in search of chicken pot pie

LINOLEUM PRINTS: the beginning of an epic adventure

2012-01-24T14:34:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about linoleum printing.

First, I'll admit: I really had no idea what I was getting into with linoleum printing at all. All I really knew was that I had come across some really cool limited edition art prints (like this one and this one) and thought, "Hey! Those look really cool! I should do that!" One can, of course, reproduce similar effects using Photoshop, but for someone like me who is still more or less a novice in the illustration world, the easiest way to get nice textures is to . . . use real materials.

If you clicked through to the links, you'll note that neither of the two prints I was inspired by were actually linoleum prints -- the first was a letterpress print, and the second was a screenprint. I really like both of those styles and hope later to be able to make prints that way, but a letterpress requires an actual wooden press (thus the name) which would require either a lot of money or time to construct. As far as screenprinting goes . . . essentially you use a light-exposure technique to create a stencil of your design on a cloth screen. For reasons best known to myself (ha), I decided to start with something I had done (sort of) in middle school art class instead (hey, we carved little 2"x2" stamps out of rubber), because the principle was more straightforward and I was more confident in myself not to screw it up. I watched the Dick Blick videos (yeah, I know) here and here and decided that I could handle a process that was more or less making a giant stamp.

There were a few things I did not bargain on; one is that it's much harder to transfer an image exactly with linocut, because you are drawing it twice, more or less -- once with pen on the block, and once with the lino cutter as you chisel out the unwanted pieces. I also found that it's sort of a bad idea to draw the image on a different piece of paper, because the level and type of detail one gets with a pencil are not the same as the equivalent with the cutter. At some point I will probably learn to screenprint as well, in no small part because I also didn't figure on this:

This is a linoleum cutter, sketched very handily with my new tablet (heh, I'm learning new artsy things all over.) What it also represents is a tool that will make you lose feeling in your hands if used excessively, which I most certainly did in the first few days of experimentation. Screenprinting, I think, is less likely to cause muscle strain. The little cheap Blick-brand cutter I bought for $7 came with five blades; so far I've use mainly the deep V cutter (enough that I ordered another box of them rather than risk the one I have getting too dull to use) and the deep U cutter. I also decided to use Blick blockprinting ink, the main attraction of which is its relatively low price. I think at some point I will switch to oil-based rather than water-based ink, because this ink dries extremely quickly (meaning that I waste a lot by the time I get it spread out), and smudges very easily if I try to add other paints or color on top of the print.

Here are some photos from my first print, which was sort of cute but in several ways was moderately disastrous. Note: Do not attempt to make a heavily detailed two-color print on the first go. It's just not a great idea.

One of Mom's old pan lids got commissioned into service as a linoleum shred catcher/inking plate. I bought a bench hook, but have not really used it a lot yet. This was the second color. . .

And here is me trying (somewhat hopelessly) to line up the second color with the first. It was a miracle it worked as well as it did, but it still came out . . . kind of goofy. This print series ended after about three.

So given how not-fun that print was, I decided to scale back and try a relatively simple one-color print. I did what I always do (well, nearly always) when I am a bit stuck: I turned to someone I love for inspiration. In this case, that was Mr. Stubbs.

Thus, after 8 hours of furious carving or so, I ended up with 20 prints of "A Very Fine Fellow."

For more pictures and to purchase one of these excellent dudes (printed on heavy white cardstock), you can head over to the blogshop.

Funny dogs seemed to be the linoleum way to go, so the next print I sketched out was another dapper canine fellow:

A French bulldog! This time he is not only a fine fellow, he is A French Gentleman. I want to improve my witty cartooning skills, so I have been trying to realize more of the humorous little thoughts I have during the day. (Say it with me: Oh dear.) He has a teapot and tea cups because when I think of Gentlemen, I think of tea time. Admittedly, I am not so sure that lots of French Gentlemen are tea-drinkers, but I did see plenty of "salons de thé" in Paris.

Here he is mid-carving.

And here's the finished block!

As someone commented to me, linoleum printing is always a bit of a surprise the first time you set ink to paper . . . I thought his eyes turned out a big goofy. I thought color would help, but after very briefly thinking back on my two-color print fiasco, I decided that watercoloring each print was the way to go.

Color most certainly DID help. And voila, my limited edition series of French Gentlemen prints! There are 20 altogether, each is hand-colored with watercolors, dated, signed, and numbered by me, and no two are quite alike!

If cheery French bulldog cards are more your speed, I made those too. :P

MORE LINOLEUM IDEAS ARE TO COME.

2011 in review

2011-12-31T13:29:00.000-05:00

Is this for me, or for you? WHO KNOWS. In any case, here you go: a tremendous but tremendously fragmented year.

January

Working in the clinic most afternoons(except Tuesdays) and Saturday mornings.

Mildly depressed about life.

Still working on my TU Delft, GlasgowSchool of Art, Royal College of Art, and RISD applications.

Finish my first portfolio attempt.Submit applications to RISD and Royal College of Art.

Start the book as a weekly challengewith another friend, which we quickly fail to complete.

Start attending weekly life-drawingsessions at Hotshops in Omaha.

Suss out the possibility of ONE LASTMISTI INTERNSHIP in Japan.

Arrange for internship in Yokohamastarting April 1.

[Movies watched: The King's Speech,Eat Pray Love]

[Books read: --]

February

Continue working in clinic.
More life drawing.
Use Lang-8 with some regularity tostudy Japanese and Spanish; get discouraged.

Purchase plane tickets to Tokyo.

Submit application to Glasgow School ofArt.

Go to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennialexhibition at the Durham Western Heritage Museum with my dad.

[Movies watched: Gnomeo and Juliet, In A Day]

[Books read: --]

March

More clinic, more dogs, all the time.
Am invited for interview at the RCA.

Fly to London on March 12^thfor an interview at RCA on the 15^th.

While I am in London, Tohoku earthquakehappens, sharply changing my Japan internship plans and throwing meinto a tizzy of charity website perusal.
Whirlwind of sightseeing. Victoria and Albert Museum, Parliament, Westminster, the British Museum.
Sleep in hostel with worst roommates ever who snore incessantly. Contemplate violence.
Interview and design test at RCA; goes okay but not as okay as I would have preferred.
MORE whirlwind sightseeing. Walk over ten miles in a day; give myself shin splints. St. Paul's, etc. Sketching is done.

Return home on March 15^th.

Apply to Fontainebleau program.

Submit TU Delft application.
Finish life drawing.

[Movies watched: Rango]

[Books read: Gilead,by Marilynne Robison; The Guernsey Potato Peel and LiterarySociety, by Annie Barrows; mostof Water for Elephantsbefore giving up.]

April

Internship is delayed to April 28 andmoved to Kyoto.

Am grumpy and anxious.

Fly to Salt Lake City, then Seattle onthe 28^th.

Finally fly into Osaka on the 30^th.

[Movies watched: Love in the Afternoon, Jane Eyre, Kirikou and theSorceress, Sleeping Beauty, 2005Pride and Prejudice, Wallace and Gromet: The WrongTrousers, Wallace and Gromet: A Grand Day Out, Wallace and Gromet: AClose Shave, Wallace and Gromet: A Matter of Loaf and Death, ThePrincess Bride]

[Booksread: --]

May

Work in Kyoto. Life is very busy andvery quiet. Live by my lonesome in my own apartment for the firsttime.

Spend a large part of my daily life cleaning and making scale models.

Spend large parts of my evening life cooking for myself, spending time on the internet, and walking around Kyoto.

Go to Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival), Ginkaku-ji, Nijou Castle, and Nanzen-ji.

[Movies watched: fourseasons of Daria]

[Booksread: –]

June

More work. More cleaning. More scale models.

Go to Tohuku-ji, Fushimi Inari, Kiyomizu-dera, Teramachi-dori, Yasaka Jinja, Kodai-ji, Tenryu-ji, Kamigamo, Shimogamo, and wander around various outlying neighborhoods in Kyoto.

Send enormous quantities of postcards.

Eat delicious katsu and delicious udon.

Discover that my parents are in danger of flooding again because of poor choices by the Army Corps of Engineers. Freak out via Skype and other digital platforms.
Parents move everything out of house for remainder of summer.

Finish the second stage of my GSAapplication with a design for a bicycle-powered washing machine.

Do not hear back from the GSA.

Fly home to Iowa for a single night;fly to Paris the following day.

[Movies watched:The Lord of the Rings extended trilogy, Shakespeare inLove, House of Flying Daggers, The Fall, Alice, Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World]

[Books read: Mostof For Whom the Bell Tolls]

July

Tour Paris for four days with other Fontainebleau program folks. Though I escaped from stupid adulation of the city last year, I did not this year.
Am intellectually stimulated and emotionally bouncy.
Help complete four projects. Run around Fontainebleau a lot. Stay up late a lot.
Visit Paris on weekends.
Make several new friends.
Get lost in the forest one weekend.
Visit Courances.
Visit Opera Garnier. (Not in this order.)
Discover that I don't like Bordeaux very much, but I do like rosé in general.
Have large numbers of almost indescribable experiences.
Draw a lot.

[Movies watched: Conspirators ofPleasure]

[Booksread: Lunch in Paris, by; a little more of For Whom the Bell Tolls]

August

Go to Normandy with rest ofFontainebleau architecture.

Visit Mont-St.-Michel.

Slice leg on roadside sign and spendfour hours acquiring stitches.

Go to Le Havre; am grumpy; stay inhotel for entire day.

Return to Paris; have good-bye hijinks.

Go to Barcelona with four Fontainebleaupeeps.

Meet friend in Barcelona; go to beach with many ruins; sadly cannot swim due to stitches; talk a great deal.
Return to Paris. Fly home.

Went to Iowa State Fair for the firsttime in my (remembered) life with my mother and her mother.

Helped my mother move all our stuffback into the house.

Started sorting books into keep andGoodwill piles.

[Movies watched: Harry Potter andthe Deathly Hallows Part 2, Stupid Crazy Love, Thor, An American inParis, A Good Woman, BBC'sShakespeare Retold A Midsummer Night's Dream, Agora, AnnieHall.]

[Booksread: Finished For Whom the Bell Tolls, mostof The Scenes of the Street byAnthony Vidler.]

September

Finish helping parents move back into house.
Start going to Paint Day.
Resume work on the novel.

Dad buys me first big girl watercolors– a “field kit” of 12 half-pans of Windsor & Newton colors.

Go to Paint Days at Calhoun Cemetery,Loess Hills Lavender Farm, Smalls' Apple Orchard, and a farm out byHoney Creek.

Paint Stubby.
Revamp my Society6 account, which I first started in February, in an attempt to sell art.

[Movies watched: A Very LongEngagement, A Room with a View, Atonement, Breathless, Casablanca,Casanova, Garden State]

[Booksread: --]

October

Drive around with Mom for the NebraskaHills Pottery tour.

Go to Paint Days at the Loess HillsNational Forest (up above Spooner Point), Arrowhead Park by Neola,Gleason Hubbell Nature Area, and a road cut up by Pisgah.

Finally receive French hospital bill.

Start pie baking extravaganza to payparents back for French hospital bill.

Visit four barns (one in Logan, one inHarlan, and two in Guthrie Center) as part of the Iowa All-State BarnTour.
Drive down to Omaha approximately once a week to sit in a cafe and write on le novel.
Start picking bizarrely huge numbers of bizarrely late tomatoes.
Babysit the Bobster with some frequency.
Reapply to TU Delft for fall 2012.

[Movies watched: Captain America:The First Avenger]

[Booksread: finished The Scenes of the Street; Alfred the Great:The King and His England, byEleanor Shipley Duckett; most of the Secret Six run of comics, started La Alhambra y el Generalife: GuíaOficial]

November

Go to Paint Days at a barn out by mygrandparents' house and at a house of one of the regular attendees.

Finally pay French hospital bill, aftertrolling around to several banks to figure out who can write me abank order for 69 euros.

More babysitting.
More tomato processing.
More novel-ing.
Receive my lost sketchbook from theMusee de Cluny folks; am thrilled.

Start selling notecards with my artprinted on them.
Start and finish several illustration projects. Am surprised.

First Thanksgiving not headed up by mygrandmother. SIL and brother make prime rib, potatoes, and pie; Imake rolls, pie, stuffing, and green bean casserole.

[Movies watched: Puss in Boots]

[Booksread: Everything in Illuminated, byJonathan Safran Foer]

December

Re-admitted to TU Delft.
Started listening to Harvard OSIShakespeare lectures by Marjorie Garber as accompaniment to arting.

Paint Grandma's Shih Tzus for herChristmas card.
Paint my own Christmas card.
Start the never-ending illustration project (which I am still working on.)

Become really obsessed with illustration in general (more so than before.)

Purchase my first tablet.
Many presents, much baking.
First Christmas that is deliberately planned to be at our house, with soup and sandwiches.
Go to movie costumes exhibit.

[Movies watched: Hugo, ArthurChristmas, Mary and Max]

[Booksread: Nine Nora Roberts romance novels (whoops), Troilusand Cressida, Measure for Measure, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra,Coriolanus, started TheAmulet of Samarkand]

Summary

Totalcountries visited (not including the U.S.): 4 (UK, France, Spain,Japan)

Totalmovies watched: 43

Totalbooks read: somewhere between 11 and 20, depending on whether I get credit for romance novels

Works of art completed: 17 watercolor-based paintings, 1 acrylic painting, 42 relatively decent (mostly architectural) sketches from life (mostly in ink), 12+ life-drawing sketches (mainly in oil pencil), 2 digital paintings, 1 t-shirt design.
Words written: Umpteen thousand bloggerly words, 51,913 novel words.
Postcards sent: More than 40. Possibly even 60.
Care packages sent: Around 6.
Schools admitted to: I'D TELL YOU IF THEY'D TELL ME, but at least two.

Verdict: Despite miles of (pounds? quarks? What is the proper unit for self-doubt?) insecurity and anxiety about the future, a pretty good year. Though it's hard to describe -- I can feel myself becoming the person I am and will be with every thing that I get through or finish or attempt.

merry Christmas from the style factory

2011-12-14T19:25:00.002-05:00

The jury is sadly still out on whether I am going to get Christmas cards out before Christmas. Still, at least now I have a card to send.

Ugh sorry for the lack of text but I am not feeling very smart right now.

BEHOLD, I present to you: THE BIBLIOPHILE'S CHRISTMAS.

