my life as blogged in Art 250

Had a good weekend. My jammed finger I think is getting better. Under recent advisement of Matt Kenyon, my art teacher, I may go get it checked out. It is bruised all the way to the palm and looks kinda nasty...Matt said that he had a friend who had a similar accident and that he never went to the doctor because he could still use his hand and all that, just like me, then after some time had to have exploritory surgery becuase there were broken bones in there and if he would have not had the surgery then he would have lost all use of his hand. I still dont think that mine is that serious but Ill go get it checked pretty soon. I had a good idea for some art projects this weekend. I think Im going to use the Real World and deconstruct it and put it back together using only the negative statements that people say like "I hate this" or "Im so lonely" ect and call it the Real World. I think that it will be kinda nice. I think that I had some other cool ideas dealing with McDonalds menues and stuff like that for my large format class that I think will be kinda cool. Also today a buddy Wes asked me if I would try to design some skateboard deck designs. That should be cool too.

Didnt blog in art class today so I figured Id do it while I was at work...this way I still get it done and get paid for it. My finger is jammed really good and its kinda uncomfortable to type. I was trying to catch a football last night during half time of our frisbee game and I just jammed the crap out of my finger. Its pretty bruised up and nasty looking. I think that it will be good by monday though. Thats when our next and possibly last game is. We're in the playoffs but I think that our playoff stint will be short-lived because we are playing the #1 seed team...oh well just a game...Im amazed that we did as well as we did.
Today in class I finished my Marlboro Man piece where I am the marlboro man. I think that it looks pretty nice...dont know if its 100% believable, maybe so. I also made the man have a giant hat and it was kinda cool. In my other class I think that my coloring book is coming along pretty well. I still need to get more solid on the narrative then I think that I can proably get finished in a few weeks. Im excited about printing it.

Kinda dissapointed here lately with things in general. I still have been dragging, like not being able to get up when I want to and not getting stuff that I want to get done done. I started planning out my time and so maybe I can get back on top of things, we'll see. We did our second episode of the show and the more I think about that the more ideas I get for segments and things like that so hopefully it will keep getting better. We put up the big sign of our faces in the caf. One of the workers kinda got mad at allen about it and said that we took up the whole board...oh well it's cooler than the majority of the crap that is put up there.
I also got a cool idea for a project either the thing for this class where I put myself into a well known image or I may use it for video. I want to take scenes from Rocky IV and take the russian guy out and put myself in there. So rather than America against russia...it will be America agianst itself...or corperate america against its middle class...lots of cool ideas no real direction though.

Went to Sidewalk Film Festival this weekend. I was on some levels pleased with the number of people that made films in the Birmingham area but on another level I was kinda dissapointed with the quality of stuff that I saw. Some was pretty good...I liked Josh Tubbs stuff, Livin' to Pull. It wasnt the most well done documentary that Id ever seen but it had such a sincerity to it and the content just made it cool so I really liked it. The other film that I saw that impressed me was Home Sick...it was probably the bloodiest movie that I'd ever seen...but other than blood and what I though was really good camera work and scene composition there wasnt much there. The story was kind of lame and the acting was ok, not the greatest but good. Other than that I didnt do a whole lot this weekend hung out with Stephen a good bit, always fun. We started thinking about Double Clutch football. Hopefully will be a bit of a redemption from last year. I think Im going to recruit pretty hard so we'll get some atheletes. I know it really isnt the best motivation but I really want to see the fraternity teams pissed at us for winning. I think the Pride of Scotland has done a pretty good job at throwing a wrench into the frat pride in intramurals hopefully that will carry over to football.

This weekend I plan on going to sidewalk film festival. Im pretty pumped about going to see it. I think that it will be good for me to go see what other folks are doing with video. I wish I had gotten some of my stuff done in time to enter the thing.

Im one blog behind for the requirements for the class so I hope to get two done today. I slept pretty late today and dont feel too productive. I still feel like Im dragging my feet in most of the stuff that Im doing. I talked to Brian Phillips today and he had a lot of good advice for me. I just hope for once that I can finally take all the good stuff that I hear and put into action. There is so much stuff that I want to see happen this semester but Im really not going after it. I did however, get all the computers on my hall cleaned from that stupid virus...so in essence I dont feel like Im really doing my job but I do computer services very well.

Friday night I went to the Art Walk in Birmingham. There was some good stuff there but all in all I wasnt too impressed. I really liked this one guys stuff from Birmingham Southern. He did water color work and it was pretty in credible. Other than him I only really liked one other guy who had some nice photo stuff. It was I guess about 1 to 2 feet tall at most and 7 or 8 long. He had entire streets from Birmingham with the people out in front of thier houses and stuff like that. It was cool, reminded me of Harrell Fletcher's work like "These fine People" and some of his other public instilation stuff.
Saturday night I went to the Alabama game in Tuscalloosa. It was ok but honestly didnt get a great thrill from it. I did like going and hanging out with they guys that I went there with but could really care less about going to another game. Sunday was great went to church and then met with Brian and the other guys. Then I came up to the lab and worked on some stuff. I suppose thats about it.

Just a quick one before I get to bed. Stephen and I have been working on our first 250 project. Its three self portraits. I really dont know if I like the one that Ive been working on but I really like the one that Im working on in my room. Did some cool stuff this weekend, write about it tomorrow...too tired now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get up early in the morning so I can start my day well. I have been really lazy and un disciplined. Laura and I talked on the way back from church tonite about me being undisciplined and stuff and she asked me some questions about why I thought that I was...told her that I thought that it was because I was afraid if I ever began being more disciplined then I would lose the carefree-ness that makes me the guy that I am...but the more that I think about it, more discipline would be nothing but an asset to me.

