yay, raw sewage
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Imagine you're going home for the first time in a month, not overly optimistic but hoping for the best, and this is what you find.
140,000 homes and businesses uninhabitable after storms:
The number of buildings that should be condemned and bulldozed could be as high as 160,000
The storm also destroyed 350,000 cars and other vehicles
Another 1 million stoves, refrigerators and other appliances must be disposed of
the region faces plenty of other environmental problems: 176 low-level radiation leaks, tens of millions of gallons of hazardous materials, such as cleansers and bleach, polluted floodwater that was pumped into Lake Ponchartrain, raw sewage that is still pumping into the Mississippi River
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NOCCA pt5 - how it all ends
Monday, September 26, 2005
Mornings were for NOCCA Level 1 students, everyone else came in the afternoon. There was one girl who was Level 4 (started as a freshman), about 1/3 or so of the class was Level 3 students and the rest of us were Level 2.Most of the people from my Level 1 clique came back for Level 2, with the exception of a good friend of mine, Jessica Boudreaux, who graduated, and Louis Schmitt, who switched schools or something and wasn't able to come back. It was funny, though, because there was a guy named Brock who was a good friend of Louis', who was very much like Louis, and was admitted straight into Level 2. It was like Louis was still there, but he was black with a flat-top. Liz (of the purple hair) Barrios and Otis Shipman were still around.
There was a guy named Christian who also went to McMain and was one grade below me, but he'd started NOCCA as a freshman too, so he was in Level 3. He was a very talented kid from Ohio or something like that. His mom and he moved to New Orleans specifically so that he could go to NOCCA. Needless to say, his artistic pursuits were well supported as was his ego. The Grosses loved Christian and made no effort not to show it. Christian loved being loved. It's funny because i was friends with him, but I also couldn't stand him. And he knew it. And it was because i am a competetive person and he was better than me. And he knew those things too.
The second year of NOCCA didn't start out well for me, probably because i had other interests. I had been dating a girl named Melanie since midway through junior year (the previous year) and i wasn't overly concerned with much else. We were supposed to do three pieces over the summer and i seem to remember bringing mine in in varying degrees of completion. The first few weeks' assignments didn't have much heart to them either, from what i remember, and by the time our first quarter reviews came around i got called out on it. Rather than be defiant, though, i took their criticisms seriously and really started putting in a lot of effort to the pieces i turned in every monday.
These are a few of the drawings did I did during following my review. They may not look like much now, but keep in mind that I was 16 at the time.
Drawn from observation sitting at the kitchen table.
I don't remember if I drew this from a picture or if I just made it up out of my head. Regardless, everyone else seemed to really like this drawing, even as far as convincing me to enter it into the city-wide student show, to which it was accepted. I honestly always felt rather luke-warm to it.
Yeah, I thought this was such a novel use of color.
Drawn from observation. The assignment was to do something that reflected christmas, which is corny enough, but I figured there was a chance that someone else would do an ornament as well. I figured drawing my hand holding the ornament would be a more creative route. I enjoyed doing the psuedo-monochromatic self-portrait in the ornament's reflection, as well as the kinda goofy style that I did it in, in contrast to the realism of graphite drawing of my hand.
I had been working on my portraiture for a while when they gave us an assignment to "portray someone special to you," be it figuratively or literally with a portrait. I had considered drawing my grandma, which I regret not doing, but chose to draw kim, most likely because I had a picture of her handy when it came time to start drawing, and she fit the "special to you" requirement. I thought that it was be taken a bit more seriously because of the fact that she was not my girlfriend, lending it a bit of legitimacy, but it seemed to me that they judged it assuming that she was my girlfriend making it just a cheesy teenage thing to do. (specifically why I didn't draw a picture of my girlfriend.)
