Graduated Cylinder

So, it appears that I have completed the mission
I set out upon three years ago when I started this
blog. I am now a Master of Fine Art.

I suppose now I get started on Volume Two of this life.
Yes?
Yes.

Ceremony 1:
Graduate and Doctorate Hooding Ceremony, Dixon Hall at Tulane



The "holding area"




Ma mere et moi


Intermission:

Theatre Graduate brunch at Court of Two Sisters in the Vieux Carré







Fête:

Wave Goodbye Party on Tulane's Academic Quad, Uptown Campus






Ceremony 2:

The Unified Tulane Comencement at the Louisiana Superdome

It began with a bit of Jazz and a Scottish march.
Speeches were given commending us on choosing to attend
a school not yet entirely recovered from one of the largest
disasters in US history. Anderson Cooper spoke and was
quite funny, instructing graduates to hookup as this was
the last time we'd see each other. The US Surgeon General
was honored and a Jazz singer sang "Do you know what it means",
inciting tears.

Prometheus Bound

Prometheus, opening


Prometheus, bound


Hermes


Force & Violence


Hephestus



Oceanic Chorus


Set Design









Colour Plates

No Where Warm...

I've gotten so bad at this I can't quite believe it.
Actually, I can. I've been going a little mad with the amount of things
I need to do. And madder still with the ferocious nonchalance with which
I manage to avoid doing any of it.Example, the Prague Quadrennial approaches, and digital samples are due in one week exactly and guess who is still assembling the portfolio.

The semester is three weeks from finished, and yet we have two surprise productions
we have to mount. This school is bats in itself. I found out tonight, by pure unadulterated chance, that perhaps once again the higher ups are not communicating at their most effective. It seems that the possibility of my teaching a rendering class has been misread as actually being fact. Never mind that I've just accepted a position in New York. Which I made my advisor very much aware of. I am expecting a thorough tongue lashing from the department head in the morning (afternoon rather) during which I intend to stare out the window and hum to myself inside my head.

I'm wondering what life is like in Astoria, as that is round about where my budget seems to be pointing me.

Tartuffe Opens

Perhaps I can sleep now.
Who am I kidding.

so applicable

More to come.

Set Design

2009 Course work.
Heinrick Ibsen's Peer Gynt, adapted for television
&
Henry Purcell's opera, The Fairy Queen

The Ecstatic Darkness Whispers

June already in New Orleans. Hot is not even an appropriate word.
Busy and poor at the same time. I'd settle for a bit of cash left over
from rent and bills for at least a night out, it seems the universe
as other plans though. Perhaps I'm meant to sell things from a cart
on Jackson square, get a leg up on the business when we revert back
to the barter system.

School torture has ended for now. Although I am saddled with the
daunting task of finding an internship after it was decided that my
quasi-promised deployments in Romania and South Africa weren't
likely going to happen after all. So now I get to learn an architectural
drafting program at the speed of sound and avoid ending up at a
renaissance festival in Topeka. Not that I have anything against either,
just not my choice of poison is all. I'm just saying.

On the half-boyfriend front I'm doing a fantastic job of being available
with out being demanding, and waiting for him to find his steps. We've
discussed our respective past encounters with beasts great and small
and concluded that neither of us is in a place where we need to involve
anyone else in our to-do laundry piles. Still, the relationship grows
as it will, getting closer and easing into things like getting in to a
scalding hot bath, inch by inch. It'll be worth the total relaxation
at the end.

Finally, some words.

Anonymity has been on my mind recently.



I'd like to go back to being unknown by a lot of people. You know how there are those
people who you just can't seem to leave behind. You think you are safe and then their
fin surfaces again and again, cutting through your calm blue ocean with all kinds of thoughts
and memories that you'd rather not think about for reasons you'd rather not remember.
I could do with some erasure of memory these days.

Work is in full force as we launch a new production by a visiting pair of directors from
South Africa. I've done everything from making paint out of water and flour, stretching
reflective film over painting pars, buying feathers by the pound and making giant screens.
The show will be stunning.

Mardi Gras was a little bit of a blur. I was mostly at work, but managed to squeeze in a
few TGV's (tequilla/gin/vodka with sprite and lime) and managed to make out with a
rugby player. It was nice to see the crowds in the city. Not so much their trash, dear god
having a trash flash back. So many crawfish heads in the grass. I like being in crowds though,
it goes back to that thing about being anonymous, you just kinda disappear.

