We’re Still Here
January 19, 2012
Entertainment:
Last night Jeff Mangum was phenomenal. He is a true artist, his writing is incredible, his voice is raw and pure. It was so worth a drive to New Haven. And it reminded me just how influential and important Neutral Milk Hotel had been to me. And how they still can move me in major ways with one verse or line. A particular favorite being: “God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life” (from Two Headed Boy, Part 2).
Artmaking:
Moving right along, I am working on my next show, temporarily entitled “We’re Still Here.” I worked on a painting this weekend of the doctor’s outfit during the Black Plague. It is not done yet but it is coming along. Wikipedia says “In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some doctors wore a beak-like mask which was filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which (according to the miasmatic theory of disease) was seen as the cause of infection. Being a plague doctor was unpleasant, dangerous, and difficult. Their chances of survival in times of a plague epidemic were slim.” I am posting here the painting in progress:
as well as a few of the images that influenced me:
School:
On another note, tonight I start school again. My first masters level class since 1998 awaits me. And this one will challenge my foundation in different ways than getting a graduate degree in art did. At Orientation they implied that while in the program, we would all experience massive existential crisis and fall into exhausted heaps of wailing sleepless disasters. Well, I have to say that I feel like I have been doing that on a bi-monthly basis anyhow, so maybe it won’t be that jarring. Either way, I have two new notebooks, updated progressive eyeglass lenses and a pen I like so I am good to go.
Food:
Yellow lentil vegetable soup
Clementine
Dark Chocolate
Cat:
Jackson’s nose. It is just so, nosey.
