Saturday, February 21, 2004
Just a quick note for you folks back home.
I'm in Southfield right now... fled campus yesterday. The stomach flu epidemic is winding down, but it's still not the most wonderful place to be. We had art school going off to spring break dinner out on Thursday night, followed by ice cream. This was after the 5 hour drawing class that ended my long and painful period of charcoal inhalation. Huzzah.
Last night we went to the Pistons/Timberwolves game, which the Pistons lost 87-88. Aargh. The Palace seemed pretty nice, and the fans seemed pretty dedicated. The people sitting behind us were by far the best... they kept yelling things like, "That Ham-bone, man, we shoulda traded him for a water boy," and, "Hey Larry! Get your head outta your browneye!" and other such pleasantries. It was a really good game, but I don't know, I'm still pretty much a football kind of person.
Earlier today we went to a glass art gallery in, er, some town in Michigan, the name of which I cannot recall right now. Anyways, it was the most awesome glass gallery I've ever been in. Ever. It's called Habatat. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. I'm not all that up on my glass artists, the only one I really had heard of before was Dale Chihuly, and they had a lot of extremely high-end Chihulys there. My favorite though was some guy named Petr Hora... he had some incredible red pieces that I desperately wanted. Voon. If only I could do glass work.
The Envelopes show was tonight, it was a bizarre but good time. The space it was in (the Detroit Film Center) is nuts and, er, very Detroit. The people seemed friendly enough.... it was mostly artists, and mostly young folk. I seemed to be one of the youngest there... I doubt there were many other college freshmen. But perhaps I was mistaken.
May I also make a small point for those Michigan natives who had been telling me that Detroit isn't really that bad, and that it is as hopping as any other city? /rant This was a Saturday night. The city was dead. Absolutely silent. No one was out. Now, you go almost anywhere in Boston on a Saturday night, and there will be people out. Fer crissakes, we get more people out and about on a Saturday night in Swampscott than there are in Detroit. That is not a 'hopping' city. Ahem. /end rant
My family, who had been threatening to dress like Sprockets for the event, were extremely pleased to see that at least one fellow did, in actuality, show up in a black turtleneck. So the artistic contingent did not disappoint.
Ryan Estrada was extremely personable and every bit as nice a fellow as his internet correspondence had led me to believe. A FRIENDLY ARTIST. Do you hear this, my fellow UMich art students? It is not necessary to be surly bastards all the time. I am certain Corey, over at MassArt, will also know what I am talking about.
The work at the show was good, for the main part. I had been worrying about my piece being too small, but it ended up being in the mid-to-upper range, size-wise. Woo. Ryan's piece (a series of translucent envelopes containing drawings of uncomfortable-looking animals, each labelled with a sticker saying "Biological specimens") was great. And by great I mean "well drawn, and giggle-out-loud funny".
There was another small piece which consisted of one of those schoolhouse frames, you know, with the little openings that parents use to put pictures of their kids in every year of their academic career. It had a series of little ink drawings of a child metamorphosizing into a fly, and said something like "Are you children being taught to love garbage?" My entire family got a kick out of this one.
There were some neat ones from Korea (including some garbage bags with an environmental message that my dad liked) and some from Austrailia. The fellow who does Ornery Boy had a good painting in it.
A lot of people did neat things with their envelopes, which was something I completely and utterly ignored. One piece came by owl post... the envelope had a lovely drawing of a snowy owl clutching a letter one it. Another fellow's piece appeared to consist of three manila envelopes, each with a postman character drawn on it. These were quite funny and appealed to even my non-artistically-inclined brother.
The main event, as it were, was the showing of a film. This was made by one of the artist's brother, who had been overseas in Iraq. So he filmed his unit and some of the things they did. We had some techincal difficulties with getting the DVD player to talk to the projector, which is something I am all too familiar with, as anyone who is in the ADP art lecture at Michigan will recognize. Not a day goes by (literally) in that class without us having to call the poor beleagured tech guy in to fix our projector.
Anyways, the movie, when it happened, was pretty good. Bits of it were quite funny. There was a good mix of soldierly goofing around, shots of burned out scenery, and interaction with Iraqis. Er, I will venture to say that some of it probably could have been edited out, and some bits were a little hard to understand what with background noise and all, but on the whole it was good stuff.
OK, this quick note is turning into something more and that won't do. Not on this computer. I'll do a proper blog when I get home, which is tomorrow! Yes, local folk, celebrate my triumphant return to Boston. Ah. Ocean. Cats. My own house. Cats. A city that does not creep people out unduly. Cats. Cats. It will be good times.
So more on everything when I get back. Until the next, mes amis, until the next.
10:36 PM
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