5.31.2007

whore.

in light of my recent futile attempts to find employment in the greater portland area, i have decided to whore myself out (no, not like that you sickos). anyways, if anyone wants to buy some artwork, postcards, greeting cards, collages, photos, etc. or i can cook you something really tasty...cookies, carrot cake, banana bread, dinner....or if you have anything that needs to be sewn or if you have a really cool old t-shirt you don't wear anymore and you would like it turned into a really sweet purse or back patch or something...babysit your illegitimate children. prices are negotiable. just thought i'd throw it out there. oh and if anyone has any connections where i could get an actual job that would be sweet too.
peace.
+
emilie.

5.25.2007

why are norwegians so damn cool?

datarock.

all the way from norway.






















rock it.

5.23.2007

cartoons.

i've recently taken to drawing cartoons.

this one is a recreation of a cartoon i stole from a book full of rejects from the new yorker.



this one is based off my frustrations with my car.



and this one is fairly self-explanatory. avocado stains courtesy of john's awesome sushi making.

collage.

results of a recently fruitful collage night with laura, following homemade sushi at john's, and lavender tea by lynae.
quite lovely i might say.

5.19.2007

expatriotism.

exactly three months after my 20th birthday i will be on a very large plane, very far out of this country. i will be studying in the town of nancy, france for four months. i am about as excited and petrified as any one person can be. i am greatly looking forward to exploring a new place. i can't wait to linger in a café and eavesdrop on conversations while holding a warm bowl of café au lait. i can't wait for large family dinners where the food is good, the wine strong, and the conversation so lively that no one topic stays on the table for more than 5 minutes. i can't wait for the prospect of being immersed in a language to the point where english becomes an arduous task to muster up. i can't wait to be overwhelmed by the french lifestyle which treasures beauty, art, food, politics, and conversation over all else. unfortunately along with these wonderful experiences comes the strong possibility that i will encounter impatient shopkeepers who won't even give me the benefit of the doubt to speak to me in french. i'm sure at one point or another under the stress of traveling i will get on the wrong bus/train/metro and have to painstakingly retrace my steps to regain the proper direction. i will have to overcome the awkwardness of transplanting myself not only into a culture rather unfamiliar to myself, but also into the home of complete strangers. i will be on my own thousands and thousands of miles from home. there is the grand possibility of a broken heart of homesickness. that's an interesting concept in and of itself because i'm not sure where to call home. there is my parents' house in the town in which i grew up in. there are parts of that place i miss, more moments that could never be recreated than any particular place or object. i honestly have no desire to return there. then there is nyc, which i probably have the most attachment to for a place as a whole, which is odd seeing that i lived there not even four months. there is my current place of habitation, more a holding tank in my stages of transition where i am more attached to the people i've met here than anything else. i feel as though i've become some hybridized plant species with old roots i inherited that are planted in one place, then the fresh, new, rapid growth and roots i so desperately want to spread located in a very different place. then it's as if all my fruit has been unwillingly, and all too early, plucked from my branches and unevenly distributed across the country without my consent. and soon, all too soon, i will be off to a new, strange place. what a complex mess i've created as a self-diagnosed vagabond.

time paintings.

