Two down one to go!

My middle brother Phillip graduated on Thursday from Pioneer High. I can't believe that they're growing up so fast. *tear* Actually, I did cry alot at the graduation. I cried when they started to walk & we weren't seated yet (this is a happy post so I won't go further into why that happened). I cried when I thought I saw Phillip. I cried when I saw Richard playing the intro song. How cool is that? My brother was graduating AND my other brother was performing their graduation music? Too cool.

My two strong men!

I called Phillip & asked him what he wanted for graduation. Yes, I'm ghetto like that. I'd rather get you what you want unless you spark a huge hint or I get all creative. None of these wonderful things happened (at the moment) so I had to make the call. What did he ask for you wonder? A Wii? A card full of cash? Oh no, no he wanted boxers. Yes, boxers. Stocking stuffer I understand but grad present? OMG. Ok, my little orphan I'll get you boxers. Hee hee I bought him only the best.


While Paul & I were going through the racks I saw an Ipod case.


*Light of awesome gift goes off*


Oooo! I'll get him an Ipod Nano! He's never had one. About a year ago he found one on the public bus & within that day was approached by some punks (with a knife no less) threatening his life for a stupid Ipod.

*sigh* Ahhh the ghetto thug life.

After the ceremony we made a mad dash out to the field. It took us quite awhile to find the graduate but when we did we were all full of happy tears. Congrats Phillip!!! We're all so proud. :)

This was a sweet moment. Of course I had to interrupt with my flash. Paul was giving him a manly pep talk filled with tears. :) You're #1 in our books Phillip & we're so proud of what you've already accomplished. All our love & support!

Thankfully he doesn't live in the ghetto neighborhood any longer. So I though an Ipod would be a surprise he would love. :)
And believe it or not..........he did :)

xoxoxoxo

Not for the easily offended : Part 2

In our Visual Language & Culture class we learned about 4 different religions, Western Christianity, Islamic, Hinduism & Buddhism. We had to use at least two religions to represent & then find a way to contrast our religions of choice.

I chose Western Christianity & Hinduism.

The left side represents Western Christianity & the right represents Hinduism.
Starting from the bottom up, I chose a red pot to represent love. I feel that when we're born we're filled w/love & innocence from there we grow & begin to chose our own path, meaning Religion. As we grow we decide who we are & what religion, if any, that compliments our morals.
The images are hanging from balance beams. Ganesh is a Hindu god. Hindu use bright colors & drape gold, jewels, fruit juice, goat milk the list goes on, to show respect for their gods. If they see an image in the middle of nowhere they will walk up to the image & wave so the god can "see" them & help them reach afterlife. It's quite impressive.
I chose to surround Ganesh with glitter to represent the "glowing" effect from receiving such high praise. Ganesh even though oversized he is balanced on his tray & the ropes that are holding him up are made of gold.

Now onto Western Christianity.

To begin I made the "rope" represent the crown that Jesus wore during his crucifixion. As the Jews did to Jesus, society mocks Christianity in every day life. The balance plate is made from an Easter egg. Inside the egg is a Christmas tree & the bark of the tree is a Cross. In my eyes Christianity has become a glorified Hallmark holiday that reflects on all that has to do w/money & greed rather than faith. So society puts more effort & "faith" into Easter eggs & chopped down tress to adore with jewels & gold to pronounce that we're praising & celebrating the birth of Jesus. When in fact, we're keeping with our greed tendencies & put all effort into outdoing one another & buying materialistic items to show our love for one another. With all this negative energy Western Christianity is unbalanced & struggles to hold together pure faith. So rather than shining with positive energy the religion is consumed with dingy yellow to pronounce its fading faith.

Wherever the wind takes us...

That is, if the wind was named Miah. :/ Last week after presenting our sacred/profane piece our instructor Miah reviled that we would be visiting Downtown Art Walk & also announced that there would be a New Years celebration in Chinatown so essentially we could walk right over after the exhibit. Cool beans. Not only was I really excited about going out of school for class but I planned to bring Paul to experience the celebration with me.

