I'm Back!

From Europe that is. I have so much to tell you all and pictures to share but I am so jet lagged.
During my travels, I took a little sketch/ notebook with me. I plan to upload a few of those pages in the next few days.

What did I miss?

You know it's summer when...

you drive one hour to watch Toy Story 3 at the drive in movie theater and snack on a blue bell ice cream cone while it's raining.

All Done

Talk about last minute! I just handed this bad boy to Ryan twenty minutes ago. I was given the poster last night and I was able to some how finish the letters after I got off work.
I really like it, even though I painted the letters rather quickly.
Here it is!

It only took me about an hour to finish. My favorite letter in this poster is 'n'. I was inspired by the Orange Amp Logo's 'n'.

Looking through a glass

Recently, I've been asked by a local Nashville band, called The Looking Glass, to design a (possible) cover for their new tape. I've known all three members for awhile now and I'm excited that they asked me to help!

Photo by Bekah Cope

It's still unofficial as to what the final album cover will look like, let alone who will design it. Whether I get to design the cover or not, I thought I would share a few inspirations with you,

And of course....



You should also check out their photo shoot on Bekah Cope's flickr. Seriously, this girl's photography is awesome. She also takes pictures for the infamous blog NASHVILLE'S DEAD.

I'm seeing pups

It's been too long my fellow readers! By fellow readers I mean Mom, Dad, and my cat (yeah, he can read).
Summer has been so much fun, almost too much fun. I haven't had a lot of time to just sit down and work. I have, however, been doing a little bit of work.
I recently did a library card titled "Dogs."
This turned out so cute! It was originally going paint a single-headed corgi, but that idea did not correlate with with the plural title. I also added a bindi to both of the corgis' foreheads.

This is something you have to look at in person. A lot of the detail of the fur and line quality was lost when I scanned it. I didn't really know what to do for the background. I usually leave my subject matter in open space, but what if i were to put them in a setting? Would it change the meaning of the picture entirely? I could place this cute little pooch in a cage, which would stereotype it into an animal and/or religious rights category. OR I could place it in a temple, thus making the corgis a sacred animal of worship. Who knows.



I also made two other library cards back in early June. These two were also based on the feminist series I wrote about not too long ago. Both of these are collages.

I really want to start painting and collage more. Maybe on a bigger scale verses a three by five library card.

Times are tough & they only get tougher

  

You in or out?

Femme Fatale

Lately, I've been sorting through my library cards. I happen to have a lot of library cards that deal with women rights.
I wouldn't call myself a hard-core feminist. Actually, I think most would not consider me a feminist at all. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in it!

The first time I "got into feminist things" was when I read a chapter from the book, Listen up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation by Barbara Findlen. I discovered my math and theory of knowledge teach wrote a chapter for it, titled Bloodlove. After reading her chapter, I became very curious about the riot grrrl and feminist culture. I started listen to bands like Le Tigre, Bikini Kill, X, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, ect. The whole idea of d.i.y style and playing rough like the boys seems very liberating. But I realized that I could never really write a chapter in a book about my "liberating" life. I couldn't say I hate boys. I couldn't talk about how society was putting me down and that I was the underdog. 
That's why I find it very hard to take feminist, that my age, seriously.  My teacher lived through the third-wave feminist movement. She had something to shout about, and I am glad she did. What wave of feminism are we living in now? One where we listen to Teagan and Sarah and sew on our hand made patches? In my opinion, this generation of feminism is only a repeat of the riot grrrl scene back in nineties.

    Surprisingly, my mom was (or what was considered to be) a feminist during the early eighties. Her and six other friends started a group called TKALS which stood for Tennesseans Keeping Abortion Legal and Safe. This program was a branch off of the National Group NARAL.
They would put on a benefit concerts every year called Nashville Women Sing for Choice. I still have a few t-shirt and pin from this event.
     Even my grandmother had "feminist qualities". In the eighties, my grandmother wrote a letter to the president stating why abortion should be legal in the United States. I am not sure of the exact year my grandmother wrote the letter; so she either wrote it to Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush.My grandmother never told anyone if he wrote back or not.

So the whole being pro-choice makes you a feminist right? Well, who is says so? I'm sure there are a handful of pro-life feminist out there.


I made three pieces that have a feminist theme.  The first one I made back in May. The last two I made tonight. All three are collage pieces, and the last two I added paint to them. There is correlation between the subject matter and title of the library card.