art 24/7

March Break. I'm home--but I've got a to-do list: I have some things that I need to do or finish (depending on which assignment I'm talking about), but still this break's going to be awesome. Here's what I have to do, in the order in which they're due:

• Finish my Photoshop homework. Technically it's finished, but I need to make some of the embellishments look a little more polished (some swirls, which I did freehand--using the pen tool would've made them look a lot better)
• Come up with a concept for a tablau vivant (WARNING: this links to a video that contains nudity--I just want to make sure I don't startle anyone who's not exactly comfortable seeing unclothed people/nudity that's very in-your-face) for History. I have a fragment of an idea ("fear" being the main theme) floating around in my head, but I need to develop it further and flesh it out. Though I've got a model, so I don't have to think about that.
• Shoot a roll of film for my independent study project. I bought a roll of Ilford XP2 (which is developed about a block away from the school at Harvey Studios) and will shoot it this week and take it to Harvey's as soon as I get back to F'ton.
• Rework my week-by-week plan for said independent study project. My original plan didn't allow any time for shooting, since said original plan was to use negatives that I already had. But since I'm shooting that roll this week and will be in Week Three of my project when I get back, I'm going to have to modify things a bit. During break on Friday morning (since my classes are three hours long, we have a fifteen minute break half-way through) I talked with Peter about it. Not surprisingly he was really cool about it.

Fantasmagori is up on WhiteFeather's website--check it out. The music for it is really good, though I will say that the breathing really takes away from it. I told WhiteFeather about that, and she said that the breathing was recorded separately, which explained why it got in the way of the rest of the music. She might re-record it. There are also some photos of the video installed at the Beaverbrook.

Remember my assessment with Peter? Well, I had another one of those moments as I was about to leave for home. As Mom and I were walking out of the photo studio we met with my friend Loana, who's an FVA and is currently doing Photography for her Media Explorations class (she wants to major in photography next year). She showed me the contact sheet from the roll of film that she'd shot that week: a lot of the photos were overexposed and she talked about reshooting. I then reeled off a bunch of possible reasons why they were washed out, ranging from time of day (Loana said that she shot them during midday--the best light for photographing is between dawn and around ten AM, and three PM to dusk. Generally, shooting at midday washes everything out, and since Friday was a very sunny day and there was a window a couple of metres away from us, I was able to demonstrate by pointing out how washed-out everything was, even to the naked eye) to how long she exposed the negatives in the darkroom.

Afterwards Mom remarked that I'd make a good teacher: I know stuff and I'm patient. I'll admit that I've fantasized about teaching at the college since my FVA year. Since our system is different from that of a university, I wouldn't have to wait until I had a Ph.D. (meaning, never): to teach at a college you have to be at least one level above the level that you want to teach: Denise Richard has a diploma, so she can only teach FVAs; WhiteFeather has a BAA (Bachelor of Applied Arts, which is a collaboration between NBCCD and UNB-Fredericton), so she can teach FVAs, diploma and advanced diploma (NBCCD's grad program). So once I get my diploma (right now I'm a year and a quarter away), I'd be qualified for FVA, but nothing else. So if I wanted to teach in my studio I'd have to get a bachelors, which I might do (transfer credits and study photography at Mt. A.). But at this point I know better than to really set anything in stone: I'm still bouncing back and forth about whether I want to do the advanced diploma (no matter what, I'd take a year off in between my diploma and the advanced diploma, to give myself a chance to breathe) and figuring out what I want to do (though I know I want--ahem, have--to do something in photography). The thing about art is that unless you're Dalí or Warhol, you can't just do art: you have to do lots of little things in order to make a living.

I saw The King's Speech last weekend. It's awesome, but I was still rooting for Inception since it was Oscars weekend (The King's Speech did better--including winning Best Picture).