Arrival at Each Step Taken

“Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive.

— The Witch of Portebello

The Eraser Family

When you’re a child, you believe everything has a soul. You understand that objects should be treated with respect, and should never be tossed aside and be forgotten. I believed that objects got lonely, sad and hoped to believe that they led lives once the lights were turned out.

As a kid, I had a few toys, but it always felt like they were a random oddball collection—of lesser toy brands and objects that were appropriated to be playthings.

Stationary was of no exception, particularly stationary that was in the shapes of animals–erasers that perched on the top of your wooden pencil as you wrote, but those places could construe the pencil perchers to be functional objects, which is no good, especially if you gave them names and personalities.

The sophisticated fox’s name is Sasha, the mild mannered porcupine, Godfrey, and Felix is the handy-dandy beaver. They number nine in total, and dwell inside the back of a pink wicker duck who wears a cloak of green felt. Purchased from the Schoolastic Book Fairs that came to my elementary school every year, they enacted the stories and dramas my other playthings could not adequately portray as a collective community.

Today, they sit visibly at the front of one of the shelves in my closet. They join the ancient stuffed animals and space-consuming Harry Potter books, their background, an old grade school painting. There, they’ve become a part of a larger family, and dwell with others from their era.

Over the years, I’ve been battling myself to purge the unnecessary and irrelevant things I’ve amassed, but it never occurs to me to get rid of the things on that shelf, and I’ll probably hold onto the figures that live in the plastic duck as long as I can. An oddball family, where the bear would get along with the woodpecker and beaver, while the porcupine couple would get along with the fox couple, they are the realization of a kind of utopia for me where every animal could get along without conflict.

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This is the text I will be working with for my next Typography assignment. It is inspired by other meaningful objects written about in Design Observer–objects people keep around for one reason or another that may or may not be understood by other people.

The task is to arrange just the text over a two page spread in a way that over time, reveals the story. Below, is what my in class exercise work looked like at the end of class.

If you were paying attention to the story, and looked back at the image above, there are actually more than nine of them, and there are more objects that belong to this ‘family’, but for simplicity’s sake for my Type assignment, I was referring specifically the ones who are in the forms of animals and the ones where you could place on top of a pencil. I am also unfortunately missing Lydia the woodpecker 😦

Where Good Ideas Come From

In my last post I was venting on being in an environment that doesn’t always inspire the best in me, a little bit afterwards, I came across a TED talk done by Steven Johnson, “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

At the beginning he Johnson speaks of British society being transformed by the invention of English coffee houses, because they were a turn from alcohol. A talk beginning with coffee houses, creativity and stimulating environments? I was hooked to see the rest. Most of what was touched upon in this talk I already suspected, such as ideas do not realistically arrive to people isolated and not without past failures, but his examples reaffirmed what I already knew and were examples of how this knowledge has been applied. With “openness” creeping in everywhere from Facebook to the democratization of knowledge on Wikipedia, the talk makes an interesting proposition to connect and share, rather than to protect and patent.

I haven’t seen a slew of TED Talks, as they do run lengthy, but I find them fascinating because they bring up new ways of thinking about things that do, or do not run parallel with convention. But of course, the ones arguing against convention are the more interesting ones. So, following the encounters that are shaping my thoughts and opinions I just wanted to share this. It runs 20 minutes long, but if you don’t have time for that, I’ve practiced my summarizing abilities by giving you a synopsis of the talk, and the original video is linked at the end as well:

Steven Johnson is interested in looking for shared patterns for creativity, and argues that conventional mindsets about ideas are not accurate. The eureka moment, lightbulbs coming on, or epiphany moments that come out of nowhere, did not come out of nowhere isolated. He argues an idea is a new network of neurons that have never been formed. The question becomes how do you get your brain to successfully create these new networks. An interesting note he slides in is that network patterns of the outside world mimic the inside world. How they mimic isn’t elaborated on though. Through stories he fleshes out his thesis that ideas are more often than not cobbled from what we have. The conversations that were had, and of past failures where stories are combined, make up a great environment for innovation, the liquid network. He also speaks of incubation periods or slow hunches before the Eureka moment that can take years before the one breakthrough loose-end tying idea comes out. Because of this nature in ideas, he proposes that instead of shrouding innovation in secrecy, they should be made open so that others may further build upon them.

somewhere. here.

My calendar says that on Thursday the reception for my show Somewhere will take place at the OCAD Student Gallery. It’ll be up for a month from September 8th -October 2nd and I’ll be in attendance, mingling, shmoozing, and/or social butterflying at the reception on the 9th. We’ll see how that goes.

The other artists showing will be 2010 OCAD metal winner for Drawing and Painting, Vanessa Maltese, Dianne Davis, Dylin North and Janie Reed. All are really great artists, and are worth checking out.