A few process photos (I took very few because I was experimenting and was never really sure what I was doing or when I had reached a stopping point):

Original sketch:

Also OH LOOK a large order of cards which I just sent out:

Merry Christmas from the fluffiest of folk

2011-12-04T12:38:00.001-05:00

i.e. Sparkle and Rosie the Shih Tzus.

My grandma requested me to make her a Christmas card featuring her dogs. I thought it would be nice to brush up on my acrylic painting skills, so I did this painting Friday and Saturday (though I started the sketch right after Thanksgiving, eep.)

A few process photos after the break -- it actually went together so fast that I didn't really have time to take a ton of photos.

As far as the dogs went, these are the two photos I painted from.

Rosie is easy to take a picture of (as she's usually positioned on top of a cushion somewhere), but usually pretty sleepy-looking these days. Sparkle is forever in motion . . . I took a few photos with me and/or Grandma holding her as well, but she looked sort of anxious and chastised, so I decided to paint from a slightly blurry by happy photo instead.

In process photos . . . as aforementioned, I worked quickly enough that I forgot to take too many of these.

The nice thing about acrylic that I had forgotten was that you can work in little pieces and finish a bit at a time, instead of having to think about the whole painting at every single step.

The other thing I had forgotten about acrylic was that while it's pretty hard to just lay a wash over the painting to indicate reflected light, blending is awfully fun and doesn't require near the attention to the wetness of the paint that watercolor does.

I was pretty proud of the texture of my little knitted snowflake afghan over the arm of the couch there.

Mycenaean Holiday inspirations: Fun times were had by all

2011-12-02T15:50:00.001-05:00

First things first; I have a design up on Threadless to be scored for the "Dysfunctional Families" design challenge. Rather mysteriously I decided the thing to do would be to make a Greek mythology joke -- not, I would argue, a particularly obscure one, but still, probably less accessible overall than a joke about, say, the Kardashians. Whatever.

Here is my design! And here is a link where you can go give it a nice score on Threadless! (You need a Threadless account to vote.)

Now, let me justify this business.

My roommate took a "Women in the Ancient World" or somesuch class when we were juniors or seniors, and she would come home positively crowing about the murders of Medea or Clytemnestra (not that we have macabre senses of humor or anything.) I always particularly enjoyed seeing Agamemnon get his comeuppance, because he always seemed particularly like an ass (particularly after that television miniseries we watched in high school World Lit with Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon, cough). Not only that, there were enough murders in that story to make a truly ridiculous graphic. (Agamemnon kills his daughter Iphigenia in a ritual sacrifice for favorable winds when he's taking his army to attack Troy; his wife, Clytemnestra, avenges her daughter by strangling/stabbing him in the bath; and finally, their son, Orestes, kills her to pay back his father's death.)

The idea of having all four pagan folk together murdering each other in a chain reaction, decked out in anachronistic holiday swag (though you'll notice that the tree has a lightning bolt on top and dolphins and bulls hung from the branches) struck me as quite humorous.

The nice thing about pulling a story from a culture with a strong tradition of graphic representation is that it makes deciding how to draw it much simpler. I wanted to mimic the sort of figures one sees drawn on large Greek vessels, of which the Boston MFA has a large and admirable (if occasionally risque) collection.

I started poking around in their online archives for ideas. (I used links to their websites for the images, so hopefully they don't break in the near future. :P) (Whoops -- editorial note -- the links on the MFA items lead back to the slideshow these pieces are found in, not the specific piece. It's not a very long slideshow though so you should be able to find them.)

This one is a bowl for mixing wine and water from Athens (called a bell krater, I think?), ca. 470 B.C. The figures represented are Diana and Achteon; the myth goes that he saw her bathing, so she turned him into a stag to be ripped apart by his own dogs. I more or less copied her dress for Iphigenia (minus the skin of a -- cat? -- around her neck.) Click through on this link to look at a bigger picture of Diana's hands -- they're very gracefully shaped, and I tried (and perhaps failed) to do justice to that in my design.

Probably if I were to change this design, I'd make all of their features a little smaller to keep closer to the source material; my is (somewhat deliberately) a bit more cartoonish.

I attempted to use the floral pattern from this pot as a border, but it was too busy and rather too cheerful for what I was going for. Also considered using white as well as red and black in my color scheme, but given that I was already introducing red and green (which I've never seen on this sort of pot), I thought I should leave well enough alone.

From this dish, a drinking cup or kylix, (made about 510-500 B.C.) I pulled some ideas about how to depict musculature (i.e. the naked Agamemnon in the bath) and feet. I couldn't quite bring myself to do an eye in the wrong perspective (i.e. from the front even though the face is in profile), even though that's a common characteristic of early Greek pottery painting.

Doubtless I should have just looked up paintings of actual Greek queens, but instead I chose to roughly interpret the dress that this status of Athena is wearing for Clytemnestra. Yay draped fabric! (Alas I probably shouldn't have mixed my eras, since this is from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D., and actually a Roman interpretation of what Athena would have worn. Whoops.)

After looking through the MFA's archives for a while I remembered that the Met also has an excellent site with an easily searchable database. I referenced the pot above (also found around Athens in the late 5th century B.C.) for Clytemnestra's hair and profile shape.

Here is the source for Agamemnon's facial hair, a pelike jar from 480 B.C. depicting Dionysus.

I took Orestes' garments from this pot, an amphora from around 525-500 B.C. (Also decided to go with this sort of black-on-red figure rather than the other way around.) Originally he was going to have a helmet like this under his arm or dangling from his hand, too, but it was too cluttered and I wasn't sure I could make it distinguishable in the position he's standing in.

Right -- so -- don't forget to go to Threadless and score my design! Thanks very much!

if you want to hop on over to my "things to buy" page. . .

2011-11-28T15:18:00.001-05:00

You'll find that I've added "Bostonia" notecards to my shop! A Christmas present for someone perhaps?

Bostonia watercolor: the very long process post

2011-11-27T09:57:00.000-05:00

ETA: Crap, I knew I forgot something. You can now purchase this painting as a print, laptop skin, iPhone skin, or iPhone case on Society6.

So here -- after about five days of work -- I present to you, the Bostonia watercolor process post! It is very long, which hopefully will convey to you how annoying the linework was to complete.

First: I sketched out the linework in pencil from a photo I took my sophomore year at MIT (spring 2009) on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston's Back Bay.

I decided not to draw in all the flowers in pencil and just ink them. Still not sure if this was the best choice or not.

Then: I inked the whole business in sepia Micron pen, which is gloriously waterproof.

More inking . . . at about this point I started to have nervous qualms about whether it might be better to draw the flower outlines in white acrylic or perhaps in masking fluid. I ditched both of those plans more or less because I would have less control over the details in either of those media.

More qualming . . . I was very nervous the lineweights were all off. I'm thinking that I need to buy a variety of 005 Micron pens as well as my 01 standbys.

Finished inking and erased the pencil lines! Now for the individual flowers on the magnolia tree, which was a frankly exhausting endeavor.

THE FINISHED LINEWORK.

The linework was so intense that I wanted the washes to be fairly light and uncomplicated. I also wanted the piece to read as all in the same palette, so I decided to do the sky in a golden yellow color instead of blue.

Another step down the wash road, with some shading and a few accents. I thought about just leaving the tree white, but . . . my internal perfectionist/miniaturist came out to play screaming and kicking.

I didn't really organized my photo taking by "first wash," "first wash with shading," or anything sensible this time . . . basically whenever I set down my brush I took a quick picture. This was about the last photo I took before the ultimate scan.

BAM. Very proud of this piece -- this is definitely a style I would be happy to continue to develop (and I have SO MANY PHOTOS to try re-interpreting with it.)

WHOO BEEF

2011-11-24T10:41:00.001-05:00

This is the first year my brother and sister-in-law are hosting Thanksgiving. My brother doesn't like turkey, so we're having prime rib.

Happy Thanksgiving, guys.

a fallish outfit

2011-11-23T13:11:00.001-05:00

The truth is, I haven't been dressing up too much since I've been home, despite ample opportunity (movies, plays, excursions out to eat, etc.) I fear I have been afflicted by at-home-slackification, as well as overcast sky exhaustion.

Last night I felt silly so I put on heels for my own amusement. Et voilà, my first . . . er. . . fashion illustration!

a small preview of what I've been working on

2011-11-23T10:39:00.001-05:00

Certainly not done yet . . . but the linework is almost finished.

Lavender davender spavender

2011-11-21T12:31:00.000-05:00

If you are in the Harrison County area and interested in buying singles or packs of my lavender cards (without shipping! whoo!), they will be available at the Loess Hills Lavender Farm Christmas Open House in two weeks. The Lavender Farm shop will be open on Sunday, December 4th, from 1 pm to 6 pm; Monday, December 5th, to Saturday, December 10th, from 11 am to 7 pm, and Sunday, December 11th, from 1 pm to 6 pm.

I personally will be probably be running over to grab some thick lavender lotion -- my almond lotion bar is almost gone, and my hands need some help.

questionable packing practices

2011-11-19T12:57:00.001-05:00

At right: The box I received today from Blick Art Supplies.

At left: The half-pan of yellow Winsor-Newton watercolor that said box contained.

What.

first two orders of cards shipped. also, Pegapup Christmas card ideas. also, pie. also, bread.

2011-11-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

PROGRESS.

This is the second order. Actually I shipped my third order today but I didn't take a celebratory picture because it needed to be rush shipped.

Here we come to my Pegapup Christmas card (or holiday card if you like, as I don't really feel inclined to put writing on the inside) ideas. I have two. This is the first one.

If this looks like a card you would like to buy and send, please leave a comment to that effect on this post. They would be more expensive ($3.50 apiece, or 5 for $16) than my regular cards because of the cutting involved. In the next day or two I will also be posting my other Pegapup Christmas card idea.

In other news, pie! I made two more Dutch apple pies (this is yesterday's; today's was in a small foil pan so I had to heap it really high to make sort of a Dutch apple mini-mountain.) I am now four pies away from fulfilling my ten-pie contract for my mother.

Finally, here is some cinnamon bread I made to send away in a care package to a friend. Yummy. (There are two more loaves, one of which I already, ah, quality-tested.)

new Society6 products

2011-11-18T18:24:00.001-05:00

Hopefully I have a better blog post coming later today, but first:

I spent some time today resizing some of my Society6 artwork for the other product they sell -- i.e. laptop skins, iPhone skins, t-shirts, and hoodies. I'm hoping that in a couple days I'll have all of them reformatted.

I though two pieces in particular looked really nice -- the "My Dear" laptop skin and the "For the Heart-Hungry" iPhone skin.

a brief and serious diversion.

2011-11-16T12:05:00.001-05:00

Please consider emailing or calling your Congressperson today to protest the IP-Protect Act and SOPA. They are ostensibly to protect copyright holders from piracy, but they give large-scale Internet censorship powers to the entertainment industry.

I encourage you to watch the video with more information and use the easy form to call or email your representatives here or to sign the Change.org petition here.

Reasons I care:

1. This bill could be used to block access to social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, making it harder for new startups to publicize themselves and make new connections;
2. This bill would cost about $47 million to implement (and our government just has SO MUCH SPARE CASH LYING AROUND THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE USED FOR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS /sarcasm);
3. This bill could be used to deal out major punishments (like jail time) for minor infractions of copyright law (like using a copyrighted song in the background of a Youtube video);
4. This bill helps create an atmosphere of fear and repression of ideas on the U.S. Internet.

That is not good.

the recovered sketchbook! (MUCH CAPSLOCK ENSUES)

2011-11-15T22:57:00.000-05:00

So.At this point I have told this story multiple times, because it's so unbelievable and awesome as to merit repeated enthusiasm.What happened is this:The first few days of the Fontainebleau program -- back in July -- were spent in Paris. We toured around with our instructors and TAs to design and architecturally significant locations and learned stuff about the history, urbanism, development, and (occasionally) the politics of Paris. We ate many sandwich-filled picnics and saw many glorious sites. We also had free evenings and a free afternoon with which to explore.

ALL OF THIS WAS GREAT, EXCEPT that the day before we were going to leave to go to Fontainebleau to start the project part of the program, I LOST MY SKETCHBOOK.

THE SKETCHBOOK I HAD BEEN WORKING IN ALL THROUGH MY KYOTO INTERNSHIP AND WHICH I HAD JUST DONE SEVERAL VERY NICE PARISIAN SKETCHES IN.

Understandably (I hope) I was PROFOUNDLY UPSET. I tore through the hostel looking for it; it had been in my bag up until that point and I had no idea where I had lost it.

I finally resigned myself to the fact that my glorious sketchbook was gone, bought another Moleskin, and grumpily went about my business.

FAST-FORWARD: Last Saturday my Grandma called me. "I got a piece of mail that I think is yours."

"What?" (This didn't really surprise me, as we have the same first name and last name.)

"Yeah, it's some kind of journal."

"Oh?" (This is me thinking a medical journal or similar magazine, so not too excited yet.)

"Yeah, it's full of sketches and stuff."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT." (Much screaming commenced. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. BUT I WAS SCREAMING WITH GLEE INSIDE.)

So: Three months after the fact, the staff of the Musée de Cluny had spent 7.10 Euro (so $10-$11) to MAIL THE SKETCHBOOK I HAD LEFT IN THE MUSEUM BACK TO ME.

If it's any indication of how thrilled I was, I mailed my thank-you note today. I am never that timely.

To the punchline! I have decided to scan and upload the best (well, most of) the sketches from said notebook for your viewing pleasure! AND HERE THEY ARE.

This is Tofuku-ji, a temple known for its rock gardens in Kyoto. It was on the east bank of Kamo River (same as my apartment and place of work), but a few miles south.

The next few sketches are from Kamigamo Shrine, one of the many World Heritage Sites in Kyoto. I got there just as it was closing one weekend and also (if I recall correctly) had forgotten to put the memory stick in my camera. Thus the sketches.

I have no idea what this large grass circle was, but there was a little sign indicating in what fashion you were supposed to walk through it (one circle to the left and one to the right, I think.) I'm guessing it was for luck in some area.

This is noted in my sketchbook as "the sketch of lies." There are many, many things wrong with the proportions! But, such is the glory of forgetting my camera: YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT THOSE THINGS ARE.

Definitely my favorite sketch from Kamigamo, showing the capital (is it still called that in this case?) of one of pillars of the main gate. Very fancy, very beautiful. (And bless Prismacolors.)

