Tomorrow I leave for Indiana. First Purdue, then IU Bloomington with a brief stop in Hamilton because I'll be too close to not stop in on Katie. So far, I have no one to talk to in Bloomington, but I'm hoping a grad student will contact me soon. I've sent a few emails to professors who said they'll be out of town but perhaps an MFA candidate could take me around. If all else fails I can walk around alone and check out their art museum, which Holy Cow! looks hot. Their online collection is more high profile than Columbia Museum of Art's permanent collection. Although, in CoMA's defense, there's some great stuff in their storage. My printmaking class went down there last semester. It was one of the coolest museum experiences of my life. I hadn't been that awed since the Chicago Institute of Art when I was fifteen, when I was still movable. It was so amazing to see all this great (and some of it recognizable) art just thrown up on walls, some without frames. Then they pulled out works on paper from their flat files. Wow.

Groundhog Day

I wish I'd understood Groundhog Day in 1993. Why couldn't I have been one of those liberal arts genius kids? Why didn't I see it again until today? It's amazing. I thought it was a Bill Murray romp. Nope. It's an actual movie, with actual meaning. Wow.

Kitten Attack!

Destroyer -->
My cat. I have to leave him in a few months. But Oscar and I will have a cat, then another. They'll sit on a mustard yellow couch. I hope.

Purdue is a week away. Kathryn Reeves agreed to see me. If they offer an MFA, I might not be so hesitant.

Why is this such a hard process? Neither Oscar nor I want to be responsible for a crappy town/school. Shoot!

Link of today

Janice Hartwell is a printmaking professor at FSU. Just thought I'd share a link to her website. I like "World Trade" all the way through "Nature of Nature." It all fits together well, and subjectively, I like the look of all that work. The earlier stuff seems like she was hashing out her own style. And though her style is consistent, it isn't identical to the point of boring. I'd say it's too soon to tell on "A Matter of Taste." So far, though it seems a little dull. Monochromatic with stable compositions. But the titles do give justification, which I get a little giggle out of.

So there you go...Janice Hartwell.

I'm going to try to do this once a week. Link an artist. I'm stealing the idea from a friend who had a blog devoted entirely to such a venture.

Back from Tallahassee

Before leaving today, Oscar and I stopped at the Museum of Fine Arts (aka MFA, aka MoFA). They had a show by Ray Burggraf. Now that I've read his statement, I don't hate it quite as much. A for concept. C- for aesthetic. They look like they belong in a Miami, FL hotel circa 1991. Bright colors crossed with hard line minimalism. There was also a Maximalist show. Some of it was cool. James Barsness, Grant Miller, Reed Danziger. James Barsness has a piece called "Hum." It's blue ball point pin on gessoed canvas. It looks like a giant, elaborate notebook doodle. Grant Miller was very elaborate and graphic. I guess elaborate could go without saying at a maximalist exhibit. Reed Danziger was perhaps my favorite. From far off, the paintings look like stains, but there are all these amazing organic patterns within all that. I also appreciate that he has his own website.
Oscar showed me the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. They make/use really big magnets there. I can't process all that they do with the magnets, but they're very useful in physics experiments. They have their own electric substation and a 3000 gallon tank of cold water to cool the magnets because they produce so much heat that they'll melt themselves without it.
I'm just a linking fool.
I need to research all the professors I may meet in my attempt to have an informed opinion on all these towns I'm visiting.

Where to find average guys

The Graphic Novel section of Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. on a Saturday night.

Starting at the bottom

I went to the mall today. I figured it was the easiest place to wander around lost, while trying to get a feel for TallC. And, it was a mall. That's all there is to say about it. There was a Godiva store, which had free samples. Amazingly, the tiny disc of chocolate has overfilled my chocolate wants for the day. But now, I'm kinda hankering TGI Friday's. Why? Why am I falling into this easy option rut here? Perhaps because I'm alone in my wandering. Or perhaps because TGI Fridays has that 3 course meal for $12.99 deal. I think I'm going to crash Oscar's dinner thing tonight. But maybe not. They'll probably talk a lot of chemistry, and feel awkward about me. Telling me someone has to make pretty things. Why can't I just automatically assume that their trivializing and joking about art is a weird way of being friendly? I know that's all it it, but it still bothers me when they say, "Ah, you make pretty things." I hear "Ah, you make unimportant things." That's not what they mean.

