Hey kids, how's it going? Well I don't know about the rest of you but I am DONE with school for the summer. That's right, it's not even May and I am completely finished. I'm pumped and ready to hang out till it's time for camp.
So I passed my review board with flying colors and yesterday I sat in one my mandatory boards as a reviewer. The first one was good, it was a freshman who did a lot of beautiful jewelry work. Strangely enough, I recognized the name: Rebecca Ross-Russell. I had seen it earlier that year and remembered a fellow camper of that exact same name at Sunapee Arts Camp, which I attended for a year before joining the ranks at Hawthorne and never going back. So it was only fate that I would be one of two students in a school of about 500 to be on her board. So I just had to ask her, and I did. Turns out I was right. I don't think she really remembered me but she did remember what year I was there. It was bizarre and funny. What a small, small world.
Anyways, in more exciting news, I'm just about ready to piss myself from excitment because they're making a Discworld movie. That's right. Which book? Hogfather. And it's set up to be out for Christmas. And on top of that? A Wee Free Men movie is schedualed for some time in 2008. Yes, indeed. I am especially excited because it appears Terry Pratchett will be playing a big role in the production of the movies, which bodes well. Now all they need is a Nightwatch movie, or my new favorite Thud!. ALSO, Terry's got a new book finished called Wintersmith featuring the Nac Mac Feegle and his next book in line to write is going to be called Making Money. Alright, that's enough glee for now. Look at that art, it is lovely.
Rose 24" x 18" mixed media (c) 2006

I know, I should probably be doing other, more constructive, things at the moment considering my review board is tomorrow, but I just couldn't resist. I know a my posts have been pretty content-heavy lately so I'll try to keep this relatively quick (I still have a paper on Patty Hearst to polish up, too).
The piece you see above is a fuse piece from my Glass as Process class that I had this semester. It's regular window pane glass with pieces of dried-out coral I picked up in Mexico sandwiched between it before it was fused. Something made the glass crack like that, and I'm thinking maybe the salt because it was deffinately dried out when I put it in there. I'm pleased with the result and would like to try more, maybe next year.
And because I was so amused by it, I'm going to put a link in here for this amusing backmasking website. You can download and hear all these song clips played forwards and backwords with whatever it is they're supposed to be saying. A lot of it is BS but some of it is pretty funny. I particulary like Weird Al's backmask in 'I Remember Larry'. It's something like "Gee, you must have a lot of free time on your hands."
Anyway, back to work for me.
Seaweed 9" x 8" Glass, Seaweed (c) 2006

What are these pages, Caitlin? What do they mean? Well kids, it means I can't be bothered to write a whole gospel so I'm using FILLER. But not just any filler, the oldest and most revered 15th cetury filler. Lorem Ipsum! The scrambled text of a speech by Cicero (who wants to read his crap anyway!) lorem ipsum is a filler text that was set by a printer in the 16th century and has survived through the years and made it's way into the world of electronic typsetting. You can even find generators for this stuff (the link above).
So, what's this 'gospel' about then? If I told you I would have to kill you. I'm just kidding. It's an extension of the many narratives and characters I've found myself creating over the years in idle moments. The Gospel is a parody of a holy book and is written by the character Teirisias R. Barnabas, a prophet who dreams of disasters before they happen and left his home one day after waking up from a dream where he saw his house burn down. His character is entwined with the Haris/Eblis character I've had for *thinks* almost five years. He's the guy in the glass piece below (Tei is, not Haris).
Since we're on the subject of amusing religous parodies I want you to all head over to this little site and start reading from the begining. This is some funny shit and completely responsible for me wasting a couple hours today. When I become Pope (next time, next time!) I'll have these two canonized as saints and then we'll party hardcore up in the Vatican, yo. That's a link to the Vatican website, my favorite part is the big button on the mainpage that says VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES. I hope that doesn't need any further explination. Sometimes I wonder if they make it too easy for me on purpose, now that would be really clever.
The Gospel of Teirisias Barnabas Freehand 6" x 9" (c) 2006

A collage I made in my Masks and Mirrors class. I really like how it turned out, seeing as it uses about 4 different images of women to make this one really bizaree but still attractive face. And yeah, I used a National Geographic.
Speaking of which (and because I told my brother I'd do it) I'm going to put a link in here for one of the topics in the latest National Geogrpahic. The Gospel of Judas, you should all go and check out this site. It doesn't have all the text of the document but it has beautiful hi-res images that you can zoom into along with the coptic text and english translation and information about the reconstruction prosess. Even though I don't consider myself Catholic or very religious for that matter I find this whole ordeal fascinating. A lot of shit has hit the fan because of this text, which says that Jesus told Judas he needed to turn him in so that Jesus could fufill his prophecy of being crucified. Apparently this pisses off a lot of people. The church is fond of keeping their Judas Iscariot as a red-headed, yellow-robed scapegoat of Jewish evil, and has since Jesus died. How can you tell which one is Judas in those images? He's the one with red hair, yellow robes and exageratedly stereotypical Jewish feature (ie: big nose). In that respect suppose it would be hard to learn that he was in on the plan. Along with this is the suggestion that Judas was the only apostle who truely understood Jesus' message, another factor that would piss the church off. Not only is their scapegoat a goodguy, but the smartest in the batch! Oh lordy!
The theory rings truest when you consider Christopher Moores satirical work Lamb. In his novel, he suggests that Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice to his father in order to cease the requirment of bloodshed and to demonstrate to mankind the unending love he had for everything, and that he wished on everyone.
But regardless of all this the docement has so far been proven to be genuine, whatever that means to you. It doesn't matter if any of this is true, or if Jesus in fact existed or not. Not even in the slightest. The important part is the message, wherever it's coming from, who ever wrote it. People have to stop getting wrapped up in the unimportant shit. And believe me, whether or not stuff like this actually happened is pretty unimportant. The concept of a Judas that understood what he was doing and willing accepted the stigma of what was required of him is much richer than pegging him as a greedy idiot. There are plenty of those in mythology, this text suggests a much more dynamic persona.
Composite Lady Collage 10" x 17" (c) 2006

I had my last Masks and Mirrors class today, so here's a piece from that class. This isn't my final piece, that was a portrait of Joseph Campbell and I'll try to get it up here at some point. But for now you get this.
That's all for this evening. I'm too tired to put up a link and no one stops by here anyway, so everybody wins.
Girl With Mask, Mixed Media 18" x 24" (c) 2006

Another self portrait! Done in the class that the one of me and Be Bop on the windowsill was done in. I drew it from that one the day it was due during the class time. I really like this one and I have a couple more that came from it too. The Bop is now sitting on my head, ain't she purdy?
I was trying to figure out just what kind of species of lovebird she is the other day and I use to think she was a blue peachfaced lovebird but I remember them mentioning at the place I bought her that she had a violet factor and she deffinately has an all-over blue tint, but her forehead has a lot of the peach color on it. The world may never know, espcially since she doesn't like to sit still for me to examine her, but she's my little baby and I love her.
Self-Portrait 18"x24" (c) 2006

I'm very fond of decorative letters and illuminated manuscripts, the amount of time that must have gone into them is astounding. And to think, you spent your life a monk holed away and meditating on these wonderful pieces you worked on by comission of the wealthy.
So this is for a current Type as Image project involving text and the body. I'm writing up these random passages about life and life in a city in general and creating these pages. The thing looks like a gospel. It's turning out nice and I like the modern spin on an old art form.
And yeah I see the typo.
I Sit 11"x17" Freehand (c) 2006