front page!

One of my photographs made it to the front page of Etsy earlier today! It's a print called Psyche and Cupid. I photographed Antonio Canova's famous sculpture when I was at the Louve.


click on that picture to see the listing in question! I was very surprised and very happy. I got about 800 views on it today- which was an enormous amount of people looking at a photograph that I took and I am very much shocked.

jokes from a 5 year old

knock knock
who's there?
banana!
banana who?
lamp!

knock knock
who's there?
pepperoni!
pepperoni who?
shallow water!

my cousin really likes knock knock jokes. try them on your friends!

edit: he can also quote star wars!

fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering. suffering leads to tangerines.

excuses

becoming busy as school starts again. you will probably not see a lot of me here in the next couple of weeks or months, as I get entangled with school work and applications and deadlines.

as per usual, I've been occupying my time with running and with art. both have been difficult as of late, but rewarding. running feels much more tangible lately, as I can measure my success in more exact ways. still, I'm spending a few hours per week in my studio class trying to do observed drawing and figuring out what my aesthetic actually is.

I took the SAT earlier today (for the final time?) and I am working on applying to colleges. this is my final year of high school and it makes me feel many different things all at once.

that is all for now. I am tired and a little sore.

I hope to be seeing you all soon.

binders: decorated.

used my cannibalized frankenstein, and two vintage basic readers.
school is almost upon us.

this is my way of doing some back to school preparation. this, and emptying out my backpack from last year. goodbye 13.5 pounds of recycling, goodbye!

summery things

a collage made with reproduced vintage photograph and images from national geographic books. hope that you're enjoying the beach weather!

reasons why you should see the deathly hallows part 2

also alternatively titled "reasons why I went to the midnight premier in full costume" and "reasons why I am probably going to be seeing this movie for the third time this weekend".

1. This is it.

This might officially mark the end of your childhood. After a decade of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, it's coming to an end. You've aged with them, grown with them, and now you're reaching a point where there isn't any more. Harry has the horcruxes that he needs to defeat. You've just got to try to make it through this last half of the last movie without bawling.

2. You didn't go to the midnight release of the book for nothing.

Four years ago, the summer after you turned 13, you pulled your first all nighter. Curled up in your living room, you read for six straight hours, still wearing the radish earrings that you made for your Luna Lovegood costume. If you don't watch this movie, this thirteen year old will bite you and then post some sub par angst poetry on deviantart.

3. Severus Snape. Alan Rickman. Really voluminous hair.

need I say more?

4. Remember that crush that you secretly had on Neville Longbottom?

Oh yeah, bet you didn't know that I knew about that one. (or was it really just me? because I had a huge crush on Neville Longbottom.) He takes the DA over, protects some first years, and then becomes a total babe. Bet you didn't see that one coming when he was lifted onto that chandelier in second year Defense Against the Dark Arts class by cornish pixies, did you?

5. You're in good company.

A group of twenty carolers came into my theater singing the mysterious ticking noise and songs from A Very Potter Musical. A girl twelve rows behind me was wearing the same pair of spectrospecs as I was. Harry Potter pick-up lines were being dropped like there was no tomorrow. (is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?) Best of all, this is a group that knows you. They're the socially awkward masses, and they won't judge you if you leave the theater just a little bit teary eyed.

So go ahead. go hide in a movie theater for a little while. watch harry potter. if you get hungry, just turn around. I'll be the one in the row behind you with a bag of red vines.

new places to find me!

oh my, would you look at that? what in the world could that be?

http://www.etsy.com/shop/pisthelimit

looks like a link to a bunch of pictures taken by some geeky kid. wonder who that is?

wire wontons

It's summer. The temperature isn't uncomfortable, but any movement provokes the humidity to crawl around you and cling to you with a ferocious and one-sided love. There's nothing much to do, and the idle warm days turn into idle warm nights until the passage of time is barely noticed at all. The sun has set, but the diffused glow shines down my driveway and casts lazy half shadows on the ground. I'm standing outside the back door of the house, watching the moths and the other indistinguishable insects fluttering around the timed light above my neighbor's door.

I've got a roll of wire screening in my hands along with a pair of scissors, and a sheet of twist ties between my lips. Standing in front of the tree, I look upwards and take count. This is the fifth summer after we have planted the Asian pear tree, and the pears have never ripened. Although it produces more than a hundred gumball sized fruit every year, squirrels tend to eat all of them once they exceed the size of a golf ball.

It's an easy enough job, I try to imagine. Outwitting a squirrel shouldn't be difficult. I cut a square from the netting and hold it around one of the dozen remaining fruits, trying to think of ways to secure it. A couple of bars run through my head of an anonymous song, and I hum it again and again and again. Folding and refolding the screen square, I do my best to cover the fruit. I settle for a familiar shape, bringing the corners of the square together to form a wonton. I secure it with twist ties and pinch the edges together.

As I begin working on the third wire screen cover, I let my mind wander. Although it's summer, I'm thinking about school, and about college. This is it, I think. There is an award winning college essay written in this moment, and I just have to figure it out. Here I am, standing in my driveway in the light from my kitchen window, and I am composing topic sentences and paragraph transitions that I will never actually use. I prick my fingers a couple of times on the loose wires, but I keep threading the twist ties and folding the screen.

