our world. There are a couple more weeks of summer left before the semester starts up and this will be my last! For anyone able to be in Wichita in December, we're probably having a big ol' graduation shindig Sunday Dec 16 and I'll have my design and art work on display for my senior show as well. We hope you're all having a lovely summer! Talk to you soon!

My Last Summer

Hello all! I've finished a couple new songs, Crazy Baby and Detachment, which you can check out above or by clicking the links. Check them out!

Another semester done and I begin possibly my last summer as a college student. I know I'll miss it when it's done, it's been literally a life changing experience. There is the Freshman 15 I've packed on, for starters. I thought I was a little old for that but apparently it doesn't care how old you are. But it will be good to get back out into the work force and start making money again. Then we can start those repairs on the house and maybe I can start visiting people again!

Anyway, the stand out class for me this semester was Painting 2, where I really got to explore my love of street art, using stencils and spraypaint and odd found objects to paint on instead of canvas. And who doesn't love the pretty colors and swirly lights you see in your head after you've breathed in enough spraypaint fumes? It's ok, I added enough new braincells in my other classes to make up for the ones I killed. I even got to work on some really big pieces like a seven foot high piece of pressboard which I think used to be used as a door. That one proved to be a little bit of a logistic challenge and is still sitting at school until I can figure out how I'm getting it home. You can see the new work on the painting page of my site. I also really loved the Figure Drawing class, probably because of how  
                                           naughty it seemed to be drawing naked people on a Catholic college campus. I couldn't help looking over my shoulder to see if I was being followed right before I stepped into the secret Nekkid Room. Those nuns can be stealthy. I kid the nuns. They're actually a very progressive group of ladies, so big ups to the Sisters! We did have to say goodbye to Ryan, the printmaking and figure drawing instructor who is currently planning to leave Wichita. Ryan's the one who got me into printmaking and is an all around great guy and a friend. Good luck in Lawrence, my friend, we'll miss you!

Another class I enjoyed which surprised the hell out of me was Chemistry. First off, all humanities majors get steered towards a different apparently easier class which filled up before I could register, so I was a little nervous about venturing into unknown territory. All of the other students were nursing or premed, which made me something of an anomaly. But as it turned out, I totally kicked atomic behind! Those chemicals didn't know what hit them! Take that HCL and NaOH and you too CH3CO2H! I know this sounds like bragging, but yeah I'm kicking pH and taking names! But seriously, I'm kind of in disbelief, honestly. I got 100's on all the exams and, according to the professor, I'm the first student she's had to completely ace a final. Can you believe it? Me either! Ok, enough of me bragging even though I totally rocked those covalent bonds. I'm just sayin.


Sue isn't teaching any classes this summer, so she should have some time to relax and garden and do some other fun things. She managed to get away last weekend with my Mom and a friend of theirs to go to a gardening/music type festival at this farm in Missouri. There she learned many things about the evils of corn and how everything is Genetically Modified and we're all doomed. Maybe that last part was just me, but since we added another raised bed to the backyard, we'll hopefully be growing more of our own food! Sue is also getting to see her Dad and Scott over the Fourth of July weekend in Cali. They have plans to go camping, which sounds awesome. For me, it should be pretty busy. I'm taking two classes, a capstone class called Faith and Society which everyone takes before they graduate, and Oral Communication which I have put off as long as possible.

I'll still be working on campus in the graphic design job but I may also take on a second internship if at all possible and I have an interview with someone next week. Plus I'll be trying to meet with Pamela, the graphic design instructor at Newman, to get a jump start on my portfolio so I won't have to get too much done at the last minute before graduation.

Well, besides all that, things have been pretty run of the mill here. As you can see, we've started letting the cats and pigs interact a little more and they seem to be fine with each other. The pigs don't seem all that scared of the cats, and as a result the cats don't feel the need to chase and bat at them. They have come to an understanding. And the cats, for their part, have come to the understanding that Sue and I should never sleep past 7am ever again. Between Toots' early morning howling and Scratch's I'm going to walk all over you until you get up, we've been a little sleepy in the afternoons. But how can you be mad them? Look at that face.

Oh, one other bit of excitement. As some of you may have heard, we had a tornado scare here in April. A pretty big one moved through the south part of town, about five miles from us. Luckily, the Weather Service did such an amazing job that we were warned about it three days in advance and remarkably, last I heard no one was killed. It was the first time Sue and I fled for the basement though and luckily we didn't lose power like most everyone else in east Wichita, which would have made it a bit scarier. Yes, that's Sue in the pic wearing a bike helmet.

Let me close by wishing all the mothers a happy Mothers Day! Do something nice for them to make up for what a bad kid you were. See you soon!