White Whale Collective and COMIC-CON.

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I have been bombarded, you might say, with projects and trips galore since last post. The White Whale Collective invited me to show in their group exhibition "Where Words Get Stuck," which opened last Friday. Here are some of the pieces I made for the show:

The title of this project is Sujet Fabula. I wanted to create a narrative that would shift and change it's course as I told it. The only real rules I set were that the story would begin with the protagonist astronaut character departing a world, and end with him encountering a kind of celestial body. The terms "Sujet" and "Fabula" refer to a formalist deconstruction of narrative; the fabula is the literal order of events in the story from point A to point B, while the sujet is the meaning of the events - the depth of the story. I wanted to make a visual representation of this "narrative binary."

photos of installation:

I was not able to make it to the opening at the White Whale Collective because I was busy wading through a mass of geekdom 125,000 strong. Otherwise known as Comic-Con San Diego!

Comic-Con is insane. So many people! So many things going on! Unfortunatly I didn't get to see much of the programing or panel discussions due to long lines at the portfolio reviews, and hours of exploring the seemingly endless exibit hall. I did however get to spend some quality time with fellow illustrators and MIAD grads Alayna and Joan! I also met with fellow NYSP alumni Meg, always great to see her!

For me the portfolio reviews were less than satisfactory. I feel that my work was well recieved, but it didn't really fit what the reviewers were looking for in an artist. One reviewer actually suggested I go to the Alternative Press Expo instead of Comic-Con, and perhaps there would be a more appropriate audience. I was talking to illustrator Lee Moyer about this, and he brought up the excellent point that sometimes a deffinite no is helpful, much moreso than a maybe. I learned more about the audience of my work not only from my perspective, but from an art director's perspective. So even though the self-promo aspect of my trip was less than satisfactory, it was still good that I went.

Perhaps the best part was that I got to meet so many talented artists via the portfolio reviews, signings and the artist alley! I got feedback on my work from people I really admire, and that alone was worth the trip!

Appart from Comic-Con and the White Whale Collective show, A great deal of the summer has been spent interning at Heavy Rotation, an alternative T-shirt company in Milwaukee. We only JUST got the samples of shirts I designed, which is really exciting! I will be sure to post the final product soon - for now here's some of the preparation work for this week at the printer!