LIFE UPDATE...oh, and maybe a monster or two

Well, I've been up in Northern California for about a month and half now, and grad school is going pretty well. I'm at the California College of the Arts in the writing program, and it really is amazing. I've made a cool group of friends, the campus itself is really neat, and I've been going out and exploring Oakland and San Francisco as much as I can manage. I've gotten to do some pretty damn cool things as well. So far the most brag-worthy were being in a Zoe Boekbinder music video, getting to be a volunteer for a Mythbusters experiment, sitting in the front row of a Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) reading, and meeting Tim Schafer (creator of such games as Psychonauts and Brutal Legend) at APE. THE BAY AREA IS REALLY COOL, YOU GUYS.

 

My room! Or, most of it, at least.

No big deal, just the Mythbusters and I...

I'm also really excited about Joshua coming to visit next weekend. That whole Kentucky thing really didn't work out, so he's back in Wisconsin, working and hoping to be in his own apartment by next month. It's been five months since we last saw each other, which is driving me (and him) completely nuts, so I'm so happy I finally get to see him. Not ever going this long without being around him again...ugh. I'll be spending my winter break with him, too, which I'm really looking forward to (you know, except for that whole freezing-in-the-snow part...haha).

I've been trying to get some sewing done while settling in as well, and there are a couple of new things in the shop, including a monster hood and what I hope is the first in a series of "art school" monsters. In addition to my writing classes, I'm taking a textiles class called Franken Fabrics. Basically we're using unconventional methods to manipulate fabrics in interesting ways, and it's completely awesome. The first thing we learned was how to rust dye fabric, and I decided to make a monster out of some of what I had from that...

I think these were my first pieces, and they are definitely what I used to make the guy below

Rust-dyed monster!

Our first project was to make a tissue box cover...haha. He just wanted to prove that some of the weird stuff he was teaching us could have practical/commercial applications as well, so I used some rusted fabric and image transfer techniques to make this:

I'll try to get a better picture, but you get the idea

So yeah! That's a little bit of a glimpse into what's been going on with me...Hopefully I'll be updating again soon with some new monsters =)