one flew east, one flew west

As an art major, your finals are all usually a week before everyone else's. And they're not usually written exams, but large final projects. This is good and bad. You get done early and have a longer winter break, but then the week when everyone is relaxed before finals, you are freaking out because you have 50 projects due. This week was no exception. On Tuesday, my video project was due. I decided to do an interactive video website about poetry. I was really nervous about my critique because I wasn't sure the project had come out how I wanted it, but I ended up getting really great compliments from people in the class.

On Thursday we had a scary portfolio review. I worked my ass off to put together and self-bind this portfolio book. I had to cut out like, 100 pages with an xacto knife and I cut my fingers at least 5 times, but it was worth to have a nice looking portfolio. The review part was frightening. We had to meet with 3 industry professionals who would basically tear apart the work we'd done. The first two people I met with were pretty cool. The first was Buff Monster, a street/grafitti artist in LA. I had known his work, but these underground artists generally tend to remain anonymous so you never really know what they look like, so to be able to meet him was pretty cool. The second guys were the art directors from EA Games. They gave me a lot of good advice and told me that it seems like I've found a good niche with the film print advertising and motion graphics. The 3rd guy however, formerly of Chiat/Day and now the art director at Tribal Advertising, was kinda mean to me. he told me that "I wouldn't get a job as a designer" and that he thought everyone else at the table was better than me. Which is ok to think or say off to the side, but he said it right in front of everyone so it was embarassing. but I think that design is so subjective that i'll still find a place where my work fits in and I'm going to try my best to improve.


One of Buff Monster's paintings


Friday morning we had our big Grammy presentation at CBS. From what I could tell, it went really well. I think we all presented different styles and they have a lot to choose from. I don't think they'll choose my design because there were so many really good ones, but it was still a good experience. They gave us tator tots and coffee again, which is always delicious. I think tator tots just taste better at CBS. Such an amazing feeling to have a whole semester-long project done!

Finally, last night I went to the senior photography exhibit. I had a lot of friends showing work and they had a few performances pieces throughout the night. I don't go to galleries very often so I didn't know that you were supposed to look nice. I was wearing grungy jeans and a tshirt and stuck out...in a bad way. The night ended with sushi and Fiori ice cream in Little Tokyo.