Present Joys

• Completed the last figure drawing session of the semester. We drew Jeremy and I did not do a very good job, prompting Boryana to say all kinds of hilarious, unintentionally-harsh things about my work.
• Went to see the “visiting artist”, Nalini Nadkarni, who seemed like a very kind but misguided person.
• Looked at a lot of post-impressionistic paintings in 19th century art history class. We are getting very near the end of the century!
• Did my “final presentation” for my History of fashion design class. It was a ten-minute talk on menswear between 1920–1940 and I think I bored the entire class to death.
• Went to the sculpture lab with Amanda and Jason and helped make stuff with tools.
• Spent the rest of wednesday in illustration working on my clay sculpture.
• Worked in the woodshop on thursday morning and had a nice conversation about accordions with Mr. Laskowski!
• Successfully used the scroll saw to cut out a bunch of things for our board game.
• Watched Hitchcock’s Vertigo in my American lit class—a colossal waste of time but also a welcome diversion.
• Had another one of those “sit at a table and crit your peers” in Burleigh’s class. It went ok.
• Conducted several team meetings and stayed up very late and talked on the phone a lot and made many trips to various printers.
• Worked hard on team stuff, all week, pretty much every waking minute of the day.

• Reunited with all my friends after my time away.
• Did probably my worst drawing of the semester in figure drawing. To quote Boryana: “It isn’t your best drawing ever…”
• Watched the movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire for the entire duration of my American lit class, which I consider a new low.
• Had a typically glorious time in M-Tabs’ team class. She entered the classroom and said “How is my favorite class doing today?” and she also bought every team a big oatmeal-raisin cookie. These are special times.
• Visited Ohio State University’s historic costume collection and got a little tour from the curator, Gayle Strege, who is an instantly-likable person. Also saw an exhibition of girl scout uniforms which were all really neat.
• Spent all of wednesday’s Illustration class making a little figure out of Sculpey clay.
• Took a make-up History of fashion quiz during my wednesday lunch break.
• Spent the rest of my wednesday lunch break in Mr. Burleigh’s office talking about what I missed last week, which was a really really nice time.
• Had small-group peer crits in Burleigh’s class, which were rather unhelpful.
• Took a make-up art history test on thursday afternoon. I used my laptop to write so I ended up with 2,000 words, which was entirely too many.
• Suffered through the whole week because my wisdom teeth are coming in and I can only open my mouth about 1/2″ without pain. This makes eating lunch difficult, so it’s a good most of my lunches this week were eaten either alone or in the dark of my art history class.
• Made plans for a friday team-class meeting. Our project is due in just over a week and things are getting very serious!

Our History of fashion class visited OSU’s costume collection this afternoon and got to look at a bunch of cool stuff. The collection also had an exhibit on Girl Scouts uniforms, which was beautiful and great. Here is a picture of Amanda and me blocking some of the items in the exhibition.

• Had a crit in figure drawing. Made fun of Boryana for moving like a breakdancer while she teaches.
• Went to see the visiting artist, who showed slides with a dim, grimy slide projector and refused to use a microphone. Interesting but annoyingly postmodern.
• Did literally no classwork during the Worst class of the week.
• Watched more of that movie in my American lit class. Another poor use of time I couldn’t help.
• Had tuesday art history class off because our teacher was sick. Spent the time on the quad with Amanda, Ian, and Dorian.
• Had another really intense, action-packed team class. Most of our discussion centered around exactly how humanoid should a siren look? It was very serious.
• Bonded with my History of fashion teacher over millinery and the sorry state of historical education at art school.
• Had wednesday completely off: my illustration teacher had to cancel class due to a family funeral.
• Gave a mini-presentation about 1950s politics with some other people in my American lit class.
• Spent all of thursday’s art history class looking at architecture, which was kind of a fun break from routine.
• Went to visit the print lab and got to talk to Kathy, which was really nice. It is good to visit places you normally don’t go.
• Did that thing in Burleigh’s class where we all sit around and talk to each other about our sketches. I ended up having a great conversation about Obamacare with Theresa and giving advice to Anna on her package design. Talked a little about my actual work, too.
• Grew to love and respect Mr. Burleigh even more than before, which I did not think was possible.
• In general: spent the whole week making plans to be gone next week. Looking forward to the break!

• Stayed up late sunday night to register for classes; had some problems with my account and didn’t get into a bunch of stuff.
• Spent most of monday trying to fix registration. Also: tuesday, wednesday, and thursday.
• Skipped the visiting “artist” (read: contemporary poet) lecture and had a good old-fashioned friendship lunch.
• Left my laptop at home on tuesday morning and had to go the whole day without it. It was difficult, but my bag was definitely easier to carry around.
• Looked at paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites in my 19th century art history class, which was, as you can imagine, super great.
• Talked to Julie Taggart, who turns out to be pretty cool. Even though she crushed my dreams of taking a screenprinting class with Dana in the fall.
• Used all three hours of my team ad class to talk about board games in great depth. It was intense and helpful and headache-inducing and great all at once.
• Spent of wednesday working in Corel Painter with a tablet. Non-messy and fun.
• Was compared to Richard Aschenbrand and Artie Isaac by two different people in the same day. I can only take that as compliments.
• Watched some of the Revolutionary Road movie in my American lit class (it is not very good—Meryl Streep isn’t in it at all). While this was going on, I started swatching for a new, ten-color fair isle jumper.
• Presented finals in Burleigh’s class and got info on our last project of the semester. We made a word cloud in class during which I was mocked for having no friends (in a friendly way, natch).
• Went to visit Mr. Felton, the copywriting teacher, who graciously let me into his class. Phew.