a comeback!

goodmorning!

the semester is finally over and i can breathe—and post in my blog again!  sadly, i don't have any pictures of the gifts i made for christmas.  they were all finished very last minute during my trip to michigan, and (stupidly!) i left my digital camera at home.  but what i can share with you is my photo final, and some of the loot i got for christmas.  also, i want to sneak in a smitten with post sometime today.  it's been far too long...

for those who don't recall, the theme of my photo final was "head, shoulders, knees, and toes."  finished, it looks like this:

my artist's statement further explains my motivations for this project:

I don’t want to capture the human figure, nude and ribbed with muscles or sprawled seductively as has been the standard when appreciating the human form.  I want to capture what our generation looks like right now: a timeless smile, a trendy coif of hair, that pair of ears that stick out a little too far (like your Dad’s do), the way your jeans fit, your smelly worn in knock-off shoes.  How do all of these surface-details come together to create a person’s identity?

In examining these details (an outfit, a face, body language), I am also celebrating their diversity.  Photographing a person’s head, shoulders, knees, and toes to be precisely displayed together wouldn’t adequately describe my human experience: I love flaws, I love that we live in a myriad-world of chaos and experience things twofold: on both an individual and global level.  We are all unique but we are also all human, and both are traits that should be praised.

I was influenced by exquisite corpses and children’s books with faces divided into thirds, allowing you to flip through for a different set of eyes, a different nose, or a different mouth as you so choose.

one of my goals for 2010 is to get an online portfolio up-and-running, where i plan to post this project along with some of my design work from the past year.  any suggestions as to where to do do so?  i'm so web-illiterate.

onto my christmas loot:

i feel more spoiled this year than any year, ever.  not pictured: a negative scanner, a pink label maker :), a cute little plaque & mix cds, more buttons, socks, and on and on and on.

what was your favorite gift this year?  given or recieved.

recieved: my diana!  hellooooo!

given: an iphone case i made for little miss jess.

xoxo melisa