I used to hide in clothes racks when I was small. Surrounded by coats, or dresses. It drove
my mom so mad that she had to make me hold onto the side of the cart after a while.
I still like slinking off to drunken places at all hours of the night. Nursing a drink and
smoking the cigarettes I should never have started smoking a year ago. There is something
calming about being a ghost.

I've started to date a couple of guys. They are sweet, one makes me laugh. One makes
me think about where it is I think I'm going. So far I think we are all distractions for
each other but who knows. I am just looking forward to the next day and letting them
unwrap themselves in their own time and I in mine. I like a nice slow development.

Icky Thump

I finished my third semester of torture at Tulane yesterday. This involved me staying awake for 38 hours while I made up for some serious procrastinating, which may have involved me coming home on two separate occasions long past the next morning.
The fall gallery was tolerable if not quite beautiful this time around. I was given fantastic feed back, and ignored completely by the devil incarnate costuming "professor and his protogee. Which is fine with me. Melissa and I skipped out after reviews and had fantastic japanese next to the sno-cone shop that might just be a front for a crack den. Then I went home and slept before waking up at ten to hang out with Mel again at One Eyed Jack's where she was the object of a very persistent young man.

Am very much looking forward to holiday travel this time around. I can't remember the last time I flew with my mum.

The cat came back the very next day...

I have this relationship with my wallet were I lose it and it comes back to me only when I've canceled all of my cards.
The last time this happened I was evacuating for hurricane Gustav. This time it comes on the eve of my trip to Atlanta.
I thought perhaps I left it at a hardware store while I was out running errands. It was neither in the truck nor the scene
shop. This was Tuesday, the night of the opening of the play, and I was running around like mad from 9am until at around seven, when I noticed the wallet gone. Today however, there it was in my supplies drawer on the second floor.

Which I never once visited that day.

This is how sketchy my program is.

I found this little gem of wisdom at Le Bible
"In 1996, a PETA member served Anna a dead racoon on a plate while she was dining at The Four Seasons restaurant. Wintour covered her plate with a napkin, and ordered coffee. The most violent act was when they smacked her in the face with a tofu pie at Paris Fashion Week. Anna Wintour does not respond to the acts. She realizes that it comes with the territory.

I think this is the way that one should treat criticism. Accept it, but don't react to negative attacks. We at Le Bible will follow the Wintour edict, and think that you can't go wrong with following Anna Wintour. I can't wait to be served my first dead animal by PETA."

How many coffee's does a boy have to order before he starts to serve some raccoon of his own?

This made me smile too.

I found it while doing research for a 1930's Weimar Republic version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Like water on toast..

I have been so incredibly busy. The time of the 16 hour day has returned and I am near my wits end.
I suppose it would not be as horrible as it is if the people surrounding me could behave as adults ought to.
Back biting, scheming, gossip and expected alliances abound and it makes me want to be less and less in same
space. Still as my design professor said to me on Wednesday, " You are given a ball of shit to eat. Why argue? Eat
fast and make it good. Otherwise, you complain and it just takes that much longer to eat. And you have to eat it, Baby."

I'm still wondering how long i have to wait until I can make logic as aurally stunning as this woman.

Still, since I've resolved to see this tragic turn of fortune through to the end, I intend to at the very least distance
myself as much as possible. Refusing to let myself become a rumor-fed, petty bull-shitting hack. It is a bit sad that
I find myself in this position in a University (ranked 37), and sadder still that I have to witness the enthusiasm with
which this behaviour is carried out. Speaking with a friend about this it was decided that neither of us could dare
show any sign of weakness or lack of confidence as "they would begin to circle."

On other fronts:
- I am enjoying my recent weekend outings to various pubs and bars with non-school associated people.
(Lets not poop and dine in the same place, shall we?)

- Finding loads of interesting music hidden in my computer from last year that I did'nt know I had.

-Met a cute guy who maybe thinks I am cute as well.

- Nearing completion of the Maps Project.

-Have been approved for $162 of Food Stamps from Hurricane Gustav, which is like being handed a month long free lunch voucher to Whole Foods (which is 6 blocks away.)

-Managed to do laundry and uncover my floor.

-Turned down an offer to marry and move to Milwaukee, despite reasonable arguments to convince me.

- Have begun work on my MFA application to the Yale School of Art.

I've been drawing again.

So I'm in rendering class again. A bit slow, but quite good, as my life drawing skills are being woken up again.
These I did this weekend. The assignment was to draw from magazine images. The fellow below is a little out of proportion...but I think I did fairly well.



This one I did thirty minutes before class as i thought they were due tomorrow. I am still recovering from the loss of days from Gustav.


These are from the life drawing segment, which was conducted in ball-point pens today.