things have been going quite a bit better the last few days. we took an awesome little trip to yellow springs and did some leisurely hiking and even just sitting in the woods. also i got some stones & amber got some feathers and things there too. last night we went to a friends house for their birthday party and it was pretty chilly so we had a fire in the fire pit and chatted for a little while. today ambers getting ready to go to her internship at wosu (pbs) downtown. im probably going to do some reading, writing, drawing, and maybe take a trip to the library.

i kind of miss our cat and i want to go pick her back up from amber's mom's house where she took a vacation while we were in chicago. also i think we have been wanting to get ambers sister to come down and stay with us for a little while. i think that would be nice for all of us really. last time she came down here we had a really positive time.

it has also been quite a bit cooler here the last few days and that's been nice. it makes it so we are actually able to do things outside or around the house without getting our energy drained out by the heat.ive been thinking a lot about portland and san fransisco again. i think that sf has the most perfect weather, never above 85 never below 45, pretty much always between 55 and 75. portlands weather is a little more like ours here in ohio but much milder, not as cold in the winter and not as hot in the summer, generally. im thinking i want to go back out west and explore it out there some more. im really just feeling the west coast vibe right now and especially after being in chicago for a weekend, i'd like to be somewhere where people are a little nicer. not sure if thats the case in sf but portland seemed to have some super nice people. well anyhow im really enjoying the chill in the air and the renewed sense of energy i have from it not being 95 degrees or more. i think im really looking forward to autumn, and ive got a feeling of excitement for all the things im going to do soon.

well it seems that this has been quite a rough summer so far. things are sure just becoming more confusing and even when i think things will be turning around they seem to go into an even deeper negativity. people everywhere seem to be acting unkind towards one another, and unfortunately im finding myself on the receiving end of that unkindness quite often. its even as if every instance of good i try to put out there is met with a barrage of bad. the futility of the situation is rather strange.


chicago did not go so well. even though we were perfectly capable and planning on walking downtown to the bus, a friend offered to pick us up and drop us off. they did not show up, and by the time we realized they were not coming, we had only 12 minutes. we had to run with our heavy bags through the village and the park, sweating in the heat and looking crazy to all of the rude bystanders. we made the bus, but just barely. then began a weekend of being treated poorly by others, being broke, and amber having a sprained ankle from the run (that we initially thought might have been a fracture). it was a rough weekend.

things have changed since then, but it appears as if we are in some kind of rut. even really good things that come along seem to be turning bad a few moments later.not sure whats going on. i know that mercury just entered retrograde, and it has been brought to our attention a few times that this will be affecting everyone until mid-september. im gonna try to keep my head on straight. im gonna try to get some positive energy going for both amber and i, and just deal with everything one day at a time.

its been a strange summer so far. its been a little bit lonely for me, and im much too far overworked. luckily, amber and i will be going to good old chicago, to lollapalooza. we leave tomorrow at 10:40 on the megabus, and we'll be staying at a little hotel right downtown. we will not have much money with us to spend, but i think we will be just fine. we are both good at having a really good time really cheap-ly. anyhow, now that we have returned from the laundrymat, it is 2am and we still have packing to do! perhaps we will go to sleep and pack in the morning. anyway, i'm totally stoked for adventure!!

last night we went to an art exhibition at junctionview studios. they called it 'biggie smalls' and had only really big or really small pieces. also there were several bands playing and it was byob. all of our old upstairs neighbors were there: chris, and the rest in one of the bands, blake, jay, and curt. also some school friends were there. joe was running about taking photographs for tristans band that did the after party music, at which time we were dancin crazy. after the music ended we went out back and sat on these giant wooden spools that were five feet tall when on their sides. they were stacked every which way and we climbed and sat and talked drunk in the warm summer night air. some people tipped a few up so they would roll and then climbed atop to walk on it like a barrel in the water. as we were leaving amber slipped trying to climb down from the top of the stack. she hit her side pretty bad on the way down, but luckily she's okay. we thought at first she may have hit her head or fractured a rib, so we rushed her to the car and abandoned my bike chained up to a pole, me jumping in the back seat of the car and amber's good friend driving us home. after some worry, we decided she was okay, just bruised up a bit and shaken up a bit, too. it was a really super fun night with that exception. makes me feel like we should all be more careful when we are being wild, or better yet just be more chill than wild.

so we are supposed to be going to lollapalooza in 1 month. we have the tickets, and we have a hotel room. we don't have our bus tickets, any spending money saved up, or a credit card to use as a deposit for the room (which is apparently common practice in hotels in cities). we also don't have any money for next months rent yet, it being only the 11th, but we really must start making some serious money if we are going to make it happen. we have considered not going and just selling our tickets so that we can enjoy doing some other things this summer. plus we each would like to purchase a few things while school isnt weighing us down. i want a photo enlarger, a vintage record player from the antique store, some art supplies, a haircut, and a vintage nintendo system. she wants new bike wheels and tires, a haricut, a tatoo, the record player (also), and im sure some sort of musical instrument such as a 12 string or a harmonium, the latter both of which sadaruchie owns and plays with much skill. oh also, she probably still wants her own projector so she can stop renting one from the school.