Oh the experience we shared.

First off. Downtown Art Walk is the second Thursday of every month. So for a split second Paul freaked thinking he was stuck in class with us. Hee hee. Thankfully Miah had a back up plan. The plan was to visit the Murakami exhibit at Moca. Sweet! I was informed of the exhibit by Leslie & wanted to visit before the exhibit came to an end. Yay! Maybe the turn in plans wasn't so bad after all. So off we went (via Redline) to downtown. Walked a few blocks & arrived at Moca within 30 mins. Niiice. Now as we entered the exhibit I started taking in piece by piece. I'm one of those people that can't/won't pre-judge. You can go on & on about how you love/hate something/someone but I won't take anything into consideration of how it's/they are going to make me feel. In the end I didn't love nor did I hate the artwork. In my own humble opinion the artwork is overrated. It is unique, I'll give it that much. Unfortunately, for myself the uniqueness begins to drown in Murakami's repetitiveness. Not all pieces fell victim to this display. One of my particular favorites...

This post was originally written on 8.Feb.08. Obviously I didn't really care for the exhibit since I didn't even bother to finish my thoughts. However during our finals tonight one of the fellow adventurers shared his own re-creation of our night together. Even though we didn't join in the Chinese New Year festivities we had fun together & created a bond. These are the moments where you think to yourself, "my life is good."

Ahhhhhhh...

The smell of finals is in the air...

I.am.Tired

I’m not just tired I am effin tired. My eyes burn & my legs are sore. I am far from my crazy club-hopin days where I got home at 4 in the morning just to wake up for work at 6. Amazingly enough I always felt refreshed. Those days are LONG gone.

This semester I signed up for two night classes one on Wednesday & one on Thursday. Each class is scheduled 6-10pm. If I’m lucky & leave on time I’ll make it home a little after 11. The traffic is non-exist going to school & home so essentially it’s the perfect schedule. I just need to adjust to the long hours. I’m rambling. I do that.

Anywho, so yesterday our class had a planned trip to The Way We Wore. Along with the trip a scheduled appt to meet with Doris Raymond was arranged. Fabulous woman. Fabulous. If you ever, ever have the pleasure to meet Doris I hope that your experience is as exhilarating as my own. Through her stories of triumph & failure I was able to share a speckle of her amazing journey. She is beyond humble & willing, so willing to answer all questions. If she doesn’t know the answer she knows the person who can help you & is so full of knowledge. Book smart & knowledge through life lessons. I truly cannot say enough about her. The experience was one in a lifetime. The only way you can meet Doris is through an appointment. Appointments are hard to come by & we were very fortunate that she made the time to meet with our class. Not only did she take the time for class but after all the other students left (a little before 8 pm) Rachel (another student) & I stayed to ask more questions & pick her brain. Doris stayed with us until 9:30, until 9:30! Needless to say after gabbing with Rachel afterward I didn't get home until after midnight :/ Anywho, back to the fab Doris!

She did not once complain about our extended visit & encouraged our questions & thoughts. She allowed us to go into her “closet” which is where clients are taken to pick through the best of the best. The room was filled top to bottom of clothes, accessories, magazines ranging from Vogue to Montgomery Ward. It was gold. Pure.Gold. Going over books, websites, designers, places she’d been oh! The list goes on & on. I am just so thankful. Plus I had the pleasure of being able to afford some of the precious items she’d found.

