Opening at the Mesa Arts Center

On Friday Tom & I went to the opening at the Mesa Arts Center for the Resurrect show. The show was a juried exhibition of pieces made from found objects. We went to check out Lynette Andreasen's piece (everything she does is so great, she was my 3-D teacher a while back at ASU).This is close-up of her piece (photo courtesy of her blog), it's a giant sized locket with her hair inside. it made me think of this artist I had seen who's working with her own hair also, Melanie Bilenker.

Can you even believe that's hair? the line work is amazing!

Anyways, back to the show. Besides that piece I also liked the "My new panties" piece from Denise Laws. (sorry about the picture quality, no photoshop on this computer)
It's panties stitched onto wallpaper in embroidery hoops-any art with stitches usually catches my eye!

I also thought the Archaeologica-The Disposable Museum of Jessica Drenk exhibit was pretty insteresting. She creates "natural history specimens" from things like toilet paper rolls. And then we also checked out the Sergei Isupov show, Tom had already seen it he went to the workshop a few months back and watched him work. While Tom was there an old lady told him he looked like one of the sculptures, what do you think? I thought that was a hilarious thing for her to say! Anyways, I love Isupov, his work is a bit strange, but he is so talented. Those sculptures are so incredibly well made it's ridiculous! And a few years ago we got to have dinner with him when he was a guest artist at NMSU when Tom was going to school there. The whole night he was telling hilarious stories in this thick Russian accent about how he wanted to pimp out a car and how he lives in a giant renovated barn, he was entertaining to say the least.

get the government to pay your student loans!

So, I'm still in college, but I'm racking up my student loans pretty fast (like I probably have $10,000 already) and I've still got 1-2 years to go! I'm hoping to teach in a low-income school and then there's a program where your loans will be forgiven, but even if I don't then I will definitely do this IBR program, just thought I'd link it here in case anyone who's already paying loans hadn't heard about it!

If me & Tom didn't have his mom letting us live with her for free (because of Tom's student loan payment) we'd be living in a cardboard box! but thankfully we do, but maybe I should buy these cardboard box bedsheets to remind us of that.

Florida Part 2-Disneyworld

(does that not make you want to ride with your arms and legs flailing about? looks so much more fun!)

So me & Tom are pretty into Disneyland (we've been together twice and separately quite a few times). I always say it's fun to go to Disneyland with Tom, but he means business, we have to get there when the park opens and stay as late as we can, try to do all the rides, etc! So this time we took the disney to a whole new level and stayed at a Disneyworld resort, the All-Star Music (cause it's the cheapest so we could go free using my Disney credit card points, woo!). The resort was cute, we were in the "country" building so it was all boots and lassos, very old school country.

Day 1
The first day we got in we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a half day, they have my favorite ride, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The other highlight there was the Sci-Fi Dine in Theater, it was like a drive in and they played shorts from old movies like the 50 Foot Woman and cartoons. The food was impressive though! I had marinated tofu that was so delicious, also free thanks to the disney points. And then Tom found some star wars stuff to pose by, always good :)Day 2
The next day we got up really early to head to the Disney's Animal Kingdom. (that's me trying to wake up). I think this was my favorite park, it was like the zoo and Disneyland put together. They also had some delicious food, we ate at the Yak & Yeti and I had lo-mein and wontons for dessert (we went high-class on the restaurants this time). And they had DINOSAUR, a very Indiana-Jones-esque ride so I loved it, can you see me being scared? But the best part was the animals, these fruit bats were gigantic and were sleeping right there in front of you! And then going on the cruise was fun, it was like the jungle cruise ride with real animals.That night we went to downtown disney and guess what? Like all of Pleasure Island is closed! No more dance clubs, I was going to try and drag Tom there with me, oh well. Instead we went to House of Blues and had dinner and then watched the Orlando Magic game, all the restuarant workers were watching in the bar, they were pretty excited. Then we barely made it home, it was raining so hard!

Day 3
The last day we saved for the regular old classic Magic Kingdom, whether this was a wise choice or not I don't know, it POURED the whole time. We ended up buying an umbrella and once I got used to being wet it wasn't so bad, it was at least a warm rain.
There's Tom looking quite sober with his umbrella in the rain by the Haunted Mansion.Then there's Tom looking downright excited about the Parade!Then there's the potters wheel we found in Minnie's House.
All in all it was a great trip, but afterwards I was exhausted and all of my clothes were wet so it was time to go home :)

Souvenirs

So I have become pretty bad at buying souvenirs, I'm getting cheap in my old age and I usually won't buy anything on vacation. I take lots of pictures, always a few seashells if I'm at a beach, and I'll keep some local currency if we're out of the country and that's about it. But we did buy martha (my mother-in-law) something we could all share from disneyworld.

It's a mickey mouse pancake mold, I couldn't pass it up, it makes me think of my grandma McBride (who used to make the mickey mouse pancakes when I was a kid, and she did it herself, no mold needed!)

so anyways, if you ever need some cheering up come over to my house for breakfast, who can be sad with mickey pancakes? (plus some eggs, vegan sausage and cherries on the side)

Florida-part 1 "the beach"

So for anyone that doesn't know, last week me & tom ran away to florida!


We spent the first three days in a little beach house on anna maria island with chris & lori.


We spent some time on the beach and went to brandon & jenni's wedding at the sandbar restaurant which was beautiful!







the beach, sunset, dancing, food was all amazing. it was like a beach wedding you see in a movie, but with people that we love. i think everyone had a way good time.

New Photobook-"the test is inaccurate"

So it took me a while to post, but my photo book is now available for purchase (or just preview on blurb! Check it out here!

For my everyday digital class we were assigned to take photos everyday and edit them into something cohesive. As the days started piling up I realized that everyone found my work to be somewhat funny, I seem to take photos of things gone awry. I wish you could preview the whole book online, the middle and end are even better than the beginning, but I guess then it's a treat for anyone who buys it or comes over to check out my copy!

Local bands on Saturday night

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/slideshow/view/1684299/10

On Saturday me, Tom, Matt & Sarah stopped by Hoodlums to see the opening of the Spraygraphic Poster Art Show and the Catfish Groove Farm play.

We got our photo taken for the new times, i think the girl was unimpressed by our waving though (look at the caption). haha