A later weekend, when I walked back in the area behind Kiyomizudera and finally up Chawan Zaka (Teapot Lane) to visit it again (where I bought a fan! which I have not yet put on display.) This view is just great; I have a photo of it from 2009 that I am equally fond of. I sketched this underneath a gate roof while it was drizzling. (I went to Kodai-ji on the same excursion, and it was lovely, but the docents yelled [and by "yelled" I actually mean "reprimanded me ever so politely"] at me for sketching. So I stopped. Oops.)

And now the Paris sketches! This were the ones I was really thrilled to recover -- I had at least taken crappy photos of the sketches above, but I had no record whatsoever of these sketches.

Hotel de Ville! At the beginning of the summer there was this awesome installation there of these swirling mounds that, when you stood in EXACTLY the right spot, revealed themselves to be a sphere circumscribed on the ground. There were tons of pigeons, so I drew a single pigeon. I also edited out the French preteens on the benches.

This is a series of quick sketches I did at the Musée du quai Branly, which is the museum of non-Western art over by the Eiffel Tower (designed by Jean Nouvel and for which he won the Pritzker Prize.) I dunno. It's actually one of my least favorite museums ever, to tell the truth? The landscaping around it is really nice, but the layout inside is very confusing, and what I could understand of the texts presented a very . . . simplistic view of the art presented.

This little statuette was much cooler-looking in real life. It was from the temporary exhibit on the Dogon culture in southern Mali (particularly the sculpture.) While sketching this was when I first realized that I could actually pass for a French person, because some guy commented to me in French as though he expected me to understand while I was drawing it.

More from the Dogon exhibit. I think the top object was a head-rest and the bottom one was a knife.

Still in the Musée du quai Branly, but in the regular exhibits. There were some very nice pieces, but compared to the British Museum or the Met or the MFA, the collection was lacking, I thought. Which seemed kind of weird to me, since those are all "comprehensive" museums mainly focused on Western art and this was an enormous building built expressively for this purpose.

Anyway.

Probably my favorite new museum this time was the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, and I regretted not returning there during one of our free Sundays. The lower floor was entirely taken up with plaster castings of famous monuments around France, but the upper floor had a lot of great contemporary exhibits on housing, modular architecture, etc.

My sketches from this museum are loose, but I liked them.

The Saint-Chapelle is the most awkwardly proportioned church EVER. (And not actually this lopsided.) Clearly built for the effect from the interior.)

There was a great display case showing a variety of truss shapes used in cathedrals; sadly, I drew one truss only.

I am DAMN proud of this sketch. I did it in only a little more than ten minutes (though sadly that meant that I wasn't listening super hard to the engineer who worked on it giving us a talk on the structure. Oops.) This is the passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Sengho, a pedestrian bridge that goes to all four banks -- the upper and lower Left and the upper and lower Right.

This is the last sketch in my recovered notebook, which I think is appropriate. I actually went back and re-did this one because I was so angry at losing it. Long live Notre Dame!

you have noticed: NOTECARDS (also, PEGAPUP!)

2011-11-14T22:10:00.001-05:00

You may have noticed the new button at the top of the blog -- Things you can buy. Well, currently, "things" means "notecards." I am now selling notecards with my art on the front, each printed on bright white matte heavy cardstock or Bristol board with a white envelope. They come in packs of five cards for $10 or eleven cards for $20, plus shipping. So far, I have a mixed Iowa watercolor pack, a mixed black-and-white travel sketches pack, a Purple Up Over the Hills pack (the painting I did at the Loess Hills Lavender Farm), a The Only Way Out Is Up pack (the painting I did lying on my back at the Gleason-Hubbell nature area), and a A Few Reflections on an Elegant Curve pack (the print I made with my drawing of one of the roofs at Yoshida shrine in Kyoto.)

I spent today cutting, folding, and assembling cards. (Somewhat relieved that I didn't give away all of my architecture tools.)

There's one more pack that appeared today -- the PEGAPUP pack.

What is Pegapup, you ask?

Pegapup is a little doggie with wings I drew a few nights ago before bed. More or less he came about by way of, "Gee, wouldn't Stubby look cute with wings?"

This gave birth to more Pegapup cartoons depicting the slightly glamorized life and times of Stubby the Frequently Sleepy Dog as his winged alter-ego.

You can now purchase a five-pack of notecards with Pegapup cartoons. Photos of the cards coming tomorrow!

the desk

2011-11-13T12:44:00.001-05:00

Currently the hub of my existence.

pumpkin roll recipe

2011-11-12T19:27:00.001-05:00

IN CASE YOU WERE IN NEED OF SOME FALL GOODNESS.

(adapted from the skeleton of the cinnamon roll recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Baking book.)

1 CUP milk. I used skim, but whole is nice too.

Heat up the milk in the microwave (45 seconds - 1 minute). Add a dollop of sugar; stir until it dissolves. Sprinkle over the top:

7 TEASPOONS of dried yeast.

Let that sit until bubbly (10-20 minutes).

While the yeast is doing its thing, dump

1 12-oz CAN of pumpkin

in a bowl. Add

4 eggs

1/2 CUP of white sugar

1/2 CUP of brown sugar

4 TEASPOONS salt

4 TEASPOONS (give or take a bit, can add some more cinnamon) pumpkin pie spice

3/4 CUP butter, melted

STIR. Add yeast mixture. STIR MORE.

This is where it gets a bit tricky, because I always just add flour until it gets to be the right consistency — I don’t pay attention too much to how many cups. So, I would advise that you add AT LEAST

7 CUPS of white flour. Mix/knead this into the dough, then start adding flour one cup at a time and keep kneading until the dough is firm but not stiff. I used about 10 cups eventually I think.

Put dough in a greased bowl and let rise for 2-3 hours, until soft and puffy.

For the filling:

1/2 CUP butter, softened (22 seconds or so in the microwave and stir)

and… about. . . 1/2 CUP brown sugar?

Split the dough in half. Roll it into a large flat rectangle on your workspace, something like 20” x 12” (exact dimensions don’t matter, it just needs to be longer than it is wide and big and flat.) Spread 1/4 cup of the softened butter across the rectangle, then sprinkle with as much brown sugar as seems appropriate to you. I suspect I actually used about 1/2 cup for EACH half to make sure it was nice and evenly coated, but I’m not sure. Roll up the rectangle and cut into between 12-20 rolls, depending on big you like your rolls. Separate the rolls on the pan if you like crisp sides, and put them closer together if you like soft sides. Let them rise in the pan for another 20 minutes to an hour, ideally whilst the oven is heating up to 350 degrees F. Bake for 20 minutes (this was just about perfect on all three pans I made.)

We put about 1/2 tablespoon of commercially ready dipping caramel on each one while it was hot; it melted down and made delicious sticky topping. If I come across a good recipe for soft caramel sauce, I’ll share it.

This recipe makes 24-40 rolls, depending on into how many pieces you cut each of the two long rolls you make.

FALL FOOD

2011-11-12T10:23:00.001-05:00

Sorry, my life is not lending itself to long blog posts at the moment.

One thing that has been characteristic of my time at home: FALL FOOD.

I find the dreary weather and shortened days overwhelmingly depressing on occasion (though I do find the angled light, clarifying coldness, and spectacular leaves quite pleasant), which means I must DO SEASONAL BATTLE. And, given my personality, I do seasonal battle with a cutting board, a frying pan, a mixing bowl, and an oven. (That's a rather. . . incomplete list.)

I've been baking and cooking quite a bit, and while I didn't photograph either the squash spice bread or the squash foccacia (best way to get rid of a vegetable you hate: bake it into bread), many of my other experiments I have indeed captured digitally.

Firstly we have the staple of my existence: the noodle boodle. This is a soothing reminder of independent days in Kyoto, as well as on of the only ways in which I regularly and willingly consume vegetables. (Cough.) The recipe is some variation on: one onion, chopped; one glove of garlic, chopped; one slice of ginger, chopped; carrots, julienned; and some mixture of whatever else we have -- mushrooms, celery, cabbage, sometimes chicken or pork. This is fried until the onions are brown; I add a plastic cup of water and probably a quarter-cup of Kikkoman teriyaki sauce, a package of ramen and seasoning, and cook for 5-10 minutes until all is pleasantly mushy. Usually at this point I crack an egg over the whole business and stir so that it cooks up in little sweet bits.

One thing I have decided is this: If I'm going to be home for a while, I'm going to be home -- which means I want to enjoy being Iowa, specifically, as a place apart from other places, with its own specific place-things and charms and also FOODS. I have used this as a justification to buy local foods such as this GOAT CHEESE from the Honey Creek Creamery. It had (because I ATE IT ALL) cranberries and horseradish. It was delicious.

Fall: season of soups. This was not one of my more successful ones, but here is some veggie soup. Much potato-ing, bean-ing, and indeed, cabbage-ing, was had by all. (I determined that if the end product is overall slightly greenish, that does not bode well for me eating it as leftovers.)

Here, we begin the BAKING SECTION. I am not the baker I once was, but I still enjoy having fresh bread, for instance. (I'm thinking later today I need to produce some CHAI MILK BREAD. I have recently become enamored of chai lattes. . . it's not a good thing. This is what happens when you go to coffee shops in Omaha to sit and work so you won't be distracted: You get sucked into the LATTE TRAP.)

As I am young and poor and trying to save up for various things, my mom struck a deal with me: She, who does not enjoy making pie, would pay me, who does enjoy making pie, to make and freeze ten pies of various dispositions. This seemed like a pretty good deal to me, though admittedly all of my (pre-paid) pie money went to pay off my French hospital bill from when I ran into the road sign and had to get six stitches in Normandy. :( The first three pies were strawberry rhubarb, and the second two were apple. I actually still have 5 or 7 pies yet to make, since we gave one away and my parents ate two. So.

This one is strawberry-rhubarb.

And now, let's talk about comfort baking.

When fall rolls around, I want one thing above all other things: Pumpkin. I WANT A LOT OF PUMPKIN. And all the deliciousness that goes with pumpkin, i.e. cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and allspice. This more or less means that when I bake I insert pumpkin at random and hope it turns out okay.

Exhibit A. Pumpkin brown sugar rolls. (Recipe to follow in next post.) We drizzled the caramel Dad bought for dipping apples over them and ALL WAS WELL.

Exhibit B. Pumpkin oat scones, with crunchy brown sugar topping. These were okay but not okay enough to merit writing down the recipe.

Exhibit C. (Not pictured.) Oatmeal pumpkin cookies.

Exhibit D. Orange hibernation soup with crispy potato topping (this didn't work quite as planned, but it was still good), a soup with mustard, sweet potatoes, and yes, pumpkin (among other things.)

PUMPKIN IS VERY IMPORTANT TO MY COLD WEATHER HEALTH.

Here, a slightly less successful and non-pumpkin related experiment: tomato-basil roll bread. (YES I WENT OUTSIDE TO TAKE THE PICTURE. THE LIGHT WAS BETTER.)

In the general line of food, but unrelated to those things which I awkwardly make myself. . .

Mom has been really anxious to take advantage of my time at home by going out to eat with me. My family is not terribly experimental in our food choices; generally it's stuff like Upstream Grill in the Old Market or Granite City by Westroads Mall or. . . something with beef, potatoes, and not a lot of seasoning. (We don't even eat a ton of Italian food together because my mom doesn't deal well with garlic.) So in addition to my home-cooked fall food, we've also had fall food from Vivace in Old Market (make your own pasta! with SCALLOPS), Amsterdam Falafel and Kebab in Dundee (which is pretty good, but it sadly doesn't hold a candle to Parisian versions of those foods), and, last night, Dhaba, which is an Indian restaurant on 117th St. Sadly we ate the naan and samosas before there was opportunity to photograph them. They were tasty.

I have to admit I was entertained by my dish, the "Dhaba Grill," which I take as evidence that the manager decided that a PLATE O' MEAT was just the thing to appeal to stodgy Midwesterners.

I was kind of annoyed at myself for not being braver and getting something I hadn't had before, so. . . NEXT TIME.

last paint day of the year

2011-11-10T14:18:00.001-05:00

Alas!

Yesterday, we went to one of the regular paint day attendees' house near Crescent. She lives on top of a hill with a good view across a lot of rolling fields, a little church in the distance, and some timber backing the property. Perhaps more unusually for southwestern Iowa, she has a small Hindu temple on her property, which unfortunately for us was still in the process of being re-shingled when we were there.

After touring around a bit, I decided I was cold and preferred to paint inside with her rather companionable Maltese. (Sadly I discovered I was unable to scratch her tummy and paint at the same time -- apparently my motor coordination is not quite as advanced as I had thought.) There were a number of floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and dining room, but they framed views of: 1. the timber 2. a field 3. another field. Which are all pleasant, but also all things I have already painted in the last two months. SO. She also had a number of interesting objects and sculptures scattered about, so I sat down in front of a large tile wall sculpture of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, and started drawing.

For once I actually kept track of my progress -- largely because this is one of the more intensive paintings I've done of late; the drawing itself took me about two hours, and the painting another two or three.

So, first, the sculpture I was drawing from:

I did the underdrawing in Micron pen (clearly I should buy, or request for Christmas, some sepia-toned pens.)

Here's the finished drawing. (In case anyone didn't know, the swastika was originally a very old symbol of peace and other various good things in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Japan shrines and temples are usually marked on city maps with a swastika. Its use by the Nazi Party is one of the grosser appropriations in history, I would say.)

I took a nap when I got home from paint day (our host made us some tasty spinach-cheese samosas and a rice-potato dish with raisins, cranberries, and apricots, as well as sort of lemony cheesy dessert called something like "birfee".) When I woke up I decided my painting needed some creative license, so I decided that Ganesh now exited on a red wall.

And a yellow floor. (You can also faintly see my masking in this photo. I was trying for reflective surfaces, but I didn't really succeed.)

The one annoyance about doing a Micron underdrawing is how much painting then feels like doing an elaborate coloring book page. I'm still developing this style, I guess. (These pictures were obviously taken last night. Nocturnal painting for the win! I finally moved the stand lamp over by my desk so my head doesn't block the light. :P)

Here it is with the first washes all laid out.

Aaaand here it is with shading and the masking removed.

I put a little more color in the highlight areas so they weren't blindingly white, and voilà, the finished product! (slightly touched up in Photoshop.)

This one won't be going up for sale as a print, because I feel uncomfortable about selling a holy image from a religion not my own. Nevertheless, it was fun to paint.

