Fun Day!

After doing some shift-trading with a co-worker, I was able to have today FREE! And what a wonderful day to have free =) Sunny and 65 degress, you can't beat that! So Ryan and I decided to wonder around the Marina, walking towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Ryan rides his bike over there pretty much everyday, but it was actually my first time walking that far towards the Presidio.

I took a few photos, probably not as many as I could have, but I was enjoying just looking at everything through my eyes instead of a lens.















After our fun day adventure, we came home to eat some food before Ryan had to take off for work. Then I proceeded to pass out for a good 4 hour nap.. haha. Guess I really needed some sleep. But now I'm awake and ready to get back to work! I'm currently trying to figure out how to make a new website for myself.





Well I better get to work. Until next time..

Feeling A Little Nostaligic

I recently watched one of the latest Simpsons episodes on Hulu and it made me reminisce about my life-altering time living in Ireland.

Then, just now, whilst rummaging through files to find images in order to build a new website for myself, I stumbled across some photos of my time in Ireland I completely forgot I had. They were buried deep with in the inner chambers of my hard drive, and I decided to pull them out and post them here.

Enjoy, enjoy.

Princess Sketch

This is for a revision of one of my earlier drawings for the Children's book I'm working on. It is only a small part of the total image. I've decided I'm only going to post some of the sketches, and perhaps some of the finished pieces because I want the book to be a surprise!

Scion Installation FIVE - Next Stop, MPLS

The fifth installment of Scion’s Installation Art Tour was launched in October 2008. The program is designed to give exposure to both established and emerging artists. Installation 5: Self Portraits highlights a diverse array of artists from around the world and will visit nine cities in total including Miami, New York, Portland, MINNEAPOLIS, San Jose, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The tour features new markets – Detroit, where the show kicked off, and the most recent stop – Phoenix.

For Installation 5 each artist was asked to create his or her literal, or non-literal interpretation of the theme 'Self-Portraits'. Video art will be included for the first time in the tour’s five-year history, alongside painting and photography. Artists on the tour will include: AJ Fosik (3-D painting), Alex Hornest (painting), Andrew Schoultz (painting), Andy Howell (painting), Angela Boatwright (photography), Asylm (painting), Blek le Rat (painting), Christina M. Felice (photography), Codak (painting), David Choe (video art), Edwin Ushiro (painting), El Yem (video art), Eriberto Oriol (photography), Eye One (photography), Francesco LoCastro (painting), French (painting), Geoff Oki (video art), Ian Lynam (video art), J. Shea (painting), Jamel Shabazz (photography), Jeff Soto (painting), Kelsey Brookes (painting), Kofie (painting), Lisa Alisa (painting), Logan Hicks (photography), Mark Mothersbaugh (rug), Nicholas Harper (painting), Patrick Martinez (painting), Peter Beste (photography), RETNA (painting), Rick Rodney (photography), Rob Abeyta Jr. (painting), Ron English (painting), Saber (photography), Sage Vaughn (painting), Skypage (painting), Stormie Mills (painting), Tessar Lo (painting), Too Tall Jahmal (photography), Usugrow (painting), Will Barras (painting), Yoskay Yamamoto (painting) and more. As the tour travels, more artists will be added to the roster.

Next Stop?

MINNEAPOLIS

Check it out! Now Installation 5 moves on to Minneapolis for the second year running due to the exceptional response it received last year. The opening reception will take place April 3rd from 7pm – 11pm at Rogue Buddha Gallery, 357 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Artists J.Shea, Codak and Eye One will be in attendance and DJs Jonathan Ackerman and Millions Billions will provide the music.

Rogue Buddha is owned by Nicholas Harper who is one of Installation’s featured artists and Scion is teaming up with MPLSART.com as the local media sponsor.

You can check out some of the photos of the show here --- http://www.flickr.com/photos/elementalc/sets/72157607824270698/

I'm happy to say that I attended the opening for Scion Installation FOUR in Minneapolis last year and it was amazing. Sadly, I will not be able to attend the opening next week at Rouge Buddha, however, I am fully intending to make it to the opening in San Jose in June, or to the last stop in LA this August. (or perhaps both!)

much love,

-Karen

happiness counts

I realize that I have been horrible at posting lately. In fact, I have been horrible about drawing anything at all, let alone anything post-worthy. And this is kind-of a worthless post in of itself. A post stating I have nothing to post.. bah.
Bah is a good word for it. Bah kind of sums up how I've been feeling lately.

For those who've just tuned in, I am working 2 jobs. A "design" internship and H&M. I am lucky if I get one day off a week. I realize that people do this all the time. People have been working everyday their entire lives. But damnitt I'm not used to it, so I'm complaining. Perhaps I wouldn't have anything to complain about if I actually enjoyed this internship I signed myself up for. But I don't. It sucks. Balls. it sucks balls. It sucks because it's not a design internship at all. It's fucking tedious production work for minimum wage. It's not challenging and unsatisfying in every way possible.

