SCIENCE!

My brother gave me the audio book version of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I like audio books as I an listen to them while drawing or animating or what ever. The book tells us a brief history of scientific discoveries and their significance. It really got me thinking about science, which was helpful when I was working on "Robot Boi and the Amazing Plant People" a queer scifi movie I was editing.

Speaking of Science, this book Monster's by Ken Dahl, taught me a bit about biology. Nice work.


I found it in November at the Montreal Expozine. I wasn't sure what it was about but a quick flip through drew my eye to the following image which sold me on the book.


Ken Dahl was even there to sign the book for me, and drew a little picture. When he stared drawing the hat, I thought he was drawing a bird. But then he drew the rest of the body, and then at the end he drew a bird sitting on the hat. When I told him I was thinking of birds he hinted at some latent psychic abilities...

As it turns out the book is a narrative about dealing with herpes. It's a pretty interesting look at shame and slf hatred, but it has a happy ending. It has some good facts in it about herpes. Also I learned about how cells work and how an infection is created. Ha, and I thought biology was boring. Plus... the art is beautiful.

Glamazon and Bear Drawings!

Here's a drawing of the proposed Glamazon costume I plan on making this month.

Here too, is a simple colored version.


Also here's a bear costumes. I'm not as happy with this bear-man. The drawing looks much like a were-wolf, and the line quality is not as nice. So hopefully the actual costume comes out emphasizing the Bear qualities.

Gay birds. in Zine format.

At the Montreal Expozine I picked a nice short little zine, called "My Animal Gayducation" This chapter, (presumably in a series) talks about the Roseate Coackatoo, and how it often pairs off in same sex partnerships. It talks about the rituals these birds do together, which I think I'm ging to encorporate into my Glamazon mythology. The zine is pretty short, so really if I go into much detail, I'll remove ll value from the object and the publishers my shake me down for some cash.
So go hear to buy your own.

kid Stuff makes me sad.

Every thing I see with children in it lately makes me sad.
Course, I've been seeking it out a bit.
In my telling tales class I had a written about my father's death when I was too young to understand what that was all about. As well as a bit of reflecting on youth for my artist statement. I had kind of a sad childhood in many ways. But all in all I'm a pretty happy person.

Anyway, here's a story that'll make you wanna kill yourself.
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware.


This amazingly illustrated graphic tells of a man-child meets his father for the first time with a parallel story of his grandfather as a boy growing up without a mother.



This panel ends the book. A Superman saves the day. Thank Goodness.



WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE! a film by Spike Jones.

Again, emotionally complex children facing a troubling world. But at least for the most part we get to have some fun in a foreign land. I really enjoyed everything about this film, especially the fact that it was incredibly depressing. Oh Loneliness, even monsters fear you.



I feel like their were other things I wanted to mention, but it slips my mind right now. To remedy my sad child kick, someone suggested I get some positive kid content.

So this weekend while animating I had movies going on in the background: the Princess Bride, Pom Poko, and Ghostbusters. I also listened to a Wizard of Oz Audio book, and I'm excited to read this copy I bought over the winter break.





I originally bought it for my nephew, but he's too young to read.... So I'm gonna wait a year or so to give it too him. In the meantime, I'm gonna get some enjoyment out of it.




As you can see, it has awesome Photo Illustrations by Graham Rawle.


I think its pretty rad. I forgot how much this Oz Cartoon inspired me as a kid.

This show had some sweet transgendered elements, as the young boy Tip is magically transformed into the Princess Ozma. Apparently she had been turned into a boy as a baby to protect her, but then turned back in a pubescent age. Wild.

Artist Statement - November 2009

Who knows what would have happened to me, if Supergirl hadn’t come through my television set to give me super powers and a sex change. This dream of an improbable transformation haunted my childhood. Although I knew my imagination was powerful, the world was constantly reminding me to keep it to myself. I became very secretive about my thoughts and elaborate fantasy life. My communication skills suffered and fitting in proved difficult. It my Mom was the first to suggest Art as an alibi. I didn’t have to like sports because I was her ‘creative son’. I took to this idea and art became my primary form of communication.