Dragons de Cluny: a new (technically Parisian) print

2011-10-23T13:45:00.000-04:00

So -- you may remember this sketch (though frankly I cannot remember whether I posted it here or not): a sketch of a medieval column capital from the National Museum of the Middle Ages (also known as the Musée de Cluny) in Paris, composed toward the beginning of the Fontainebleau experience.

I decided that this was the first candidate of this batch of European sketches for print-ification for Society6. So! What is interesting about this column? DRAGONS are what is interesting about this column.

The column drawing by itself didn't seem to show really strongly the sort of whimsical, dark feeling I got from the actual piece I was drawing, so I decided to, for lack of a better phrase, beef it up some. I pulled out the dragon silhouettes in bright colors and set them behind the column, which I shaded a bit to pop it out more.

The dragons by themselves were a bit hard to pick out, so I decided to shade and detail the feathers/scales to make it clear that these were creatures rather than amorphous shadows.

That worked quite well, and I liked the texture of the feathers on the red dragon's lower body.

The background was just not doing it for me -- the flat gradient seemed both dull and a little inauthentic to the weathered texture of the medieval piece of stone this idea came from. I thought about using a stone pattern from the internet, but the only patterns I found were a) expensive and b) too regular to be interesting. I then took a piece of watercolor paper and made a large speckled "gradient" of my own, which I put behind all the other layers (set on "multiply," my favorite setting for layers) in the Photoshop file.

More shading of the purple dragon ensued to make him seem more like he was becoming more solid. The way the purple dragon's body stopped looked odd, but I didn't really want to muck up the clean line of the neck with the somewhat clunky body that is actually on the column, so I attempted some graphic swirls to make the two figures seem a little less like they were floating.

After more contemplation, I decided the swirls were two busy, and replaced them with one solid shape to indicate the purple dragon's body.

And, the final print (with bonus shading!) It's now on sale at my Society6 page -- click over to purchase and/or promote.

Society6 prints!

2011-10-14T12:40:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned this before, but I'd like to remind you -- I'm now selling prints of my artwork on Society6.

If you have a Society6 account and like my work, please promote it!

If you have a desire for often travel-themed prints, buy one!

If, however, you don't currently have the money for such things (and I can appreciate that problem), consider liking a print on Facebook, tweeting about it, or liking it on your Stumbleupon account. I very much would appreciate the publicity.

the soggy life and times: a very late and somewhat sparse post from Kyoto

2011-10-11T19:08:00.006-04:00

Was looking back at posts I meant to publish previously, and lo and behold, I came upon one written before I apparently became too busy and grumpy in Kyoto to blog more, entitled the "soggy life and times." I deleted the bits about flooding, as I feel most people probably know what's up regarding the Missouri River at this point, but I did pick out some fun pictures.

First: some work! I made a large 1:30 scale model of a portion of a courtyard in a temple near Nagoya which my office was redesigning to have better circulation and better views onto their garden.

It was an endeavor.

It was uber uber humid in Kyoto . . . I kept all my food in my fridge because I was nervous about the possibility of bugs, and after unintentionally leaving a package of soba out for a night it did this:

I didn't always do the best job getting around to all see all the cultural and historic stuff. One weekend the only place I managed to go was the Nishijin Textile Center, which was maybe a mile walk from where I lived. I took several illicit photos of kimono in their museum. Ahem.

Also while at Nishijin I spent quite some time looking at the Jacquard looms that are still used to weave very, very fine obi. I had a fifteen-minute conversation with the woman who was demonstrating the loom in a rather awkward combination of Japanese and English, but hey, whatever works. (I just had the realization that all the facts she imparted to me were written in the SKETCHBOOK I LOST IN PARIS. Ugh.) This particular obi featured silk of seven or eight different colors, with I think a 500-card pattern. (Before the days of the Jacquard punchcard loom, this kind of pattern was achieved by having a second person sitting on top of the loom to lift the appropriate warp threads. Now THERE'S a hilariously fun job.) Again, I'm going from memory, but I think she said this obi would take two weeks to complete.

She used a little mirror set underneath her hands to check her work. This obi had gold threadwork, which was mounted on strips of paper that were similar to what is used for money.

Tofuku-ji is a temple that is rather famous for its gardens, to my understanding. It was south of where I lived, far enough that I actually took the subway instead of trying to walk (though I think I might have walked back?)

Most of the historic places I visited while in Kyoto required that you take your shoes off before entering the building. This continues to make me very happy. Nothing like ancient floorboards under your toes.

Not sure that it's too clear from these photos, but these gardens were laid out such that there was one on each face of the main building, which I think was the abbot's residence (the word "Hondou" comes to mind.) Most of these pictures were facing toward the biggest one, though.

Damn damn double damn. This was in the sketchbook I lost in Paris. Argh. At least I have a photo of it. I can't recall exactly but I'm pretty sure this rock arrangement is supposed to represent a constellation.

Moss garden at Tofuku-ji! Also the ubiquitous azaleas.

Beautiful carving on a door as I was leaving Tofuku-ji.

I visited the Fushimi Inari shrine the same day, which is open all the time and didn't cost (which I, being neurotic about being able to afford Fontainebleau, definitely noticed at the time.) If you've watched Memoirs of a Geisha, then you are familiar with Fushimi Inari -- it appears in the beautiful scene where she is running through a series of red prayer gates, or torii. There are several thousand of them that go up the mountain; businesses pay several thousand dollars to have their name put on a gate, and it's (perhaps obviously) far more expensive to erect a large gate than a small one. There are, of course, several hundred steps to be climbed, which I think is a rather common feature of Japanese shrines. It's very meditative.

These young women were ahead of me for most of the first leg up the mountain, and it was hard to resist taking a photo.

This is the big shrine at the base of the mountain.

Towards the bottom of the mountain the gates are so dense as to make a red-lit tunnel.

For whatever reason, foxes are the important spiritual animal at Fushimi Inari, so these little wish boards are shaped like fox heads.

After being crappy and cloudy all day, the sun finally came out. It rained excessively, in my humble opinion, for most of the time I was in Kyoto. Ah, well.

recent doings and a few thoughts on Fontainebleau

2011-10-07T00:22:00.012-04:00

Looking out the window of our room at the MIJE hostel in Paris.

So, first, things I've been doing since being home.

1. Cleaning.

I had composed a massive post to explain the flooding situation while I was in Kyoto, but I never got around to posting it. The short version is: Due to a series of stupid oversights and foolish mistakes by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Missouri River flooded massively this summer. My parents (and many of my friends) were expected to be under 2-4 feet of water; luckily, due to a somewhat dry summer and incomplete information, this did not turn out to be the case.

What did turn out to be the case was that my parents effectively moved out of their house and even out of the basement of the new clinic to avoid the (potential) nightmare of sifting through sludge again. They also pretty well surrounded the new clinic with a wall of sandbags.

The river flow is back down close to normal now, the water has receded from (many) of the fields, I-29 is back open after being under a couple of feet of water for most of the summer, and I got home just in time to help my parents move back in. We spent several Saturday and weekdays afternoons borrowing my grandma's truck to take loads of furniture from Grandma's garage back to the house. The whole process has led to . . . some soul-searching on my part re: my massive quantities of stuff. I've photographsed a ton of stuff and sent boxes and boxes to Goodwill (including around 250 books which have now been distributed to various Iowa school libraries.) Realistically, I probably need to do another run-through to make sure I've sorted out everything I possibly can live without. . . but I guess that can wait.

An example of the sorts of things I've been getting rid of. Top is a duckie whose origin I cannot remember. Bottom is a "bald eagle" that I made from a scrap of wood, whiteout, a ball-point pen, cardboard, and found pigeon feathers at the age of 5. Both are now no longer in my possession.

2. Painting.

I have been kindly invited along on four plein air paint days since coming home, with folks such as Pam Cates, Linda Herman, Pat Cink, and Kat Coy. We've been up to the Calhoun Cemetery, out to the Loess Hills Lavender Farm, at Smalls' Fruit Farm, out by a horse farm near Honey Creek, and on top of Spooner Point. I haven't done much with watercolors for a long time (until Fontainebleau, rather), and I've never really painted landscapes, so overall it's been good for my skills and just fun in general.

Smalls' Fruit Farm, from 9/21. (Incidentally, Mom is paying me to make and freeze her some pies before I go. . . wherever I'm going. . . so I went up to Smalls' again last week to get a bunch of apples.)

Not exactly plein air, but I was still in the painting mood when I came home from the first day at Calhoun, so. . . Mr. Stubbs. Hopefully I will do a better portrait soon.

Yes, I was pretty excited to be able to paint lavender even after I came home from France.

3. Watching movies and reading books.

I've watched fifteen movies since I've been home. Fifteen. By myself, I've watched:

A Good Woman, a retelling of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan set in 1930s Italy (with ScarJo, unfortunately);

Agora, a profoundly depressing but very pretty story about Hypatia, a woman astronomer and philosopher who lived in Alexandria about the time that Christianity took hold in that city;

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (BBC Shakespeare Retold series), which, ugh, still one of my least favorite Shakespearean plays;

Annie Hall, which was amusing but didn't really make me a Woody Allen fan;

Atlantis (the Disney one!), which was cute and pretty;

Atonement, which was pretty and unfortunately largely substance-less, which I blame firmly on the book it was based on;

A Room With a View, which featured an infantile Helena Bonham Carter and Italy and otherwise was rather fluffy;

A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tattou and telling a series of interlocking stories set in France during and directly after World War I -- probably my favorite movie I've seen since coming home;

Breathless, which was a bit of fluff, but I guess film buffs like it, and I liked it more than I expected to;

Casablanca, which was pretty good;

Casanova, which had Heath Ledger and was charming and funny and FULL OF VENICE;

Thor, which was not as a good as I hoped but still pretty decent.

On the large screen, with my mom and other friends -- Crazy Stupid Love, which was okay, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which I thought did a respectable job of wrapping up the series, The Lion King 3D, which reminded me of how AWESOME the Lion King is/was, and Captain America, which basically proved to me that Chris Evans has other acting modes besides "jerk."

On the book end of things, I finally finished For Whom the Bells Tolls, which I started in June (oops), and started The Scenes of the Street, by Anthony Vidler, which I am now within a MERE FIFTY PAGES OF FINISHING. This was recommended to us during the first few days of Fontainebleau while we were walking around the Marais (the riverfront neighborhood by Notre Dame at the core of Paris -- in other words, a pretty fantasic place) with Mireille Roddier, one of our instructors who also teaches at Michigan. It's a series of essays on the urban development of Paris through the last three centuries, with a particular emphasis on how the ideas of the Enlightenment pushed the ideal of a utopian city (with particularly aggressive repetition of the importance of the architect Ledoux and the Saltworks at Chaux. Oy.) I don't generally do a ton of architectural reading, so it's been a nice change, though I wish I read faster.

4. Writing.

I'm writing a book! Well, yeah, I'm always writing a book. The main difference is that I'm actually aiming at publication for this one; it's a pretty fluffy story and doesn't require much research. So far I have 38,000 words, and I need about 70,000. I've written about 22,000 of those since I've been home, so I think I'm making good progress.

5. Artsy/local/fun stuff.

In the last two months, I've gone (usually with my mom or other company) to the Aronia Berry festival in Sawmill Hollow, Woodbine Apple Fest, the Omaha North Hills Pottery Tour, Radio Golf by August Wilson at the John Beasley Theater in south Omaha, and Pam Cates' opening at the Passageway Gallery in Old Market. I'm trying to take advantage of the area while I'm here, I guess.

6. Various and sundry projects.

The one that I am focusing on right now -- which you will be hearing much more about shortly -- is developing my travel sketches into prints that will go up for sale on Society6. Right now I have eight prints up! Please make a quick detour over that way and check my stuff out. If you have $18-20 to spend on a print, that's great! If you don't, but still like my work, please think about liking it on Facebook, Tweeting it, or liking it on your Firefox Stumbleupon account. Publicity helps.

I've also been sending care packages to friends, walking, cooking, and doing a few other writing things, including getting an entry ready for the James Hearst Poetry competition thingy.

7. Getting stuff organized.

As you may have noticed, I am not yet in grad school! The finances didn't come together in time. I am currently re-applying to TU Delft, still waiting to hear definitively from the Glasgow School of Art (long story), and poking around for jobs. I will admit that getting my future perfectly in line has sort of dropped to a lower priority because I've wanted to take this time to finish my major writing project and a few artistic ones. So.

And -- some thoughts on Fontainebleau. The difficulty with not blogging it as it happened is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm not going to be able to convey most of it to you, the reader. There was just. so. much. that happened while I was there. It's hard to know whether to try and do a big overview, a random series of vignettes, or an actual, in-depth, piece-by-piece recounting. (And then there's the fact that I never really finished blogging about Kyoto. Yikes.)

So. . . here is a preliminary mix of those things.

First, the street leading from the Seine to our hostel, where we stayed for the first few days. IS THAT NOT GORGEOUS.

Lesson number one: Paris in the summertime is dangerous to a young person's composure.

We met in Paris, in the riverfront neighborhood of the Marais, for four and a bit days of touring Paris before adjourning to Fontainebleau to start the real projects. I was in Paris last year for a cumulative five days, and I enjoyed it, but I don't remember being struck down with city lust that time.

I was this time.

Paris in the summertime is deadly. The people -- the street musicians -- the light on the creamy medieval stones -- the Jean Prouvé chairs in the McDonalds -- eating Berthillon ice cream as one camps behind Notre Dame and peacefully stares up at the flying buttresses. It's enough to make anyone lightheaded.

I regretted not going out for nighttime salsa the second night we were there, and for getting sunburned enough to feel ill when we visited the Parc Citroën (oh look! a vignette of a photo below!) I also rather regretted that Paris was in a drought for most of the summer, so a large number of the water features (fountains and the like) had been turned off. Boo hoo.

I was in Europe, primarily in France, between June 29 and August 15. During said time, I was in Paris, Fontainebleau, Paris again (several times), Courances, Normandy, and Barcelona. For the most part, I was in Fontainebleau.

The program was a joint one between architecture/fine arts students and musicians; there were twenty architecture folks (I think), seven composing students, and twenty-three musicians, limited to those who played piano, violin, viola, and cello. We studied primarily in the chateau at Fontainebleau, a former royal residence that's been progressively added onto since medieval times. We (the architecture students) did four one-week projects in teams of varying compositions. The first week we were supposed to design an urban installation/temporary art sculpture to provide unity between the chateau and the city in a group of four. The second week we designed a garden/landscape space to fit into the front court, the Cour des Adieus, Cour d'Honneur, whichever, at the chateau, in partners. The third and fourth week we more or less got to choose our group sizes, so I worked in partnerships both times. The third week was an architectural alteration to the the second courtyard at the chateau, the fourth a performance piece/set design somewhere within a certain relatively small area at the chateau.