As you can see even the poops have good taste. I bought the red knit cap, pearl necklace w/the lovely ruby accent & heart throbbing vintage Salvador Sapena pumps for under $140. That's what I really loved about her shop. Most items were really affordable. The layout of the store really has the consumer in mind. All items found on the lower level are reasonably priced. But, wow. The top floor.......I was among the greats. YSL, Chanel, Louis, Dolce & Gabbana half the names I didn't even know how to pronounce! How she finds these delicious treasure is truly beyond me. She explained a lot of it was through trial & error (bidding on pieces through auction). One of the many amazing stories she shared was one of Sonia Delaunay. While scouting out other vintage shops she came across an original (!) Sonia Delaunay hat & scarf. At the time she just had a hunch of it maybe, being a Sonia Delaunay original but wasn’t too sure. So instead of passing up the opportunity she bought the pieces for one hundred & fifty dollars. I cannot stress that amount enough. ONE HUNDRED AND-okay you get the point. Anywho, come to find out they were true originals. Sonias son send Doris a certificate of authenticity. Now, with this authenticity her items are worth more than you can imagine. But it's more than the worth. Having an original is priceless! To be known as an owner to an original piece is mindboggling.

The goods don't stop there. Through all her well sought out items Doris is very well known through the fashion industry. A list clients are constantly buying & "borrowing" items helping her name become well known & business thrive on word of mouth.

Photos were not permitted but I tried to take a few w/my camera phone. The pictures do not do her items justice nor does the website. So after the exhileratng high of meeting with Doris & drolling over her treasures I quickly hit the low of my high. Now, here I am at work trying to keep my eyes open.

Just one more trip…..I swear I can stop anytime.

Then again, there's always Tar-jay to hold back the urges...

Hello Lover...

Not for the easily offended

This semester I enrolled into Visual Arts & Culture. So far it's been an interesting debate about art in general. This past week we discussed : Chris Ofilis The Holy Virgin Mary & Andres Serranos Piss Christ. Don't click on the link just yet...

Chris Ofilis The Holy Virgin Mary

Andres Serranos Piss Christ

The discussion started based off the image alone. Without going into detail as to how the image was created and/or the artist intent we were asked if we viewed it as sacred or profane. It was interesting to hear various observations & after knowing how each image was created some views were retracted. I'd love to hear (before reading each article) how you view each image.

Assigned for this weeks homework we were asked to created an art piece (any visual of our choice) to display what we found to be profane & sacred about ourselves. I took (cell phone) pictures from beginning to start of my own piece. I have to admit as the project came along I changed my visual more than twice. A better picture with my digital camera will be posted shortly but as an exercise for myself I'd like to expose my creation before explaining my intentions.

Did you know?

What the word FAMILY means?

Father And Mother I Love You

Now I don't know if this is true but I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm so glad to be done w/school (at least this semester) to spend some quality time w/my wonderful family. Mainly Paul. I've been so busy w/finals & traveling for work that we haven't had too much time together. This past Sunday I took a break from final projects & wrote out all our Christmas cards. Paul met w/our photographer earlier this week (finally!) & picked up our pro pics. They came out fantastic! I'll be sure to share some pics soon but until then here's a quick peek at our Christmas cards & a glimpse of a final project for my fashion illustration class. Enjoy!

I love the way they came out!

Sooo a little insight into one of my final projects. For my fashion illustration class we had a choice of lingerie, gown or swimsuit line. I obviously chose to create a swimsuit line. We had to create the line & include an inspiration board along w/fabric swatches. I had a fab time w/this project! I was especially excited when I found my last fabric swatch. I swear you wouldn't think it would be so hard to find white velvet but it was! I ended going out to Joanns in Montclair! But I had to pass by on my way to school so it wasn't terribly bad. Besides they give their fabric samples out for free! I usually pay 30 cents a piece!

My teacher enjoyed my line so much she asked me to create a croquis board! It's basically a colored version w/sketched models. I can't wait to get started & receive the extra credit (of course).

Christmas, Christmas time is heeeereeeee

I'm so over Thanksgiving. Ever since I became a veggie head it hasn't been the same. The only food that keeps me happy are the croissants. Truly sad. Besides they're already playing Christmas tunes on the radio so I'm obviously not alone on this one. Then to top it off my sub-conscious told me it was Christmas time through my homework.

My teacher had to point out the design was suppose to focus on plaid. What can I say? I LOVE shoes. Plus it really completes the outfit if I do say so myself. ;)