Girly Girls

 Hey ya'll! I had the best and quickest weekend. Sarah Reeter, my beloved ex-roommate from last year, was in and out of Columbia a bit and we had the nicest mini-visits. On Friday she, Courtney (the blonde one), and I spent a good hour or so in Stamper Commons munching on dinner and chatting, and finally ended up walking downtown and window shopping.

   If I mentioned it once, I mentioned it a thousand times to them, but I have a new goal. I have a lot of clothes (a lot) but half of them either don't fit me very well or don't fit my ever-evolving style. I've been working on my collection since the 7th grade or so, and I think I'm finally ready to start dressing like a grown up. It's been on my mind a bunch lately. Do you all have any store suggestions?The only website I know to check out is Modcloth, and even their stuff is too similar to my previous flowery, cutesy style.
Anyway, I talked to the girls about it a whole bunch, and we ended up playing dress up.

Then on Saturday Courtney and I got our nails done. It was my first time!! About a week ago we were talking and I realized that I am a sophomore in college, I'm not exactly a tomboy, and I've never had my nails done. It seemed insane, so I made us appointments that day. I spent all week getting excited about it, and it completely livd up to the hype. I feel like a princess every time I look at my hands.

Courtney did this crazy thing where she got some sort of crackle-effect nail super duper polish, and she ended up with some awesome looking Spider Man nails that have secretly made her feel like a rebel all week. She's been wearing her leather jackets a lot...don't tell her I noticed.

On Sunday Courtney and I wanted to take our new mentiz (we're mentoring together! More on that once we have our first mentor/mentiz date) to the Roots and Blues Festival, but we didn't realize it closed on Sunday. It was so disappointing expecting a big sloppy pulled pork sandwich and getting chicken and rice instead, even if Jingo's does have the best Crab Rangoon I've ever had.

And to answer that question on your mind, Yes. I did get my homework done.

love, rudi

Breakthrough

The thing I love best about design and marketing so far is the amount of immediate freedom I have in it. I don't have to wait around for someone else to decide if I can be involved or not like I would in theatre. I don't have to already know a bunch of rules and regulations if I want to create something like I would with set design or follow another person's idea of what the art should be, and find out a way to fit everything that's going on in my head into their vision.
I'm not losing the collaboration, either- that will develop later once I've discovered who I am and what I can do as an artist, which is what I really wanted to learn in college anyway. Stephens has always provided itself to me as a safe place to take risks, but I'm finally at a place where I'm able to really take advantage of that. There's no more waiting, and it's all up to me.

   And another thing? I can't tell you how liberating it is to not be constantly wondering if I'm good enough, if my personality is up to scratch, if what I do matters, or if I'll ever get a job like I used to, and like 98% of my theatre friends still deal with. It's not a bad thing to be selfish and concentrate to developing myself anymore, in fact it's encouraged.

These are a few of the sketches from our very first assignment.

 
That sort of happened to me yesterday during my Typography class. Earlier in the day, during Principles of Design, I spoke with my teacher Kate about several of my designs. We talked about my gravitation towards texture and depth in design, and whole bunch of other jargon-heavy concepts that were appearing in my art. Later, during Typography, I had to quickly sketch a few concepts for a poster, and it took Kate all of five seconds to decide which concept I should run with. "It's you! You have to develop this idea because when I saw it, I knew it was you doing that. That's you're thing."
   Maybe that doesn't mean anything to a lot of you, but basically I had a breakthrough yesterday. a mini milestone. Kate, my audience, recognized something I did as my work, she noticed and identified my style. That means I have a style! Or, at least, the beginning of one. One of the biggest goals of my year is to pinpoint and discover my style as an artist, to settle in to my particular aesthetic, and yesterday it happened. It was minor, but so important.

This is the poster I did yesterday, the poster that's "my thing". This is my G.

I got really excited. I've felt so great ever since, and I'm so happy to have that inkling of confirmation that I'm on a good path, one that fits me that I can really settle into and do exceptional work in. It's so priceless, it's such the ideal "college dsicovery" thing.

   

Have any of you had moments like this? I want to know your experiences! Leave me a comment,
I want to know I'm not alone on this one.

As always,
love, rudi

P.S. I'm going to start playing around with the way I do things around here. Any input, positive or negative, is completely appreciated!

New York Part 2

Hey ya'll! I was just looking through my old posts and discovered that I never posted the rest of my New York City photos! So, without further delay, here they are!

These are the home-made fruit tarts I had for breakfast every morning. We found a little bakery right down the road from the train station, and made a point to sample as many of their treats as we could. 

This picture is from my visit to MTV in Times Square, where Ed Coco works as the Senior Set Designer (by the way, coolest job ever)

I visited Ogilvy & Mather, a top advertising agency, and got some really
awesome insight into the advertising world.Heather Hay, the Stephens alum who met with me there, gave me this book to read and see if I like it- "it" being the advertising world in general.
The verdict? I finished the book in a week. I love advertising. And that's just one of the many discoveries I made during my trip.

I have a few more photos of silly touristy stuff that everyone's seen- well, except for the picture I snapped of a man doing yoga in a park with a lizard on his head. I'd share it if you could actually see the lizard, but alas.
It's harder than it looks to be a sneaky-peaky spy photographer.

Can I just say "Thank You Stephens!" again for sending me out there?

Hope you all enjoy!

love, rudi