Fontainebleau. . . Fontainbleau is a gorgeous town. The first night we were there we ate dinner on the program coordinator's lawn behind her stunning house. I think she probably sneezes money. The first few days of the program, the courtyard that we normally crossed to get to our studio space was blocked by an outdoor production of Madame Butterfly, so we had to walk through part of the tour of the former royal/imperial quarters to get to our workspace.

The whole business was surreal.

The horseshoe staircase in the Cour des Adieus. It doesn't actually go anywhere -- you enter the chateau for the tour on the right.

The chateau closed at 6 every day, so we had to move our operations to a big room at the back of the town hall. This is also (not coincidentally) where we pulled our all-nighters.

We stayed in a dormitory (Fontainebleau is home to a branch of the Ecole des Mines, a tech school, and thus has some student housing) and a hotel, the Carpe d'Or. I was in Crous (is that how it was spelled? don't remember), thedorm. The only source of free internet was, alas, in the student office, a fifteen-minute jaunt away by foot. (This doubtless brought about the serious lack of blogging during the time period, though overall busy-ness had to do with that, as well.) I managed to not take a single picture of my digs while I was there, but rest assured: It was TWICE AS BIG as my apartment in Kyoto. It was approaching Midwestern in scale, even.

In Fontainebleau everything closed at 8. When there were student shindigs, we had to be sure that everything (i.e. snacks and wine) was purchased in our free hour between the end of class and the beginning of the dinner. (We ate every night at a restaurant called the Troubador at 7:30. It was decent food, though there were definitely a couple nights when I ate copious quantities of bread and salad and left without feeling too bad about missing the main course. (Whatever it was, it always came in sauce. Lots of sauce.) Behind the chateau is a canal, dug by one of the Louis-es so he could have nice long royal promenades alongside it.

Lesson number two. I can't pronounce a French r, but rosé is the sort of wine I most consistently find tasty.

The program had planned for us a number of excursions, including to the Opera Garnier, the gardens at Courances, and of course the final expedition to Normandy. We made good use of a bus.

Me on the roof of the Opera Garnier (on which the Phantom of the Opera is based.) Yeah. Also surreal.

Lesson number 3. (The last before I publish this; hopefully I will find time and motivation to write a little bit more about this stuff later.) I can focus on drawing or taking really good photos, but not both.

I admit I got a bit intimidated -- I was surrounded by people with really good cameras and lots of practice, and my $200 Sony Cybershot was just not measuring up. That being said, I was also anxious for this to be the first summer in three that I didn't lose or annihilate a camera (though I did lose a sketchbook at the beginning of the trip -- I was INCREDIBLY ANGRY.)

That decision, to focus on drawing rather than photography, meant that I ended up with a lot of sketches like this, showing the entrance to the Cour Oval (I think that's what it's called) at the back of the chateau at Fontainebleau.

And you know, I was pretty happy with that.

a post for a friend. . .

2011-08-23T14:51:00.005-04:00

So, alas, I have not updated this blog for approximately an age and a half. Forgive me! It is of course when I actually have things to blog about that I don't have time to do so.

Blech.

In any case, I will be putting up some entries with more soon. . . I hope.

In the mean time, here's a lovely postcard sent to me from my friend Joan from Barcelona:

I very much must get these watercolor postcards.

Also in the line of Joan: a shoutout. This grass on my 6-mile walk today made me think of you and our landscaping project:

For comparison's sake, some of the renderings we produced in Fontainebleau.

Now, back to trying to finish A Good Woman, as well as trying and failing to focus. :P

Nijou-jou and Nanzen-ji: preliminary thoughts

2011-05-30T14:12:00.006-04:00

Making a shabby attempt at keeping the blog updated. So, here are some pictures with no thoughts yet attached.

From Nijou Castle (or Nijou-jou :D):

From the walk to Nanzen-ji:

From the walk back from Nanzen-ji:

There are many pictures in between, but they have yet to see the light of editing software.

londontimes: THE CONTINUED SAGA

2011-05-30T13:05:00.000-04:00

[EDITED TO ADD: Hey yo! Sorry about the VAST DELAY. But at least it's going up, right? There are some . . . ah. . . condensations toward the end of this post, made with an eye to not having it sit in cyberlimbo until the end of time. The original date on this post was 4/10/11, but I'm changing it to now to make it show up where peeps will notice it.]

The saga continues. . . . (now, with more pictures!)

DAY DEUX dawned. It dawned later than I had planned.

Damn snoring lady.

First, breakfast; I had walked by a grocery store the day before, "Tesco's Express." They had a seemingly unlimited supply of almond-filled croissants (mmmm) and, of course, 500-650 mL bottles of funny-tasting diet Coke. (In terms of the tastiness of their diet Coke, I have found Spain > U.S. > France > U.K.)

You can see my second day's route here as I slowly wended my way across London. I walked alongside the Buckingham Palace grounds on Grosvenor (!) Place. (My grandmother's maiden name is Grosvenor -- her family actually has [minimal] records going back to about 1350. John Grosvenor, my great-times-something grandfather, came to North America around 1660. NOW YOU KNOW.) I was kind of hoping to see the Palace from afar -- forgetting of course that it is sort of a government building and also a private residence -- in any case, it was surrounded by 10-foot stone walls with an array of six-inch-long spikes jutting out of the top.

Some famous streets -- yes, it amuses my immature mind that "Drury Lane" is just another street for most Londoners. (I also was on Fleet Street, but it was already dark, so I didn't want to stop and take a picture.)

My mom and I have a standing souvenir agreement -- wherever I travel, I will attempt to bring her back a Christmas ornament or object that can easily be repurposed into a Christmas ornament. So far she has a lacy laser-cut metal ornament from Mount Vernon (Dad and I went there on a high school trip to D.C.)(and now it's also a "flood ornament," because all the laser-cut flourishes have little lacy borders of rust from being submerged in mucky water), a yellow charm with a tiny white dog from the Shinto shrine at Kotohira, a charm with a small white peak embroidered on the front from the Shinto shrine on top of Mount Fuji, a metal bookmark from Ellis Island showing the Statue of Liberty, a supercheap metal keychain of the Eiffel Tower from Paris, and now -- this little dude, purchased the Buckingham Palace Mews gift shop, where I stopped as I made my somewhat confused way across London. I think I'll call him Percy. Apparently Christmas ornaments are a normal souvenir in England, because there were tons of excellently garish ones -- stuffed sequined crowns, blown-glass carriages, teddy bears in royal robes, etc.

The Royal College of Art asked that we bring two passport-sized photos to the interview with our name written on the back. I had forgotten, but was hoping to find one of those little photo kiosks in a subway or train station. After getting momentarily lost (okay, I lied about only getting lost once) I found my way to Victoria Station, which is large and sort of round-shaped in plan and has a great number of overpriced and pretentious fast food establishments. (Apparently even McDonalds in London uses a green background, rather than the standard red found in the U.S., to imply a more "wholesome" ambiance. NOW YOU KNOW.) The first photo booth I found was out of order, even after I hopefully poked at the dark touchscreen inside for a few minutes. After cautiously wending my way past the ticket turnstiles and the public restrooms, I found another photo booth, this one active. Sadly along with the words flashing on the screen it gave audible instructions in an extremely loud recording of a woman's voice. Six photos (the remains of which are shown above) cost me £5, or about $8. Yes. . . poor planning. I had to duck out of the booth mid-instruction to get change from a machine, leaving it to repeatedly yell, "PLEASE INSERT FIVE POUNDS. COINS ONLY PLEASE. PLEASE INSERT FIVE POUNDS. COINS ONLY PLEASE. PLEASE INSERT. . . " I look unusually somber because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to smile in passport photos in every country that's NOT the U.S. (Maybe you're not supposed to smile for U.S. passports either, but the local post office didn't tell me not to when they took my picture.)

That taken care of, I continued on down Victoria Street. I ran into Westminster Cathedral (above), which is decidedly distinct from Westminster Abbey -- the first is the home church of Catholics in England, the second essentially the home chapel of the royal family of England and thus historically important to the Anglican Church. And, of course, the Cathedral was built about 600 years after the Abbey. You can look at a virtual tour of Westminister Cathedral here. I didn't go in because I was suspicious of the people handing out pamphlets in front. I had been warned about marauding Scientologists.

And here -- is Westminster Abbey! This is the exterior of the Lady Chapel, built in the 1500s, where Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots are buried, which faces Parliament.

This is the end of the nave, where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is (inside.)

I was pretty excited to finally see Westminster Abbey. My Encarta Encyclopedia program, which I spent an unholy amount of time playing with during my childhood, had a series of virtual tours of various historic monuments, such as Alcatraz, an Egyptian temple, and Westminster. I had spent many hours studying those pictures, though not recently, and had lots of bits of trivia about the Stone of Scone, the tombs of Elizabeth I and Marcy Queen of Scots, and various authors and artists buried there floating about in my head. (Not to mention the scenes from The King's Speech which were filmed there.)

With a certain amount of inevitability, Westminster was closed for tourists when I got there. Monday is their off day. I milled about with several dozen disappointed French tourists before giving up and heading across the street to the Westminster Palace of Parliament, built between 1840 and 1860 after the original medieval burning was destroyed in a fire. It was hedged about on all sides with traffic barriers and watchful-looking bobbies (which I say mainly to conjure up an image of the iconic egg-shaped hat. Heh.)

Off to one side of the complex is a garden/park space that looks out on the Thames, with benches along the paths that wrap around it. I found a tree to brace myself against and did this sketch with badly shaking hands. I think I've found the secret to the architect's characteristic "loose" sketches -- it is a matter of necessity rather than studied practice. I was freezing and couldn't have drawn a true straight line if I had to.

Then I headed north. I stopped at Trafalgar Square, eyeballing St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and the National Gallery, as well as the hordes of schoolchildren climbing on the monument's lions, before taking off again in search of the British Museum. I got dreadfully lost (I guess this is the third time in this narrative, whoops) and bought an awful sandwich with Styrofoam-like tomatoes and unevenly distributed mustard sauce. The British Museum is in a residential neighborhood filled with small dark tight houses that, were they in the South End, I would date about 1850.

I found myself at a rather unimposing entrance flanked by two small Art Deco lions. (Later I realized that I had accidentally gone in at the side door.) The small map by the door was quite confusing, so I determined that I needed my own paper copy. Alas! The disadvantages of free state museums soon presented themselves: the only portable map available was a proper laminated sort that cost two pounds. After a wander about the distressingly bland bookstore (where two postcards cost three pounds and ten postcards cost one -- how odd) and the "souvenir shop" next door (which were separate entities? how odd) (and now I recall that I owe a number of people postcards -- whoops), I purchased said map, but decided against the audio guide -- it cost five or eight pounds to rent and, in the manner of international museums, required me to leave my passport or credit card as ransom. Damn their eyes. Anyhow.

I veered off into a side gallery, having no real idea where I was going, and spent an enjoyable half an hour looking at a free temporary exhibition, "Adornment and Identity," focusing on jewelry and clothing worn by women in Oman during the 20th century. Lots of heavy silver, lots of coins (particular a certain kind of Austrian coin with a high silver content called a "thaller") worked in jewelry, lots of sort of protective amulets in the shape of small boxes containing verses from the Qu'ran. Next to that was another exhibit showing clothing and jewelry from the Balkans in the 20th century. Also lovely, though they made a huge point about how the silver content in all the jewelry was lower. Right then.

The next room down was one showing how the British Museum was set up in the 1800s, to which I say: Oi. Clutter. Hard to find ANYTHING and hard to distinguish which thing in the crowded glass cases and bookshelves one was supposed to be looking at.

I then headed upstairs, because the Egyptian and Grecian galleries on the ground floors were packed with terrifying numbers of British schoolchildren.

I found myself in the ANCIENT BRITAIN area, highlighting CELTIC AND SAXON FINERY. In short: I recognized a ton of this stuff (the Battersea shield, the Sutton Hoo helmet, this one bronze mirror) from my abiding obsession during high school with such things. It was pretty great.

(Thus follows a collage of my favorite bits of GOLD.)

Before leaving, I also saw some Elgin marbles (I think), the Rosetta Stone, and a number of Aztec artifacts that were covered in huge and envy-making pieces of turquoise, none of which I got wonderful pictures of.

It escapes me at the moment how I got from the British Museum to the Tate Museum, but I'm sure it involved lots of walking and probably getting lost. Due to poor lighting, I took no wonderful pictures of said museum, but suffice to say I like the building, by Herzog and DeMeuron, adapted from an old power station.

This was a stupid exhibition called Linearity #412 or something like that but which actually should been named "A very large floor covered in lots of gravel with a few footprints."

I was overall rather disappointed in the Tate Modern. For a world-famous museum, the art was unremarkable and curated most unimaginatively (though not as bad as the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. They might as well have been displaying a dryer lint collection for all the craps they gave.) Compared to the Guggenheim in New York (brilliant curation) or the Reina Sofia in Madrid (rather stunning collection from Picasso and Dali), I was unimpressed. It was more on the level of the ICA in Boston, which is okay, I guess, except that the ICA is a much tinier museum serving an urban population of 4.5 million, and the Tate is a large museum serving a metro area of 12.5 million. So, meh to that.

The awesome footbridge that gets ripped apart in the sixth Harry Potter movie (and which we looked at in Structures and also in some other classes because it's cool) runs across the Thames between the Tate Modern and St. Paul's Cathedral, as shown.

They were having a "choral evening" when I arrived at St. Paul's, which was lovely. No photos allowed, so I sketched:

The only part of the service I remember was when they asked for prayers for Japan.

I second that.

I walked back to the hostel then, stopping at a grocery store to buy two buns (one white and one wheat) because I was RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN THE FINAL INSTALLMENT, airing sometime [originally I wrote, "later this week!" but I think a more accurate end to that sentence would be "I hope!"]

you know what's important

2011-05-23T04:23:00.002-04:00

I'll tell you what's important: Food.

Generally I am existing on a diet of noodles, things on top of noodles, and Pepsi "Nex Zero." (Marilyn, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.) I've drunk one liter of milk a week so far and gone through about four packages of frozen dumplings (which I suspect are mainly soy protein and cabbage with a slight flavoring of pork.)

