This is Why House on the Rock freaks me out.

Click images to enlarge...

These spooky mannequins without faces were in the bathroom. Even the bathroom is creepy.

These mannequins were part of the circus room.


More bathroom spookiness.


These flying angel mannequins were flying over the worlds largest carousel. For whatever silly reason I didn't take a picture of the carousel.
These were rejects from the carousel. The wall were lined with horses.
This room played the nutcracker song... I'm drawing a blank on what the song is called. The sugarplum fairy??

This is my friend being freaked out!
Remember a while back when I posted a video of the music at HotR? this is the room.




This whole squid and whale sculpture is four stories high and probably two-four stories wide. The freakiest part of the day. It's hard to get good pics because it's so large.




Creepfest!!! Porcelain dolls were everywhere.
This charming sculpture was in the squid and whale room.

Japanese gardens outside the house.
Library inside the house.
Creepy music with dragon floating through.
Another creepy music pit in the house. Plays music on it's on.
That's just a little, tiny bit of the creepy awesomeness that is The House on the Rock. If you are ever in Wisconsin you should go go go!

I had a great weekend that was completely packed. My friend and I barely had time to sit. Saturday we went to The House on the Rock. It was cool to go check it out again. We also went shopping and went out Saturday night and ultimately had a girls only dance party which is always the best. It's Monday and it's time to get back to the daily grind. I'm going to post some photos of the house later but for now I wanted to post this awesome note I came across on Found Magazine. Poor boys, they have it so tough.

Thursday and the Weekend.

Last night after a long day of school and work I was treated to this yummy meal. Delicious salmon, cucumber salad, lentils, baby corn and avocado. I finished the second season of Dexter and drank white russians like I was the Dude and had great talks about a lot of different things. Best Thursday ender ever!

And Today! Today one of my best friends is coming to spend the weekend with me. Janey is part of my best friend trifecta from undergrad. It's been so long since I've had a visitor, I'm totally beside myself! We still have no idea what to do this weekend. We're torn between going to the city and running around, going to House on the Rock, or just chilling out and enjoying each others' company. No matter what we will be going to Forever 21 and H & M for some much needed shopping. And tonight beers at my favorite beer garden in town.

As usual I'll be photographing the whole thing so I hope to be able to post some sort of pictorial commentary about our weekend.

I hope you all have a great weekend, too! Do something silly. Eat salmon and cucumber salad. Take a picture of a puppy dog.

Printmaking Blog

Remember when I said I was going to start a blog for my class? Well I did. If you're interested check it out here. Any suggestions for things I should put on the blog? I usually add things as I go based on what we talk about in class but I would love to add more. What do you think?

Arm Pit Eyes

Don't you think these eye holes have been somewhat awkwardly placed on this mermaid mask? I found this at Joanne's Fabrics and since my good friend Katy is fond of mermaid imagery I thought this would make a great addition to her collection. All the other masks were animal heads with eye holes cut out at the eyes. This mermaid however has hidden eyes in her armpits.

I feel like I sort of look like one of Travis Millard's creatures:

Update: I added new links in the sidebar to various sites. Go take a look. One day I'll organize them all but for now it's a fun link grab bag!

Update 2: Now you can check your reaction to this blog by the comment. Um, because that's a funny thing to do? Reactions! check.

I'm pretty excited about what's happening in my studio. Yesterday (technically yesterday, posting this at midnight.) was one of those awesome days where everything felt like it was going right. Even when I was hitting some stumbling blocks I felt pretty confident that I would figure things out.

Here's an image of my studio. I've got to say that acquiring this drawing table has really helped me with my work. I always thought I needed a change of medium but I really just needed a change of... table?

I posted this piece before but this is where it is now. Disregard the blue tape. Because it's in progress I figured I'd show it exactly as is and it's currently being hung with blue tape to my wall. Artists everywhere are cringing. ( :

I find myself using this ribbon image a lot and the reason why is because a friend of mine that passed away used this image in her own work. This symbol for me is a reminder of people, friends, family, those we have here, those we lose. They are all part of my life and are an important part of my work.

This is a collage I made this summer. Because it is framed it was hard to photograph but i think you can get the basic idea. I'll take a better photograph when I remove the frame.

This piece is almost finished but I feel like it needs a little something extra to really make it feel complete. That's why it's still tacked to my studio wall. I figure I'll live with it for a bit until the right thing comes to me.

I'm so happy I have my camera because it's nice for me to keep track of my work this way. Because of the way I work a piece can look so different from one day to the next. I had some more photos of more in progress pieces but they've already changed since early afternoon that I thought there was no sense in sharing.

I hope you all have a great Tuesday! Do something nice for someone and send some good karma out into the world.

Bad Dog Gallery Opens for the Season

Mondays and Wednesdays are the best because I have a little bit of time in the morning to catch up on blogs and make myself a hearty breakfast. This morning I'm having oatmeal with apples and cinnamon and rye toast and hot coffee. Thanks to a certain someone who knows how to cook my breakfasts have upgraded to the hot variety and no longer just the cold cereal and bitter coffee I'm so used to. I can cook now! Just oatmeal, though. Nothing too fancy.

So Thursday night was the first show of the season at the Bad Dog Gallery. Bad Dog is an alternative space in one of the drawing professor's two-car garage. I've mentioned it here before. It's a beautiful space, it doesn't even feel like a garage on the inside.

The first show was called The Dog and Pony Show and it was curated by Nina Rizzo, one of the painting instructors. She wanted people to make work that had a bit of a circus-y theme. This was her poster.

And these are some of the pieces in the show. This is a litho/screenprint by my printmaking instructor Ashley Nason.
This is a litho print by my other printmaking instructor Michael Barnes.
These sculptoral pieces were made by a grad student name Brikena Boci.

This gauche painting was made by my good friend and NIU alum Christian Campos. It's a painting of our friend Jane's dog.

This is Nina's dog Theo looking dapper in his circus-themed outfit.
This is one of a three part mixed media series by painting instructor Katie Kahn.
Oh hey! My work. I printed this digital image out as a 4x7 and then got a lot of crap from people for putting it in a cheap Michaels frame. Next time I'll know better. ( :
This amazing piece is by drawing/painting instructor Geoffrey Todd Smith.
I love this vinyl image of Calvin pissing on praying Calvin by foundations instructor Ben Stone.
And you all should know my good friend Joanna by now. She made an outfit for this monkey she found and it is surrounded by fliers for her new etsy shop. As soon as she opens her shop I'll be sure to post it here.
And one last look at Theo in his sparkly cape!