It's not the greatest portrait, though it was actually pretty true to the original picture. I was slightly handicapped by the fact that it was wallet-sized. At this point kim had been gone for a year and we had started a mail correspondence that lasted 4 1/2 years. I chose to use letters that she had written for the background to me to illustrate the closeness of our relationship and make it clear that she wasn't my girlfriend, since she obviously lived in Wisconsin. My point obviously wasn't made. The piece was never judged on the merit of the drawing or the use of letters. It was judged harshly on one thing: one of the letters was jokingly signed "Your Bitch, Kimberly." I was told that I needed to take into account that we were teenagers in a high school art class and that, though censorship in a general sense might seem wrong, especially in art, I was going to have to take the piece home and "adjust" it somehow to remove the offending word.
I had considered whether or not to use that letter and chose to use it assuming that, if there was one thing that we could be given credit for, being teenagers in a school dedicated to art, it was that we were slightly more mature than most and could handle the innocuous use of a swear word. It's not only that, though, I suppose.
I had this tendency to use my pieces to challenge the teachers, often in very slight ways, usually by turning in work that barely met the requirements of the assignment, but enough to qualify as having fulfilled the specs. I knew that when I included that letter in the background it was potentially going to become something that required a reaction. The reaction I got wasn't quite what I expected.
I've always thought that part of the essence of art, perhaps the purpose of art, is to challenge convention. It's not like being an artist is an instant ticket to "non-conformity", (I've often thought the idea of being a "non-conformist" in itself was rather inane) but creativity is a vehicle with which we can introduce new ideas even if they are at odds with older, accepted ones. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend Mr. Chet this weekend about modern art. He was talking about judging works of art based solely on aesthetics while I tried to explain to him that the worth in some pieces isn't in what they look like, but the idea that is being expressed and the context in which is was created. The thesis of many artists' work is to defy certain notions about the world or often art itself. I would have liked to see the instructors at NOCCA embracing challenges and encouraging independence. Instead they asked me to leave.
I believe it was the same week that I turned in the Kim portrait, the last week of the first semester, that they held the end-of-semester reviews. I guess in hindsight it would make sense that they kicked me out the week of the Kim portrait. When reviews were going on they would give us projects to work on in our groups, this time it was to draw still lifes of paper bags. I remember being intent on making my drawing good, and thought that it was coming along quite well, when they called me in for my review. I recall that they got to the point fairly quickly, informing me that I was not invited back for the second semester. It's not my nature to be confrontational but I protested strongly, explaining to them that I had stepped up my effort and thought that was quite evident in the pieces I had been bringing in. Ms. Mouton, the print teacher, seemed to be in agreement with me and Mrs. Gross made a hollow show of acquiescing, but Mr. Gross was pretty adamant about his intentions for me to leave, and Mrs. Gross quickly became her lapdog self in seconding anything Mr. Gross said. After agreeing that my artwork and effort had improved in previous months, the reason that they gave for persisting in my dismissal was that my home school grades had dropped in the second semester the previous year and, although they were up again this year, they thought that they might drop off again.
When they first told me I wasn't all that bothered by it, I was somewhat pleased to be rid of them, as I'm sure they were pleased to be rid of me. When I think back to it, though, it has always bothered me that they turned out to be such bastards. I was never a bad kid and I was anything but dumb. If anything I embraced the idea of art and believed in my own artistic identity more than I believed in their authority to guide us effectively. By kicking me out for the last semester before graduation that denied me the ability to graduate with special honor and recognition for the talents that they were supposed to help nuture and grow. They dismissed me over a personality conflict, a conflict that they were never adult enough to confront for what it was.
I'll follow this up soon with some thoughts on what I got out of the experience, and perhaps to tell you about the letter that I left one day on the windshield of Christian's car.
Previous NOCCA entry
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NOLA.com: Hurricane Center
It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day.Five-Part Series published June 23-27, 2002
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getting ahead of myself
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
sometimes i pass by guys, riding my scooter, and i can see it in their faces. "look at that wussy little moped." to which i reply, in my head, "but it's a 125cc!" besides, they're not aesthetes, they're psuedo-bikers. and i have a cuter wife.today i was sitting at a red light and i heard someone say "hey!" i turned around and looked up and it was a construction guy in a big cement (pronounced Cee-ment, emphasis on the first syllable, southern style). he asked me, "how fast's that thing go?"
