A New Coat

I love living in San Francisco: the easily accessible outdoor activities, the architecture, the culture, the museums, the fact that you can explore the entire city in a day. The list goes on and on. The only problem that I have is that in the dead of summer, I freeze my butt off. There are the occasional days, usually in October, that one can walk outside and be comfortable without a jacket for a few hours. But it’s rare.

Although we don’t get to enjoy warm summer nights, sitting outside sipping cocktails and watching the stars come out, there is one excellent advantage to living in this climate; I get to shop for jackets year round. I’ve put together a collage of some of my favorites on my buylist from all different stores and price ranges. You can check the rest of my great finds: San Francisco Summer Jackets.

I'm Back...

Tonight after work I came home and decided that I would just 

r-e-l-a-x.  It's the first night that I can remember in a looooong time that I've been able to just allow myself to hang out without letting the ubiquitous, nagging list of "Things to Do" bother me. Last weekend Rob and I hosted our friends' baby shower and it was a blast. That was actually the very first shower that I've ever been to; it seems strange that I have a handful of close girlfriends with babies, but Shannan and Mark are the first that actually live in San Francisco. I cannot wait to become Auntie Erin- in less than 2 months!

The new studio is amazing and I LOVE my studio mates.  We had our first official studio meeting last week and everything just felt so right.  On another note in the world of my art career, I'm waiting patiently this week to see if I've been chosen for this huge and amazing project that, if I am chosen, I plan to document its' progress here with pictures. I'll keep you posted...

The SF marathon is less than two weeks away and I'm really excited. I'm most excited for all of the trainees that I've been so lucky to help along the way with training. I'm going to miss those guys. Running a marathon is such a huge accomplishment, I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. 

Into the swing of things

I finally feel like I'm settling into life after school. As much as I've avoided it most of my life, I'm totally excited about the routine of working one job, 5 days a week; it makes the weekends that much more enjoyable.
I'm in the middle of making a decision about whether or not to take a studio with three other people from school. So far, all signs have pointed to "yes": the two girls are some of my favorite people to be around, and the space is huge and beautiful. Even down to the fact that the studio's former resident was one of my favorite professors and I heard that he's planning on leaving an amazing couch. One that I can easily picture myself lounging on while working on my embroidery projects...

I other news...
Marathon training- last Saturday I ran 16 miles and felt really good. I find out in a few weeks if I get into the NYC marathon. So exciting!

And.....finished.

It hasn't quite sunken in that I'm finished with school. I'm starting full time work on Tuesday, so my plans to take a few days off to get into the studio didn't pan out like I thought it would, but I'm actually excited to just have two jobs, no school instead of two jobs and school, which is like a job and a half in itself. I'm looking forward to my free time that can now be used as time for my own projects.
Here is a screen print that I finished the last week of school:

The Final Final

I'm getting incredibly excited to be done with school. I hate to have to reference a certain Pointer Sister's song from the 70's, having never been a fan, but I can relate to them.
My website is really coming together and I'm looking forward to it's big debut. It has gone through more than a few phases, but I'm happy with what I've done to it recently; it just took a whole lot of practice and a little tweaking of design issues. I'll be sure to list it here when it goes live!

Good Weekend Fun

This weekend I got a ton of time in the studio. I've almost finished the painting that I've been working on since February, and started another new project. Even though my studio space also doubles as my dining room, it's a really sunny, comfortable place to work. It also looks out into our garden that we've been diligently working on for the past few weeks.
Last week, I bought enough lumber to keep myself busy with panel building. I can't believe that we only have 3 weeks left of school. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it...

Artist's Website VII

Last Friday, I got to work on a project of the local artist, Tucker Nichols. When I say work, I mean package and label for shipping, so not actually work on the project, but it was fun. I can't say much about it, because the project is a secret, but I'll remember to unveil the secret when the time is right!
I was first introduced to Tucker when I went to a visiting artist lecture about 6 months ago. The lecturer was the owner of Lincart, a gallery on Market. Tucker seems to be a gallery favorite so he was in the video that the artist/gallery owner had shown.
His work is great and his website really reflects it.

Finally!

I finally got some time in the studio today. Lately, a lot of my time at home (the little that there is) has been spent working on the computer. I found out today that my website isn't actually due for a while, so I decided to step away from the desk and really sink into the studio.
I've been working on the same painting for a few weeks now, and feel like it's really coming along. I'll be able to add it to the image library that I'm going to put on my website shortly. This is what it looked like when I first started it:
A lot has been done since then, so I'll post pics when it's finished.
My internship has been going really well. It's a little bit of new stuff that I haven't done before, but I've felt really comfortable with it so far. I'm looking forward to really digging my feet into a project, hopefully soon.

My Last Paper/Running 12 miles

Even though I plan on doing quite a bit of writing in my career, I have just completed my last paper for a class.  It's an amazing feeling, I must say. I really enjoy writing, but I like to do it on my own terms and write about things that I'm interested in.  As the end of the semester is approaching, I'm happy to say that I can check this one off of the list, and now I can focus on other things.  

On another note, I'm officially in the "Building Mileage" phase of the marathon training.  It's crazy.  I know that I did this all last year, but it's amazing to know that I'm going to be running 12 miles, two days from now.  Last Saturday, I ran 9 when I was supposed to run 11. And I wonder why I'm always hungry.

crap!

I've been so busy lately; trying to prep for a new job, take care of everything at the old job, work my second job, work on my website, write papers that I truly don't want to write, etc. etc. etc.
The list just goes on and on and on. But I've started my internship, so I can just move forward and take care of everything else. I constantly have to remind myself that I can only do one thing at a time and not get bogged down by impending projects.
I've gotten in a little studio time over the past few weeks. I've been developing the same ideas from the last few pieces that I've done, including the one at Somarts:
I have 3 panels that I've built that are dedicated to this body of work. I'll build at least two more to tide me over the summer. I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to sneak back into school in the fall to use the machines to build panels.
I love working on panels and I think that there's something really special in being able to build your support from the ground up, even though building them can be a pain.