I took a leap of faith on applying to the gallery – it was last minute, and had been haunted by indecision, but the strength of my thesis work, positive feedback and getting into the also last minute Mercedes-Benz Financial/OCAD Show told me that it couldn’t hurt.

I hammered out my schedule for the new school year on the same day that I installed the show. It feels strange to be on the brink of no longer attending school. All the ads and newstories about back to school feel distant, and even the stories covering the return to universities and colleges don’t feel like they quite relate to me anymore; but I’m still going back.

I’m finished one thing, but am returning for something else. I’m more clear on what I’m after this time,  but I can’t help but still feel the jitter of nerves for next Monday. A new generation of faces and personalities to navigate through, and the task of scouting out new friends and allies. I want to be done with learning in an institution and just start living on with life. Whatever its like on the other side, I’ll still need a little bit more help getting there.

No longer on Facebook

Just a note that this blog will no longer be feeding to Facebook, but will still work with readers when it updates, such as Google Reader 😀

The Awesome Post

This entry is inspired by 1000 Awesome Things where sometimes its good to remember life’s little joys.

• Listening to your music player after declining from doing so for a few weeks

I try not to abuse the music that’s on my music player. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and presence strengthens it” from someone’s facebook status. I also choose for some observances of my surroundings. However, there are times when you want to plug into your own personal and customized world, and doing so after some time just makes everything sound so much better.

• Not having to worry about chipping your nail polish while slipping your fingers through a small, zippered pocket

The zippers of one of my handbags has a bit of tooth. Not sharp, but she just isn’t as nice as all the other zippers featured on my other things – a perfect place to further detriment decaying nail polish. She won’t be given the chance though. All the old nail polish has just been stripped away and are feeling natural and real again! ….albeit, only set to recover for a bit before the already anticipated time to apply the colours again.

• Catching up with an old co-worker

Keeping in contact with people can be difficult. Not only do you have to do your part, but they have to as well. Things are different when you interact with them, and its that bond created from the past that will connect you forever with them. The challenge, joy, and in the end, life experience in this is finding ways of extending such relationships. +5 to life experiences and learning to connect with people.

Images of Images on the Floor

Thesis is over with, but I’ve amassed a ton of printed images. Most of my entries are heavy on the words so here’s a change – pictures! Pictures of many pictures, accompanied with my little stuffed critters that can all fit in the palm of your hand. Also accompanied with mini stories which may or may not all make sense. If you’re wondering if I have better things to do, there are; but also not really.

Legend looks into the nesses of Scotland and then to Georgian Bay and to some waterfalls from an unidentified place. No more Punakaiki rocks from New Zealand? Or Pancake rocks? Legend will continue to look. She wants to add it to her memory bank of Legendary places stomped on.

Happy rests lazily upon urban scenery from Montreal and Toronto. Happy is bored with the city, and is not quite happy, but these other random urban places that are around keep Happy’s brain working. He wants to know where they’re from.

Cow Cow is just a little baffled to be amidst such random pictures. Why are there feathers? a face smelling flowers and a diagram of a mouth?! Cow Cow wants to figure it out, but there’s an evil eye right behind.

Tundra is wondering why his float of tropical tourist elements happens to be limited as compared to the others. Limited, like that of the icefloats that are to be left in the oceans.

The last one’s a bit mashed if you are able to make out its pictures, but I wanted to throw in the few that got missed.

I didn’t search all the images with these particular themes or in this order. They were all amassed throughout the year as I sprung from idea to idea until I got a firmer grasp of what I was doing, what I was interested in, and where I wanted to go. Just a visual illustration of where my working process was throughout the year!

Green nails & Pastel Dust

Just finished a piece that’s due in a few hours. Working at home is not the same as working at the studio.

As someone requested for me to show off my green nails, I’ll also show off how dirty working with pastels can get.

Music is a Part of my Life

“Music is my life”. How many times have we heard that phrase? From singing pop songs at karaoke sessions to wannabe hard rocking it at rockband, I get the question of how do I know all the weird songs that I do.

Gr. 6-7: Spice Girls/BSB/pop era
Gr 7-8: starting to have a preference to alternatives such as Matthew Good Band Matchbox 20 and Treble Charger.

• this was basically a time of being educated by Muchmusic and radio. I gave r&b and hip hop a try, but it didn’t work out. Glimpsed of harder things such as Rage Against the Machine and Papa Roach.

Grades 9-10: Top 40-ish but settled with Mix 99.9 for awhile. I really liked how they did a variety of top 40, and some slightly older things to broaden their playlists.

Grades 11-12: started listening to the radio of 102.1 the edge. Official death to sugary pop and onto something less in the clouds.

• Edge artists included Foo Fighters, Oasis, Audioslave, Our Lady Peace, Billy Talent, Sum41, Green Day, Linkin’ Park, The Offspring, Alter Bridge, Evanescence, Coldplay, Radiohead, Pearl Jam etc etc. I also listened to the Ongoing History of New Music.

