stat

My brain's too fried to do much blogging, but while it's all still fresh, thought I'd at least let y'all know that as of about an hour ago I'm officially done with the fall semester. I'd say I'm free, but school ain't out for the summer, if you know what I mean. I have a break, but oh so much work to do beginning/resuming in just a few weeks. Anyway, I won't go into my review board in too much depth, won't name any names, as they say, but I will note how much critiques lately remind me of the diagnostic portion of each episode of House. There we all are, me, three faculty, one student reviewer, looking at the work on the wall, trying to figure out what's wrong with it. We come up with some possibilities, do some tests, meet again, and go from there. I even have a chart, so to speak, a permanent record sort of file with each reviewer's personal comments...a record of my "symptoms" from semester to semester. And a whole lotta suggestions.

Life over the past week has pretty much revolved around getting ready for this review board so I haven't much else to report. Must now eat and sleep...

WBURrrr...

I promise I won't blog every time it snows, but we had our first big snowstorm late last week so I feel compelled to document it in some way. I was actually at work during most of it. When I left that morning I had to make my way through just an inch or so of the fluffy white stuff, but by the time I came home that night Boston had received a record 8+ inches...at least, that's what was reported at Logan airport, which closed during the afternoon's "near Blizzard conditions."

The next morning, before shovelling out of it completely, Neal and I ventured out on foot for breakfast and as many basics as we could carry. Turns out driving is probably less treacherous than walking. Maybe local homeowners were out of town this weekend, 'cause it seemed like every third house hadn't yet cleared their sidewalks, while others had shovelled onto their neighbors' portion of the sidewalk, creating three and four foot walls of snow to get around. Anyway, we weren't the only ones who just had to have our coffee, snow or shine. Check out the busy Dunkin' Donuts parking lot. A few more snowy pics have been posted on my flickr page.

Otherwise, I am officially done with the instructional/academic portion of the Fall semester. I'm now spending every waking moment (when not working) in the studio, frantically finishing projects and contemplating presentation options for my December 20th review board. After that I'll work through Christmas eve, and then it's off to Cali for a week. I can't wait for the break!

catfight

So much to cover in so little time. I have a 12-15 page paper due tomorrow afternoon, which, in theory at least, I could be adding to right now, before I head to work for the rest of the day. I have the first eleven pages, though, and tomorrow morning to finish it so I feel justified in spending a little time on my blog. Seriously, this may be the first time in the history of me that I haven't totally procastinated on writing a paper. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. It's about "postfeminism" (see, I told you I'd write about the occasional post-ism here), employing gender-bending Judith Butler as mediator in a catfight, of sorts, between Libby Lumpkin and Amelia Jones, all over Jones' controversial 1996 exhibition, "Sexual Politics," at UCLA's Hammer Museum. Or something like that...

Anyway, here's what life's been like over the past week and a half, bullet style:

*did not spend nearly enough time in the studio and no, I have no updates on flipbook research

*on Wednesday I spent an hour trying to find the "nearest" Container Store in Chestnut Hill, a mere nine miles, but really, a WORLD away, all for this project, due in my Print Media Seminars class the next day (I tend to get carried away with the presentation of things so that's what this "holiday card" assignment ended up being all about). This is the image I went with:


This is the image Neal liked, sort of a staged studio-style photograph of Santa:


*got caught up on ANTM and was downright shocked to learn that Kim had been booted the week before. What the?!...

*on Thursday, after a full day of class, I made the trek across the river to attempt to squeeze into Harvard's Carpenter Center for Visual Arts to hear Maya Lin talk. I got there as early as I could, stood in a line that wrapped around the inside lobby and well outside and got within about fifteen people of being let in. Oh well...from there I continued in my Cambridge/Somerville journey to Tufts to see the first round of MFA thesis exhibitions. Lots o' talent and some really lovely and well executed stuff, but (and I won't name any names or anything) only one artist really stood out for me as being interested in something other than or in addition to a dialogue with art history in some way. Navigating your way through the long, long history of painting, for example, and being all wrapped up in theory is interesting and, one might argue, necessary, to a certain extent, but in the end, work that's just about that kinda leaves me cold. But what do I know, I'm just a first year...

*Since Friday, I've alternated working with writing my paper, taking brief breaks here and there to watch entertaining but, in the end, mediocre films like Monster-in-Law, The Upside of Anger, and Harry Potter (oh relax, I'm just kidding). Actually, I really liked The Upside of Anger - the part when she's driving and the grandpa character motions for her to slow down, for the second time, and she flips him off and tells him to get over himself. Loved it...

I guess that's about it. Seemed like there was more. I have a four-day stretch of work beginning this afternoon/evening (the real kicker is we're open until 10 through Christmas - and I'm closing three of the four shifts this week...sigh). After I hand in my paper tomorrow I'll be officially done with classes for the semester, one-quarter of the way through my MFA instruction. Crazy...