Hmmm

Now I'm not sure, but I may very well be going insane.
Let's just hope it helps the creative process.

side project im developing :)

MYSTERY!

I have no idea.

Modern Art, The Bell Tolls For Thee

Maybe it's the flu I've been fighting off for a couple days now, maybe it's the near five years of endless studying, or maybe it's a sudden realization of what is truly important to me regarding my perceptions of life, but as far as I'm concerned, the theories behind Modern Art are total bullshit.
Above all else, art is self-expression through a varying medium. Secondary to that self-expression is the idea which drives the expression, and tertiary to that is the aesthetic which is the result of the idea and the realization of said idea be it pleasant or unsettling.
The pretentious writing and essays of Modern Artists have left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Writings which seek to grant greater insight into an artist's reasoning are vague, construed, and frequently irrelevant. The opinions of several artists have become so obscure, so egotistical, and so disconnected with human emotion that I personally begin to think of some choice works as those by Donald Judd as wasted space and talent.
In his Essay "Specific Objects," I can only assume from what I can make sense of, that Judd feels it falls upon himself to create a "new three-dimensional" object (yeah, a sculpture) but he feels that because his opinions of the limitations and expectations of 3-D he is somehow justified in his analysis.
Mr. Judd believes in autonomy of form. That art should exist for its own purposes, and that no emotion should be carried with it through its observation.
...So when I pay to go the MoMA and I see Mr. Judd's wall SCULPTURES I am supposed to feel nothing? If only his work was showing and it was before 4pm on a weekday I would demand a refund.
Autonomy in art is the basic denial of all that goes into self-expression! To claim that something should invoke nothing would better be conceived not having been executed at all. To truly experience nothing is to not yet be born (for what lies beyond life is truly beyond all of us to say that there is nothing).
Black (culturally) evokes feelings yet is nothing in essence. White (again, culturally) evokes specific feelings. Blocks of constructed wood, presented with no interior, equally spaced, and painted, primed or left unfinished evoke certain feelings! Uniformity, conformism, equality, brokenness and emptiness all come to mind, yet I have been told they imply nothing.
Unfortunately when you display your art to others it becomes the public's, and anything you intended in its reception goes out the window. People will always try and feel something about art they are viewing, and I'm feeling quite bored.

Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe Judd's work and countless other artists in showing countless places around the world have something going on in their heads that I simply don't understand.
Maybe my ideas of what art is, and what art should do are dated.
Maybe my thoughts are antique.
Maybe I'm a dying breed.
Maybe I'm right.

Regardless, his work has left me feeling more angry than anything else :)

tasked with making a 'down on the farm' style label for two brands of butter: appple and pumpkin.

illustrations done myself on some paper with a good tooth to it. originally drawn in black charcoal and then color corrected to fit the 'country' feel a bit better.

w00000

Pretty excited. The poster in the post below this one will be hung around campus as well as applied (in alternate versions) to both a sticker design as well as web-vertisement (i made that up I think).

The stickers are going to be placed on the plastic containers at school that cold lunches are purchased in, and upon visiting the Rowan Student Portal on the web page, a splash screen will appear encouraging the students to find out more!

It's a tad bit of an aggressive campaign, but no one knows that they can go to all the campus events for free so it's kinda important.

I'm happy everything worked out well.

New posta!

reppin'

Increasing disinterest

9 semesters is too much... and I've still got 1 to go. A whopping 6 classes and an inevitable breakdown (or multitude of breakdowns) left before I say goodbye to the college projects and attempt to find myself work in this 'real world' I keep hearing about. Even though now it feels like its going to be one hell of a place to try and find any 'real' work.

Here's hoping.

On another note:

I just watched the Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool subtitled "A Report on the Creators & Marketers of Popular Culture for Teenagers."

I have to start out by saying this made for t.v. documentary is pretty dated ('01) in relation to how fast things move in our society. At the same time however, the fact that something produced only 7 years ago can be considered 'dated' does a lot to reinforce one of the arching themes presented in the film: trends. 

Having grown up and lived my teenage years when this documentary was shot and recorded, I am reluctant to admit that I too, was absorbed, albeit for a shot while, with the popularity and entrancing machines that were MTv and VH1. But absorption quickly grew in to apathy and apprehension. I simply wasn't one of the teenie bopper babies that this media conglomerate was trying to 'nurture' into a screaming fanboy of popular culture and materialism. My own personality has alwats demanded something different of me: creativity.

I have lived my life to this point with a child-like fascination for toys, gadgets, picture making, and particular literature. Yet, while I look to these immediate, and perishable mediums of my intrigue as beautiful, I am left with a solemn emptiness. While I love the things I surround myself with on a daily basis, it is my personal goals to create similar works all my own that drive me through my work.

I personally can only see myself doing one other job other than designing/creating, and that would probably fall into a laborer type field. I think Office Space said it best (without ever saying it at all) that good old fashion hands in the dirt labor can be the most liberating job for a man who can't be restrained by a cubicle or number crunching under the weight of a gluttonous finger. So it is with that attitude that I can't, and will not allow myself to fall into a mindless, droning job of filing, and grinding. I simply can't look to work as a 'grind.' To spend my life day-to-day with no objective would surely drive me to an early grave, and as a result, I have already set up many small personal projects, as well less spoken of 'long term' projects that I will aid me in my quest to live a fulfilled and meaningful existence.

