diptych moments

K,
We're off to Denver! I'll post some pics of our adventures when we return. In the meantime...some diptych play:

Have a great weekend!
k

It's Monday...time to clean up!

Holy Social Weekend, K! I'm still trying to catch up. It's a fun list to share, though.

Friday night: N + J's double birthday Chicken + Beer night, then the Black Lips show at Logan

Saturday: Eastgiving - Odd Couples party at our house, started cooking early and hung out 'til late. It was a Thanksgiving dinner the night before Easter, with an Odd Couple theme--so folks were to bring food that had an odd combination of flavors/ingredients/purposes/etc.

Select menu items:

• Turkey with Apple Cabbage Slaw
• Chocolate Nachos with Strawberry Jalapeno salsa
• Cannibal Cookies (Brother's creation--with fritos, pretzels, oreos, peanuts, and chocolate chips)
• Earl Grey Beer (homebrewed by N)
• Horchata White Russians
• Kosher Split (envision banana split, with kosher dog in place of banana)
• Tofu Asada Spring Rolls (C's creation--carne asada spiced tofu wrapped in Vietnamese wrapper with pico salsa)--pictured above

Sunday: Brunch at A + J's, where we set up some Peep dioramas. First, an homage to the movie UP, and then a couple horror flicks with live animals.

At around 3 we hopped (since it was Easter after all) in a Zipcar and drove to Bridgeport to check out the end of MDW fair. Here are some highlights (click to view larger):



C + I participated in the Peregrine Program exhibit--where artists submitted 4x6 ephemera that was installed as below, and the audience could take one of their choosing. E, continued to replace the missing spots with other entries, so the piece was constantly changing.

...and then we crashed

Hope your celebrations were as fun as mine. I can't believe the size of that lizard!
xoxo,
k

Leapin' Lizards!

Dear K,

Yahooooooooo!! What a week. Exhale, relax and celebrate are in my vocabulary for the weekend. Here are snippets from my to-do list this long weekend.

1. Gallery opening success

2. Go to beach to relax

3. Check out 2 new books from the library (non work related ;)

4. Drink wine with friends to celebrate

5. Hot tub party

6. Make delicious falafels for friends

7. Sleep in and then make eggs

8. Yard work with the Mr.

9. Bike ride with the Mr.

10. Easter celebrations with family

(All but 8 - 10 have been completed, yes!) Wish all weekends were like this! Love your zoo adventures, I've never seen dreadlocked camels - but then again I was shocked at the below picture.. check out the wildlife in our yard this afternoon! This greened odd creature must have been shaken up by my weeding. Yikes!

Love the animation... you are really working it these days. I'd love to be a passenger in your bus world! I'm feeling a productive next few weeks a coming. I still feel like I need to let my mind wander a few more days after the last few very stressful weeks. In honor of starting down another art path - I made the above "celebrate" photo cutting to send to the 6x6x2011 show in my old haunt. Breezy and cathartic. I'm still on this text kick - planning linocuts next... Something about cutting text is doing it for me lately.

Great to hear your voice earlier.. thanks for all the love and encouragement!

Continuing the parallel, xoxo

K.

style test

K,

The zoo was fab! We saw a huge aardvark, lazy wombats, dreadlocked camels, and all sorts of unusually appealing animals. This dainty little klipspringer (above) stood on his tip-toes on the slimmest bit of rock. I learned about a new animal that I'd never heard of before: Okapi. They are apparently known for being really shy. As expected, our okapi was in hiding, but I did sneak a peak of his beautiful markings.

Anyway, I worked a bit on the animation Thursday, drawing more scenes and pieces. Wanted to do a style-test, to see what it might actually look like in video form, so here is the bus passing the bus stop:

Alright. Get to work on your mess!
k

Spring Cleaning!

Dear K,

I'm going to take a week off from posting to clean up what I have "made" for the last few weeks.... A MESS! The studio is in a completely non-functional state, as is my house. Regardless, the view from my window is so nice today - (also check out the new neighbors!)

Hope you have fun with the animals today!

Back at it next week, promise.

Love, K

sunday music

Very professional, K! It's totally your style, matured. Amazing what presentation can do to legitimize. Nice work.