so we'll see. we could relax and probably get a few things that we each want and enjoy the summer, or we can bust our asses working all month and then go to chicago for an awesome weekend. it would really be great if we could have the best of both, but we just dont make that kind of money.

i do get to stretch my ears another size tomorrow. im super excited. theyre getting bigger. cant wait to get them up closer to an inch. well i think im gonna go do some drawing and whatnot.

summer summer changes fun whoa

so schools out yeah!
we went to bonnaroo a few weekends ago. it was amazing. for me it was much less music centric than it was vibe-centric... but the music was also awesome. we spent a lot of time at the troo music lounge... a smaller stage for lesser known artists. we saw warpaint, the middle east, and everst there which were all great shows. the watson twins dropped in for everest to sing backup which was sweet. also tori amos was in the crowd like standing right behind us. it was all very energetic. also, we saw some great shows at the bigger stages. mumford & sons was a favorite of ambers and also of mine. we caught they might be giants which was super fun. for me the flaing lips was just soooooo out there and transcendental. they had lasers in the sky and there was confetti and the music!!! they played some of their material, of which yoshiumi was magical, by the way... and then after a short break they came back and played dark side of the moon from start to finish and it was just mind blowing. a girl next to me described it as "soooo mesmorizing". well it was. and we also hit up the late night shows. i can hardly remember where we ended up or which tent ew were at and when, but i do know that we saw thievery corporation for a bit. amber ran up to get on stage and ended up getting sidetracked with a newly found friend. i rambled over to the nwe lunar stage where they were playing some dance music, and after a short stint there, i went to catch the end of deadmau5. amber texted me to meet her at the ferris wheel, where i had met her the night before so that she could take a contemplative ride alone only for her to have been bombarded with people wanting to ride with her and offer her anticdotes over any of her situations. anyways when i met her at the ferris this time, she had lost her rolling friend, sadly, and after a while of searching, we decided that she must have gotten confused and headed back to her camp. we went to the silent disco and danced until the wee hours of the morning, at which time we returned to the lunar stage, which was still blasting dance music and we danced unrestrained until the sun came up and sat up on the ledge of the sky and they finally stopped the music around 7am.

we made it back on nickles and dimes in the gas tank because i thought that my wallet containing my card had been stolen, but when we actually did return home i found it hiding well, safe and sound. a misadventure, yes, but not quite as stressful as the worry of the overheating car in the bonnaroo traffic. all of it worth it.

we have been much more social throughout the spring and especially this summer. weve both been much less self protective. we had a great time this weekend at comfest. because of some kind of drama last year, they had the music ending much ealier, which made no sense and seemed unrealted, but whatever kind pr move they pulled let them at least have the festival so i can't complain too much. its only that in addition to ending so early, many of the good acts were in the 94 degree heat of the day instead of later, into the evening. so once again, not so much with the music, but lots with the good vibes. i felt like we knew everyone at the festival this weekend. we ran into sooo many people, and hung out kind of all over the place. we saw tristan's show on friday night and it was awesome. he had lasers and video art and he was spinning with a full band. defeintely the best show of the weekend. then saturday there was some typical musc at the offramp stage so we chilled around and drank some beer and ran into lots of people. amber ran off with charity to talk and they had some sort of tiff, but seemed to get resolved the next day. on the way home, though it thunderstormed on us, and we ran home in the hard pouring rain and then chaged closthes and went up to tristans show at thedrgonafly neo-v gallery a few blocks from our place. we ended up getting in a tiff of our own, probably an extention of her and charity's, and when we got there, already drunk from all of the comfest beer, and some wine at home, tristan was djing and we got some top shelf drinks, me gin and tonic, her some vodka concoction, and chiled on this white couch for a few minutes. when the music was on a break, we ran out behind the nieghboring beer mart in the back alley wth our drinks to smoke and sat on this slab of concrete with the brick alley to our side. soon people had the same idea and a few groups came and went, the final group containing some old friends from like 5 years ago. joe had known amber from working at the coffee shop, he was a video artist and after moving to chicago and studying at the institute there, he is now a filmmaker. his friend sam laid out on the concrete slab amazed at the stars and a laid back guy named miles jumped merrily between conversations and smoked joe and sam up. also 3 years ago sam had once come to our house with joe when we lived downstairs and we had all gotten too smoked and tried to watch jan svankmeijer's alice and had these vintage xmas lights blinking and we all got a little tricked out by the whole thing and had to stop it and run into the kitchen. anyhow on sunday at comfest we ran into even more people we knew and there was no buzzing about in the air as much, as everyone had receded mostly to sitting on blankets in the grass and floating about in that way, so we blanket surfed between groups of people we knew. we picked up a few rice krispy treats from jacob and had a good conversation with him, talked to some school friends and some old coffee shop friends, and so forth.

