so the past little while has been pretty eventful…went camping twice, had a week off, and of course, lots and lots of school and general arting. beware…superlong post ahead!
so yeah, after my week at ocad, i went camping with m in the haliburton forest (which i recommend to anyone!), and then back to school pumped to do more advanced individual studies courses. i have to say, as much as i held my own in the courses, they were a couple of the most challenging courses and weeks of my art career so far. i actually had a couple mini-breakdowns in the second week back. i was getting a lot of flack, as i have been for a lot of the year, for working too hard. yes, too hard. i keep getting told to think less, which is fairly difficult when you are creating, sometimes. especially when you’re dealing with a course where there is no instruction, and the only thing the profs are looking for in your art/grading you on is how much “you” they see in your work. i was frustrated, because i thought i was putting me in my work. i thought i was playing and not thinking, but in hindsight peter kolisnyk(the prof and great minimalist artist) was right. so friday of the second week with him i was all geared up to go home, and got really annoyed in the morning, so i grabbed my headphones and worked to music – not to be rude, but to block every distraction out. well, at the end of the day, peter, who is 74, told me that when i put on those earphones i go to a different world, “so don’t you dare take them off when you’re creating! yahoo!” he was happy that i’d stopped thinking. i was too, i guess, and i thanked him for being so hard on me. i really respect and admire peter and his work, which is why i was quite as broken up as i was when i was getting confusing feedback from him…but i definitely knew i’d see the value in it at the end of the two weeks with him, and i did.
so that night, my friend and his wife dropped me off in scarborough as both he and i were taking the next week off. m picked me up and as always, we just chilled and had fun. nelly’s 25th was the next day, and it was pretty fun, despite the pool portion of the party being cancelled because of the rain. my friend steph and i gave a mini-speech about nelly, which i think she really appreciated. then m and our friend brandon went back to m’s place for a few drinks, and, in my typical fashion, i was dozing off and went to bed a fair bit earlier than the guys. arting/commuting takes a lot more out of me than it used to, so by the weekends, i’m toast.
so, instead of getting more rest the next day, i met up with tash! which is always a lot of fun – good company, good conversation, and good food! we both got copies of joss whedon’s “dr. horrible’s sing-a-long blog” which is the greatest thing ever. especially, since thanks to tash, i have held a PhD in horribleness since december. ohyes. also, i got my dad a few movies that day for father’s day, so he was really happy with that.
monday and most of tuesday i tagged along with my dad to keep him company while he ran errands, which was nice. we’re pretty close these days, even when we don’t quite see eye to eye – which is very seldom. i’m really, really happy about that…it took too long, but the past few years have been really good that way, especially since i’m back in school. both of my parents are really supportive, which helps a lot.
monday i also got to go longboarding with m for the first time in like a month – it was awesome! i skated for like an hour and didn’t fall at all, and i only stumbled once! woooo!
wednesday m and i celebrated our 1 year anniversary, so that was fun. i was supposed to get together with tash again on thursday but because of logistics (and stupid rain!) it didn’t end up working out this time. boo! i spent the next few days chilling with m and his daughter. i got to take her on a little shopping spree on friday, just the two of us, for her birthday, which was today. good times!
saturday i left scarborough early, headed to richmond hill, and then my parents drove me back to haliburton where i moved into my landlady’s house, from my apartment at the gym next door, since she can charge more for the apartment in the summer, as so many cottagers come up. she and her husband did, however, give me the master bedroom, so i still have a bunch of space, and a beautiful bathroom which has a freaking massive jacuzzi bath the size of a hottub! the only thing i really share is the kitchen, but that has been easier to get used to the past couple days than i thought it would be. also, i really like my landlady, landlord, and their family so that works out really well. they even invited me to have dinner with them tonight…so supernice.
as far as class this week, i’m taking life drawing, since it is one of the best ways to improve drawing technique/to learn about proportion. i’m doing really well so far – better than i thought i would be doing by this point in the week. it doesn’t hurt that one of my favorite instructors, john leonard, is teaching the class, but yeah. the week so far is flying by even faster than usual, which is great! i can’t believe i’m already doing my 7th (out of 14) credit of my last semester! craziness…
another great thing happened this week – i found out two of my friends from my program, who are not finishing with summer courses, are back in hali for the whole summer, working at the school! i’m so stoked! the only real problem i have with haliburton is that it’s so quiet, and i get ridiculously lonely after school and on the weekends, and there are very few people that i know well around, and they all have kids or live far away on the weekends, so i don’t get to see them much. it’s nice to have some more familiar faces (and people who aren’t all 30+ years older than me around) sometimes…it makes it a lot less lonely, and makes me a lot less homesick.
