this bag is heavy, wanna carry it for me? (repost)

Here's another one from the vaults. I think this one struck a chord with me because for the past week or so I've been knee deep in "artworld" trying to get some screen printing done for ARTCRANK 2010, which is next week. My posters are due this weekend and I normally never wait till the last minute, but it's been a steady mess of things going wrong trying to get the printing of my posters off the ground, everything from the screens taking longer than expected to the paper store losing my order of paper and giving me some other crap instead, which is surprisingly, working quite well. Anyways, aside from teaching spin class Wednesday afternoon, after work I've just regulated myself to printing, printing, printing. hopefully I can get things done so that I can enjoy the last part of my week aside from spending it in the basement. Anyways, it's at moments like these that even though it's stress full and time consuming, I get a little joy out of the process and the effort because it reminds me of being in college, staying up all night working on those assignments, having shit go wrong (like electrical storms knocking out the power in the building which results in you losing all of your file because you hadn't saved anything the past three hours)... or saving your stuff and then getting your zip disc stuck in the computer. Ah, zipdiscs, those were the days eh? Anyways, this retro post is for you SCAD.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Randomly last week, my best friend from college Emily showed up at my house for a little regrouping. She had planned a non-planned last minute trip to Portland from San Diego and in proper last minute fashion, I welcomed her, Lucky -her dog, and her kayak with open arms in the fresh Oregon air.

One of the nights she was here, Emily sat in the living room working away on her laptop while I stood in my room tracing logos on large sheets of wood with my new overhead projector, and my roommate, sat her in room checking email. There, with the three of us plugging away at our various activities yet still having sporadic conversations, I had a massive flashback to college and just had to smile. It was just like how life was at SCAD, back in the day before we knew the routes that our art careers would take us, we'd all be in our rooms, working on respective art projects and randomly talking back in forth: asking if anyone tried that new burger place yet, how we didn't vote for Bush, if anyone had any extra exacto blades, kneeded erasers or if you could borrow someones guash.

Then, later in the evening, my roommate asked me how much painting I had to do on my large pieces of wood that I had been working on. "Well" I said "I'll probably need to do about three or four more coats, which means I'll be up till 3amish, but I might take a nap in there somewhere to extend the drying time." My roommate just looked at me and said I was crazy. But Emily and I just laughed while we explained to my roommate that it's what we do. As artists, you've got a deadline in which you have to get more work done than is humanly possible in the given amount of time... but, you make it happen. Bring out the late night coffee pots, the hairdryers and the 20 minute naps, you find a way to make that three day art project into a ten hour all-nighter, which included drying time. Week after week, quarter after quarter, year after year. Basically, it's just like the Mastercard Commercial where the kids are dancing in the hallway; having people around who understand you = priceless.

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it's always sunny in philadelphia

For some odd reason I found myself thinking of Philadelphia a lot the other day. Not just "Philadelphia" itself.... but Philadelphia, in the spring time with cherry blossom trees, art museum steps and warm afternoons spent by the Schuylkill river. I realized it was because my body and my mind were taking me back to my college days rowing for SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). Every year come early May, we would make the pilgrimage from Savannah Georgia all the way up to Philadelphia to compete in the Dad Vail Regatta, the largest collegiate regatta in the US (with over 100 schools competing). This was always the highlight of every spring racing season. Not only did we get a chance to compete against big Division I colleges from all across the nation, but it was a big four day trip from school, PAID for by the school actually. You got a flight, a nice hotel room downtown, food money, etc... all covered. You also had plenty of downtime and not only did you get to go to the big art museum there and run up and down the rocky steps... you got chances to explore a city all on your own.

During my four years at SCAD, I went to Philly four times. Each time I went I explored a new part of the city on my time off. After awhile I got a pretty good baring for being a once a year visitor. In fact, from working at Camp Tapawingo during my collegiate summers, I knew a fair amount of people in Philly. As a result, it wasn't too unlikely to be walking around Rittenhouse Square or somewhere else and run into one of my campers (it was probably weirder for them than it was for me).

