Im bad at drawing

     As much as I value positivity lately this has been a great place for me to vent on stuff that I dislike/want to change. So let's continue with my thoughts on drawing.

      When I was a little kid I drew all the time. I really liked drawing trees . There are straight parts and curvy parts and textured leaves and bark. You can add animals and grass and roots. I just loved drawing trees. I had little interest in drawing faces and people because symmetry is hard and so is drawing representationally. I drew for my own joy with no intention in mind. As I got older I had less time to draw and my style evolved to suit  the time I had avaliable. I got into drawing patterns and really graphic work. I also became more aware of the commercial side of art.

     My mom is a graphic designer so I knew about that side of art. To my mothers dismay I also became more aware of tattoos and the "alternative" side of commercial art. However I was still not a fan of representational and realistic drawing it did not come easy for me and struggling with it took the fun out of it. 

     I remember when I applied to fashion/art schools a lot of places wanted fashion illustrations. I absolutely hated drawing them there were different rules for fashion illustration and I had to draw faces which were the worst. It would take me hours just to do the heads.

     Even when if was accepted and in the department I struggled. I could make the garments, easy. Drawing them was a different story.

     What I failed to realize was that fashion illustration is just that, illustration. I had always tried to make my drawings from photographs of my work combined with photos of models. This made for weird proportions and things that were always a little off.

     At this point I began to dislike drawing.

    I went from a place where there were a few kids who were good at drawing, my high school. To a place where a knowledge of drawing and art was a pre requisite, and some people had come from highs schools where art was considered far more important than math. Very much unlike my school, that had an engineering program. Anyway I was suddenly a goldfish  in an ocean of sharks who, to me seemed like they could all sell their  proverbial doodles for quite a pretty penny. It's one thing suck at one thing as much as the rest of your communitiy does, but it's another to feel like the only one.

     So I took an illustration class, it was really intimidating. Even beginning was filled with people who had an amazing gift and passion for illustration.i forced my self to keep drawing even though I didn't really like it. It's hard to be bad at something you want to be good at. It's harder to try to be better when it seems to come easy to everyone else.

 But I'm working on it. And maybe someday I'll be pretty good at it, and maybe then I'll enjoy it again.

A bit on Literature

 As a child I loved to read. Id stay up for hours reading. Books were always an adventure. I could forget about all my problems and things I needed to do and just dive into an adventure for a few hours.
It was so easy and it was exactly what I wanted.

But as I got older people started telling me what to read.

At first it was just a list that I had to pick a few books from. It wasn't my favorite thing abut at least some of my favorite authors had at least one title on the list I was supposed to read from. As I got older this list got smaller and smaller until it became assigned reading... ewww just ewww. The books, sorry I mean literature I had to read in high school was often mind numbingly boring, or just confusing. Like The Crucible for example...

First, its a play. So annoying to read, there's stage directions and dialogue is weird to read, its just much better as a performance. I don't hate reading plays I actually love Shakespeare especially his witty nonsensical comedies but thats another story. The Crucible is just a bunch of dumb girls lying to get attention, I know this sounds a lot like Mean Girls but it sucks a lot. Yeah, its supposed to be an allegory for McCarthyism but that means it should be read in a historical context, like a social science class, not Honors English. We spent months talking about symbolism, irony, allegory, tone instead of the thinly veiled subtext, literary representations of historical figures and its presence on banned books list, any thing banned is always better...

The Scarlett Letter also sucks. Its written in middle english, not quite Shakespere, not quite normal english, and it requires a dictionary every third paragraph. Also hanging someone for cheating is ridiculous punishment, you cant pick your parents so why all the hatin' on Pearl, and I'm sooo glad I'm not a character in this story there is no happy ending for anyone.