"tops out at about 55."
look of surprise.
"it's got a 125cc engine."
look of "i see." "how much do they cost?"
"about $2500," then the light turned green. i should've told him about the 80mpg.
my wife told me today that she decided that i should get a motorcycle and she'll take the scooter. she's convinced that i didn't really want the scooter, i think, because i mentioned that i'd eventually like a bike. i'd like to keep the scooter for a while, then get a bike, either selling the scooter off, or giving it to her. (rather give it to her.) i think i could even be convinced to just buy another scooter if she and i could go ride them together (assuming it was a 200cc vespa that i could take on country roads). If she had the Vino, though, we could still ride some of the slower roads around here and have some fun, even if i was on something like:
A 69 Honda CB 450 would be optimal. It's like an old BMW bike without the engine sticking out 2 feet on either side.
A slightly newer one, like this 72 would be awesome as well.
But this 67 Triumph would blow my tiny little mind.
You see what i'm going for. Those bikes are awesome.
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favicon bookmarks
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
every so often it happens that i have a good idea. The other day i was making the text label of one links on my Bookmark Toolbar shorter and i thought, why not just eliminate the text label entirely? Really, what do i need it there for? This is where favicons come in very handy. Now that just about all sites, at least "major" sites, have favicons, all you have to do is remember which icon is associated with which site. Easy enough.
Tell me that's not handy.
You are using your bookmark toolbar, right? Just to the left of the URL is a tiny little icon. You can drag and drop that icon onto your bookmark bar. Once the icon is there, right-click it and choose 'properties.' A little box pops up with some info, the bookmark name should already be highlighted. Press delete, press enter. Do it to all of them! Well, except the ones your wife uses.
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more new kims
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
I did this next kim drawing this weekend...
Click to enlarge
Her face in this one has more detail than the others i've done (and similar pieces in the past). I kept adding onto her face, trying to figure out what was an appropriate stopping point. I like to leave the faces blank for two reasons.
First is kinda circumstantial: when i do figure drawing, i don't do faces. When kim modeled for me in the past, the poses wouldn't be for long. Even in figure drawing classes, you don't waste time on that, it's not the point of the exercise. Since the first drawing of this series came from one of my old sketches of kim, it had no face! So there it is.
The second reason is that i like the ambiguity of her emotion when you see nothing more than eyebrows and nostrils. Nostrils, specifically, because they are minimal, but still a good marker in the proportions and angle of the face.
With this one, though, it wasn't enough. For one, she's looking down, you can't even see nostrils. Which meant i'd outline the nose. But then i did her mouth, which came out well, but then it was just a face with no eyes. So i did the eyes and even irises (cause it looked like zombie eyes with just sockets). And i stopped there.
Then i was messing around while i was on the phone with my friend Mr. Chet, the "Mr." being totally gratuitous but of his own creation. I added pupils. All of a sudden there was something very grounding and literal about her face and my immediate reaction was to think that the pupils draw too much attention. With just the irises you are more drawn to look around the piece because there isn't that anchor. At the same time, though, i think the composition is strong enough even with the eyes pulling you into that spot.
Click to enlarge
The composition pretty naturally falls in with the rule of thirds, which i think is pretty much engrained in how i see everything at this point. At the same time, there is a triangle that forms from the two points where the handrail comes up on the left side, converging at the point behind kim on the right. The line from that point to the top left handrail passes right through the eyes, almost following her line of her sight up. The triangle leads your eyes around the piece.
Are you getting all of that, Potrzebie?
Check out the large versions of both and see what you think. The pupil-less one seems to be a little more convincing up close, the one with pupils seems more natural small. Hm.
Also did this one:
But you're not getting a larger version of this one.
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Katrina Photogallery
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Five Days with Katrina - Alvaro, 9/1/05Just short of 200 pictures by a guy named Alvaro, who lives in the quarter and witnessed and documented the storm and its aftermath firsthand.