I am not what MTv and VH1 and countless other media giants strive to create out of the masses of people. These locusts coined 'consumerists.' I've seen the way the world is and while I don't outwardly reject it in it's entirety, I think I am confident in who I am as a person enough to proclaim that I am going to try with every last breath of who I am to rise above it.

Makes ya think...

Cats are some crazy animals

Links

Research for Winery:
www.albavineyard.com Good
www.balicwinery.com Comical
www.bellviewwinery.com Poor
www.capemaywinery.com Up to par
www.tamuzzavineyards.com OMG R U SRS!?

www.vinturi.com A "top shelf" web site
http://www.cosbert.com/bottles/images/view_rareonion_cpc88a.jpg IDEA FOR WINE

Because of the nature of my wine name I want find a bottle that is going to reflect something Middle-Eastern and very old.

Night in Philly with the gal

Always working

revisions

New Camera

There aren't any great pictures here, but they're the best of what I took today

Rough draft

ROIDS!

i love everything about these

REREREREMIX

Hey look at this.

Poster Design for a new major at school

omg yay

im entirely too busy to keep up with this. and it really hasn't been about much at all lately. if anyone even still looks here, cheers! i know you do, maggie! w00t!

Photo!

Documenting

I've decided to document the events of Glassboro, NJ as it undergoes construction around the campus area.

Woa 3 in one day!

Hey look another update!

Hey look an update!

!!

I recently won two awards for the this picture entitled "The Time We Talked About Nothing (implications are subjective)."
I won honorable mention in a Juried Show at my University, as well as the Dean's Purchase Prize award, which has immortalized my piece in Wilson Hall permanently.
Also, I got my picture taken with the Dean, and will be in the school paper. Big day for me considering I've never done work I've been happy to show off :)

Roids.

Alternate Spread

Spread

Spread for a magazine I am making in one of my class (body copy not in this version). Title and idea are both my creation

Painting!

This pretty much sums up what little understanding I currently have of watercolor

Work I've done

Here's a link to work I've done I probably haven't posted here.
www.behance.net/feariswasted
i don't know how to make websites, or have the patience to learn right now so this is what I got... ha

Child Study

I have to make a Zoo Poster for an illustration project. I really like the way I handle hair...

Tonight I learned about...

"the hustle"

Now you may be saying to yourself, "I think I'm smart enough to realize when I'm getting hustled." But ya know what the funny thing is? If you've never been hustled before (at least in person) you don't know what the fuck's going on and it's over before you know it actually happened!
Let me set the mood...
It's a cool Tuesday night, in South Philadelphia, and I'm taking my best gal out for a night on the town to see one of our favorite bands, Minus The Bear. Whether or not you've heard of them or like my taste in music is irrelevant here, so moving on... So we drove around for maybe 10 minutes (we were half an hour early for the show) and finally, to my dismay, I decided we better pull into our normal parking lot and shell out a few bucks for a safe spot. Everything is hunky dory, and I'm feeling quite good about making good time, and as we pull into the lot we see three gentlemen discussing God knows what, and one of them breaks from the group and starts signaling the car in front of me to pull into a specific spot. "This is new," I thought, "This is usually a self-serve parking lot."
So the guy, medium height and weight, black and in all black sweats and a wool cap (WARNING LIGHT ANYONE? not me apparently) says something like "It's $20 for parking past 12am." and me being the white boy I am sheepishly states that we won't be staying past 11pm, because the last time we saw the same show we were home by 12am. "No," he insists "I know this kind of concert you're gonna want to pay the $20." Right away I'm thinking to myself "Oh he just wants the extra couple bucks for overnight parking." and NOT "This fool be hustlin'." So in hindsight I remember him looking around frantically, searching even, as if scoping for Po, perhaps?! Regardless... he got my $20. I didn't even think another thing about it until he neglected to give me some kind of ticket to put in my window. "Hey buddy!" I yelled, "You didn't give me anything for my dashboard." To which he responded "Nah man, you're aight" RED FLAG
So I've walked several feet (maybe 30?) from my car towards the other two guys who I initially saw when I drove in and asked them if the guy gave them anything. "No man, we didn't give him no money, we think he's hustlin'." they tell me.

RED FLAG
"Really?!" I inquire.
"Yeah man." they reply.
"Well fuck me royally." I sigh internally.
9-1-1
"Hello 9-1-1, what's your emergency?"
"Hi, yeah, I just got hustled."
So me and my best girl drove around with 5-0 (Nice bunch of gents) and scoped out the regular hustlers in the area, but again, much to my dismay, the tree of justice yielded no fruit for me. Oh well, I didn't want to go to the station to fill out theft paperwork anyway, and the Minus The Bear concert was fucking fantabulous.

End.

Self Portrait

Bored

I'm more than aware this is kind of boring.

Re-re-re-remix

Poster

The idea.. a travel poster.. more to come

keepin it going

Alice take 2

I like it. The hair design could have come out better, but that's why we make studies first.

Alice

Kinda drew this outta nowhere. My cousin asked me to draw her a tattoo and this was basically a study for what I want to do...

Before/After

The surreal is reserved for the imaginative.

perspective

The Spiderman movie made for an excellent source for this persepective exercise

Look mommy! A Swan!

Apparently I can draw if I really want to.

Licensing

I'm using this for a Licensing project in my illustration class.