This cycle of icky forced reading was real real bad in high school. There were a few gems, like The Jungle which is morbidly awesome, and accurate to the time. Wuthering Heights, Bronte girls know how to do sad love stores right! The BBC movie version is also awesome, Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, kill it, I haven't seen the Laurence Oliver version. I have learned to hate Dickens, too much moping and not enough doing, also enough with the foreshadowing, you have killed any and all surprises. More modern literature can be good, but when you use the structure of your novel as a part of the overall meaning you exclude those not well versed in literature from enjoying your book (heres to you, House of Leaves) And the worst book ever, ahem, Ida by Gertrude Stein, its worse than See Spot Run.

After many many years of being forced to read what some call, "classics," and "literature" while having to deeply analyze and deconstruct. My love of reading has extinguished itself to faint white coals. When I was younger I used to love book reports, and being pushed out of my fantasy/adventure novel comfort zone, but forced reading, bullshit analyzations, and irrelevant "literature" that only speaks to the trials of rich white males killed the book zealot in me long ago. Lately I've been trying to get back into reading, I tried to engulf my self in some literature. But now every time I read any fiction all I can think about is the archetypes, irony, imagery and themes rather than just getting sucked up into someones dream world. But I'm curious does anyone actually enjoy talking about literary devices used in novels? Or is it just something that professors do that sucks the joy out of books?

Today in Class...

 Done?

Works in progress...

Not my shoe, but it is my drawing.

Im back: Not that I ever left...

So I haven't posted anything on here in several months.

Its not that I haven't written anything, i've written plenty. But its not all happy fluffy stuff ready for the world.

I write a lot, on a bi weekly basis I spend time recording my thoughts and reflections. I write a lot about my childhood. I write about my family and my artwork. Sometimes I write about my relationships and world events. But mostly about my childhood, and I don't post it.

I keep it in the "vault" as a professor of mine would say...

Its not that I'm ashamed of my words, Its just that, how do you know when it is time to let things go. I was a happy kid I guess. I know there are millions of children who had much worse childhoods than me. And maybe thats why I don't post it. Maybe I feel like I'm whining. But I always tell people,

No matter what your feelings are they are valid

but then I have always had a hard time telling people how I feel. Logically, feelings are irrelevant I tell my self, especially when I have to make tough decisions. But my job has tuned me in to the real world fact that feelings are not irrelevant. Feelings start revolutions and they are able to unite people who have nothing else in common. Feelings make people travel thousands of miles to rebuild the homes of strangers, feelings are what push people to enter into life threatening careers. As essential as feelings are to the human condition, I'm still bad at them. I ruin things because I have such a hard time vocalizing them. Thats what a lot of my art is about to me. Its about pent up feelings and words that logic has shunned away.  Maybe thats why I don't share all of my writing. A part of me says that acknowledging those feelings will not force a positive outcome so logically its not worth the effort.

But if thats true why do I write them down. They are not the kinds of stories id ever read to any future children. They don't really express any universal truism that will shatter the current process of thought, if they were id share them. But they do express how I feel about times in my my life that were particularly painful and difficult for me. And whats the point in sharing that. I mean I'm not a comedy writer nobody reads this for laughs. But don't you just hate reading depressing things.

Sure Schindler's List was depressing, but at least there was an ultimate greater good served. Like Water For Chocolate is really sad too but all is well at the end. Maybe im just waiting for my happy ending, as much of a cliche as that is. Maybe I'm just waiting for a time in my life when I can look back and see how my experiences shaped me into the glowing example of human triumph and success. I might just be waiting for the day when I can talk about such experiences and not feel like I'm whining despite my privilege. Or I just don't think its worth the social recoil i'd get, humph whatever... we'll all just have to wait and see.

Thoughts

Sometimes to be true to our hearts we must ignore our heads.

My Life as a Cat Slave

How I know its time to go to bed.

1. One of my cats scratches at the door, usually the little one who likes to sleep with me whom I call Kitty Princess.
2. She makes the rounds then sits at the foot of my chair and meows until I put her on my lap.
3. I hit up the ususals of my internet browsing, email, Facebook, National Geographic, then the never ending Tumblr. 
4. After 20-30 minutes of that its off of my lap then a flurry of fur sprints to the bathroom where I follow and confirm that there is food and water as I had confirmed for her a few hours earlier.
5. While she munches I brush my teeth wash my face and glasses then get into bed.
6. Just as I am falling asleep she leaps up onto my chest. 
7. Purring loudly for the next few hours she stays there and keeps me quite toasty.