I have broken this pattern on occasion:

These cookies are basically Teddy Grahams, except that instead of being in the shapes of diminutive bears they're in the shapes of various antique Japanese coins. They are the optimum tastiness: Tasty enough that I thoroughly enjoy them, but not so tasty that I want to eat the whole bag in one sitting (which is a problem I generally have whenever I a box with "butter" somewhere on the label.)

I think I mentioned these guys. They are frybreads, made from the dough that I attempted to steam, and filled with sugar, which then melts and caramelizes. Damn good. Probably better than I don't have time to make them on a daily rather than weekly basis.

My birthday celebration was rather, um, low-key. I got a maple doughnut and a cup of creme brulee flavored ice cream (deceptively labeled "vanilla pudding" when the primary flavor was the burnt sugar.)

This was this weekend's effort -- last week I got some Japanese sweet potatoes and discovered that I don't care for them by their lonesome, so I bought some regular potatoes (at $2 for four tiny potatoes! Yowza!), diced them really finely with some carrot, onion, and cabbage, added three eggs, about a cup of flour, some pepper and some basil to the pot, and fried up what I am calling "mixed vegetable latkes." They were pretty damn tasty, if I do say so myself.

Heian kimono

2011-05-21T12:51:00.002-04:00

This is a collage that I've working on all week of the women in the Aoi Matsuri parade wearing Heian-era kimono. I was trying to emphasize the patterns and colors in each garment. . . not sure how successful I was. Anyhoo! Here you go.

the first week

2011-05-15T09:31:00.013-04:00

of work.

Well, 'twas interesting. In a good way! Mostly. Except for the damn toilet. I thought it would get easier to use with practice -- and it sort of has -- my squatting muscles are definitely stronger. However, THERE ARE STILL THE OBVIOUS ISSUES.

I finished the paper tiles on the roof of the model of the Nagoya temple. . . well, sort of. I finished the tiles on the larger model. Unfortunately there was an error in communication between me and my boss on the larger site model with buildings at a smaller scale, so I have to do some more twiddly work to finish it. (Dammit.)

Andrew, the other guy who works in my office, looked at this model and said, "Wow, they're so neat!" Which was a first. . . I don't think anyone's ever accused me of making neat models before. Of course, this has to be balanced against the fact that this office still does a fare amount of hand drafting, which I suck at (though I'm relatively confident I can do it if they ask, so long as they don't mind it taking me a really. long. time.)

The hours are kind of irregular so far. I don't think I've come in for quite the same period of time two days in a row yet. I'm also working Tuesday-Saturday instead of Monday-Friday because my boss teaches at a university (maybe Kyodai?) on Mondays.

I don't want to say just a huge amount about office dynamics/personalities/what-have-you here, because I did that while I worked at Issho. Though I found it amusing and soothing to vent at the time, in retrospect it was a really dumb thing to do and could have backlashed so hard in my face. So. . . more generically: my boss is originally from New York. He's married to a Japanese woman and has a 2-month-old son (who I got to meet on Saturday. I mistook him for a handbag at first, then realized it was a baby sling + baby.) He talks under his breath a lot, including a fair amount of swearing, which since I am secretly ten years old I privately find very funny. My coworker is from California/New Jersey, graduated from Cornell last year with a B.Arch (that's five years and 10 studios for those who don't know), did his thesis on machiya, and has been in Japan for about a year now continuing his research. He comes in four days and week and studies Japanese otherwise, so his Japanese is (I think) quite a bit better than mine? (Well, that wouldn't be super hard. I'm starting to realize the intense anxiety that I have had in the past regarding languages is not really super normal.) He's going to start restoring the lower floor of a house on Imadegawa Street on the other side of the river pretty soon, and I think maybe we will go over and help him plaster and stuff. I kind of hope so, anyway. He's been a regular font of information regarding the house and Kyoto, which is super nice for me.

(This portion is actually taken from an email I sent to someone [ahem, you know who you are], but it was interesting and I didn't care to rewrite it.) I wish I could render to you the amazing explanation of all that had to be done in this building before it was okay to actually work in by my coworker. I think they said it was abandoned shortly after World War II -- like they found this set of sake cups that were given as gifts to those who served in the Japanese navy during WWII in there -- and the whole house was FILLED WITH GARBAGE. The structure had settled to one side and all the columns were crooked and the floor was basically totally rotten and covered in rotten tatami [woven rice mats] and they had to cart all this gross crap off (et tu, flood summer?) and then rip everything off the floors and poke at the walls to see where the plaster was good -- apparently the way Japanese walls are made, they set up the wooden framing, and then they lay down a grid of thin bamboo strips, then a really coarse dirt mixture, which is allowed to dry, then a less coarse mixture with straw in it to hold it together [I may have missed a step], which is what all the walls have now (it's this lovely golden color and slightly rough texture), and then usually fine plaster that's white or colored. Anyway most of the walls were good but they had to patch them, and also jack up the house on one side, and install entirely new floors. Also it's interesting because the beams of the house up above show marks from being used in a different structure, so even though this house is probably 100 years old (so, oops, I messed that up in the one previous entry), the beams are all probably 150 years old. The house smells vaguely of piney wood and plaster all the time, which is very nice. It's a very cool place to work, even during the first few days when I was sitting on the floor on that green pattern cushion, which is called a "zabuton" (which is pretty damn thin.) (Also I learned that the breezeway/hallway is called a "toriniwa," a passage garden. Which conjures up pleasant images of hanging a bunch of potted plants out there. Anyway!) But on Wednesday/Thursday my boss put legs on the short tables so that we can sit on chairs! Ikea chairs. I put one together. Yay for Ikea!

I need to get more disciplined. . . so far I've just been coming home, screwing around the internet, and then going to bed (late), instead of working on my personal projects. Blargh.

Some days we seem to have an hour for lunch, which is actually more than I need because I've been trying to cook mine and bring it, but on the other hand, I think that if I'm going to be there until 8 or 9 anyway I might as well take the whole hour. This is a temple near (really, really near) work, like one block east and one block north. There's another smaller temple (which I'm pretty sure is not associated with this one) directly across the street from the office. I hear bells ringing throughout the day from the temple, which is pretty neat. Less neat are the hoards and hoards of stray cats that run around everywhere and yowl because someone at the temple feeds them. (Though I will admit to being pretty amused by the large orange tom who walked across the temple wall just in my line of vision on Friday morning.)

Looking inside the larger temple. I love seeing tree branch supports because they seem so very Japanese.

It rained for the first four days of the week, then cleared up on Friday and Saturday, which was nice. In Tokyo June was pretty much entirely rainy, so I'd like to get as much pleasant weather in as possible.

On Saturday a television crew from a local (Osaka) channel came into the office late in the afternoon to film some snippets of the office (presumably because an American office that primarily restores traditional housing is an interesting concept?) Anyway, we spent the whole cleaning furiously. I scrubbed the back courtyard area for -- hours? seemed like it -- washed windows (ugh I suck at that), swept and swept, tucked things into the closet, assembled a chair (as aforementioned), and so on and so forth. I also am theoretically going to be on TV for somewhere between 3-10 seconds, though I would guess it will be on the lower end of that spectrum.

It was a grand relief after a long week to get to my weekend on Sunday. I had already made "plans" -- heh, that makes it sound far more serious -- based on the Kyoto Wikipedia article, which told me that the Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival, named for the leaves, not the flowers) was on May 15. The festival is about 1400-1500 years old and consists of a lot of people wearing Heian-era dress parading solemnly through the streets from the Kyoto Imperial Palace to Shimogamo Shrine (which the Wikipedia article gives all kind of rationalizations for the name of, when as far as I can tell from the characters, it just looks to be "Shrine below the Duck River." But you know, I'm probably missing something.) I misread the map and thought the parade was going by on Imadegawa Street, which is just north of where I live.
When I walked out that morning though, there were no parade people on Kawabata Dori (the street parallel to the river on my side) or on Imadegawa.

There were, however, a whole lot of people crossing the river to get the bridge just above Imadegawa. So. . . I got in line and crossed the river too.

I love these stepping stones across the river.

It took some jockeying to find an all right place to stand, as I foolishly did not consider that getting there at 11:20 when the parade was supposed to go by at 11:15 was probably not the best way to ensure that there wouldn't be three people standing in front of me. I had much reason to curse the sun parasols that many Japanese women carry, but luckily most seemed to put them down when the parade actually started. I think I ended up standing by two Dutch tourists and two American ones.

These pictures aren't really in order anymore. The general theory of the procession is that it's headed up by an Imperial Messenger and ended by the Saiō-Dai, a woman who has been ritually purified and in older times would dedicate herself to the shrines at the end of the parade (which, mistake, they go to Shimogamo and then to Kamigamo. Below and above the Duck River, respectively.) Basically it's a huge series of offerings to the Kamo deities to ensure good weather and safe crops, originated after a year of storms more or less wiped out everything.

This is an "oxcart," except I"m pretty sure the ox was just walking along in front, while the twenty people pushing it were actually making it go.

People on horseback are an important part of the procession. Apparently at the shrine after the parade there is a mounted archery contest, which I missed. That made me sad, but the nap I took after the parade did not make me sad.

Many of the dudes were carrying bows and arrows and swords.

There were a couple of really hot, unhappy horses in the parade who clearly would have preferred to be somewhere else.

I'm going to post the women's outfits later, once I've consolidated them into a collage. The problem with standing back a ways is that most of my photos have little bits of people's heads in them, which doesn't make for a very interesting presentation.

the downside

2011-05-11T19:59:00.000-04:00

of being taken out by your boss for an awesome Japanese dinner is not getting home until 11:30 PM. (And only two hours of that was eating -- I was at the office from 9:15 AM to 9:15 PM, and I was probably actively working for 10 hours of that time. Damn paper roof tiles.) This morning I pretty much had to choose between cooking lunch and showering, and cooking lunch lost.

I didn't eat out much last time, and I probably won't eat much this time, but an overview of things I ate (can't remember it all; this was sort of like tapas, where the izakaya employees/owner brought out little plates of lots of things and we shared):

Cold boiled shrimp (with all the parts -- eyes, legs, antenna, etc. -- still attached -- took a while to dismantle that with chopsticks)

oft young bamboo shoots, which one ate with soy sauce and wasabi (I used a little wasabi to be a good sport) (they were sort of big and floppy, not like the little diced bamboo shoots you get in a can)

Tempura-ed green veggie something. . . looked like some sort of little green flower/stem thing; they served tempura just with a little pile of salt to dip it in

Fish chunks and yama no gobo (new word! means a kind of root vegetable that's like a chewy white carrot) boiled in tasty soup

Slices of fish sashimi with the skin still on -- what kind of fish??? don't know, but it was sort of marbled white and red

Different slices of fish which had been just barely grilled around the outside, with a pile of vinegary green onions on top

More tempura of unidentifiable yet tasty vegetables. . . my favorite appeared to be squash, as it was very large orange slices with a green rind, but it tasted like sweet potato, not squash. There was also a sweeter, chewier, white veggie slice -- turnip? More proof that I will eat about anything if it is battered and fried.

Dark miso soup with lobster chunks (this was toward the end of the meal, so I couldn't drink all of it)

Unagi (sea eel) (I think? it may have been river eel -- that's what he originally asked for and I can't recall whether they had it or not) in its standard delicious sauce (that one's cooked, incidentally)

Little baby squid (maybe three inches long apiece), which I tried to be a good sport, but were in fact pretty gross. The little head was sort of filled with this squishy pasty stuff that I'm pretty sure was squid internal organs. Ick. I kind of didn't eat the eyes and tentacles, which the izakaya owner noticed and laughed at, but the other office guy, Andrew, didn't even try one, so I didn't feel too bad.

Cold tea.

There's probably some stuff there that I'm forgetting, but that's most of it.

I was able to follow some of the conversation my boss was having in Japanese with the izakaya owner (I say izakaya as "small drinking and eating establishment, but it could be the wrong word.) Probably not as much as I should have, but still, I was happy that I got some of it.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

2011-05-10T08:06:00.005-04:00

First: The good! There's quite a bit of it.

Today was my first day of work at Design 1st, a (very) small firm (I think it's just the principal and maybe one or two other people) that mainly restores machiya, traditional Japanese townhouses, in Kyoto. The "office" -- actually a small machiya which is currently in the process of being renovated -- is maybe a mile and a half south of my apartment.

The house itself is pretty tiny. The practical person in me cocks a brow at the amount of work it will take to make it really habitable (in a non-camping and non-Mom-living-in-the-old-church kind of way -- flood reference for the win), but the historian and the architect are still going, "SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEEEEEEEEEE!" It's such a neat little structure.

I think my boss said in an email that this house was 200 years old. It's at least a hundred years old, that's for sure. It's probably about twice as big as my studio apartment in total floorspace, and constructed of dark pine beams (stained or aged, I do not know), plaster, and wood paneling. I drew a little picture (see below) to help understand the layout, but basically it's two living rooms, one in front of the other, elevated about 1-2 feet off the ground on platforms. The front one has a screened-in bay that faces the street. There is a ground-level hallway running alongside the two rooms that is two stories tall. In the back of this hallway is where the kitchen area used to be; there's a skylight/smoke opening and the remains of a brick stove. This hallway is sort of the "mud room" area -- the floor is concrete-ish and dirty, you can wear shoes and there are storage cabinets there -- while the two living rooms are the nice areas, where you're supposed to take your shoes off. There's ladder in the hallway that leads to a little platform which opens onto a loft over the back living room (the roof slants down so that there wouldn't be room for a second story in the front room.) The hallway continues straight back to the tiny courtyard with one tree in it, where the plumbing services are -- toilet and what I think was probably a shower, each in its own cubicle. I didn't put this in my drawing, but I think the space between the two cubicles and the back living room (which looks out onto the courtyard through a glass sliding door) had a big dry sink (or wet sink, not sure) in it. (edited to add: drawings not to scale. sort of, but not really.)

Basically they've already restored the two living rooms -- the back one has tatami mats and everything -- but the kitchen/service corridor and back courtyard are still in a primitive state. I suspect as soon as it stops raining I will get to clean. My desk is in the front bay, which is very nice. The front room has what smells like cedar or pine planking for flooring.

I sat on a little green cushion, as you can see, which saved my butt from sadness. My boss said that in a few days he'll try to bring in a higher table and chairs. We shall see. I'll likely survive either way.