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new drawing
Friday, September 09, 2005
i've been
click to enlarge
it's from a picture i took out of the car window as i drove past this farm beside the Oak Alley Plantation between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. this picture is also the cover art for the most recent sophrosyne release, the Literate ep.
click to enlarge
this is a detail from the center that shows some of the pen work a little better. i wasn't sure if i was going to do clouds or not, but i decided i shouldn't just leave the space empty. i hope that i didn't over-do the clouds.
the drawing sure does look a lot less impressive on the screen. stupid digital camera.
the original
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James Michalopoulos
Thursday, September 08, 2005
I've been trying to figure out the name of this New Orleans artist for a while now. My friend chet got a small Michalopoulos print for Christmas last december which, when i saw it the other day, reminded me again of his work. There's not a whole lot of information on the web about James Michalopoulos, but i was a bit disappointed to learn that he isn't originally from New Orleans. No matter, though. He's been around long enough to understand the essence of the city and really capture it in his portraits of houses around the city.My first introduction to James' work was actually one night when i was probably about 19, walking down the dreaded Bourbon St. with a group of friends. James was painting out on the sidewalk with a bunch of his paintings leaning against a cast iron fence. Artists working out on the street in the quarter are not hard to come by, but most of them congregate around Jackson Square and rarely do you see anything there that is truly unique. Michalopoulos' work has no trouble standing out in a crowd. Eventually i started seeing prints of his work in shops throughout the quarter and at this point it seems that he's become quite well known.
After seeing him working that night on Bourbon his works have been unmistakable to me. They have such vivid color and life. The buildings sway, protrude, and recede; they live as their inhabitants live. There's never a straight line, which is probably the most accurate way to describe New Orleans. Everything is wet and fluid, even the humid air. Over the last week or so we've heard a lot about how the community of New Orleans isn't the buildings, the shops, the architecture, it's the people who call it home. But i think Michalopoulos' paintings illustrate that that's not entirely true. The buildings are full of character too.
Book House
Case For Embrace
Erath's Glance
Green Peace
Hold Out
Lean Leftly
Marvels of Mid-City
Moon Over Mazant
Moon Over Miasma
Royal and Green and Rarely Seen
Swell Rising
Treble Tres Luna
You can check out James Michalopoulos' website to buy prints, paintings, his book(!), read his bio, etc... Otherwise, good luck finding out much else about him online.
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being there
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
There was a place on Franklin Ave. called The Bakery that served po-boys and traditional new orleans plate lunches. It was near my grandma's house and later, when we moved across the street, only a few blocks from where i lived as a teenager. When i was little grandma would take my brothers and i there to get candy; i always got a pack of Rainblo gum and a small pack of Red Hots. My older brother always got Jolly Ranchers. My favorite thing was to bite one of the cinnamon Rainblo gums in half, fill it with Red Hots, close it back up and then eat it. Cinnamon candies are still my favorite.My great grandparents lived on Flood St. which is probably in the 9th ward, though the 9th ward hasn't always been what the 9th ward is now. Or, at least, what it was before the storm. My great grandmother, Mamee (i don't know how you'd spell what it, but the emphasis was on the second syllable), was a great cook, from what i remember. We'd go over there and she'd have stuffed artichokes, chicken fricassee, stuffed mirliton... i never ate the mirliton because they had thorns on them before they were cooked. My great-grandfather, Dadee (same pronunciation), had a big orange boat parked in the back yard. I remember going to visit one day and he had just finished boiling crabs... mmm, boiled crabs. My dad's side of the family has a large Chalmette contingent and a long line of fishing and navigating the swamps of Delacroix.
There was a snoball stand on Harrison Ave. just off of Marconi that i went to as often as i could. I took kim there years ago before we ever started dating... I went there just a few months ago with my brother and my friend ryan... It's been one of my favorite places to stop and cool off during the hot new orleans days since i got my first car and could move freely about the city.
Popeyes inundate new orleans like the joke about starbucks: one on every corner. They're everywhere. And we eat it constantly. There aren't many things better for lunch then left over spicy popeyes chicken. Eat it cold right out of the fridge. I remember when popeyes first started making the biscuits. They were bigger than they are now. Some popeyes "restaurants" had these special little bisquit baking rooms where you could see someone making the biscuits, loading them in and out of the oven, drowning them in butter... When we were kids we would get a box of chicken the night before mardi gras day, then snack on it all morning and afternoon, sitting out on Napoleon Ave. watching the parades go by.
