you seem like a nice girl

Wow, it's been a week since my last post. That can't be right.

Anyway, I've been busy enough but mostly under the weather. Since last Monday night, I guess, I've had a sore throat that turned into a sinus congestion thing that turned into what feels an awful lot like the bronchitis I had many years ago. It probably didn't help when, feeling a little better, I worked out on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday my workout seemed to improve my condition, but on Friday exercise seemed only to create a burning sensation deep in my chest. The feels-like-bronchitis followed shortly after. But Saturday after work I planted myself on the couch and haven't done much of anything since (although all this nose-blowing has got to be good for my abs) so I'm feeling a lot better. And today's Patriot's Day, that funny holiday that all of Massachusetts celebrates mostly to avoid downtown Boston on Marathon Monday. Which means no classes for me!

And some time to catch up and get ready for my last week of classes, my final week of my last, official semester of coursework, with just three weeks and one day until my final review board. Next time we meet I'll be defending my thesis. I have between now and mid-December or so to figure out what that is.

Before I get ahead of myself, though...In the last couple of weeks, I've revisited two past projects, in part for CyberWindow, the Museum School's participation in this year's Boston CyberArts Festival. I created a sort of slideshow out of the prints and photographs that made up the main project I worked on last semester that will be projected onto the window of the school's library. There are thirteen other artists participating, one artist per night, between this Friday, April 20th and Saturday, May 5th (Sundays excluded). My night will be next Tuesday, April 24th. To see it in person, go to 230 The Fenway and stand outside the building (weather on Tuesday is looking a lot better than the last couple of days have been), maybe across the street, as far back as the entrance to the Gardner Museum. And/or check out the website (in progress), or watch the Quicktime movie on my website. Watching a little box on your computer is a lot different than seeing these images projected onto translucent paper in a window, at night, but you get the idea.




As for The Lost Object Project, submissions were pretty steady into March, but I have not a single new story to share for the month of April. Jess linked to the project, which was so nice of her and I got a couple of really heart-breaking stories from that. I'm still mulling over ways to publicize the project and collect more stories. Some have suggested I take a more active role, interviewing people in some way (either in person, like at cafés, or online perhaps). Others have suggested I get serious about mounting some real-world configuration of the project in some sort of show format, as a way to showcase what I've got so far and as an opportunity to collect more stories. I rather like the latter idea but finding a space is a lot trickier than putting up a website. At any rate, thanks in part to the area at school that I TA in, I'm having a postcard printed that will serve as a sort of business card for the project, when I'm out and about, shamelessly promoting myself and all my endeavors.

Finally, I'd been wanting to do something more with this ongoing list of quotes I've been collecting from all those "chick flicks" I've been watching since last summer (well, since much longer than that, but since around that time in a more directed, organized way). I made a half-hearted attempt last semester, printing them on vellum and plopping them on some screenprints I'd made the previous semester. That kind of worked, but I was more drawn to the text than to the image or the relationship between the two, which was cryptic at best. So I decided to make some stationery - a set of folded notes with a different quote on the front of each note, printed in magenta, with a matching, translucent envelope. The project was inspired by a class assignment, where we're supposed to create printed material of some sort that folds out to reveal content (like a book or a box, for example). I have this slightly more complicated map-like project that I originally came up with for the assignment, but my collaborator is "busy" finishing his thesis, so I came up with this instead, something I could finish on my own before the final critique on Wednesday this week. They're notes you might send to your best friend after an argument, to your mother, or your sister. Anyway, that was the tell, here's the show, beginning with the entire set:


Followed by a close-up:


A look at the back:


And the translucent envelope:


Plus, just for fun, a view of Xander, sleeping peacefully nearby:


I got almost everything I needed to make these - envelope templates, paper for the envelopes, rubber stamp, ink pad, and ribbon - at Paper Source. The white paper I had leftover from a previous project. I designed the notes (little design that there is) in InDesign, using Mrs. Eaves on the front (including a few ligatures) and Baskerville on the back. As you may already know, Mrs. Eaves, designed by Emigré in 1996, was the name of Mr. Baskerville's mistress. Don't you just love typography gossip? Here's a closeup of the font on one of the notes.


See the beautiful ligatures between the two e's in "seem" and between the g and the i in "girl." Just lovely.