we we got home we ate some rice krispy on empty stomachs and got kind of lost in the hallways and ended up with an ordered pizza in the front room on the floor while it stormed out the window magnificently. amber fell asleep after adding some triple fermented beer to the mix, which i declined knowing my own personal limits, and i stayed by her having thoghts and visions, falling in and out of sleep and eventually retiring to the airconditioned bedroom.

today, we decided a big breakfast for recovery was needed so after some sleeping in, we took a trip to the grocer and ran into sadaruchie, who told us about his crazy time at comfest and the after party he went to, and also about how he really wants us to come to his friday night party this week and he has a stage set up in the yard with lighting and video projection and such. laso he invited us to a meditation / swimming / vegan dinner tonight at a friends house at the quarry, so naturally this sounded great... and it was! it was a gated community and we had to use a code to get in, and then we arrived to people in kayaks and sailboats and rafts and swimming. we sat on the dock for a while with our feet in the water talking, and before long, it was dinner time, all vegan food. we did a sunset meditation, facing the water, and then sadaruchie and frank, whose place it was, got out the guitars, and there were people with flutes and such and it was very positive. someone told me that it looked like i was really focused on breathing in the colors of the sunset. i was.

also, after breakfast, but before the trip to the quarry, i rode m,y bike up to evolved and streched up a size, and i got some nice yellow glass plugs. they are more subtle, maybe not as noticable from a distance as my stainless steel 0g's but no matter because i love the way they look up close, and i got anpther pair for the next size up, too so in 2 weeks i'll move up to those. the timing seems right for these trasistions.

okay well, other than working hard for rent money this week, we have quite a few things that we have been invited to attend, so it is going to be soooo busy and lovely. peace

... strangest two months. i don't know what to say. it seems as if the structures are folding and clearing room for something new. i've been doing so much writing and meditating... i feel like i'm so much in my head and i feel like a new person but its like the outside world isn't yet choosing to recognize it. i think i need a new environment again; maybe something as simple as a new job and some new friends and such. its so impossible by traditional logic that something can be so slow and so quick at the same time. well right now my thoughts are my guide and all i can do is pay attention to all of synchronicities. oddly, i have an incredibly positive feeling almost constantly, but every6thing is going a bit awry and out of control. perhaps the distinction between the internal world and the external is supposed to be telling me something also. well, enough of this vagueness. i'm off to do some journal writing.

more unexpected turns of events, too numerous and too strange to be communicated with any sort of rational writing.

so far everything has been pretty hectic, trying to get all our supplies for classes, and trying to keep up with the work for our photography class especially. it all seems a little bit administrative up to now, since we have pretty much one big project for each class this quarter instead of like 5 small ones for each class. we've been doing technical assignments and working out our ideas for our projects. i'm most excited about the photo project at this point. i'm sure the new media interactive video sculpture will end up appearing to be the most impressive to others, and perhaps the video art piece will as well, but i think i'm feeling the strongest connection to the photo piece. i'm doing some research on santiago sierra, as i was already feeling very influenced by his work as well as eleanor antin's work. anyhow i'm thinking about the piece as being largely performative in a save the world kind of way.

we got a really nice tax return, our biggest ever (thanks obama). of course its pretty much all gone now. we decided to buy art supplies, some new clothes (mine were getting quite worn), and tickets to bonnaroo and lollapalooza. also, we booked a hotel in chicago for lollapalooza, arriving an extra day early before the fest starts to explore the city a bit. i think this is going to be a great summer. i can't wait to roam the blue-noise streets of chicago, wander the late night shakedown buzz after dark lights of bonnaroo, get lost hiking in the labyrinth of glen helen in yellow springs, and especially feel the chill night air in columbus on a late night walk and the warm yellow flower breakfast walks through the victorian village... oh yes.

we're going to be up late tonight. amber is doing a stop motion / flash movie for our video class tomorrow, and i'm chilling on the couch in her studio beside her. ive got my video pretty resolved, although i'm a little worried parts of it may make people have motion sickness. it's kind of okay if it has that effect, so long as it isn't so dominant that it is distracting. i have to lay down the audio for it, also.