Another metal dumpling down. Here's an analogy for my biracial identity. I bend down to the next fruit and get to work. As I'm folding the next square, I feel the bite of a mosquito on the back of my leg. If I swat at it now, I'd drop the little makeshift cage that I've spent the last five minutes forming, and I'd have to start over. I ignore the growing itch, and fold the wire into shape. Here's an example of my determination to finish the tasks that I've set. I stand back to look over the tree, and to admire my work. Tidy looking wontons hang at the edges of branches. It's a peculiar sight, but it'll do the job. If a squirrel can get through this, it deserves the fruit. Here's an example of my out of the box thinking.

It has been gradually growing darker, and soon it's too dark to see the top branches of the tree that I've been working on. I light up my wristwatch, and across the yard a firefly echoes my false bioluminescence. It's late, so I gather my things and go inside. I put the things back, the twine and the twist ties into the drawer, the scissors in the jar by the phone, and the spare wire screen back into the closet with the gardening gloves and gardening supplies. Whatever great admissions essay hides in this moment that has just passed, I will let it stay mostly hidden. After all, it's summer.

basically, I'm a hobbit

getting a summer job has been much more difficult than I imagined it would be. (what do you mean, you don't want to hire a teenager with no work experience for a month and a half?) no job means no money for food, so I've been forced to forage.


if you need me, you can probably find me in the shire. I'll be the one stealing carrots from farmer maggot, or finding mushrooms in the front yard.

what kind of magic spell to use?

it's midnight and my attempts at studying for my biology final has degenerated to a point where I am singing along to the Labyrinth soundtrack and making vague punnet squares to predict what the offspring produced by my future time-traveling escapades will look like.

save me from myself.




edit: there is a 50% chance that my child with david bowie would have blue eyes.

a good thing

I like fabric stores because they smell beautiful like possibility.

things that make you feel nostalgic

Photographs in unexpected places- between the pages of inherited books, in lockets, hiding under a mattress. Sliding into a dress that was once worn for a very important occasion. Hand-painted tiles. The slow moving air of uninhabited places. Seeing the smile of someone that you have cared about immensely. Replacing the laces on an old pair of shoes. Discovering a letter that you never got around to sending. Sandalwood soap.

birthday

I'm seventeen today.

Like most birthdays, it feels like I should be doing something wildly profound, or mildly profane. Instead, I think that I will go to the post office and then I will eat some cake.

Japanese Relief

You've undoubtedly heard about the current situation unfolding Japan following the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11th, 2011. Thousands of people have been declared dead, while thousands more are missing and unaccounted for. Homes have been destroyed and people are being evacuated. The nuclear crisis developing from the Fukushima Daiichi plant will undoubtedly have long lasting and tragic effects on Japan and on the world.

Amidst this tragedy, there are inspiring stories of heroism. Hideaki Akaiwa faced the 10 foot water wall armed with scuba gear to save his wife and mother, and has since returned to the flooded streets of his city every day to rescue survivors. The workers of the Fukushima Daiichi plant have willingly exposed themselves to extreme levels of radiation while they work to stabilize the reactors.

There might not be a lot that you can do or a lot that you can give, but that's no reason not to do anything. Do what you can.

Be wary of organizations, and do research before giving anything. In a situation like this there are people who will try to take advantage of compassion, so it is best to give money to organizations that have proven their effectiveness in previous cases. The Huffington Post has compiled a list of legitimate organizations that you can donate to, including but not limited to Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross, and Save the Children.

If you're interested in getting something for your donations, you can find goods on Etsy that are designated for Japanese relief. Large percentages of the profits for these items are being sent to charities.

When you're unable to make significant monetary donations to any organizations, consider alternatives to money. Students Rebuild has partnered with DoSomething, and has a donation goal of 100,000 paper cranes. For each crane that they receive, they will donate $2 to Architecture for Humanity, until they reach $200,000.

They're very helpful in answering any queries that you might have about the project, and they have a crane count on their website that they upload daily. I've emailed them a few times, and they've mentioned that they suggest that cranes be made in a 4x4 paper size, although they are very lax about these dimensions. If you've got a stack of origami paper sitting on a shelf somewhere, it's time to dust if off. If you are unsure about how to make a paper crane, search online for a tutorial, or find me sometime and ask me. Don't be afraid to send in more than one crane- if you have fifty cranes or more you can request a free UPS mailing label via email. Or, give it to me, and I'll include it in the next box that I send in.

Know of any organizations that you think that I should mention, or have any ideas for fundraisers for Japanese relief? Leave them in the comments, I'd love to hear them. Keep me posted about what you're doing and I'll be sure to do the same.

Black birds

In Chinese, PoPo means maternal grandmother.

PoPo was the first Chinese word that I learned to say, followed by Gung Gung, the word for maternal grandfather. My Gung Gung passed away two years before I was born. My third Chinese word was likely learned off of a menu.