For years I had been living in a parallel reality. Through out my mundane life I would think about my various super-powered alter-egos and what their world was like. This was the start of my performative practice. Using art to bridge the gap between my fictional world and repressive reality. I make costumes and props for my personas. They appear in many forms; performances, videos, comic, blogs and photography. The ephemeral objects left behind can also prove their existence. I want to articulate every part of their world, and I want to do it on the cheap.

Capitalism has played an important role in molding my brain to absorb non-stop visual stimuli. Movies, television and a world of endless ad campaigns have all done there job selling me lifestyle but I remain critical. I want glamour but without the budget; that is why I started dumpster diving. Incorporating garbaged goods has left me with a funky post-apocalyptic aesthetic. My videos definitely carry a D.I.Y. aesthetic, highlighting the awesome potential of homemade costumes and low-budget digital effects.

At the present I am still looking for my super powers but I am becoming more comfortable as a transgendered person. My inter-personal skills seem to have caught up to my age but I am glad for the critical insight early social rejection afforded me. I have been drawing more than regular and will be producing a few comic books. With in 10 years I will make a feature length movie, perhaps about a super girl and her gender bending sidekick.

WONDERWOMAN COMICS! Amazonia, JLA:League of One and the Hiketeia.

My instructor suggested I find some reading material to help inform my work. I took this as an invitation for me to spend some money on comic books under the legitimacy of "home work". Despite this humour, they really were helpful. For along time I have been interested in Wonder Woman as a character and as a queer Icon. However, any time I attempte to pick up a single issue of her monthly comic, I kinda felt burned by bad story telling and lack-luster art. So I searched around for a bit this fall and found three graphic novels with self-contained stories I could read. Hopefully I would gain some insight on the wonder woman interpretation of the Amazon tribe.



The first being Wonder Woman Amazonia, which takes place in a parallel dimension to normal continuity. Wonder Woman was brought buy force as a child to Great Britain in the late 1800s. Their she deals with general cruel male dominance and the villain Jack the Ripper, who for some strange twist has become the King. This also ties into my earlier post about Circus Strong-Women, as that is Wonder Woman's profession in this book.


What I liked about this book for starters is that it is a self contained story. I kinda already get the concept of Wonder Woman, and they clearly explain how they are altering her story to take place in the Victorian era. Secondly, I love the art. Which is referential to classic printing press line styles. (Seen Below in an Image from the Book Women: A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources)



I would love to see a black and white printing of this comic, as the coloring occasionally muddies the image quite bit. Another complaints with the story, in that some times the mysogyny of the male characters seemed a bit heavy handed. But then again I don't know what it was like back then, or how society might treat women if Jack the Ripper was the king of England. Actually I take that back, when women have n uprising it is a nice reversal, as they had been taking it through out the book.

Also for Amazon culture, this book shows them as a helpful and perhaps naive tribe. The help a shipwrecked man return home, but unfortunately expose themselves to advanced weaponry and get slaughtered. Yipes.




The second book is JLA: A league of One, with the story and painted illustrations by Christopher Moeller. An crazy amazon prophecy say that the Justice League will face a dragon and die defeating it. Wonder Woman, believing that this is true, decides she will take on the role as the sole member of the Justice League, sacrificing herself so her team-mates can live. She uses the teams trust to pull off several clever tricks, eliminating her team-mates from action. The whole concept was a very Batman style plan and execution. Neat to see Wonder Woman pull it off. Funny I couldn't see Aquaman pulling this off.



The art is pretty nice, and considering it deals alot with dragons, gnomes and fairies, I'm gonna guess the writer/painter works illustrating fantasy book covers. It really lends itself to the superhero genre well. The fantasy elements build a world more like greek mythology that Amazon could live in. Their interaction with magic is nice too.



Third: Wonder Woman: the Hiketeia. This book centers around the an ancient ritual apparently described in the illiad, which inspired me to find in audio-book format. A young woman request the Hiketia of Wonder Woman, which basically means she puts her self into humble servitude in exchange for protection. If Wonder Woman fails to protect her, she faces the Furries, demons who are gonna kill her. Oh and there is an extra sweet twist, in that the young woman is wanted for murder in Gotham City, and she's being hunted by Batman! Oh the drama.