this semester for painting II there was an assignment that was completely open ended, the only stipulations were that it be worked on throughout the semester and it was due the final class meeting. i decided to work in a series of three and on a very large scale. i built three stretcher bars that are each eight by four feet. the overriding concept of the pieces is past, present, and future. the first canvas i treated with various techniques to get a rich, dark background. then i used a recording i had taken of my grandmother's life story and transcribed it onto the surface using a white chalk pencil. i then went back over her words to create a more aesthetic image by highlighting and repeating certain words or phrases. the second piece in the series is based on the present. it is the first one that i started and i have been working on, almost obsessively since february. in some places, now, there are up to 9 or 10 layers of different media. i approached this canvas only with the image of the figure in my mind. i wasn't sure what else i was going to do with it so whenever i worked on it, what came out was whatever i was feeling at the time. much of the piece is composed of writing, most of it by me, but there is a poem and some song lyrics embedded within it. so days, something felt more important so i would emphasize that, but then a week later that issue was no longer prominent so it became hidden or changed by a new issue. this piece contains the most media, everything from oil and acrylic to chalk and spray paint. with all its layers and complexities, it is truly representative of my life over the past few months. the third piece is meant to represent the future. it was created by sewing and weaving together scraps of raw canvas. i had originally intended to just weave the canvas, then paint loose images of what i hope to be in my future, but when i began piecing the canvas together, i began to appreciate the image that the subtle shift in shape and color of thread was creating. it also began to make more sense that the future would be blank because i can only hope and predict my future, i can't make any firm statements about it. i think it is also important, considering it's context in the series. the past piece is only comprised of words because that is the most enduring evidence of the past, just the stories we can tell. the present piece is the most busy because it is what is happening now {or at least when i was working it}. the future is blank and subtle because it is the unknown. i had also thought about sewing pockets onto the future piece and then inserting objects that represent what i hope to do with my life, but again i can only hope and have dreams. they may dictate what i do in the present but they have no say on what will happen. during our class critique someone commented that the future piece reminded them of a bed. maybe that is what the future is, just a bed to hold our hopes and dreams. so learn from the past. live in the present. and dream in the future.
{my apologies for bad lighting and poor picture quality}
PAST:

PAST DETAIL:

PAST MORE DETAIL:

PRESENT:

PRESENT DETAIL:

FUTURE:

FUTURE DETAIL:

reflections.

i've been reflecting on my ideas about improving education and opportunity for all in this country. and to want ends is this important? so what we all have a nice big house and a fancy car? no, i don't think so. i think what upsets me most is that some people have so much in excess while others have very little or none. when i ride my bike through the neighborhood near my school, i often get very upset. i pass house after house that is huge, complete with colonial columns and 3-car garages. i don't know how i could live with myself if i were living in so much excess while hundreds if not thousands of fellow portlanders are homeless and hungry. i'm not saying wealth is bad and money is evil, though i don't like it. i will admit many of the huge homes that surround me are very beautiful and surely nice places to live. i'll even go out on a limb and say that many of those people probably worked very hard to get to where they are. wealth becomes bad when the wealthy are living in such selfish excess while other can't ever afford a hot meal. the distribution of wealth is far too skewed. i think i read a statistic that the top 10% of our national income is being earned by fewer and fewer people. that means that there is just a small group of people who keep earning more and ore of the nation's wealth. and more and more people are out of work and homeless. where is the justice in that?

5.18.2007

questions.

a random stranger in a coffee shop recently asked my friends and i a question. he interrupted our selfish broodings with 'if you could change two things about our government, other than the current administration, what would it be?' my friend's boyfriend, far more articulate than either of us, quickly became engaged in an in-depth conversation and i returned to to what i was doing. i then began thinking about what i would change. the first thing that comes to mind is our education system. no child left behind {NCLB}has to be, in my opinion, one of the most illogical, unproductive programs in history. i will praise it for its aims at accountability in schools but other than that it is virtually useless. it sets very high standards, while providing no means in which to achieve them. it then relishes schools (primarily wealthy ones) who achieve the test scores by providing more funding (as well as bonuses for superintendents) and punishes schools who fail to make the grade. the list of ramifications for failing schools is ridiculous, even stipulating the use of already limited funding o pay for students' transportation to another school if their parents are dissatisfied with the failing school. so the school's funding is cut, existing funding must be used in ineffective ways, and the expectations in test scores are raised, making it near impossible for the school to ever catch up. {and as a side note: NCLB also requires the release of all students' personal information to military recruiters} in retrospect, NCLB plays perfectly into the capitalistic values of american society. the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
this brings me to my second issue of change: social disparity. i would like to see the gap close, or at least narrow, between the rich and the poor. this could be done through a progressive income tax, but i think ultimately, it comes down to many peoples' perceptions and prejudices. going back to my first point, many poor schools are in poor neighborhoods. this gets into all sorts of issues of school funding coming out of property taxes so the more valuable the property, the more funding available for the school and so on ans so forth. let's suppose that a student at a poor school has less of a chance of either pursuing higher education or trade school or starting a well paying job after high school graduation. so the student gets a marginal job and can't afford much in the way of housing, so he or she remains living in the poorer neighborhood, their kids attend the same schools with the same disadvantages and the vicious cycle continues. i'm not saying that disaffected youth have no chance of rising up out of their circumstances to do great things as there have been many examples throughout history and through my own experiences working with inner city youth, a great many of them have the potential to do great things, they just have many more barriers to cross with less resources than those with a higher social standing. so why couldn't someone move out of the area to somewhere with better schools and better opportunities. here is where personal prejudices of those in the real estate, mortgage loans, and job markets comes in. there are also many factors such as a greater value placed on family within minority communities which can be a influence on generational poverty. anyways, why discrimination in the real estate market? possibly many wealthy or upper middle class families don't want poorer families living in their neighborhoods, with their poor kids going to good schools which may infringe upon the education and opportunities of the wealthier children. this is not true everywhere or for everyone but it does exist, very often unacknowledged, and it remains a destructive force in this country. i continue to think that if we want to solve problems on a large scale, we must first begin with ourselves. and that's what i would change about our government.