My PoPo raised five children and adored nine grandchildren. She called us Precious Heart. It was a term of endearment that melt into a single world, preciousheart, three syllables that I've never heard used by anyone else.

Every time my brother or I had a major school event, my PoPo would take the train and visit. We'd pick her up from the train station for our graduations from elementary school and middle school, and my brother's high school graduation last June. She visited for the various theme days that my school held, Grandparent's day in the first grade, Greek styled Olympics in the fourth.

She was most proud of our academic achievements, and would reward our positive report cards with small amounts of money that she'd send to us in hong bao, lucky red envelopes. More often than bills, we would receive coin money, a silver Susan B. Anthony clinking against a golden Sacagawea, or several half dollars. For Christmas of 1999 the present from her that I was allowed to open (my parents dealt with envelopes- they were (rightly) afraid that I would tear enclosed checks apart in my wrapping paper frenzy) was a thin green state quarter book. After that, whenever I visited her, she would give freshly minted quarters to me so that I could fill the book.

In these last few months, she spoke less and less. We'd talk every couple of days, but never for very long because it would tire her out. Most vividly, I remember a conversation that we had in January while I was in New York. I had finished my day of work in Brooklyn, and called her as I often did while I was walking to the subway. Because our conversations were short, if I dialed her number when I was passing the Vietnamese restaurant, I would be puckering my lips in my loud and childish way to kiss her goodbye by the time I got to the entrance to the subway. We talked for longer that day, and I walked up and down the street next to the subway a couple of times while I told her about my job. It was a pleasant type of cold, and the snow was beginning to melt and dampen the sidewalk with the fresh concrete type of smell. I made some mentions about college visiting, and she told me how she knew that I was a smart girl, and that I would be happy wherever I went. Then she said how she was proud of me. Proud of all of us.

And I think that's when I knew. My PoPo had lived a long and happy life. And she was ready for whatever came next.

That was one of the last conversations that I had with my PoPo. I saw her two times after that and I got to hold her hand and say my goodbyes. I kissed her on both cheeks and told her that I loved her. I wish that there was more that I could say, more that I could have said, but I doubt that there are ever words to make saying goodbye any easier.

She's been telling my aunts about seeing a black bird outside of her window for the past couple of days. It's friendly, she told them, a nice type of bird. She said that it was coming to take her to heaven.

My PoPo passed away yesterday afternoon. Tell me if you see any black birds.

frankenstein had angst.

I just spoiled 90% of Frankenstein for you.

found

Red Red.
because sometimes, Red just won't cut it.

stress fracture

because it's still there.

stress fracture: medial aspect. work in progress, water colors.

contemplating the orientation of this piece. thinking about turning it 180 degrees, or 90 degrees clockwise. work still to be done in the background.

Got a bone scan two weeks ago, and had the results analyzed this past monday. stress fracture is still not gone yet. The red spot is where it is. I'm in a boot now for the next 4-6 weeks. It makes me more mobile than the crutches, but that's not saying too much.

artificial worlds

"For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

hb and ebony pencils, pastels. three hours?

oh.

its been a while. so it goes.

hello there!

so, I'm sure you're on the edge of your seats wondering how I've been. the wait is over! I'm at my home away from home right now, and not going to work because of the snow.

I've been working with a photographer monday/wednesday/friday. after bouncing around with several potential portfolio subjects, I settled last friday on a project that I'll be sure to share once it's complete. My work days are spent getting pictures, getting cold, and eating applesauce. I also occupy some of my time compiling a list of reasons of how and why the photographer is very possibly Santa Claus.

two days a week, tuesday/thursday, I am working with the lovely illustrator Sophie Blackall. I spend most of my time engaged in an ongoing death cage match with the printer, although occasionally we form a truce and it coughs out a couple of prints suitable for shipping. I've also done some preliminary image research for an upcoming picture book, and accompanied Sophie to a meeting about the cover for her book of Missed Connections at a publishing house. When not doing any of those activities, we drink hot beverages (Sophie takes coffee, I take tea) and sit at her dining room table.

various other things about the month thus far...

I still can't distinguish between Uptown and Downtown. Most of the time I get it right. Some of the time I inadvertently travel to Brooklyn or the Bronx.

I've met Boba Fett, and he plays the accordion.

Lovely looking strangers sometimes smile at you. in response, awkward (but hopefully occasionally lovely) girls sometimes fall a little bit in love.

No social life? No problem! I've got yarn and needles and even a small library of science fiction and Shakespeare and probably don't really need human interaction anyway.

New York

in the month of january, I'm interning with two different artists in New York. but don't worry about missing me too much, I'll still be here for you to talk to.

my packing list was divided into four subcategories: don't be naked, you smell, sweet kicks bro, and stuffy stuff.

each subcategory was organized by a hierarchy of importance. more important than pants, apparently, is socks, and mo socks. because I need to stress the importance of having many socks. also, the category of stuffy stuff (which was all of the things that didn't neatly fall into the other categories) shows that I favor yarn and tea above cell phones and all of my various chargers.

my priorities are peculiar.

happy 2011!