This book describes some nice greek traditions carried on by this contemporary amazon, as well as an interesting look at Wonder Woman's work as an ambassador. It has some great art by J.G. Jones too. The downside of the book is that it is quite short. I would have like to seen the story stretch out a bit longer, but oh well.

Circus!

A big beautiful book put out by Taschen.
It high lights the history of the circus and provides some nice pictures of performers and perhaps more importantly vintage promotional artwork.



What struck me right away as how the costuming of circus performers clearly informed the the creation of superheroes and wrestling, two things I've been intereste in for a long time. All three have an awesome sense of physicality and spectacle I love.


Second, I've been interested lately in the Strong Woman persona and both conceptually and sexually . I like the concept of gender-fucking the strong man image. Just as I seem engaged by taking the perceived aesthetic female beauty standards and applying them to males. I like when I see this macho physicality performed by women.



Physically these women are really interesting. Unlike contemporary body builders who fast approaching competitions to attains muscle definitions, these old timey body builders maintain a good ammoung of bulk too them. Which, is nice.



As a transgendered person, I relate to these strong women, both as an person to cherish and maybe personify myself. My masculine features are pretty dominate, so maybe I fit in physically with these types of women, and they provide a strong physical image to give me moral strength.



BEARS! I have been thinking about bears for a couple of years. I haven't really gotten into explaining how this project relates to bears yet, but I will go into that in further posts. I don't have much to say about these images. But I do find the bizare tagline on this first bear poster to be mind boggling.


"Nature's Real Comedians..." (Enslaved and cruelly trained to perform fro your delight.)

Wow. Some explanation is in order.



A few more awkward bear pictures. I guess I would like to point out clearly that I dislike the mistreatment of animals in the circus. Cats ad dogs in sweaters, is funny. Bears in dresses... doped up tigers... confined elephants... not funny.

What a fall I’ve had!

This is the second year that I went through a gross metamorphosis mid-October. I can actually pinpoint the moment seasonal depression kicked in and bummed me out. It was when I had to ride my bike home from work in a cold rain. I curled up on the sofa and was unreceptive and unproductive for almost a week. Luckily, now that it is December, I have remembered how to survive winters. It’s funny how I forget every year. I love summer.

School - a second layer of difficulties. I had a strong determination in the summer, that this year I was going to make school work for me and my project. For most of September and October I was quite productive on my Polar Bear project (the one this blog is about). I had spent a lot of the month working on my bird. About the same time I got all emotionally S.A.D., I had to switch gears in my studies and put a lot of energy into my other classes. Some of my assignments took far too much of my energy for what little I perceived to be gaining by completing them. Who knew I could get so bitter and whiney, but I displayed a lot agitation this fall. Wow.

I feel a lot better now. Despite that I have not reached certain production goals I had set, I have taken comfort in the realization of how much I’ve learned in the meantime. A lot of my annoyance came from my own uncertainty of an action plan. I wanted to make two costumes, a Bear and an Amazon to use in my video project this semester. I shifted my video energy to edit a Collective Itch project (Robot Boi and the Amazing Plant People) that I had volunteered to edit, but had much apprehension knowing how much work I would need to put into it. But now that I finished it to pleasing results, I know I did the right thing. This Polar Bear project can take as long as it needs too. No need to rush.

Read the following in a faux Jerry Seinfeld voice: What’s the deal with learning? You go to do something… and all of sudden, something else happens to ruin all your plans…. But then you have all this other stuff you never wanted. But now… It shapes your perceptions of reality. It’s Crazy! Am I right? And what’s the deal with those razor disposal slots in airplane washrooms, are there people shaving in there?

THE POINT OF THIS POST: I’ve decided to post a few updates reflecting on the media I have consumed over the past four months. I’ll be posting pictures as well as brief text reflecting on what I have gained on the experiences. The posts will be labeled under Tasty Media, as well as any other appropriate tags. The process of writing for me can be painful at times; so I’m going try to be as quick and concise as possible. So this will be merely a log of items and quick reflections and/or links to my work/thought process.