Artist's Website VII

This is by far the craziest website yet. The first page truly assaults your senses.
Tauba Auerbach is amazing. She has been an SF favorite for a while. I remember reading some 7x7 Magazine "Hot 30 Under 30" list that she was on a few years ago. I still think her work is amazing...

Artist's Website VI

I don't know much about this artist, Lucy Pullen, but I thought that I would do a little research on her based on the subscription that I have to "The Thing Quarterly", which you can read about here.
Her website, which you can get to by going here, is something that I feel I could put together with my eyes closed. Not that I'm an expert, but really, there's nothing to it: a white background, archive button, bio button. It also gives you the option to download her CV as a pdf. Maybe her work is about starkness. I plan on finding out when I research her work a little more...

Artist's Website V

This is one of my favorite watercolor artists, Kim McCarty. Simple androgynous children's portraits, sometimes done in a single color.
Her website is also simple, but I found a little hard to navigate because you had to rely on the browser's return arrow to get back to the previous page. Something to think about...
You can find her website here.

Artist's Website IV- Andrew Bird

This is the cover art of the album, "Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs", one of my all time favorite musicians. I really like his website, especially how it forces you to search for the navigation bar. You have to roll over it in order for it to appear again after first visiting a page. I'm not a huge fan of the black background, but I'm sure it appeals to a lot of people and it does seem really easy to read. you should check out the AV page and listen to the jukebox.

Artist Website III- Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon is another candidate for the painting department at SFSU, so I got the opportunity to see her speak about her work as well.
Lisa's website is one of those nice and clean artist's websites that is so amazingly simple, but I wonder if it's accessible to everyone. You could very easily go to the main page and think that all that existed in the whole site was her name and a little scroll box. You almost have to look around a bit to discover that there's more to it, but maybe there's some psychology behind that idea as well. Like, a person visiting your site could somehow feel accomplished by discovering secret rooms and therefore feel a strange attachment to it.

I was excited to discover through visiting her website, that I own a t-shirt that she designed, a gift from Rob a few years ago. cute.

Artist Website II- BrionRosch

In keeping with the practice of checking out artists' website design over the break, I decided to start local, with someone that I know and used to work with. You can check out his website here. (Brion, if you read this, sorry to use you first!)
I really like the simple, easy design of the site and am a BIG fan of his color palette. (BTW, his bike matches his work) Some of the choice of font color is a little light, making it hard to read, but that could just be my aging eyesight.
A plus about this site in my circumstances, is that there's a teeny image in the upper right hand corner that links you to the web designer's site, showing other artists' websites. Nice job. A++

Artists Website I

One artist's website that I look at often is local artist, Josh Keyes. I received a print of his as a gift last year, and have been following him since. You can visit his site here.
When viewing his site's use of meta tags, I noticed that some of his keywords were the names of some of his contemporaries and artists that he's been in shows with. Which I've never thought of doing, but I suppose makes perfect sense. Here is an image of the print that is hanging in my living room.

Visiting artist lecture

Yesterday I went to see Claire Sherman speak. She is a candidate for the professor position in the painting department, I assume to replace one of my favorites ever, Paul Pratchenko. I recognized her work from "New American Paintings" from about a year ago. The image above is one of my favorite pieces of hers, but you can check out her website here.
It was interesting to listen to her talk about her thoughts about surface and the use of paint as a material that can be used to break up an image, becoming just paint. She experiments with incredibly thick applications, almost to the loss of control. Her work is on the border between abstraction and representation.
I think that she would be a good fit with the painting department. It's too bad I'm outta there. I think that I'd really enjoy a class with her.

Running Marathons...

I haven't mentioned much of this part of the title of my blog, so here goes...
I've officially kicked off the training season for two marathons and one half marathon coming up this year. Which basically means that I'm going to start doing a whole lotta running and tons of cross training and eating really well (and eating a lot). I find that I'm constantly starving while I'm in this process and pretty much spend the day snacking. I also sleep really well at night, and feel incredibly motivated with personal projects. One project that is in the works involves mapping my runs from point to point to see what sort of patterns develop.

For this particular training program, I'm a pace group leader. This means that between myself and two other pacers, we keep anywhere from 15 to 35 runners on track for the long runs, which happen on Saturdays. This also means that my Friday nights are shot because I have to be all set to go at 8:00am. I work or have school 6 days a week with Saturdays being my only day off. So by the afternoon, I feel very accomplished and I can actually let myself chill out and relax a little.

The little project that could....

My newest textiles project that has been eating away at my brain involves a self-portrait done in embroidery. Having been an art student for so many years, the number of times that I've been instructed to do a self-portrait is too many to count, but this one is a whole new venture; portraiture is hard as it is. I've decided that because I've had the opportunity to do so many figure studies, I should take advantage of this knowledge and try to work as realistically as possible.
But I've had a hard time working this one out. All of my sketches are rendered the way that I want them to be in pencil, but I know that the translation from sketch to embroidery thread is going to be hard to manipulate.
I finally settled on the idea to create this piece as if it were a drawing/sketch from one of my notebooks. So I started by creating a college-ruled piece of notebook paper with my sewing machine. Here's a picture of the beginning:


The final piece won't include all of the loose ends, but you get the idea. The rest of the piece will be made up of embroidered versions of actual sketches from my notebooks from the last few years. I'm looking forward to going through my notebooks to revisit my thoughts and ideas from the past.