How I wake up.

1. Little Kitty Princess as I call her, sleeps peacefully on my chest.
2. One of my other cats, usually the one my mom calls Blackie scratches on the screen outside my door, at 2 am.
3. She proceeds to do this until I let her in, Blackie takes about 5 tv minutes to make the three foot trip. She wants to look out for the other cat Big Whiney as she will hit her in the face if she can.
4. Once she is in I can go back to sleep, for a while.
5. 20 minutes later Kitty Princess decides once again I am the optimum sleeping perch and I am awoken by a pounce on the chest.
6. Then my mom wakes me up at 9 with "Why are you still in bed," with Kitty Princess still sleeping on my chest...

ehh its vacation im not going to complain that much...

Coulda Shoulda, Happy I didn't. I

In less than 36 hours I will go home for two months.

The last time I went home was for 10 days for Christmas, and the time before that was the Christmas before that.

Needless to say I am excited.

This post was originally about how much I love my family and how going home is important no matter how old you are or how long you have been away, but we have all seen enough bad Christmas movies that tell that  tale.

No this is about the future that wasnt.

Three years ago I got a letter.

The type of letter that makes or breaks lives, a college acceptance letter.

When I applied for college I got all my application fees waived so I applied to every school I could, I applied to my local Sac State, all the UC's, and a bunch of art schools. How that happened can be read here.

And like hundreds of thousands of students around the globe I applied to the Ivy league. Its kinda one of those things you do just because every one else does, not actually because you think it will amount to any thing, its like asking the hottest girl in school out, if she says no its no, but if she says yes ohhh you could be in for something most only dream of.

Well I applied along with other members of my class, and then promptly forgot about it.

But someone else didnt.

Crit Week

crit week is killing me...

 I haven't slept this little since I left the department,
     but I haven been sleeping because Ive been working on stuff down in the fashion department...

Its a vicious cycle.

Be a perfectionist-
     get no sleep making things perfect.

Go to bed and live with less than perfect work-
     get no satisfying sleep due to worrying about sloppiness...

So id rather not sleep and be perfect, or try to be perfect because perfectionism is an unfortunate illusion.

Ah I cant wait to finish my shoes and go to sleep.

Now

I want to go to the forrest.
I want to sleep among wooden giants.
I want to see the stars,
 to see the moon,
 and the planets,

To escape the city, just for a night just for a moment.

Just to get away from the everlasting hum of fluorescent bulbs
 to escape the hard unforgiving concrete that surrounds me
 to inhale and smell the earths soft breath

to finally release the tension
set betwixt my shoulder blades

I want to open my eyes and see stars not concrete

I want to inhale the moon, suck up the sea and lay on the rivers lonely coast
to shed the iron flakes that have settled where sunshine once rose, to awaken to a day on a lawn of freshly borne stones still warm from the womb of the earth

Yet here lay in my bed trapped by 17 floors of pure civilization

Untitled

Sometimes I cant speak.
I can't say what I want. Im thinking the words, they are there in my throat, but I wont let them out. I sit silently listening to you. Im thinking of responses but trapping them in my throat and swallowing them down. You talk to me, telling me your hopes and dreams, but I swallow mine.

I sometimes feel words cannot explain me. I am an intangible catatharsis of self that can only be spoken in a language I don't yet know. So I swallow my words.

As you open your self up to me your words fill my pores, and all I want to do is to reassure you and tell you I feel the same way but words don't let me express my feelings.

I know I need time to meditate on your expressions of self, to find time to discover the language that fits the gap between your words and my feelings. I wish I could just use the words in my head but they don't fully convey the feelings in my soul. I need to find new ones to fit the gap.

