Hair food

I used to wish I had coarse hair like my Barbados-Canadian childhood best friend. I was amazed at how one day her hair would be short, filled with colourful and bulbous accessories and the next she'd have long braids down to her butt.

I wanted to head dance like her, stomp like her and play super mario kart with her.

Sometimes the affinity still strikes me unexpectedly.

Unwriting

Pressed the "A" button for the last time today and was #468 in waiting to pay for the very last school fee to pay for, for now.. I might get some more schoolin' later but right now I'm not down with the institution. I'm going to let life fill my head a little bit and some libraries and used bookshop scavengering fill my thoughts.

One thing I shall definitely miss are the art classes, and how close they made me feel to the art world. I felt that closeness today when I preferred to sneak a peek at a Nelson Henricks exhibition being shown at the Library building's gallery instead of sitting in a plastic chair with other drones for a good half hour.

I ended up sitting in on a 4 projection video installation called "Unwriting" which is inspired by writer's block and had some hands clapping, electric guitar playing, typewriter keys being tapped in a musical sequence, pencil tips breaking and telephones.

Reminded me of how much I like video art and miss project critiques..

I know what I want to say, but I don't say what I mean. I listen to you speak and my thoughts are coming in fast. When I make typos, I can feel my fingers touching the wrong keys, when I say the wrong thing, I can feel the mistake on my tongue and on my lips.

g-shtält

n. pl. ge·stalts or Ge·stalts or ge·stalt·en or Ge·stalt·en (-shtältn, -shtôltn, -stältn, -stôltn)

A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves.

the tip of my tongue is numb.

Other concerns

I smell like vanilla and banana, a most perfect lotion combination that I would have never known existed if it weren't for an amazing pen-pal. My drawing has been scarce but I should really remember to never stop and keep developing, I have big dreams which require quite some work.

In other news, a design project my friend and I collaborated on and submitted to a competition has been shortlisted from a total of 300 submissions! The competition is OneOff's Food Design Competition 6 and our project is called "Slo". It'll be part of an exhibition starting in Torino, Italy later this month (where the winners of the 3 different categories will be announced) and then will be shown at the London Metropolitan University in November.

I was hoping to go to Italy but unfortunately I am not so fortunate (despite having played a considerable role in having the opportunity at all as well as some important idea/work credit -tooting my own horn due to slight bitterness) and will have to hope to go to London instead. Which is just as exciting but it would have been better if both involved were to go together (and by the looks of the official invitation the Italy exhibition looks like it's going to be a massive deal). It's an irk and a pinch I'll have to get over.

Radiohead and hip hop, MY FAVOURITE!

I'm not going to try and explain this one, it just is and whatever isn't just can't be. Just picking up where I left off and letting practice make composition, contrast and colour a piece of cake. I'm sure we're all aware, but fashion magazines have fantastic anatomy reference photos, all of the models look like they almost died before the photographers let them take their clothes off, bless their soles.

On a last note, I'm really hating the kind of sing-along I catch myself doing to mainstream music, "I get a bitch any time I want", sure I do. I'm not even remembering on purpose, it's just there, repetitively, and sticks. Like crap, when you step in it. Advertisement and marketing are incredibly scary vices!

Octopus zombie girl

Drawing is definitely an activity I get great pleasure from, but I've found that I need to "feel like it" to really get into it. Some days my sketchbook is filled with frustrated scribbles and other days I get freaky hybrids I can imagine being 5 ft tall and wide, charcoal drawings.

The sketch below started with a scary-looking model in a fashion mag that ressembled a zombie I saw in an 80s horror film I watched when I was 7. And which has left deep-rooted fears of my brains being eaten by a determined, half-bodied, undead female.

With her pale complexion and panda eyes makeup, I instinctly emphasized her strange anatomy and soon the drawing evolved into a mess of tentacles and goth. I don't mind it, this kind of process is like playing a game of "the exquisite corpse" with myself.

Looking back

Three years ago, I was luckly enough to have been hired for a second time by a professor I admire at school who has a research lab under hexagram (as do a few other professors who work on their own projects while they teach). Her work consists of digital technologies embedded into clothing, it is quite lovely art to view up close and incredibly impressive.

I just found these grant illustrations I did for her and I was slightly disappointed as I remember making a true effort to make them look good but looking at them now I see the potential, but with so many flaws.

It's useless to even think this, but I wish I could go back in time and give myself some advice! Where's that Time Machine already?!