Just found out that Jonny Cash, and Jack Writter both died, or at least thats what one guy in the class has said. Wonder if that should effect me in any way? I suppose it makes me think a little but sadly not enought. Yesterday was Sept. 11th. Didnt really think too much about that either, other than the fact that Im working on several images from the trade center terrorism attack for an art project. I also started working on gathering video for my video class. Since it was Sept. 11th and I have been working on stuff like that for some of my other work and I recorded some episodes of American Chopper the tv show where the father and son build motorcycles. They built a tribute bike to the 343 Firedepartment in NY city. They even included a piece of the world trade center in the bike. It was kind of funny and rediculous to me at first but then I started thinking more about it and these guys were really genuine and as Paul Jr. (the guy that built the bike) researched to build the bike he was forced to deal with the subject more and then the end of the project was kind of like a close to it for him. I really could associate with how he was feeling to some degree because of my work with researching and dealing with the images for my coloring book that Im doing for some of the work that Im doing.

Showed up to class late cause I was helping Doss do the video for the Campus Outreach meeting tonite. Should be really cool. Didnt get to eat lunch though. I just hope that the meetings go well and that everyone leaves challenged. I have to say that already this semester is getting away from me. I havent really had control of my life, or at least I dont feel that way. It seems like my schedule dictates what Im doing, I really dont like that. I hope to really soon get a hold on things. Start making good stuff in my art classes and get into some kind of normal swing of things so that I can dictate what Im doing when Im doing it not so much the schedule that I exist in.
Played intramurals last night and we won. It was one of my only intramural victories in college history. I think that we have a great team this year though. I threw one touchdown and caught one touchdown. We won I think 11 to 4. Another game tonite if we play I seriously doubt that we'll win. Oh well such is life win some lose some...after all frisbee is just a game.

Had a cool weekend. Went out painting with some friends. It was actually my first time and it was a ton of fun so I think I'll start going more often. I hope that as I go I get better or at least come up with better stuff to paint. I did get some good ideas for jamming McDonalds but for legal reasons I probably shouldnt write them in here. Also went up to Birmingham to hang out some Friday night and try to meet some people and talk with them. We ate at this hole in the wall place called Fat Sams. Man, it was absolutly great, one of the best sandwiches Ive ever had. The owner worked there too. He was actually the only guy who was working there. He came out and talked to us while we ate, I guess because we were the only people there so he didnt have to do a whole lot of work, but at any rate he was really genuine guy. We could tell that he wasnt from Alabama because he was actually nice and would joke around with us. We started talking with him and come to find out he was from San Francisco. We asked how he ended up in Birmingham and he said, "Cocaine." I was like wow finally someone who isnt afraid to be honest and it was great. He told us about how he was in a band called Sin and that they opened up for Warrent in the 80's...kind of a long story but it was fun to hear. Also we asked what he though about Alabama and he said that the main thing that he didnt like was the "whole black and white thing" I suppose racisim is still really prevelant here. He said that he could kind of just sense it and he hated that about being here. All in all a really great guy, but the thing that I remember most about him was that he wasnt trying to hide anything about himself. He knew he had made a lot of mistakes but it didnt matter too much to him now. He was past it and there was no reason to put up fronts. I wish that more people were like Fat Sam, including me.

Last night I was thinking a lot more about the needs of the people around me (as concerns people wasting their lives on account of not understanding truth) as well as the needs of some of my friends who have come to me for looking for encouragement in their spiritual walk. The more that I though about that the more I saw the two coming together. I think that I can help facilitate spiritual growth of friends of mine who have asked me for help by helping the guys that I see who are, though possibly unknowingly, are searching for satisfaction with their lives but are falling short because of not knowing/understanding truth. I think that what I want to do is to get together a group of people together who want to investigate truth and then let the guys who have approached me wanting to grow lead the discussions as well as smaller groups from the large group. To get to this point I just kept thinking about my time in Brasil and how those discussions panned out...also I have been editing the video that I took over there and time and time again the students from Viçosa say that their lives changed because they started to think. They say that thier investigation of the truth led to a change in thier lives. Thats what I want to see. And I also remembered someone once saying that to grow in spiritual disciplines (prayer, study, ect.) then rather than learn about each of those by reading books or whatever, to get involved in something bigger than you that you cant control the results of, i.e. ministry, and in this case leading people in an investigation of the truth trusting that the truth will stand up to all questions and then trusting truth to change lives. Then when one is involved in something like that they will grow to see the value of the disciplines and by default have a greater desire to practice them. We'll see how it all pans out.

Haven't really done a lot over the past few days. Started working on an assignment for my large format digital print class. I came up with an idea loosley based around Jon Haddock's work with historical events rendered video game style. I started thinking a little more about that idea of historical things rendered as items that children interact with and got the idea of making coloring books of recent events with US history, like 9/11 and terrorism and all that. I actually sat down and started working on it last night and though I orinally thought that it would be cool and somewhat humurous...the more that I delt with the images and searched for information the more I was forced to actually deal with the subject of terrorism and the fact that real people were effected. I guess when it all happend I just disconnected myself from it and looked at it from outside but now getting involved, be it in the weird way that it is, has really made me consider the issue and I suppose deal with it. I also started thinking more about the process of coloring and how thats what people do to remind themselves of simpler times when they are stressed and all that good stuff...I guess its considered to be theraputic in a lot of ways and I thought that that connection between the subject matter of the work and the materail itself was neat. Then my professor Matt also told me to think up a system of crayons and names for the crayon colors to correspond with buzz words that have come about because of the media coverage of all these events. I think that it will end up being a really nice project.