I made a rough panorama with photos taken while seated at my desk in the front window. I actually managed to sit on the floor the whole day without killing my knees or any other important joints. I still can't kneel for more than 5 minutes without having my feet go numb, but it's a start. (I didn't take my computer to work, so the stitching-together all happened after I got home. :P)

Today I worked on a model for a temple in Nagoya. They're designing a new repository for ashes behind the temple and some structures in the inner courtyard. My job was to put paper "tiles" on the roofs, and I spent all eight hours of my work day finishing half of it. That said, it was an enormous relief to be given a task on the first day that was relatively straightforward and that I could do well with little to no help. My modeling skills aren't the best, but after 4.114 they're a lot better, and I thought my roofs looked very nice and crisp. I should finish that tomorrow, as well as meet the other guy who works in the office. Both my boss and coworkers are Americans, which, while it's not improving my language skills any, is frankly a lot easier on me.

The bad: It rained all day today (it's still pouring disgustingly now), so I was pretty soggy by the time I got home. Also, because Google Maps told me it was about a mile away, I set out about 30 minutes before I was supposed to be there. Alas, I had not bargained on the fact that I strained (not sprained and not even a full-on spasm, but it hurt) a muscle in my calf yesterday when walking up the hill in my Birkenstocks to Ginkaku-ji. (Probably should have let the legs rest a bit the day after the 10.5 miler. . . oops.) So I was walking much, much more slowly than usual. . . and somehow I just got confused about where I was? I wasn't really lost, per se. . . I never made a wrong turn. But I kept stopping and looking around for extended periods of time because I was convinced I ought to either be there by now or that maybe it was just one more street? Anyway, I was 45 minutes late. Distressed face! But. . . I still ended up working until 7:30, or about 8.5 hours total, plus the time I was there for lunch (which I cooked last night but forgot -- grumble grumble grumble -- I had onigiri and a pastry instead -- but at least I had it for dinner when I got home), so it made for a long day.

Also, I don't think I like NPR news. Or maybe I just don't like news as background noise in general. I think it's the same reason I hate hearing a TV in the background unless I am actively watching it. Something about people talking at me when I'm not really listening just . . . ugh.

I sat on the floor all day, but I more or less confirmed that there is no position that is comfortable for me on the floor for more than 10-15 minutes. I lose circulation in my legs really fast if I don't keep moving them around.

The ugly.

MY NEMESIS RETURNS.

WE MEET AGAIN, SQUAT TOILET.

These are the oh-so-modern bathroom arrangements at the house. I was alone there today (my boss was teaching while I was working on the model), so I felt weird about leaving the unlocked house to go to the bathroom in a convenience store three blocks away. So I used this sucker. (Note also the fabulous sink-bucket.) Let me tell you: Squat toilets suck just as much as I remembered. Show me anyone who tries to say that squat toilets are MORE SANITARY than sit-down ones, and I will punch that person in the fact repeatedly and beat them to the ground with a frying pan. ARGH.

Ginkaku-ji and further plans

2011-05-09T12:18:00.005-04:00

I did indeed haul my lazy butt over to Ginkaku-ji. It cost 500 yen to get in. I think I might go back (perhaps!) because it's sooooo close and quite pretty and I forgot the memory card to my camera so basically I just have these two EXTREMELY SPEEDY sketches that I'm not super happy with. (There were colors, man! colors!)

This is the main and most famous building there. "Ginkaku-ji" means "the Silver Pavilion," though it is not, actually, covered in silver, though apparently that was originally the plan. It's supposed to be a counterpart to Kinkaku-ji ("the Golden Pavilion"), which I saw last time I was in Japan. Both were built as private residences, this one in the 1480s-90s, and later given over to orders of Buddhist monks to turn into temples. I kept picturing whatever brilliant old Japanese architect who designed this place spinning in his grave, yelling, "I spent MONTHS getting the curve of that roof JUST RIGHT, and now you cavalierly butcher it in your drawing? FOR SHAME!"

Ah well.

This brings to mind the fact that there are bunch of things that I really want to be sure that I see in Kyoto before leaving, and I probably should do a little planning such that I don't get caught unawares with how relatively little time I have here. I don't have a huge travel budget this time around, but as I swear 60% of Japan's "Important Cultural Properties" are located within a four-mile radius from where I live, I think I can handle that.

Firstly: Aoi Matsuri, the Hollyhock festival, which is apparently a big one in Kyoto, happens on May 15 -- this Sunday, to be precise. I think there's a parade and stuff, so hopefully I can go out and catch that.

I'd like to visit the Kyoto National Museum, the Kyoto Municipal Art Museum (hey, I've walked by it two or three times now), and the Kyoto International Manga Museum. On the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites, there's Kamigamo and Shimogamo Shrines (one of which I think I've already walked by once without recognizing it, whoops), both about a mile or two north of where I live. There's Tou-ji (has a pagoda) and Nijou Castle, which are a little farther away and on the other side of the river. I'd love to visit Kiyomizu-dera again (and was intending to when I got lost on the road to Otsu, sigh). There's Daigo-ji, Ninna-ji, Saihou-ji, which all look to have lovely gardens/buildings (and another pagoda! I wish you could actually go up in the pagodas. Le sigh.) In other words, I could visit two major temples every weekend and still have a ton left.

We'll see.

In spite of having little budget for travel, I still have some ideas for outside of Kyoto:

Osaka is but a short (really short, like $15 round trip ish) train ride away. And it's huge. Doubtless there are dozens of things that I could do there every weekend too, but the things that are striking my fancy at the moment are the "Open Air Museum of Old Farmhouses," "Museum of Oriental Ceramics" (maybe, sometimes I can't deal with thousands of bowls), and Sumiyoshi Taisha (a carefully rebuilt/restored pre-Chinese Buddhist influence Shinto shrine). It also might be fun to try and tour about looking for modern architecture of note.
I had thought about going to Miyajima (it's the famous red torii in the ocean that you've doubtless seen photos of), but it's way farther down the coastline than I thought, such that a round-trip train ticket is going to be in the vicinity of $250. Eeep. Given that I, personally, am not super excited about going to see it at this point, I think it might get put off for another trip.
I thought maybe of trying to go back to Takamatsu. There was this really great garden there, the name of which escapes me now (I want to say Ritsurin-Kouen) that I didn't get any photos in because I had just annihilated my camera with rain water on the walk up to Kotohira, but it was pretty fantastic. Train fare would be in the neighborhood of $200 round trip, though. Possibly there's a less express, less expensive option? Shall look into this.
The place I would really, really like to visit is Nagasaki. A round-trip plane ticket to Nagasaki in early June and hosteling for a night is probably going to cost in the region of $330-$360, though I'd also like to visit Usuki. . . which is sadly on the opposite side of Kyuushuu and would cost another $200 in train tickets. Bah humbug. I probably need to reserve my flights and hostel in the next day or so if I'm going. . . .oy.

music, silence, food

2011-05-08T06:58:00.007-04:00

Some things.

On Saturday I walked to Uniqlo (not the closest Uniqlo, turns out -- damn you, Google Maps, for lying to me) to buy some socks, as I have put holes in three pairs since I've gotten here. I went ahead and got two more t-shirts while I was there, since it looks like I will be doing more dressed-down work (cleaning, etc.) and less dressed-up work than I had at first predicted.

I know some folk think Uniqlo's stuff is bland and boring, but you guys: When you are a size FREAKING ENORMOUS by most Japanese standards, and Uniqlo carries most of the basics in sizes up to XL (an American XL, more or less) -- that is a godsend. I love Uniqlo. Also their socks fit unusually well -- they go up just far enough to avoid slipping over the heel and have a good seam at the toe (and come in cute patterns.) I bought three pairs last time I was here, but alas! one half of each pair disappeared into the ether, and I was left with one red, one blue, and one gray striped sock.

On the way park I walked through a large park with a mysterious structure inside a large wall that I could not identify. Upon further investigation, I realized that it was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Durrrr. The current building only dates from 1855 (only!), though there has been an imperial palace near this location since the late 700s. Two recent emperors were crowned here (though not the most recent), but it isn't currently used as a residence. You have to request permission to go inside, but I just walked about and took some picture of the wall and the roofs and stuff. (There's also a bunch of normal park stuff on the grounds, like a baseball diamond and tennis courts.)

VERDANT FOLIAGE on the roof!

Overlapping roofs of one the gates.

Incidentally, I've added another item to my "smell of Japan" list: New wood and evergreens. There are Japanese pine forests surrounding the whole city, and the scent creeps in, especially when you get to the edges.

My loot from Uniqlo. Also my toes.

Some food stuff: I attempted to make cabbage-and-carrot-and-onion stuffed steamed buns. FOOLISHNESS!

This setup failed, for reasons I will not go into.

I consoled myself with these graham cracker cookies shaped like historical Japanese coins. I found myself with a zip-loc full of dough that I knew not what to do with; dumplings were right out, after I tried to make two and immediately regretted it.

So, frybreads to the rescue! with a dollop of sugar in the center of each, which liquefied and caramelized in a most pleasing fashion.

The next day (Sunday) (yesterday) I took a walk. I did not take my camera -- for shame! -- but I didn't really feel like taking pictures. I did take my iPod and listening to Florence and the Machine at a deafening volume. That's the problem with having not so great hearing: If I turn down the music, I can't hear it, but if I turn it up, I presumably damage my ears, thus making it harder to hear it the next time around. I nearly gave myself a headache and so pulled my earbuds out about four miles in.

I wasn't really planning on anything, and it was early in the afternoon, so I just kept walking and walking and walking until I more or less ran into a mountain. Google Maps tells me round trip was about 10.5 miles. Northern Kyoto is eerily quiet, even on a Sunday when one could expect most people would be home and doing stuff. Farther north, though it's still dense with housing, the fabric of the land starts breaking up into gardens and rice fields and more and more elderly houses. Some of the rice fields were just being prepared for planting.

I stopped at a small temple on the way back, the approximate location of which is indicated by the red arrow. I'm not always sure whether a religious building is a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine in Japan, but this one had what looked like little solemn Buddhas lining the stairway up to the shrine, so I'm going to guess Buddhist. Nearby was another shrine, this one I think Shinto, with giant red lanterns and a nearby pond with a tiny waterfall and giant terrifying multicolored carp. Next to the pond was a creaky old water wheel that I think must have been used to hull rice back in the day, which I was delighted to see labeled 水車, suisha -- water-wheel. So often I really don't get Japanese compounds. I learn them, but I don't see how they came to mean what they do. For example, 勉強, benkyou, means "study." It's a compound: the first character means " to exert oneself," and the second means "strong, competent, knowledgeable" (though the first meaning is most common.) Now, I'm not saying that both of those things don't have to do with studying, I'm saying that I wouldn't pick those out as the most obvious characters to make up that word. I'm guessing part of it is probably Chinese precedent. Anyhow! I was delighted to see a compound that made sense to my English-speaking mind.

On my way back I encountered a drum trio underneath the closest bridge to my apartment. They were really good. I think there must be a music school nearby (perhaps part of Kyoto University?) because I am forever hearing/seeing young folk practicing their tubas, trombones, trumpets, etc., especially on the river walk. It's pretty fun.

My first day of work is tomorrow. I'm a little nervous, but not too badly so. We shall see.

more from the food front

2011-05-06T05:26:00.003-04:00

I just made decent bread dough without any sort of measuring device. I WIN. (It's for steamed buns, as I have no oven.) (Yes, they're going to be cabbage, carrot, and onion filled. It's cheap!)

Also:

A kitty!

This is the window in my apartment that looks out on a cement block wall about 1.5' foot away. Still, in Tokyo I only ever got lizards outside my window (and in Madrid nothing at all.)

A little under two hours left in The Return of the King, and then I will have completed my eleven-hour LOTR rewatching spree. Wheeee.

oops

2011-05-05T07:19:00.001-04:00

I think the picture says it all.

Google maps tells me I walked 8.2 miles round trip . . . it didn't feel like that much, but sure.

the view from where I am. . . walking

2011-05-04T06:53:00.004-04:00

Mainly I watched the rest of the extended version of The Two Towers today, but I also took a short walk down the street and up the hill. I came upon Yoshida Shrine, which if I understood the sign rightly was built in 1601.

Actually colored this after I came back with my somewhat random selection of Prismacolors (I have a ton of them, but I only brought ~1/3 of all I own.)

A roof detail from the shelter over the basins to cleanse your hands before you enter the shrine.

Coming back down the stairs that led to this and several other shrines.

And finally, for Mary Beth. Upon closer inspection, it appears that this sign is actually instructing bicycle riders not to park their bikes in this spot, but it does rather look like it says "no bicycle-chasing pigs allowed" or similar.

more winnage

2011-05-03T04:52:00.002-04:00

The meal I just made cost:

1/2 head of cabbage at 105 yen ($1.30) x 1/5 used = $0.26
2 carrots at 112 yen ($1.38) x 1/4 used = $0.35
2 onions at 175 yen ($2.16) x 1/2 used = $1.08
1 bulb of garlic at 198 yen ($2.45) x 1/10 used = $0.25

1 package of dry udon noodles at 105 yen ($1.30) x 1/3 used = $0.43

6 eggs at 105 yen ($1.30) x 1/6 used = $0.22

$2.59, and probably $0.40 more in sauces and oil.

So $3 for two meals that had some protein, some starch, some fiber, some vitamins, and flavor. Go me!

critters

2011-05-03T02:48:00.004-04:00

Still feeling unready for hardcore sightseeing, so instead I took a walk along the river, probably about 6 miles round trip. There's sort of a boulevard that runs along the Kamo River (鴨川) ("duck river"! how appropriate) for probably five to six miles of its length, though admittedly I did not go upstream much of where my street hits the river.

During said walk I encountered all of the following wildlife:

Mallard ducks
Three or four Grey Herons
Four or five Little Egrets (yup, had to look both of those up)
A flock of very large crows eating trash out of the river (eep)
A pile of cats sleeping on a tarp outside a makeshift shelter under one of the many bridges
A very large Akita also sleeping outside a different shelter (double eep)
A small pot-bellied pig out for a stroll with its people
Swarms of gnats
A large dead eel that two people fishing had just caught and pulled in
At least three dogs riding in bike baskets: A pug, a King Charles Spaniel, and a Shiba Inu
Many other dogs playing in the water and doing other holiday-type things, including a Dalmation, a Lab, poodles, a Miniature Pinscher, a trio of long-haired Daschunds, several Shiba Inus, and a Whippet
Some turtles. Ahem. Technically the turtles were not wildlife, as they were made of concrete and functioned as stepping stones so people could cross the (very wide but also very shallow, ~1 foot deep in most places) river. Lots of little kids were playing out on these. There were also boat- and space shuttle-shaped stepping stones.