So if I don't reply its not that I don't care, Its that I care so much I must explore words to find the perfect language of the birds, to find the words to bridge the gap.

I think I once knew this language, but those who came before you drained it from my self. So I'm left to find something new.

I want to hold your hands and have you know, and have every thing fall into place, but the world doesn't work like that.

Even if it did, everything would fall through the gaps.

So it may take me a while but give me time and eventually Ill find the words and in return maybe you will let me fill you, the way you fill me.

Religion and Food Part III

      I also found my self spending my evenings cooking more and more elaborate dishes. I went from watching Meet Joe Black and eating Mac n' Cheese, to watching the Dalai Lama speak on TED and cooking roast chicken with glazed sweet potatoes and fresh lemonade. I remember watching one of his talks and wishing one of my friends from home would call, and hearing him say "if we all just treated each other the way we want to be treated the world would be a much better place" or something to that effect.
     After hearing that I wondered why don't we apply that idea to more of our lives? Why do we only think of that when we some one who is homeless, or when we see benefit programs to support people in a disaster situation. Why don't we apply that when we are waiting for someone to call, why don't we apply that when we see a friend who you can tell wants to say something but can't. Why don't we empower our selves to call, why don't we tell our friends I can see you want to say something, whatever it is I care about you and always will. Why do we let cultural manners dictate how we conduct our feelings and how we function among others. We don't determine what station we are born into, why discriminate those who were born a different race, nationality, or ability. We don't like being discriminated against why discriminate others.

     I let that moment, the one where I was sitting in my tiny apartment window ledge huddled over a plate of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, to be my epiphany.

     I took it upon my self to let that simple phase be my guiding light:
   
Treat others how you want to be treated

     This simple phase can be applied to everything from helping those in need, to taking a shift for a coworker, to simple things that can make someones day; like buying the meal for the person behind you in the drive through, spending the day watching movies with a sick friend, calling some one you haven't heard from in months, accepting the fact that people make mistakes and letting things go, buying an unexpected gift for a friend or even a stranger.

     While the phrase is simple the idea can be difficult. Sometimes I can't believe the things that people do and I want to get so very very angry, but I remember how hard it is to take responsibility for your mistakes and I let go, if my anger and work towards a solution I can put my energy to better use.

     While this is an idea expressed in Buddhism its only one of the many views. However I am not a true Buddhist. Im not exactly ok with the whole reincarnation idea, I think there is something after death, but Im not sure if its heaven. But the levels to enlightenment thing Buddhists believe in is a little hard to believe in. I believe more in the teachings of the Dalai Lama than Buddhism. He has a really good talk about all paths to god which I am a believer in. I don't care what you believe in, whether it is science, or islam or paganism, or whatever, as long as you strive to do good without hurting others and allow others to believe in whatever they want its good with me.

      So once a week when some people take time out to to to church, or temple or pray with their families, I sit in my apartment cook something delicious and I feed my soul as well as my body. I sit, enjoy the food I am lucky to have, and dedicate an hour or so to fill my soul with positivity. It might be a TED talk or a sermon streaming from the Dalai Lama, an empowering documentary, a youtube clip, whatever. Its not always religious, but it always presents a new perspective or idea.

     So once I fed my soul as a result of feeding my body, but I have come to a place where I feeding my body has just become part of the ritual of feeding my soul.

Religion and Food Part II

     When I first left home for college I was so excited. Within hours I had best friends and I was totally ready for the freedom of it all and leaving Cali behind for a new adventure. My freshman year was great. I had good friends, great professors, easy classes, and no responsibilities.

     But the one thing I knew I wanted at the end of it all was to be an RA. I had a great RA he was really aware of the students on his floor and took time to get to know us as people. I wanted to be able to open up and be real with people the way he was with us. So I applied, and I didn't get it.

     I was crushed. But I knew the worst thing a person can tell you is No. But, no is just a yes if you are patient. So I looked at my options and I applied to be a summer RA. I got the job but that meant staying the whole summer in Chicago and no seeing any of my friends or family.

