few thoughts 120108

1. December is here! My favorite month. EVER. 
2. Going back to yesterday, so I went on this little walking tour that led me into Piazza Popolo and Via del Corso (it's a big shopping district, you get the idea). They had a big christmas tree up!!! I've been seeing some Christmas lights hung up around the city but not trees! I was more than thrilled to see those and of course, holiday season coming to us, it's safe to say that I am feeling some warmth around me. No, I haven't bought a new sweater yet. 
3. Reimbursement FTW!!! 60 Euros, yo!
4. Although our big final show is this Friday, I'm putting mine up on Wednesday just for the experiment. 
5. Speaking of experiment, I went to architecture's final crit today. Us and architecture program shares the same building and I always wondered what kind of work they do and how their crits go. It's definitely different than art crit, good and bad. Although Frank Geary is probably only architect I could name top of my head, I always have been interested with architecture and urban planning. So the story goes like this architecture students in Rome were assigned to a certain spot in central Rome and given an assignment to flip that spot into something different since many of the spots they were assigned to was virtually soulless and dead spots like back of the train stations and all. Group of people came up with idea of building a market and space based on slow foods. I thought it was interesting. I didn't think no mean words were flying here and there although there was this dude who was completely obnoxious but there's always a dude like that wherever you go. As an art major perspective, I wasn't really looking at the plan but I was keep thinking, 'installation art there!', installation art here!!!'...yeah...I was that geeky. Anyway, I thought it was good that all of the things were so well planned and so well thought out because sometime it's so easy for us art students to just say, 'uhm...I just changed where I was going with this thing' or 'I just wanted to play with this thing for a while...' no, that ish ain't going to fly here. Not at all. However, I thought that also could be little bad because it's way TOO well thought out. There's no room to kinda move around to be bit more creative. I guess that's why architects and artists work together. My another concern was how to utilize that space effectively because behind the main train station in Rome is essentially a slum that has many minorities and immigrants...and I thought many people really missed out on an intricacies of actual setting that could certainly benefit them. However, it was really good to see those architecture works, it was definitely refreshing. I had a fun, trust me. 
6. So here's what I'm doing with my final project. The title of the project is 'I just wanted a birthday cake' and I titled it after the fact that I've never had a birthday party growing up and it all relates to my direction with my art; anxiety, fear, stress, depression and those stuff. So the actual connotation is like, 'I just wanted a birthday cake but I'm stuck with doing this art thing', yeah, you get the idea. So it's based on my journal of my last 4-5 months that includes passing of my grandpa, my anxiety attacks, my biggest fears, my struggle with depression but also way to overcome all those by doing what I love to do; art. The idea came along since my spring quarter with Susan Robb, I was really thinking about what it means to grow up and what it means to 'love' and I told myself before I came here that would be the focal point of my art works while I'm in Rome. Although the physicality of my project turned a dramatic turn since my first project, I think my theme stayed same. When I first thought about doing this I thought it was going to be just recreating my journal on a sketchbook but Ellen gave me an inspiration (thank you as always) to take the project even further. I want people to read up about what I'm about and what made me grow up from this experience but also write a response, not to me but to themselves about their fears and their anxieties or even their own happiness. I will have a box ready for them to write about them and simply put those responses into a box. Then I will turn THOSE into another sketchbook and hopefully people will get to see them my show at Parnassus in March. I also will have set up a little reading room with chocolates and stuff so even if they would not wish to respond, they can still take something sweet. I hope it works!!!! Wish me luck!!!!