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While I’ve never really had a problem with being outspoken about my self-critique (I’ve had several professors in the past tell me to stop throwing out or painting over works that I have deemed not worthy), I guess I thought it was just me.  I thought that maybe that would go away once you reached ‘success’ (whatever you choose that to mean).  Thinking about it now makes it seem kind of silly (no, Angelika, people do not become perfect when they become successful) but I never really had a reason to think about it prior to this so I just made these assumptions.  It was just another case of finding it really encouraging to hear about other people’s failures.  Or, in this case, personal failures that others still may consider to be successes.

When creating Wolność i Prawda, I was asked how I felt about it after I was done, I told a professor that I was happy with it for the most part but there were some pages that I liked a lot more than others.  What I meant by that was that I would very happily change some of the pages because they were simply not good.  He simply responded with ‘Of course you do.  You can’t like them all equally.’  And this made so much sense, but the perfectionist in me could not grasp that until I heard it coming from someone else.  (Fortunately, the perfectionist in me had no chance against the procrastinator in me and there was barely any time to get the book all glued together before the deadline, much less to change whole pages!)

Not completely directly related to this post, as I’m not ready to give up on this one yet, here’s the progress of a piece I’ve been working on.  But in relation to this post, I always feel like I get stuck about 50% in to any piece, and that is where I am right now.  Stuck in the sense that I want to abandon it and give up on it and start anew.  I’ve taken a couple weeks off from this piece to work on some other stuff but I think I’ll attempt to dive back in this week.  I’m still not at hate, but I’m certainly not at love yet, which I suppose is a good thing since it’s no where near done yet!

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Some of the participating spaces include: Spudnik Press, The Post Family, Platform Studios, Simple Honest Work, Gerda Meyer Bernstein, Johalla Projects, Saverio Truglia, It’s Oksana, Tsubo Salon.  The building is located at 1821 W. Hubbard Street in Chicago, IL.

For some photos from the last open house, you can see my post here and you can find a bit more information about the show here.  Spudnik Press will be closing  Long-Arm Stapler First Aid that evening as well.

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Nashville, Tennessee

Prague, Chech Republic

Chaouen, Morocco

Dublin, Ireland

Granada, Spain

Barcelona, Spain

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David Foster Wallace delivered a commencement address to the graduating class of 2005 at Kenyon College and recently a video was made to accompany part of this speech:

This is just part of the speech, but you can listen to the whole speech here. I love the idea of being in the moment, appreciating and noticing the everyday. Appreciating the fact that all the people around us are likely living interesting lives, each of them has a story to tell and that they are worth getting to know. Not allowing our assumptions to keep us from being curious and compassionate towards others. Not taking what we have around us for granted, the ‘this is water’ idea.

The speech makes me think of this quote:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

(-maybe Ian Maclaren, but maybe Plato)

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Working with the text that I was provided but wish I could take credit for, I also thought a broom would be a nice addition, and if there’s a broom, there needs to be a snitch.

If you ever wonder how professional I get when I’m working on my projects, here is the work in progress on my favorite work space – the floor. My current cutting mat of choice- Oprah magazine. The fuel that keeps me going- OJ.

As far as the envelope and mailing cost-friendly 3-D element, I raised the bird’s wings, beak and claws by cutting them out and putting some mounting foam underneath. It is not clear from this photo, but they are indeed coming off the page ever so slightly but noticeably, I promise. I cut the owls out of thicker cover paper so that when the invitation is closed, the claws hold it shut.

After the invitations were made, I made some matching envelopes with the Gryffindor crest on the back to match the Gryffindor colors of the invitation.

Fun Fact: the British and English Harry Potter books are slightly different. I was on a trip to London to visit some family when the last book came out and since it was not even a question of whether or not I would have to read the book right away even though I was on an exciting trip abroad, I bought it and read it within two or three days. I was surprised to see that I had been reading ‘translated’ books all along :) (it’s true, it’s on Wikipedia and wiki never lies.)

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“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.”
(William Faulkner)

With the recent opening of the Annex at Spudnik Press (where my studio is located), seeing new art became even easier with shows being curated right outside my door.  Currently, Long-Arm Stapler First Aid – Self-Care in Zines and Mini Comics is up.  Since a lot of my recent art has quite a dark undertone or is just dark, period, it’s refreshing to see art that is a bit more light-hearted.  The show is up until May 31st, 2013 at the The Annex @ Spudnik Press Cooperative (1821 W Hubbard, Suite 303, Chicago, IL)

From Spudnik’s website:

This exhibition of largely self-published works tackles self-care from many angles: health, grooming, food preparation, self-defense, coping strategies, defense mechanisms, mental or spiritual development and even soul enrichment. At their core these pieces suggest we must be our own advocates for our own health and well being.

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What Ali Wore

(image from Zoe Spawton’s blog What Ali Wore)

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(illustration by Demetri Martin from This Is a Book)

About a week ago, Joanna Goddard from A CUP OF JO wrote about how intertwined success and failure can be, and I absolutely loved the post.  You can read it here.  It’s a short post, but it really hit close to home for me.  While I’m not one to dwell on my failures, I tend to get over them rather quickly and find other stuff to get excited about, I do have moments where I step back and think ‘Am I doing this right?’

Fortunately (and unfortunately), there is no ‘right’ way to do anything and all we can do is find the way that works best for each of us individually.  In that process, failure is a guarantee.  But of course, failure never really feels good, so it is also reassuring hearing about other people’s failures (credit for finding this article also goes to A CUP OF JO), especially when I know those failures were just hiccups on the road to success.

I was once showing my portfolio to a grad school professor who worked at a school I was really intent on attending.  After looking through my pieces, I was told that my work was good, but if I wanted to get in, I would have to change my art completely and start making something else.  It wasn’t a ‘push your work further’ or ‘develop these ideas more’, it was just ‘change it’.  Out of the multiple schools that I had met with that day, that was the only school that really mattered to me at the time and it was very disappointing to hear that feedback.  But what it did was just get me more defensive about my work.  1) I am extremely stubborn that way but also 2) one person’s negative opinion should not have the power to change anything about anyone.  I never did end up applying to that school, figuring we probably would not have had a good run even if I did get in (this was a professor I would have been working closely with).  I ended up applying to one other school since I wasn’t super intent on grad school in the first place and it was the only one I actually got excited about (they also ended up rejecting me, by the way, but I did get all the way to interviews with this one!).  So, instead of going to grad school, I ended up getting a private studio at Spudnik, stopped working M-F/9-5 and received a grant from Illinois Arts Council.  These three changes are probably the most meaningful and defining experiences in my art career thus far and although I don’t know where exactly grad school would have led me, I can say with confidence that I probably learned just as much from the past year as I would have in school.  I learned to function on my own, to consider what I find most important and do it for the sake of doing it, and not because it was assigned or a graduation requirement.  I’ve always had insanely and extremely supportive teachers and professors, from beginning of grade school (I distinctly recall a second grade teacher praising and hanging my drawings of Clifford) to high school to college, so my major adjustment after college was to learn to trust in what I was doing without constant reinforcement and direction, something that grad school would probably not have been very conducive to.  Of course, that’s not to say I wouldn’t have found grad school equally beneficial, but I guess what I’m getting at is that squiggly arrow path to success at the top of this post.  No matter what direction we are headed, we keep going forward towards that success, growing through all our experiences, whether we expect it or not.

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