Collaboration!

collaboration!

so my friend tim lewis is doing a not-so-dry-and boring retelling of the bible over on his blog and he asked me if I would like to contribute some illustrations. I said yes, so now you should go check out the first installment.

wallpaper

this is the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom of my parent's house. I have always liked it.  one thing always confused me:

the beaufort sea is always displayed this way. the "b" on the edge of one sheet and the "eaubord sea" on the edge of another. I never knew if they lined up like that on purpose or if was just the way the metaphorical cookie crumbled, the way the map unfurled, as it were.

granted, I was never so concerned that I looked it up. the question only occurred to me when I was in the bathroom. and considering that I have spent very little time at my parent's house the last 1-2 years, the quarry was virtually absent from my mind. 

but recently I find myself under their roof once again for an extended period of time, an extended period of time which has brought this quarry once again into the glistening pools of questions in my brain. so I looked it up. indeed, the beaufort sea is real. according to wikipedia it is:

a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean,   located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort. The major Mackenzie River empties into the Canadian part of the sea, west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea shores.

well, wasn't that interesting. another point of interest: my home town has signs warning drivings of possible turtle crossings.

I decided to make an infograph for Primer, the 2004 ultra-low budget sci-fi directorial debut of Shane Carruth. This is a time-travel, greed, and manipulation. It is also incredibly hard to follow. Perhaps this snazzy timeline will help your brain process the convoluted storyline.

There are not very many characters: the plot centers around two characters and through their interactions we are introduced to some additional ones. But since this movie is about time travel there are different versions of the two main guys: one gets 2 versions, the other gets 3 (possibly more, but that is never explicitly explained). 

I wanted to make the timeline more visually appealing than the few I have seen in the past so I decided to use a system of symbols for the major nouns that pop up throughout the plot (such as names and time machines). Hopefully that did not make things harder to understand.

Here is the complete infograph. Clicking on the image will bring you to the full size version.

The movie deals with time travel in the sense that, with the device from the film, a person can travel back in time but not forward. One interesting thing that occurs is that the amount of time spent in the time-traveling device equals the amount of time in the past the time-traveler has journeyed: if it was Thursday and you wanted to go back to Monday you would have to spend 3 days just waiting in the device.

Note: for those of you thinking, "What about when Abe shows Aaron a version of himself entering the storage unit? Isn't a new version of the two guys created every time they travel back in time?" I am not counting those short-term multiples as new manifestations of Abe and Aaron because as soon as they enter the device, the multiple ceases to exist. In this infograph the only way a new version of someone can be created is through the use of a failsafe device.

current things

I got a job earlier this month. I'm working retail. It is interesting. One thing that is particularly interesting is how much more exhausting being on your feet for 5+ hours a day can be. I've been sleeping a lot more than I'm used to. I told my mom yesterday that I think I need more sleep working retail than I did being an art student. She told me that maybe I just have more opportunities to sleep than I did while in school. This makes sense.

At first I didn't think the long hours on my feet would be a particularly new thing for me. After all, some of my studio classes required me to stand for long periods of time. But I've come to realize that I was able to sit down much more than I realized. Also, the tasks I was completely whilst standing - such as inking a plate and printing said plate in printmaking, or carving a block of limestone or alabaster - proved to distract my mind and body from the exhaustion that standing and walking around for long periods at a time seemed to be causing. Unfortunately, folding clothes and the like has not proved to be quite as stimulating. Also, I was spoiled my last semester, completing the majority of my thesis sitting down - albeit hunched over, resulting in different problems. But the most crucial discovery I have made is that I need to find better shoes.

On an unrelated note, the keyboard problems I mentioned have disappeared. It seems the problems arose because of my computer's perception of the control key being engaged when it had not been. At the height of the problem my keyboard became utterly useless, as engaging the control key negates the ability to use the keyboard normally. However, I updated all my software - something I had been putting off as it required me to restart my computer - and everything seems to be behaving correctly. Except that the esc key still does not work, but that is very easy to work around. 

Recent Development

UPDATE: yeah, so it happened. awhile ago. sorry.

I'm going to be showing my rocking chairs illustrations at Atomic Cafe in Beverly, MA! Atomic is one of my favorite places and I am very excited! When I lived in Beverly I would go to Atomic at the very least once a week. Usually more. Like 2 or 3 times a week. No wonder I was broke when I graduated.

I'll post more details when I know them.

http://atomicgallery.wordpress.com/

christmas music

the store where I work has been playing christmas music since november 1st. at first it was just one song every 5 or so non-christmas songs. but now that is over. for a whole week it has been the opposite, only instead of catching a break every 5 or so songs, I swear it is probably 10. and this is tough. to make it even worse, there is no variety. every day I hear "sleigh ride," "let it snow," "santa clause is coming to town," "the man with the bag," "rudolph the red-nosed reindeer," "have yourself a merry little christmas," white christmas," "all I want for christmas is my two front teeth," "so this is christmas," and "santa baby" at least 5 times a day. and a number of those have different versions that play. sometimes one after another. and during my break if I choose to leave the store, which I usually do, there is christmas music playing on the loud speaker of the outdoor plaza. saturday night I felt like screaming because I thought my head was going to explode. but there were a lot of people walking by. I don't think I can last another month. I will go crazy.