• Some Jpop introductions of Ayumi Hamasaki and the like….most didn’t stick.

First year:

• more Edge music, really loved my Audioslave and Foo Fighters

• Started to like the Jpop of Ai Otsuka, Chihiro Onitsuka, Do as Infinity, Korean rock of TRAX as a result of being introduced to Asian music rotation sites. TRAX came from an eventual curiosity as I had friends who absolutely loved the band.

• Tried listening to Jay Chou, F.I.R.. Karaoke turned me away from acts such as Twins or S.H.E

• introductions to some j-rock of GACKT, oshare Kei of Kra, and Visual Kei rock of Nightmare, but it would take about a year for them to really hook me. It was hard to find jrock that really clicked for the reason that a) I had to get used to a non-Western way of doing rock b) I was stumbling onto more bands in music rotation sites that were much too hard like Dir en Grey  c) not sure if this makes a drastic difference but most of these bands were Visual Kei and not just rock music done the Japanese way. It was like rotation sites either featured Jpop or VK and I didn’t want to listen to Jpop only when it came to Japanese music.

2nd Year:

• Falling away from the Edge, last favourites were Rise Against,  +44, and Angels and Airwaves.

• Western band releases becoming disappointing, so up goes the j-rock/Visual Kei of artists like Nightmare, High and Mighty Color, Versailes;

• Dabbing in classic rock with stuff like Guns ‘n’ Roses, Rush, Def Leppard, and also enter Iron Maiden. This was probably the result of walking into my brother playing his own music.

3rd Year:

• J-rock/Visual Kei domination of bands like Nightmare, 12012, Alice Nine, the Gazette;

• Enter J-songstresses and singers of Kokia, Yuna Ito, and YUI, Hitomi Shimatani. None of these but Kokia truly stays with me now.

• Started listening to Christian pop music of Chris Tomlin, Jeremy Camp and Starfield.
• Started to be curious about Classical music again. Must have been because of Nodame Contible

4th Year:

• J-rock/VK domination ensues with addition of awesome Neo-Japanese Kagrra, complete with comma into my collection =D

• Exploring influential classic j-rock of Luna Sea,  re-exploring Mika Nakashima and some Utada Hikaru.

• Fell in love with Christian pop-rock of Building 429.

• Enter the post-Evanscence goth rock revival with imports from Italy and Netherlands of Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation.
• Whisperings: pure piano music added to list.

Present

• Forecast calls on probably no new VK, but maybe jrock of Gurugamesh? But getting into classic j-rock of Siam Shade. David Usher, maybe get to know The Tea Party better, know some stuff from Taylor Swift, and there’s more Within Temptation stuff to go.

Looking back, its somewhat of a broad spectrum. A lot of bands I know of their big hits but not always all the other tracks in between. Context matters too right? How well I know my music also depended on their availability to me through the status of if the library had their cd in their stores or the status of my internet connection. What I know also heavily depends on my reactions towards my friends’ music, my brother’s music and what I’m interested in.

With a portable music player and decent internet connection, its so easy to voraciously consume music, forgetting to be still and quiet sometimes. The truth is, for me its starting to be harder to find new music as rotation sites forget to upload, radio playlists aren’t what I’m interested in and most people around me aren’t musically compatible. I’ve cut back now, we always remember the good old times of when technology didn’t thread itself into every aspect of our lives, the romantic notion of a quiet evening, but technology has made us dependent on it and its buzzing ways. Music isn’t my life. There are so many other things to do out there. But I still love it, its a part of me and I’m a part of the population that subscribes to it. Music is a part of my life.

Soldier Boys

So I’ve never been paint balling before. Ever. But I’ve heard things about it here and there loosely. “Its so fun”, all that you know?

No, not going to say its not fun and that its actually a horrible activity that promotes gun violence or anything of the sort. No, I just have thoughts that are if you believe you can be gone after one shot, sink your psychology into the uniforms, masks and guns which strip you of your humanity, the psychology that you are now in a pack and are more likely to following what the crowd does; that what the soldiers who are overseas now, and those who have fought in wars, they have and are, really giving something out there.

No I didn’t get peppered with shots, get too trigger happy, completely hide behind things and never came out – much, to be sprouting stuff. Once you get into it, there is that thrill of foiling the paintball, of coming up with strategy, and that you have the ability to bring someone down. But there is something about first impressions and associations which are brought forth by stimuli, and my mind and memory does have this interplay between the mind saying how you remind me. Ok, witty, song title reference use fail. ‘What you remind’ me makes more sense.

But to be a million miles from home in some alien territory, to be equipped with garb, tools and given a solemn task where there are real serious outcomes; I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I wouldn’t be able to last. And yet we do indeed do this to each other. I have more respect toward real soldiers needless to say. Thos other dawgs know shit when they call themselves soulja boys.