     The summer was really hard on me I had fun but I ached for the people I loved and hadn't seen. I felt lost without them. Most of my new college friends left and my friends from home were home so it was just me. There were other summer RA's and we bonded and became friends but there was still ample time for me to sit and wallow in my loneliness.

     I became very depressed. When I am sad and depressed there are only two things that make me happy, good food and good movies. So naturally I watched hundreds of hours of Netflix. I some how stumbled upon this fabulous documentary about the Dalai Lama. It was fascinating. It told the story of his life how he was plucked from childhood to be a living god, and how he used his powers to speak to the world on equality, and morals.
   
     He taught the ideas of Buddhism and how the main world religions have very similar ethical codes, but are taught in different ways. This was a revelation for me.

     My main issue with Christianity was all the ideas veiled in stories, and how it claimed to be the reason for meaning in the world. After more research on the Dalai Lama I learned more about Buddhism the pillars, and the stories. I am not a fan of all of these ethical stories, every religion has them, but id rather the message be straight up, why hide the fact that people should treat each other with fairness and love, why do we need to hide that?

Religion and Food Part I

     When I was a little kid I used to drive for 45 minutes on Sunday with my mom to go to church.
My sister my mom and I would be dressed and out the door so we could drive downtown and sit in the pews with my grandparents for hours and hear these old people tell stories in sing songey voices then eat these weird little pieces of bread.
     We weren't Catholic as people often assumed if ever mentioned these never ending services, we were Episcopalian, which Johathan Rhys Meyers has explained to me through The Tudors is very similar but very different. Same beliefs and all, but women can be priests, it doesn't matter who you love aka being gay is ok, no nuns or monks, divorce is more acceptable, and various other changes.
     As a child I didn't really listen to all the speeches, I preferred to color. Sunday School wasn't really my thing either. I mostly went for the company, because I liked buying fancy clothes to wear to church, and the food.
     Almost always after church we would go to lunch with my grandpa and my grandma. I really liked going out to eat and I liked being with my grandpa and grandma, so as a kid I mostly went to church for the food.
     As I got older I didn't have time to spend 7 hours every week at church and lunch, or chunch if you want to call it that. And I began to be bored with coloring and sometimes I found my self actually listening to the old people in the front talking. I agreed with some of it, I really liked when we all shook hands and said, "Peace be with you" and in reply heard, "And also with you" but there were parts I didn't get. Like why we needed elaborate stories about cutting babies in half to learn compromise. And stories of miracles and fabulous feats to teach ethics, and whether or not we are supposed to take these stories as fact. Why did ideas of compassion, compromise, friendship, and empathy need to be veiled with strange tales for them to matter to people.

     As I got older I became disillusioned with the christian faith, I did not believe in the spirit in the sky, and there was no where to go when you died. I did not see any thing other than just ending.

     But it became hard to believe in nothing.