We used to go out to the Chalmette Battlefield to pick fresh blackberries which we'd bring home and eat covered with sugar.
My grandparents' homes were both on Lafaye St. within a block of each other. (No need to wonder how my parents met.) After my parents divorce, my dad rented a house almost directly across the street from his parent's house. When he bought the house in N.O. East from my mom, she rented a house catacorner from her parent's house. For a few months when i was maybe 14 or 15 my family was occupying 4 houses within a block of each other. It's not a major street, but it's a place that i feel such a connection to...
It's these memories and connections to specific places that are very sad to me. So many reminders of my childhood just aren't going to be there anymore. Maybe the flooding was selective and spared everything over 100 years old with the exception of the 9th ward. Or perhaps New Orleans will be rebuilt better and it will finally become the place that i've wanted it to become for so long.
With all the gas and oil activity, being a major port, a prime tourist destination, and a cultural mecca, you would think that New Orleans could generate major streams of revenue. Why is it so poor? What is it going to take to make New Orleans the first rate city as it once was (and i don't mean pre-Katrina)? I hope that this mess transforms New Orleans from a slum into a technological marvel. Maybe then i can return to a city where it's never too cold to go outside and play, where my kids can always run around in the green of the trees and the grass, where i can be a kid again.
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all accounted for
Friday, September 02, 2005
i did finally hear from my mom yesterday around 11am. she's in a big house in Bush, La. with a generator, food and water, but she's without her medications. uh oh!i also talked to my stepmom. apparently my dad returned to their house in Slidell to find no water damage and two pine trees on, not through, the roof. he found a note there from my step-sister, who we also hadn't heard from, so she's ok too. apparently she came back to the house and took all the food from the fridge/freezer and brought it to the fishermen in their boats in St. Tammany Parish.
my grandparents are still in new orleans at east jefferson hospital as of yesterday, but as soon as he can my uncle will be removing them and setting them up with a place to live in Dallas. I'm not sure how long that's going to last, but i'd think it's pretty possible that they will spend the rest of their days in texas. how unfortunate. makes me think i've probably seen them for the last time.
i'd like to point out the difference between the sensationalist national media and level-headed local media. i've been watching local new orleans news on wwltv.com all week, being broadcast out of baton rouge, whenever i'm in front of a computer. we've been at my father-in-law's house this week, staying with him while he recovers from heart surgery. the time i spent over there in the evening while kim worked was spent watching cnn and msnbc and the coverage has been horrible. you know, i've seen so much coverage of 9/11, Iraq, and the Tsunami and watching it, you know it's sensationalized. they obviously only show the most dramatic moments they can find, but it's hard to watch it being done in a situation involving your own home, something so close to you. they chase people down to get their "reactions" and their "human drama stories," asking them questions to incite them to get upset. "What was it like, what were you thinking when you saw your elderly husband washed out of the 2nd floor window never to be seen again?" Do you really need to make people cry on national television for ratings? Do you really need to loop the same clips of people yelling at cameras and weilding babies like props in their arguments? The news coverage on WWL all week has been so informative, helpful, and intimately attached to the situation... They've spent so much time on-air just showing aerial footage of the city, saying "this is such and such neighborhood, this is the corner of Canal and Carrollton..." so that people could see the city and find their neighborhood and perhaps get an idea about the condition of their homes. But most people aren't seeing this coverage, most of the evacuees are watching cable in their hotel rooms, just seeing the bullshit all over the IN YOUR FACE media that has us all aggitated watching constant clips of looting and destruction. It's not like those things aren't happening, it's not like they're not news-worthy, but if you're in the city and you have communications equipment, especially being able to broadcast to the entire country, be a help not a hindrance.
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current satelite image
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Satelite image via DigitalGlobe
Thanks, Bordone, for the link.
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