Every trip had monumental stories attached to it. Like, my freshman year I got food poisoning at the airport (the night before was Cinco De Mayo = bad Mexican food at Juarez) and I threw up the whole way to Philly. By the time I had to race the following morning, I hadn't been able to keep any food down for 24 hours and a host of team moms force fed me pedialyte to hydrate me. That year we also Ghost Ran the Philly "Race for the Cure" which was a lot of fun and completely random. Another year, I ran into an acquaintance from high school in the elevator of our hotel. We had been in HI-Y club at different schools and knew each other from conferences and committee's we were both on. Turns out that now she lived in St. Louis and was a coxswain for her college. Over the years, I had a lot of good races, ate at a lot of cool places and had a lot of good times with my friends; however, my favorite year was probably my senior year 2002, when my parents finally made it out from Ohio to see my last college row. Not only was I excited to have my parents there... but I was excited that they got to see one of the best races of my career.

Basically, all year we had been winning and then losing to Georgia Tech's women's lightweight four. And this... would be the last time we'd face them for the year... we wanted to win. Maybe Georgia Tech never knew they were our big rivals, but we hated them (hate in a competitive way, that is). We hated them in the same way that when you're a small little NCAA Div III athletics program (at an art school) that never gets any press... any recognition... you hate the bigger state schools. You hate the Georgia Techs, you hate University of Georgia, you hate Emory, you hate Georgia Southern, as a matter of fact... you hate University of Tennessee, Alabama, pretty much any school from Florida, and defiantly any school from South Carolina. That's just the way it is. Maybe for those schools, we were just a little fly on the wall, a bleep on the radar... but when you'd race them, and you won... you did something that no other team at your school could really say they had done, beat a big DI school. Sure, the baseball or volleyball team could say they beat Eastern North Carolina Baptist College, but who in the hell is Eastern North Carolina Baptist College? exactly! Who in the hell is the University of Georgia though, well... they're the fucking Bulldogs, that's who they are. And when they and Georgia Tech lose to wee little SCAD, you feel a little like David clocking Goliath in the noggin. People know those names, people take notice.

By this point, roughly ten years since that race... I can't tell you all the small details. I can't tell you how the water sounded against the boat, what lane we were in or what our stroke rate was off the start. However, I can tell you that we didn't win that race. I can tell you that we didn't even advance to the next round. In fact... we got third place in that heat. But you know what? Georgia Tech got fourth place. We beat them out in the last 500 meter finish sprint and it was great. Us and them... mano y mano... for all the marbles. We lost the race, but we won our little small school war. And that, was the only thing that mattered.

Looking back on the Dad Vails, I found out that it happened just this past weekend. And well, while thousands of college students were lining the banks of Schuylkill river in the sun, clothed in spandex, waiting for their turn to race... I sat by the banked slopes of a velodrome, in the sun, clothed in spandex, and waiting for my turn to race. Its funny how the more things change, the more some things stay the same.

Shake the Dust...

Last week I had the great pleasure of wondering over to the new Albina Press on Hawthorne Street to see a good old friend of mine from college, Anis Mojgani, preform some of poems of his with other several writers. Anis never fails to make me smile. Even from when he used to be the coxswain for our rowing team at SCAD, he would command and steer our boats with the upmost precision; yet... he never barked out orders. Anis respected us, he saw that we were not a pack of wild dogs who needed discipline and would bark or bite back. No, he spoke to us in the same way he recites his poetry, calm and collected, but so full of energy and life.

Anis has a way of capturing and speaking the english language that at one point, is so clear and simple yet at the same time, it conveys so much profound emotion... it just hits you square in the chest and takes your breath away. Listening to him is almost as if a veil is being lifted off your brain and in that process, all the colors in the room become brighter and more clear and all the dreams you had as a child, sitting under the big oak tree in your neighbors yard, comes flooding back. And you smile...

Thanks Anis once again... you never fail to amaze.