hmmm.... we were talking about how we used to always romanticize staying up all night making art, and how when someone else sort of requires you to do it it can be a little less fun. perhaps it is also less fun when you still have somewhere to be early in the morning, per someone else's requirement. a little sleeping in after a long crazy nights artistry was always a good feeling. but really its all okay because its kind of one of those things where even when you are tired and stressed and it sucks, its still really awesome in its own way. much better than working some silly job somewhere or doing nothing at all. i am kind of excited for when we get out of school and we can completely sort of self govern ourselves as artists. still, i'm enjoying what i've got while ive got it and really trying to get the most out of this experience, because after all it has been very positive and enlightening time for both of us. i feel like we are not the same people at all that we were even a year ago, let alone a few years ago. we've done a lot of growing.

anyways, i'm gonna stop all of this typing and see if i can help amber wrap up her video for the night. i'm tired! i'll bet she is too!

spring break is here! it is such a relief to not have to worry about all kinds of deadlines and things for a week. the thing that is sort of bumming is that it is only a week. i don't know if we are going to get to go anywhere or do anything much. amber is going to get work done on her sleeve tomorrow. i'm pretty excited for her. shes getting an image from her own artwork on her arm and i think its going to be really fantastic and expressive. i need to probably go in and have them check out my ears as well. my left one looks pretty much like its healed normally, but the right one is still a little swollen around the piercing. i wanted to move up a size like a month ago, but i feel like ill be lucky if i don't have to go down a size in my right ear in order for it to heal properly. i guess i simply need to be very patient. anyhow also this week we are going to go over and hang out with jason and jenn and see their new place. theyve got a house down around the german village. and i think we are gonna try and go to yellow springs on whatever nice, sunny day there is to do some hiking. we don't have a lot of money so we might have to make some food to bring and skip the dinner and drinks at the tavern there. we spent maybe a bit too much last friday going out with the print dept at st. james in the italian village nearby here. we both had quite a few la fin du mondes, and everyone was a little drunk and laughing and howling about and such things. so i suppose it was worth it to have a pretty good time like that- i know i certainly needed it after this past quarter, it being as hard as it was, and with me pulling consecutive all nighters, literally not sleeping for three days in a row working on prints like a madman, only pausing to go work a shift at logans, then coming back to do more, then to that 10 hour critique where i tried to talk about my work in a state of confusion and exhaustion, along with a few others. let's not even get into the grad level art history class and all of the paper writing and attempts at studying, and the battles with one of the holography teachers over my freedoms in art making. also poor amber with her math class and her geology / meteorology scientific class and her only art class being that holography class. when i think about it all, i feel that much more relieved! ah. its good to be done with all of that, and i know that i'm ready to start something new soon, i just wish we had two weeks of resting and recentering before, but i will take what i can get, i'll take it as it comes.

spent all night last night watching the live feed of the house of rep. debating on the health care bill and voting on it. thankfully they passed it and going to the doctor will become something of a right and not just a privilege reserved for only all of the tidy white fence white collar 9 to 5 to the grave- ers, while the rest of us went years without even getting checkups or neglecting getting care for things that are wrong. too bad they couldn't get the public option but maybe sometime later, this is definitely a move in the right direction.

and so after a spot of reading some jack kerouac this morning and a nice extra long shower, and all of this after some nice well deserved sleeping in, i'm ready to go make a nice early afternoon breakfast with amber and listen to some nice music while the birds chirp out on the wet roofs outside of our windows. we're going to make the most of our time off this week.

as of late ive been neglecting this blog. this is mostly for two reasons. the first is that i tend to like to fill this space with items that exist on a more magical level. sometimes i stick trivial things in as well, but likely because they are meaningful indicators into other things. i don't get to do a lot of traveling when i'm in school. although i could, i choose not to write about my art here, or mostly anywhere for that matter. etc etc etc. the second reason is that ive taken to writing mostly in a notebook, in stream of consciousness style. this would be writing that is not only much more inclusive and personal, but also of little interest to others, especially considering that it would be difficult to understand. i think that i often have the intention of writing everything there and then structuring certain parts of it together to put here. it hasn't happened that way yet. i'll let it be for now and if i write here, then i write here. if not then there is mystery, and i suppose the day-to-day crap will go on facebook. except now that i'm here i feel like writing a bit, so...

this quarter i'm taking a very interesting 20th century american art history course, but it is a grad level course and it's kicking my ass! i've also got a holography class with amber, in which the lectures are sort of fun, but the critiques are faring pretty primitive, much too literal, and ultimately useless. my real attention lies in my serigraphy class. it's a hard class, being a printmaking class. the critiques are absolutely the best you can find, though. i'm making work that i really love, and my latest piece seems to have been the result of years of evolution of my working with certain methods. i'm pretty excited to see where i take it from here.

next quarter we'll be taking 3 studios together again, just like the old days :) they are video art, bw photo ii, and new media (sort of interactive sculture).

can't wait for spring time, i want to see flowers everywhere!!
anyhow, peace.