5.17.2007

nyc.

i miss new york. i miss the familiar clank of the subway turnstiles. i miss the ease of navigating the harsh grid of midtown. i miss the mixture of the lower east side. i miss the orange glow of streetlights. i miss the layers of human interaction with the landscape. i miss the inclusive yet anonymous nature of the city. i miss the bridges. i miss the hot, stale air of the subway vents. i miss elevators. i miss the maze that is greenwich village. i miss the noise. i miss the diversity. i miss the odd combination of serenity and fabrication found in central park. i miss the busyness. i miss the prospect of living in a city for months and never walking the same street twice. i miss the kids. i miss eclectic, only in new york moments. i miss interruptions. i miss the burning desire for community a city of over 8 million produces. i miss cupcakes. i miss the upfront nature of people. i miss the fact that even on the twelfth floor with all the windows shut, the sound of the garbage truck at two in the morning is as clear as if i were standing two feet away from it. i miss my church. i miss wandering and always finding something new. i miss the idiosyncrasies that only other new yorkers would understand. i miss the undulating skyline of queens. i miss the liveliness in the streets of harlem. i miss the ability to never have to drive. i miss the people. i miss the puerto rican bakeries of the bronx. i miss the beat of brooklyn. i miss the accents. i miss apartment life. i miss the vibrant art scene. i miss being happy, content, and thoroughly frustrated all in the same breath. i miss new york.

5.14.2007

prejudice.

someone recently {commented} on my last post saying that there are no reasons for people's prejudices. i disagree. from the day we are born, we learn what to think and how to react to our environments. unfortunately, many of our teachers [parents, the media, horrendous life experiences] show us the wrong ways to interact. it has been my experience that coming to college has opened my eyes to a more diverse [albeit still a rather miniscule representation] population that has made me question preconceived notions that were engrained in me by my parents, my home church, and my home community. i am thankful for the moral groundings my youth provided me, but i have been forced [both willingly and unwillingly] to enlarge my view on the world and try to see situations from many different points of view. had i remained in my hometown and attended the local college i don't think i would have had the same experience. as hard as it's been at times, i wouldn't trade it for the world. i think the first step towards understanding and reversing prejudices is figuring out where they come from. hopefully more people will understand this and begin healing the world's hurts, first through themselves and their own misconceptions.

5.08.2007

female priests.

i recently was involved of a conversation involving religion and politics. my two fairly liberal friends and i were speaking with a rather pompous, conservative, misogynist. when this certain individual was asked whether or not he approved of women priests, he said 'i don't know enough to commentate.' are you kidding me? how can you not know enough to support women priests? what is there to know? does he not know enough intelligent, capable women who can do the job just as well if not better than men? either you believe that women can be priests or they shouldn't, there really isn't any grey area. later in the evening we spent a good 2 hours debating abortion. he said that women do not have rights to their bodies and questions where this 'right' comes from. apparently control over my own body belongs in the hands of wealthy, white, males in washington. after that topic cooled down, he mentioned that his girlfriend called him disgusting and he said he told her 'wow, that's a big word for a 6 year old.' what an asshole. this is exactly the type of person i can't stand. when will they get a clue that their ideology is severely detrimental to more than half the world's population?