Iceland! Oh Iceland! (Theme Song of Iceland)

So this is exciting: I basically know what I'm doing now. It, sadly, includes abandoning the China painting I've been working on up to now. But like I said previously, it's not a total loss as I do think I learned a lot about the way I need to paint for these projects in particular for that. I'm going to build the new stretcher for that (I really just couldn't stand to just gesso over all that work . . . I still think something can be done with it) fairly soon. I've already got all the wood cut, it just comes down to builiding and stretching and gessoing another stretcher. It's funny because when I first started to do it, building my own stretchers from scratch on my own felt really good. It felt independent and like I was capable of making a lot of my own stuff. But now it's just a drag, mostly because this is the fifth one I've got to do this semester. I know I can do it, and that's enough for me now. I can't wait until I can afford to pay for someone to do it for me.

So anyway, I suppose I should actually write down what my idea is and what I've been thinking about a lot in terms of contemporary landscape. China is old--3.2 billion years?--as old as the earth. However, as far as civilization is concerned, China is a huge mesh of old and new. While there are still huge areas of farm land littered with illiterate peasants, there are also huge polluted metropolises which seem to be China, and the worlds wave of the future. Soon (very soon, particularity when you consider time the way that I am in the age of land masses) vast fields, forests, and open areas in general will be a thing of the past.

Iceland, on the other hand, is newer. It rose up from the ocean floor because of its volcanic activity. It was created from fire but is named for ice. It is still growing as from time to time a volcano will erupt, continuing the cycle. I find the idea of this continuation of life in the midst of human struggle fascinating. We haven't even been around for an ounce as long as the earth, Iceland, or even the last place I am going to portray, the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands are also volcanic, and they are where Darwin developed his theory of evolution because of the way that all the species evolved internally because they were isolated form the rest of the world. I think that this is what is interesting about them and what makes them the last piece in my series. Before human interaction, how much longer would they have gone on being isolated? How much longer would there have been a place that certain species inhabited that no other place ever would have seen? I think I will shroud this painting in a cloak of cloudy glazes, only to have growth (the volcanic activity) poke through and glow as brightly as a coin in the sun. Iceland, too, will be shrouded, but its life will be a funnel of smoke filtering into the sky. China will be flat and eroded, dark and glowing at the horizon. Glowing over the edge of earth.

So here are the first three layers of Yellow Mountain, Iceland.

One

Two

Three

Blug. I need to invest in a tripod or stop sucking at taking photos so much. Part of the problem is that they're shiny because they're oil paintings so I can't take pictures with the flash on, and for some reason without the flash my camera takes only blurry photos.

Outside of art news: Today my American Lit prof made a noise that sounded like "OooooOOoo" (think a weirder Twilight Zone noise) after saying something particularly convoluted. Upon receiving odd looks, he explained that "Sometimes I say something so pretentious that I just have to make that noise after." It made my life. He is such a weirdo that he makes me feel normal.

Also I finished a paper in two hours, and I feel pretty confident about it. It is titled "Oh No She Di-hin't!: Female Relationships in Nella Larsen's Passing". I have to admit, one thing (the only thing?) that I will miss about writing academic papers after I finish with them this semester is coming up with ridiculous titles for them.

listening to: Ella Fitzgerald--Blues in the Night