My m-box came in and I recorded a little sample song to get the feel for the software. I'm also experimenting with blog audio players/hosting (let's see if this works).

Hosted by kiwi6.com free mp3 upload.
Download mp3

k

Over branded/whelmed/loaded

Dear K,

Hey... awesome walk documentation of your neighborhood architecture! I love seeing your pencil lines in both the continued piles and animation studies. Slowly but surely... you said it.

I'm feeling slow these last few weeks, in response to the vast amount of things on my to-do list. Too busy this week for any art fun - but here is what I have been working on.. not fun, but necessary. Hoping for more fun next week.

Remember this? Oh how short internet life is...

Portfolio gathering is time consuming, tedious and often annoying. But.. I'm glad I have it now and have burned discs full of my portfolio, student portfolio, etc. Here's to professional development. Good thing I took a break and listened to bluegrass at a park today. The old-timer banjo player made me think of you.

Happy week. Love, K.

scene 1 - street view

Hey K, nice chattin' with ya today!
Look at what I accomplished this afternoon:
I took a walk around the neighborhood, snapped some pics of houses and drew up the background for the first scene of my animation.

Slowly but surely.
k

mango envy + dreaminess

Dear K,
Mangoes just fall in your yard?!? Totally jealous! Anyway, what dreamy cyans you have! I especially like the airplant-nest---curvy and spindly.

Speaking of prints and nature and dreaminess...
C and I went to see Eel Space's new show last night. Its subdued mysticism and layered prettiness was right up your alley. Check out the artists' sites (I think you'll especially like Liz McCarthy's work): http://eelspace.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/remember-hallow-places-animals/

The images above were taken from inside a muslin nature screen made by Nicolás Rojas. Isolating a small space within the gallery, the marker-drawn transparency created an interesting frame for viewing the rest of the work in the room. Katherine Lion's prints hung on the wall close by and felt like an extension of the screen---layers of transparency and texture, abstractions of nature, filtered and blended into forms that invite you to look through/look into. Everything seemed to float in air. Even Rebecca Beachy's dead animal remains shimmered like minerals from the earth, thin fragile dust that could easily be inhaled or sneezed away. In a separate space, Nicolás showed a looping projection from a handmade projector---the image hazy and slow, the audio sweet and serene. All together a grouping of delightful hippie-ness.

On a personal note, I had to skip my Thursday art day this week; too much work to do. But, I drew a bit this weekend. Above are 4x6 inch drawings--more studies for piles/goo. And below, storyboards for my animation project. Just trying to figure out how I want it to end...? Oh yeah, and congrats on the KMH branding and such. Really like your dad's pillow pattern with new rug. Orange is becoming a primary at the Miller-Hopkins residence, eh?

k

Blued memories

Dear K,

Hey you! Man.. intense work week, so I wanted to just play around with cyanotypes today. I spent so much time in grad school coveting the perfect shade of blueish cyan that I forgot how fun these prints can be. Granted, I didn't concoct my own chemicals, paint them on handmade paper, dry them and then print negatives/drawings on them.... oh well. Busy times call for pre-made cyanotype paper! I went all Anna Atkins and simply made images of plants in my yard. My favorite were the air plants. (Reminded me of your new air plant glass container) A non-conceptual outdoor project on a beautiful sunny day. I needed some photo fun - all my time in front of the computer screen these days make me miss the smells of the darkroom. It was like seeing a ghost of an old friend...

Since its spring, we have the beginnings of fresh mangos being dropped into our yard by the neighbor's tree. Perfect! I loved the light in this quick still life.

Also managed to finish my design portfolio! (whew) - Fully KMH branded and everything ... will post portfolio pics next week. Until then.. still doing visual pattern research and pondering lines, shapes, etc. Can I count buying a new rug as pattern research?? ;) The below pillow is a Norwegian pillow that used to belong to my dad, I treasure it so and think it looks great with the new orangey striped rug. Whatcha think?

I'm continuing to love your piles... keep em coming. And, I REALLY loved that animation - totally reminded me of a more whimsical version of the William Kendridge exhibit we saw together. Until next week.. love ya!

xo, K.