Questions that lead to Questions Part I

     So ive been doing this project for a class where I write down all of the questions that come to my mind. Im only a few days in but I already see trends.
     Most of my questions are about every day stuff, what to wear, what to eat, do I really need to bring that to class. But a lot of the rest are reflective questions. That have popped up going through old friends Facebook accounts or categorizing the 6000 photos I recently uploaded. Questions like:
        What happened to us?
        Why haven't we talked in years?
        Where are you now?
         I wonder if you remember the time when we:
                         fell asleep in class on each others shoulders,
                         wore matching denim tuxedos,
                         had a food fight in the kitchen,
                         played dress up with your moms clothes,
                         spent all of our free time building forts and wooden cars,
                         showed me the hand saw you keep under your bed for "emergencies",
                         would sing at the top of our lungs over the radio,
                         went skinny dipping in the pacific in the middle of the day at a public beach,
                         had a piggyback contest on the hills of San Francisco,
                         had our first kiss during media class,
                         painted a mural for class,
                         would race down the hill to the swing set after lunch,
                         thought that this stump was the coolest thing,
                         played with the wooden swords I made us,
                         tried to make our own legos with hot glue,
                         made tons of "money" on Business Day,
                         woke up in your bathtub with tons of people in your house that neither of us knew,
                         got locked in the bathroom together and the janitor had to take the hinges off the door,
                         spent an entire class period using Photo Booth on my computer rather than class,
                         taught "spoons" to the class and played for the entire rest of the day
                         learned what our teachers middle name was,
                         tried to get our favorite substitute to sign our year books,
                         bought a fancy saw to make projects from a book,
                         almost got lost less than a mile a way from my house,
                         walked from my house to yours just because,
                         rode our bikes to Grandpa's house without telling anyone,
                         went on self esteem walks,
                         did crazy makeup and photo shoots,
                         made bad decisions on a field trip to a mormon college.
                         shotguned energy drinks with our teacher,
                         were eating apples and were warned about finding half a worm in it,
                         went wandering around Sac State looking for a party,
                         danced around the music room instead of homework or studying,
                     
                This list is going to get a lot longer, but Ive realized why my work is so nostalgic and spiritual. Because each one of these moments has stuck in me as a moment of love. A moment to be cherished, because it will never be the same. No matter how things turn out in the end if we're lucky we will still have our memories we will still be able to think back on a time where our biggest worry was if thrifty would have my favorite flavor and when the new episode of Star Trek Enterprise was on. We often don't realize the impact simple everyday moment have on us, some of my best work comes from memories of simple things, like ice cream. And even some of the things others think that I would want to forget, Ive come to realize good or bad they happened and as far as I know you can't change the past so why let them consume you why feel guilty why feel regret. Things happen people change but in the moment they seem like good ideas so hold on to that keep the love once felt, the joy in your heart, the tingly feeling on your skin, the wonder that filled your eyes, keep the mist in your hair, and the beauty in the fog. Keep the memories.

The Ends and Beginnings

When I was about three years old I saw a t.v. show that would change my life forever. I was watching a marathon of Mr. Rodgers with my Grandpa. When suddenly the smiley old man with a fondness for puppets and zip up sweaters was replaced by a man with sandy blonde hair and tiny santa-like glasses. It was Rick Steve’s Europe and he was visiting Paris. I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap with my eyes glued to the screen.

He went to Notre Dame, scaled the steps of Montmarte, walked the Champs-Élysées, went on Le Grande Roue, all of the things you are supposed to do in Paris and few more. But of all the things in Paris it was the Louvre that enchanted me. Its history as a royal palace, its strange pyramid in the courtyard, but most of all Winged Victory. How could something with out a face or arms be so beautiful and so elegantly capture movement. I think my child self resolved that it must have been an unfortunate angel who fell in the path of Medusa and was turned to stone, in my mind there was no way something like that could have been made by a human. In any case this city captured me in such a way that at a very young age I knew that I would go to Paris someday. It was not a mater of if but to me I saw it as something that was going to happen, someday I knew I would be walking the banks of the Seine with Notre Dame on the horizon. Even at the young age of three I would tell people that I was going to Paris, it was just a matter of  time.

It was afternoons like that one spent at my grandparents house watching PBS shows, building blanket forts, making dolls out of socks with my grandma, or racing my sister to the lone swing that hung from the largest Pecan tree this side off the Pecos river. That I miss the most from my childhood. I spent so much time with my grandparents by the time I was in kindergarden I had picked up a little bit of their Texas accent.

I remember one day during the dreaded reading group time, which I hated because I already knew how to read, this ornery little kid called me out for saying y’all in front of the whole class. It was incidents like this that made me dislike the people at my school, I enjoyed learning, I just was not so hot on all the kids there, I continued to visit my Papa and Grandma every day and I further retreated into their love. The children in my class thought it was silly that I was going on trip “someday” they were very set on making me feel that I was very odd. At that age I didn’t know anything else that I might want as a grown up, I just knew that someday I would go to Paris.