Overall one can tell it is a holiday. Lots of people were biking, walking, reading books, playing guitars and drums and a little triangular flute and also a ukelele, fishing, picnicking, wading in the water, and so forth.

I was thinking to myself, "Gee! Perhaps I should be a bit more careful. After all, it might have been sheer luck last time I was in Japan that I didn't get into trouble even though I didn't take any precautions." And that might be true, to a certain extent. However, one thing I've noticed is that no one here seems to use bike locks. They just park their bikes and go, something that wouldn't be a very good idea even in Boston. So, mark that up under the "Japan really is an absurdly safe country," column.

I reiterate: My apartment is awesome. Just. . . awesome. Everything works, everything is clean, and the furnishings even include actual sharp kitchen knives with which it is easy to cut vegetables. If I could find an apartment like this, for this price, in or near central Boston, I would be spinning around screaming in delight. (Of course, I'd need a job too, but . . . housing!) There's air conditioning too, but I'm not sure when I'll need it.

It's tiny, but a tiny, private space is pretty agreeable. (Also the bathroom is one of those that the whole thing -- tub, floor, walls, everything -- is a continuous plastic piece, which I find amusing.)

I'm re-watching The Lord of the Rings. It makes me feel extra homey, though I should probably watch some Japanese fantasy next so that my mind gets switched back on that grammatical channel.

this is what winning looks like

2011-05-02T02:12:00.002-04:00

Winning is tasty.

This is my first self-cooked meal in Kyoto! The one downside is that now it is all in my tummy. Perhaps obviously, I have checked into my apartment. It is tiny (but not that tiny) and pretty great. My only food preparation spots are either in the sink (which is big! yay!) or on top of the small fridge in front of the microwave, but other than that, it's pretty complete. I checked in this morning with nary a hangup or problem and then went and got some groceries. A small package of unflavored udon costs about 60 cents (which is as much as you see here, though much bulked up by chicken and some veggies.) One serving of raw chicken is about $3.00-$3.50, so I can already guess I'm going to be eating eggs (didn't see any beans at the store.) I accidentally bought some sort of sweet vinegar, thinking it was oil, and had to run out again, so I shall be producing some interesting-flavored sauces for a bit. Note: oil is "abura," 油. I also got some corn flakes and milk, so my breakfast is covered for a few days. (In case you're interested, $2.50 for a liter of milk and $4 for the box of cornflakes.) (For more context, I spent $20-30 a day on food in Tokyo. So this is not that obscene.)

Other things -- on the train ride from my hotel to my apartment, I was standing next to a guy in a dark pinstriped suit who was intently studying English on flashcards hooked to a ring. Made me feel a little better -- everyone is trying to learn something. At the next stop or so, another guy got on and stood next to me wearing a "Michigan University: State Ivy League" t-shirt, which made me think of Alyssa and mentally chuckle.

lies!

2011-05-01T02:16:00.007-04:00

I am full of them, chiefly that I wouldn't blog about Japan at all until I'd finished my London posts. I have led you astray!

Ah well.

Some things:

I have located my apartment.
I have located my office.
I have located the grocery store closest to my apartment.
I have located the infamous デニシュブレド ("Danish bread"), a deadly buttery concoction that was the primary reason that I gained weight in Japan last time despite walking 6 miles daily.
According to Google Maps (which is not the most reliable source for Japan, admittedly) I walked about 7 miles this morning. Here is a somewhat loose representation of my route:

This is ignoring all the times I got lost.

It is very humid, though still cool.
I'm still trying to piece together the distinctive. . . smell of this place. It is a smell I recognize from last time I was here, though I'm not sure if it came from Tokyo or from my trips to various other places. The components I have identified are: old wood, cigarette smoke, water, mold/mustiness, and. . . and. . . a certain kind of deodorant? A little bit of it is Japanese food cooking, I'm sure. It's a good set of smells all together.
I had sort of forgotten but not really: I could write a love letter to Japanese convenience stores. Compared to American ones, they are so clean! so standardized! so filled with tasty fresh food! And, perhaps most wondrous of all: the customer service. In my experience the people who work in convenience stores in Japan are almost invariably prompt and polite, even if they're helping a dur-hur (to use my mother's descriptive phrase) foreigner who doesn't really speak the language. A cashier has plenty of opportunity to make you feel stupid if they are feeling pissy and plenty of chances to creep on you if they're bored (usually this is when it's a dude, cough), but while I've had plenty of icky/infuriating experiences in convenience stores, none of them were in Japan (that I recall.)
I also find it amusing that Family Mart's cheapie notebooks (sold where we would sell Mead brand in the U.S.) are Muji brand, a design label that is hyped up almost like Moleskin in the U.S. (Sadly when I was here before I didn't realize that Muji was a huge company that made a ton of cool stuff. . . I think I ended up throwing out the newsprint pad I bought because it got wet. Le sigh.)
So the cherry blossom season is pretty much over, which is sad, in the way that not being mowed down by hoards of tourists is sad. However, bushes with these flowers, which range from dark magenta to light pink, are everywhere, some still tightly closed up. Does anyone have any idea what they are? Because I don't. (Okay, I wouldn't have minded seeing the cherry blossoms. I'm just not heartbroken that it didn't happen.) (I didn't take too many other pictures today, for reasons apparent in this photo: It was raining. Ick.)
The train from Kyoto to Otsu takes about 15 minutes, but it goes through two tunnels through the mountains that make my ears clog up with rapidly changing pressure. Also ick.

I snapped this on the train back to Otsu. One of the great/distinctive things about Kyoto is that it's set into the mountains, such that you can look up from the busiest, most shopping-y part of the city center and see these green fuzzy mysterious masses looming around the city.

It's only 4:00 PM here now, but I am just not feeling very ambitious. I think I might do some Rosetta Stone and maybe practice some kanji, then take a nap. I have a bunch of thoughts about myself and travel and stuff -- after all, I always feel the need to write a big long introspective post when I start out on a new adventure -- but -- not right now. I'll think my thoughts a bit more.

Osaka Otsu and everything in between

2011-04-30T08:59:00.002-04:00

I decided that I'm not going to write much on Japan until I finish my London blog.

But, miracle of miracles and oddity of oddities, here I am again. I am staying in Otsu, next to Lake Biwa, tonight in a business hotel, which despite its strong odor of cigarette smoke seems rather nicer to me than the Quality Inn I stayed at last night in Seattle. I flew into Kansai International Airport (the airport code of which is KIX, heehee) after an 11 hour flight that was mainly occupied by me flipping through what grammar books I brought and sorta kinda dozing. The airport is on a man-made island in the bay. It's impressive.

It took me five hours to get from there to here, but thankfully they were rather unhurried hours. I got lost a couple times but mainly just walked around the train stations a bit more than the average customer.

I remember coming into Tokyo and seeing flooded rice fields everywhere. I really didn't see any this time -- I don't know if the area between the airport and here isn't rural enough, or if it's not time to flood the fields yet, or what. I did see several fields of enormous cabbages.

The train smelled like Japan. Perhaps later I will try to figure out the components of said smell.

It's good to be back. I don't think I'm starting work for a couple days; in any case I shall be sleeping in for hours and hours tomorrow.

the 1840s fashionista

2011-04-12T16:50:00.014-04:00

and a host (a small host) of other things vaguely to do with textiles and style.

So! Of late the Gochenour household (okay fine just this resident of the Gochenour household) has been All About watching Movies! In the last five days I've seen:

Pride and Prejudice (the 2005 version with Kiera Knightley -- seen the 5 hour BBC one already)
The Princess Bride ("You keep using that word. . . I do not think it means what you think it means. . .")
Sleeping Beauty (the 1959 Disney version, which I saw last as a 12-year-old! yeah, it's REALLY BAD)
Love in the Afternoon (in the genre of "Audrey Hepburn goes to Paris and falls in love with a much older man" movies, it's right up there)
Kirikou et la sorcière (haven't formed an opinion as yet? French children's movies are not so much something I'm familiar with)

Those were all watched on my trusty Dell! (which, side note, I have just replaced! with an Asus. But it still works, so I am currently typing on the Dell.) BUT ALSO. My mom and I actually went to see a movie in a theater! The Ruth Sokolof Theater north of Old Market (which neighborhood is apparently called "NoDo," short for "North Downtown," by some foolish folks who apparently don't realize how moronic that sounds), to be precise. What did we see? Jane Eyre, the new remake staring Mia Wasikowska (Alice from Alice in Wonderland and one of the kids in The Kids Are Alright) and Michael Fassbender (known for having a name that sounds like it would a great brand for electric guitars or amplifiers. what. oops.)

I wore the new copper cuff bracelet I bought in the Souk in the Old Market, so I suppose I was in a stylish frame of mind. Or stylishly observant state of mind? In any case, I was in the mood to notice details.

I have a fascination with costuming that is all out of proportion to my actual knowledge. Both my mother and my maternal grandma are what I would consider textile artisans -- my grandmother regularly pieces and quilts bedcovers and wall hangings, and my mother majored in textiles and clothing design after making almost all her own clothes throughout high school. We have always had books like English Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (C. Willett Cunnington, a reprint by Dover) and Everyday Fashions as Seen in Sears & Roebuck Catalogue Between 1880 and 1920 (paraphrase) floating around the house. Later, my mom went to work for a while at a historic house built in the 1870s or so in Omaha, and more information diffused my way, in the form of the original garments she would occasionally bring home to patch up for display. So while I remain blissfully thumby when it actually comes down to sewing something (I can use a sewing machine! really! it just jams up all the time and then I have to figure out how to rethread it), I have a general knowledge of what dress shapes happened when through most of the 1800s and the sorts of processes one might use to construct them.

I'm also curious about the process of historical costume design and adaptation -- when I checked up on the costumes from Pride and Prejudice, I came to the conclusion that the designer had chosen to sleek-ify the actual 1810s fashions into something a little more elegant to the modern eye. I was curious to see how Jane Eyre dealt with the costumes -- how accurate they were to a given time frame, but also if and what they changed as a concession to the modern viewer. The original book was published in 1847, and one assumes that Charlotte was writing the thing for a couple years before that and set it in her own modern time. After some searching (the results of which I'll give you more of below), it looks to me like the costumes were dead on the money for historical accuracy. Jane's clothes in the movie are plain, but the frequent closeups give you time to appreciate the shapes and proportions and edges and construction details. I should note quickly here -- I didn't look much at men's fashions, because I find them both silly-looking and rather boring in this era. So.

One of the first things I noticed was the preponderance of lace shown -- at cuffs, at necklines, on shawls, and so on. Women during the 1840s had relatively few clothes and often dressed them up with different types of inserts and add-ons. Jane had a black dress with a slight v neckline that her chemise poked out out of, around the edge of which there was a very subtle bit of lace, which she wore while Mr. Rochester entertained. You could see pretty easily how she could just sew on a different piece of lace for a different look.

When I got home I was hungry for more of what made 1840s dress awesome: Lace, pleats, fitted bodices. The internet brought me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute's database, which has many thousands of pictures of different period clothing. (All the photos in this post, unless noted, are from that site.) I plugged in "1830" and "1840," bringing up lace shawls like this one, and lace pelerines like the one below (pretty sure Judi Dench was wearing one of these at one point.) Both of these are American-made, cotton and/or linen, from about 1830.

I also got into my mom's books a little. These are largely unhelpful when looking for graceful and simple lines of Jane's everyday dresses, as they focus on the higher end of fashion and all the attendant frou frou.

The movie runs from sometime in the late 1830s to the early 1840s, judging by the costumes. Jane's aunt wears a dress very similar to the one on the far left, a British walking dress made of cotton from 1830, in the beginning of the movie. I don't think Jane had any major sleeve poofs like the second two dresses (silk, French and British respectively, made between 1830-1835), but the detailing around the waist and the bodice is very similar to the movie's costumes.

These are from the 1840s -- the first two are American cotton dresses from between 1840-1845, and the third is a silk French dress from 1840. The center one is almost a dead ringer for one of the dresses Jane Eyre wears, though I'm not sure hers had quite as full of sleeves. The waist of the bodice comes to a small point, like most of the dresses in the movie.

This was a detail shown frequently in the movie -- the tailoring of the back of the dress that emphasizes a delicate waist (which Mia Wasikowska certainly has.) Obviously they wore stays and corsets, but it's still a striking effect.

Jane's charge Adele is shown in a blue plaid dress very like this cotton American-made one from 1840. I remember the tucking in the front and the low, straight neckline. That tucking detail, incidentally, survived in children's clothing for quite some time -- I remember seeing it in the 1864 clothing for the American Girl doll Addy and the 1904 clothing for Samantha (the costumes of which were usually pretty scrupulously researched, I think.)

This is from the Cunnington book my mom has, showing hairstyles between 1840-1846. These are on the tame end of the spectrum; this era was a pretty doofy one for women's hair. Lots of little curl puffs by the ear (modified Princess Leia is what I dubbed it in my head) showed up in the movie, such as those worn by St. John's two sisters. The wicked aunt had a hairstyle I've run across but didn't show here -- a high bun on the top with two long dangly locks of curls on either side of the head. Jane herself was thankfully spared this treatment -- her hair was parted straight down the middle, draped over her ears, and pulled back into a braid which was wrapped into a bun.

There were also a lot of bonnets in this movie and this era, varying from the bucket-shaped or ridiculously silly (what young Jane wears in her boarding school) to the intricate and elegant (the bonnet Jane wears in the ending scene.) Sadly I could not find anything like the marvelous straw bonnet Jane finishes the movie in (chosen obviously for the dramatic dappled shadows it threw across her face), but here's a silk one from 1840.

One thing I find kind of frustrating about modern clothing is the frequent lack of attention paid to construction detail. I pulled the diagram above from a photo of the Cunnington book I mentioned -- you can see the dozens of little pleats that went into making the fitted bodices and full skirts. I'm sort of plotting some sort of short garment with fitted pleats like this. . . which will probably never happen, but I can dream. Another search pulled up the following (modern) item -- a child's dress from Sugar City (and another version of it by Home Made Happy.) I could see incorporating this type of pleating detail in a fairly casual garment.

I also love the idea of lace inserts on top of modern clothing that can be switched out and changed out. There's a lot of creative potential here. . .

Side note: I also got a leather cuff bracelet at the Souk. I am pretty happy with it as well.