Nuggets and Notions: A Grand Journey: Timescapes and Records from this Little Life

 it might turn out that having everyone like you is a red flag. This is a discovery I am making over an over again as I enter new phases of life. maybe, actually, having some enemies is a sign of strong moral character. maybe, not having everyone agree with you and getting some pushback (and then PUSHING back) is a strength. look, i know that this is all common sense. But i am a people pleaser. I have always been a people pleaser, control freak, and nervous wreck. This triple threat combo has made me into a pushover, an ass kisser, and an emotional manipulator. Manipulator?! yep! I know exactly how to word things depending on your social cues to persuade some form of agreement. I know exactly how to fucking pull strings and smile at just the right time.  Since moving to Maine i have developed some relationships that aren't built on a mutual admiration and/or friendship. In fact, I would pretty confidently state that there are a handful of people here that don't like me. And he...

 evening comes in the form of face lotion and q-tips after many hours of boiling hot oil, beef, pickles on the side, and sweat. Vocal cords are shot from yelling expo orders since 11:00 am.  the rabbit you hit on the way home lays in the ditch. you drug it to the curb so it could be in peace. guilty for its life caught between the rubber and asphalt. rinse the bug spray and stink off. use conditioner even though you'll wash tomorrow morning. exhale deeply. have a beer. put on bon iver even though you don't like him a whole lot but he reminds you of home. i have worn my favorite perfume to bed on the hardest nights. A bottle gifted and cherished so deeply that it might go sour from not being worn.  We must (must!!) use the gifts we love most! I have come to realize that gifts are meant to be cherished in their use. Olfactory senses are a large trigger of memory. i sit far away from home and find myself reaching for special perfumes more often than I have ever done before. ...

 when you work 40+ hours a week time melts away into nothing. it is meaningless. Wednesdays and Thursdays have been set aside as my weekends, and yet these days feel surreal. I am out of sync with the world. It's the middle of week five in Maine, and summer is taking its time on the coast. I've been hiking, I've done some minor travel. It's hard to do without company sometimes.  Yesterday was one of my first bad days. I'm starting to really have the weight of post-grad slump onto me. I miss my college friends, and I miss living with seven people who could constantly provide me with companionship. I miss my cat. I'm going to get a haircut today. I'm going to book a tattoo appointment with this cool queer artist in portland. I am needing to get out of the house and laugh. My physical practice has been put on hold due to time constraints. But I am gathering a lot of external knowledge that will inform the art I make when I get to a point where I feel i can do i...

 big exhale. A long and difficult morning full of tears of both joy and maybe tears of fear or sadness or something else i can't put my finger on. currently stationed in Birch harbor Maine, typing furiously because I've been dreading reconnecting with the rest of the world. Sitting in a chair a woman died in a year ago. It's comfortable. Clouds roll in and out over the water. It's 9:38 am.  Sometimes change that has been planned happens so fast you barely even see it happen. Ploop! Here I am in paradise! Ploop! Suddenly the brief vacation that Mom and I were having turns into an actual life I'm living. Woah! I don't wan't to necessarily slow down, I just need to catch my breath. As expected, the last two weeks of school destroyed my immune system. I can't believe humans weren't made to be working nonstop from 5:30-8pm every day. I'm sniffling and coughing a bit but that seems to be the only symptoms of this slight cold. Recap: had an amazing resi...

      Yes, the show was truly spectacular. I have had some days now to reflect on the short week and a half that the wagon was allowed to live. This project was a part of me. Building it felt like growing a new limb. The wagon was a rib pulled from my body and granted a very temporary life. Putting it together was like a symphony, a grand moment where everything I had planned went right. It was serendipity. Almost never does a project go as well as this one did.  I have never before dedicated this much time and effort into a single thing. This project took precedence over my life for months on end. This wagon was created as the seasons changed, as summer days turned into an icy and cold landscape.  On de-install day last week it felt like I was stripping the life-force out of a baby. The wagon was pure, I had grown emotionally attached to it (i am almost never so closely attached to my work). But it had an expiration date. I had known all along that it's existen...

I've done it again, sweet readers. I neglected you. Through not writing, I also fear that I have neglected myself.  I sit on a Monday in the Digital Process Lab- where art and design students go to get our images printed and vinyl cut and 3D prints made. I'm making the vinyl for our Senior Seminar show as I type. I've been tasked with installing this, and it will without a doubt be wonky and not placed correctly. Another semester of running full speed to the finish. It's disorienting, I feel like I don't know exactly how I got here. I have spent more time in studio over the last few months than I ever had before, and it might be the best feeling ever.  "Get to work" was posted on the wall of my studio. A Jerry Saltz quote to fuel my burnout. Get to work. The time is now. and it's true! But the time is also for my other classes, my residency, my solo show, and my job that demands a minimum of 20 hours a week. I am getting to work, but this also means th...

 Greetings,  We might be strangers again. I did not intend to put this blog down but my spring semester turned into a giant shit show. I haven't had time to shower and eat, let alone sit down and reflect. Well, this is the last week of my junior year. here I am, sent through the ringer. Finals approach and I'm faced with more time than I know what to do with and somehow even that manages to stress me out. What am I going to do with my time now that it's not full of work and school?  It is impossible to work two jobs and go to school full time, America. I hate that I have to do this in order to feed myself. Everyone around me feels the pressure too, we all hurt together. I burnout every winter, usually in march when it's been cold and snowy for too long. I cry on the phone with my mom, she usually doesn't know what to say other than,"i'm sorry." The burnout this year was significant, and I'm still very much in it. Everything takes a long time to do,...