I actually had a complete meltdown about it the other day. I would actually much rather just go back to working full time at H&M. It blew my mind. I never ever thought I would actually choose to work retail, and actually enjoy it. It's still difficult for me to wrap my head around., enjoying working retail. I have been trained to believe my entire life that if you, a grown up, are not working the 9-5 in an office downtown somewhere, then you've fucked up somewhere a long the way. You're somehow less intelligent or perhaps just lazy. Wasted potential. But what if you're happy? What if you're sincerely happy? Does that change everything? Doesn't happiness count for something?

I have worked retail before, mind you, and hated it. It was easy to not give a shit about any job before now because I was always in school. It was easy to work the 3 months of the summer then say, "see ya!" I'm in school. I don't have to worry about working yet. That's forever away from now.

Well forever wasn't that long, and now I'm no longer in school. Now I have to face the heavy decisions I've been avoiding for so long. Like, what do I want to be when I grow up? Where do I want to live? How can I make "it" happen? I don't know the answer to any of these questions.

I decided a good way to find some of these answers was to move cross country and find a 9-5, downtown office job. Well, I did that, and all I've learned is I fucking hate it. Maybe I would hate my internship a little less, if I didn't have to go to my other job once it was over, and had, at least, the weekends free. But neither is the case, and my life is getting more and more tiresome and lonely. Bah.

I'm thinking that if they do decide to offer me a job after this, I'm going to turn it down. Yes. I would turn away more money and a more "respectable" job to continue working for H&M. Even if it means continuing to be on the poorer side for the time being. Because happiness does count for something. It counts for everything.

I know that I want to draw and design (definitely not production "design"), and I'll figure out the rest day by day. For the time being, I'm just going to have to stick it out for a couple more months, and periodically post about having nothing to post.

Reaching for clues

Spot illustration for the Children's book I'm working on

Alternative Cafe - "This is the End" show

As some of you may already know, Ryan got a piece into a group show in Seaside, CA at the Alternative Cafe; and we attended the opening on Friday night. It was quite a ridiculous journey down to Seaside involving many a bus and train and walking for miles (only to learn later that it would actually have been cheaper to just rent a car...) but ooh well. I still rather enjoyed our trip. I have really been needing to get out of the city for awhile for a little mental health break. I need fresh air, grass and trees in my life -- which has been seriously lacking for some time now.




This is somewhere between Oakland and San Jose. Even just getting to see this outside of the train window was a relief.

Anyway, our journey wouldn't have been quite so long and or ridiculous had we not missed our connecting bus because of a delayed train. However, we did, and the result was us wandering around San Jose, CA for about 3 hours or so in order to kill time before catching the next bus to Seaside. At first we were both a bit furious about the long time gap between buses (worried that we might not even make the show) but San Jose turned out to be pretty cool to wander around in. San Jose has a really nice downtown area. They strive to integrate art into the city - through murals, architecture, sculpture, and the like.




One of the first things we saw was this giant Monopoly board at a park.








This is one of the ugliest buildings I have seen, but in such an awesome//hilarious way. So very 80's. So very gross, yet, so very boss









Eventually we made it down to Seaside, with plenty of time left to enjoy the show, which, by the way, was curated by Creep Machine





Ryan in front of his piece.
"The Return to Darkness" 6" x 10" graphite on paper (framed)
See a much better photo of his drawing on his BLOG


This is one of my personal favorites from the show (besides Ryan's piece of course)
"How Close I've Come" by Tom Haubrick 9" x 19" ink and wash
More from Tom Haubrick


My other favorite, is by Ken Garduno This piece is titled "End Games". I'm not sure of the deminsions.. it looked about letter size or so.

Then of course, there were several artists whose work I had never seen before. I also had the pleasure to get to chat with a few of them. One of whom was Gene Guynn His paintings are AMAZING. I could only get 3 out of the 4 from the show in this shot

But make sure to check out his website to see more samples.

I also got to talking to Gene's friend, Mary (who's work was not in the show) but I thought I'd share some with you here. She draws and paints lovely and detailed works on wood (mostly) as well as some on paper.




The night ended well, but not before one last photo of all of the artists who attended.

If you'd like to see all of the work from the show, go HERE

The following day was very pleasant indeed. Seaside was actually not at all what I had expected it to be, and we didn't see the sea at all in fact. We were just on one big strip of road full of fast food, motels and 99 cent stores. And then we saw it. LITTLE CEASARS! O-M-G it was the best moment of my life. OK. That's an over-statement, but I literally jumped up and down and squealed with glee. I F-ING love Little Ceasars. (sad, I know, but so true) And I haven't had crazy bread in months










So instead of going to the sea, like one probably should when visiting Seaside, we went to Litlle Ceasars. And Target. haha. But seeing as neither of those things exist in San Francisco, I felt justified in going.

So overall it was a pretty excellent trip. We got to see some amazing works of art, meet some cool people and eat some long over due crazy bread. And the best part of all, was getting out of the city and exploring new territory.