After school and during vacations and summer I stayed with my grandparents while both my parents worked.  My sister and I would do puzzles with my grandparents, help them in their acre with raking and cleaning up after their fruit trees an garden. In the mornings when my mom would drop us off I would help my grandpa. I would go into his room and help him button his shirt, put shaving cream on his face, help him shave and get his dentures for him from their glass.  Then we would sit down for breakfast. By that time my grandma and my sister would have ate already and would be in the yard working, but Papa and I would always spend our mornings together.

My Papa kept needing more and more help from me in the mornings, eventually I wasn’t enough help for him. I knew that he had cancer, but at the age of seven I just thought It was something that all old people got. First my dad and I had to make all theses ramps for him and his walker which was decorated with every sticker I could get my hands on. Then It was a shower chair and a wheel chair. Next was a hospital bed, then meals in bed, oxygen and a nurse. One day my dad came to pick me up from school early, I thought it was for my sisters Open House but he took me to my Grandparents house where my sister and my Aunt Sherry and my Grandma were and they told me he was gone. I remember going into his room but all I remember seeing are his skinny long feet touching the foot of his bed, his closet open reveling the classic Members Only jacket he always wore, and the owl wind chime that hung from a corner of his room. I remember feeling really sad and crying for hour

When my grandma passed away my junior year of high school, the woman who took care of me as a little kid, the woman who taught me to sew the woman who kept my papa’s memories alive by telling his stories through her tears, and so many other things.  Ironically my grandmas passing allowed me to complete the one thing I had always known, that I needed to go to Paris. She left me enough money to fund me to go on a class exchange program to France for a month.

   Its funny how things end up how our beginning tie our end, how falling in love with an idea in an orange chair can land you swimming in the Mediterranean sea with the taste of salt tingling your skin and the sun illuminating your oldest dream. I was so so sad when she passed,  I still am, but at least now there is a hope that  somehow they will find each other in the heaven they so deeply believed in.

How to surf the web effectively

The above statement is an impossibility for most people, especially when it comes to researching things for a report or paper on something you don't give a shit about, (im talking to you art history papers...)

The simple answer no one wants to hear is don't.

If it doesn't interest you don't bother. Otherwise you will just end up watching Tina Fey's rant about twitter on hulu...or on facebook playing farmville so you can finally show up all the cheerleaders you secretly hated in highschool, you know they'll be jealous the unicorn cow, if only you can get it to hatch...or indulging whatever your guilty pleasure youtube search is.

The best defense is a good offense.

So before you are assigned to write about your favorite mathematical principal, do a little pregameing, a google here a click there and you end up watching a TED talk about origami, the cool kids and nerds will be impressed and you avoid a mass suicide inducing powerpoint about the amazing power of proofs...
The stuff I hate researching can be improved by adding the phrase "worst of" to it, it always makes what im really looking for much less awful:
Airports
Online Shopping-actually a very entertaining blog
or looking up youtube videos on the subject.

In short if you are actually trying to research something, go to a library and pick up a book. The web may have started as a place store information, but has ended up as a place to waste time

Portfolio Photos

So lately theres been some talk of how Instagram photos can be used by Facebook for profit...

I am not a member of the smart phone bionic sector of our population with a phones that take photos, run programs, or do anything other than call or occasionally text.

I dont even have Instagram...

But I do use Facebook... and despite the fact that I actually read the disclosure statements that most of the population clicks through. I am not a lawyer or a translator of legal jargon but I have a healthy skepticism of the word free...and of people to credit you and not steal your ideas for profit.

So rather than post my photos on facebook, I will now post them here. I understand that this is still the internet and people can still steal my photos here, but at least its on my own web page, and if your nice you will read the Creative Commons license at the bottom and respect it. If you want to use my photos Im glad you like them ask first please and as an artist I understand the need to manipulate and translate the world as you see fit, so be free and enjoy my perspective of my world, I hope you see the beauty as I do.