The Morning After

Last night, the chem grad students took us out. Darts seems to be the thing to do in TallC. Darts and drinking. The chem department is definitely trying to buy our love. I drank for free. I started out just fine, but then one of the grad students started ordering rounds of shots. Somehow I was in on all of them. Then I capped it all of with a gin & tonic. But there was no tonic.
In meeting all those many new people I originally decided it would be easier to let them assume I was a chem student. But that's all they wanted to talk about, so I had to fess up to being an art student, which cut me out of most conversation until we were all too drunk for conversation. By then, we were upstairs at the "dance" club. The floor was literally and frighteningly shaking. They were playing late-80s to mid-90s rap. And there were these costumed dancers. Some guy was dressed as a girl, complete with fake breasts with fake nipples. He kept flashing us. I think I was the only person bothered by this.

Floooooo Riiiiiiiiii Duh

I'm feeling a need for background info. Last year, I met Oscar. Side note: when a food is labeled Oscar, as in Chicken Oscar, it means there's asparagus with it. I like my chicken with asparagus, so I'm interested in keeping Oscar around. My asparagus is heading off to grad school in August and I've agreed to go with him. But now here's the hard part. Where will we be? He's applied to Ohio State, Indiana U, Purdue, Pitt, UT-Austin, GA Tech, Florida State, and Florida. For now, I'm going to get a job because the idea of school...again...right now....is not something I'm all that interested in. But, I definitely want to keep grad school as an option, so I'm checking them out as well. In the end, we'll decide which school/city has the best options for both of us. Right now, I'm in Tallahassee, visiting FSU.
So, Florida? Florida State University... Tallahassee... Check out this skyline.

This is why I am not interested in Tallahassee. I don't want to live in the shadow of a giant penis.
I spoke to the chair of the printmaking department, Kabuya Bowens. She seems nice. Motherly. Her work is ethnic and feminine, from what I've seen. I think she didn't know what to do when I told her I'd be moving with my boyfriend. She called him my 'friend' at first, saying it'll be nice to have a friend when I get out in the real world. Then she switched to partner. Then, from Jupiter or Neptune, she pulled down 'fiance.' I didn't say anything about marriage. I mean, that's where this is going, but not now. We've got a couple of years to go.
FSU's printmaking facilities are a bit better equipped than USC's. They have 3 working intaglio presses, and several working litho presses. They had 8 or 10 silkscreen tables, but they weren't vacuum tables like USC's. I liked the student silkscreen monotypes that I saw. For the most part, the student work was good...I mean, nice. I mean mostly innocuous, which is better than bad from someone who was just strolling the halls. I then walked to the student union. Eh, it's a college campus. Everybody was talking on cell phones or listening to iPods. At one point, I was walking behind two guys, one saying to the other, "I could talk shit about anybody. Well not you, but name anybody and I could totally talk shit about them." I was in awe. I'm sure this happens at USC, but I'm not judging USC as a future option. Finally, I found the union, and it had an Art Center, which was a glorified frame shop/paint your own pot shop. There was also a real gallery, which was really reassuring.
Later in the day, I went to the grad student "warehouse." It's the Old Navy of college. But no. It's just a warehouse space that they've divided into grad student studio space. Which is way better than the 4 grad students crammed into one classroom at USC. I very nice lady--girl/young woman/female I don't know how to label because she's my age or younger--walked me through their grad student maze. Her work was really cool. She cuts designs out of ornate fabrics, glues them to a canvas, then paints over them. It's got a really great textural quality. Very thick. Apparently, there are no printmaking grad students as of now. I could change that, but really I hope I don't have to. This warehouse, by the way, is pretty far from campus. There's a bail bonds shop in the plaza in front of it as well.
As far as Tallahassee goes, all I can tell you is phallus. I've seen basically three streets worth of it. Tomorrow there will be more ventures into TallC. I hope I can find some kind of focused area of interesting commerce. I know where the mall and large franchises are supposed to be, but I want to find replacements for Blue Cactus, Thai Lotus, Papa Jazz, City Art (even if it is over priced), etc. It's kind of intimidating because I don't know where to start, and Oscar's busy all day with grad school wining & dining. But I think I'll start easy and find Target. Maybe I'll buy a map and mark it up. Maybe then I can use it in a project later this semester.