Dream: 04.14-04.15.2011

Can I tell you about the dream I had last night? I know it’s a little off-topic, but really. It’s interesting! And very aesthetic.
You know what? I don’t need your permission because this is my blog, and you won’t be reading it until after I am done writing it, anyway. Winning!

So. We were here at Agnes. All of us. Some of us (well, a lot of us!) were performing in a tribute dance for Michael Jackson- more specifically- Thriller. Almost every girl on campus was dressing up as a zombie for the parade, and Phoebe Perry had taught all of them the appropriate dance. Anyway, a friend of mine in the dream, a girl I’ve never seen before in real life, comes to walk next to me and let me know that she isn’t participating either, so we could hang out and watch everyone else (My dancing is so bad I don’t even do it in my dreams. How sad.) dance down the streets of Decatur. She was in a white dress. That was very distinct. Long, curly hair. Bright blue-green eyes. White, white teeth.
Then it started to rain. She and I (the mystery girl, that is) walked alongside the parade, getting pelted with giant masses of water. The show went on, though. And then! Suddenly, the dancers all began to turn toward us with a deprived, hungry look in their eyes. We raced to a van to find it magically unlocked, and tumbled into the back unscathed. We locked the doors, and only just in time- the girls had begun to smear their sweaty, peeling faces onto the doors and window of the vehicle.
Weird, right? I thought so, too. But wait! It gets better.
I drove us to DeKalb Medical Center, just down the road from school. I figured there could be no safer place considering the situation we had just come from. We got out and spoke with the nurses and any other staff we could run down. Finally, we got a hold of a security guard who believed our story, and he ushered us to a waiting room to allow us to calm down and for him to contact his boss regarding the issue. Little did we know; he had put us in a quarantine room with the intention of killing us. I watched blue smoke creep in through the air conditioning vent, a sure sign of poisoning. Obviously! So I pried open the doors and grabbed Mystery Girl’s hand and headed for the exit.
And that is the end, folks.

I looked up the colors and main themes to try to find some symbolism and/ or reasoning behind all this. My records are as follows:

• Blue: could mean happy or sad, depending on the context. Wanting to get away from a situation with your clarity intact.
• White: most commonly “a clean-slate.” Hm.
• Dark green: indicates materialism, deciet, and/or difficulties sharing. Also a hm.
• Getting wet from the rain: indicates cleansing from your troubles and problems.
• Zombies attack!: To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicates that you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control, or you are feeling out of touch.
• Hospital: You need to get back to the flow of everyday life, or you are afraid of losing control of your body.
• School: relates to anxiety about performance and abilities.

So, if I am interpreting this correctly, I want to run away from my problems, all of them, without reprimand, with a clean slate in a new place with a girl who seems innocent but is really out to deceive me and take my money… That sounds like my conscious life, but with zombies. I didn’t need Michael Jackson for that.
I wonder if I could make this dream a painting… ?

THRILLER, ZOMBIES, AND MICHAEL! OH, MY!

Notes: 03.27.2011.

We critiqued our abstracts today. Wait! Hold the presses! There is a second portion to the project? I have to take pictures to match the nonobjectional pieces in front of us?
I would like to change my abstracts to make the photo easier to conceptualize.
And I am assuming this is exactly why she didn’t tell us until now. 😐

Before we get to that, let’s talk about the art that has already been made.
I was especially drawn to Polly’s scattered/ cohesive pairings, not only because I feel Polly’s words without having her describe them to me, but also because it is obvious she made real efforts in doing this project the right way- intensely, focused on the task at hand and nothing else.
I feel as though, by now, everyone should know that my best work has come from dicking around- and don’t think that my best work is something to be proud of. I just haven’t gotten to that point yet. I suppose it is true that we admire the things we do not possess. Was that Nin? Or Nietzsche? Oh, well. I can’t remember the quote or the author, so let’s just pretend I said it. Cool? Cool.
But back to the point. Polly’s use of fierce black and stark white makes her image, one of her cohesive prints, full of dimension (contrast via shape/ value/ color). It’s just so damn awesome! I commend her and her work.

And this is the part where I write a polished paragraph about my choices for intense and mild…
Well, let me tell you about intense. Do you know what intensity is like? The sweat of anticipation on your upper lip, your heart beating furiously under your breast plate, your ribs cracking under the pressure of your lungs trying frantically to suck in oxygen that seems to have disappeared from the air around you? Yeah. It’s like that. It’s all that put together, and what you see when your eyes are closed. The incredible contrast in feeling and unpredictability of shape, form, and framing. There is an extra turbulence created by the media (charcoal), which only adds to the effect of intensity.
And as for mild? This is me imaging the moment you open your eyes after a plain dream. Not good, not bad. Just there. Much like the feeling (or lack thereof) I embodied for several of my teenage years. It is uniform and calm, with minimal contrast and little variation. even the lines are almost all horizontal, drawn in pencil. It was me shaping a piece of around the phrase, “Don’t rock the boat.”
They both were accomplished the way I had envisioned them- I only wish I had the skill to capture them more effectively.
{insert photos}

Oh, and as for the photos, I think I have an idea. But I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll just have to wait and see.

On doing art for Latin 202.

First: the translated poem.
Catullus 07- Sometimes titled “How Many Kisses.”

You ask me how many of your kisses
are enough and more than enough for me, Lesbia.
As giant a number as there are grains of sand lying between Cyrenia,
where rests the temple of Jove,
and old Battus’s sacred tomb; or as many stars, when the night is silent,
as see the stolen loves of men.
It is enough and more than enough for mad Catullus
that you kiss with so many kisses
Kisses which the curious can neither count nor
bewitch them with an evil tongue.

The instructions were to make an artistic interpretation of one of the poems our class had read thus far. I chose that poem. This was my project:

The first of three unsucessful attempts at making a mobile- but fourth was the charm!

The making of a desert.

The first in a series of kisses.

Finishing up the kisses.

Just needed somewhere to keep track of it, really. This seemed like the place to do it.

My dreams are crushed:

Otherwise known as Nell-says-no syndrome. :[
I explained my interest in using hot sauce as a medium, and not only do I have to interpret the smell visually, but I can’t use color! What madness is this? I am baffled so distinctly that I refuse to work any more on this project today. It’s back to the webbing board… Man.

Word web for brainstorming possible works based on my pair of words.

The orientation button is not working. I apologize for those who may be inconvenienced.