circles + circles + circles = overkill

Even though it's technically still spring, it feels like summer. I'm down in Texas for the time being, and whew it's humid! In the spirit of spring cleaning I went through some of my old architecture stuff ... and I can't believe I actually kept some of this stuff. After living in a fairly small Manhattan apartment, I'm beginning to see how useless this extra stuff is.

About three years ago I was in an experimental organic architecture studio, where what we ended up creating were less like buildings and more like art pieces. It was fairly complicated, but basically I extrapolated dimensions from Georgia O'Keefe's "Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. V" painting and for part of the project, I laser cut A LOT OF CIRCLES based on the relationships between those measurements, with the largest circles about 3 inches in diameter. Yeah, it was weird. I used some of the circles, but ended up with a ton of extras. Most were laser cut from cheap 2-ply chipboard.


There were also a ton of circles laser cut out of 1/16-inch basswood sheets. And even more cut out of 2-ply white matboard. Um ... I think I got a little crazy with the laser cutter, but it's an awesome piece of machinery! At my graduate school, students aren't allowed to operate the laser cutter themselves, but back at my undergraduate school, it was free reign (after paying and scheduling the time, of course)! Sigh ... I miss the smell of burnt chipboard/basswood/matboard.


I didn't use any of the matboard because the charring was too severe so the circles didn't turn out as nice and white as I was hoping, but oh well. Good times. Good memories. One of these days I'll have to post the completed projects, which I was pretty proud of. But after three years, I think I can let go of the 200+ circles. Off to the trash they go!

the hunt for snackages

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't made anything in a while. Yeah ... school has basically sucked me in. I can spend the entire day in studio and feel like no time at all has passed. That space truly is a black hole of time. Sigh. I made oatmeal cookies the other day but those got decimated pretty quickly . Today I made potato bread and granola bars, which I thought would be great for studio snacks.


The bread was yummy. I sliced it up and stuck a bunch of it in the freezer. I'll probably have that for toast in the mornings. As for the 'granola bars,' ... um, I guess they turned out decently enough. I put chocolate on them because all great granola bars have chocolate. They don't look very appetizing, but they're still edible. They're kind of sticky though (from the honey in the recipe), so I won't be making them again. Cookies are so much simpler to make ... and to eat.


And speaking of cookies, they sold Girl Scout cookies near campus today! It was very exciting. And goodness gracious those suckers sold FAST. I thought Girl Scout cookie season started a while ago, but this is the first time I've seen them being sold up in my neighborhood. That little table basically got swarmed. It was kind of entertaining watching a bunch of college students go crazy for Girl Scout cookies. I got two boxes of Caramel deLites (aka Samoas), which are the BEST COOKIES EVER, and two minutes later when I walked by again, they were out.

I won't be bringing the Girl Scout cookies to studio (because I'm too afraid others are going to eat them!) and I probably won't bring the granola bars to studio either (because the stickiness is too annoying), so I still need some studio snack food! I might just go out and buy some Craisins. Although the last bag of Craisins I had went really, really fast. I need something healthy, filling, energy-sustaining, and easy to eat. It's always amazing just how much food I can consume just sitting at a computer in studio.

receiving gifts in the mail

There is something about opening up your mailbox and seeing a package in there that just makes your heart go all a-flutter, you know? Well, truth be told I get excited if I see any piece of mail with my name on it, but maybe that's just the egoist in me!

Then again, it's always really annoying too because our mailbox is super small where the opening is 5" by 6" and we don't have a locker for parcels either ... so you can imagine how absolutely stuffed it can get with the letters/packages/catalogs/magazines of four people. Sometimes we end up having to go down to the post office because not everything fits.


A bit back I won a giveaway hosted at Paints and Pans for a wonderful pair of earrings from Nell Belle Designs. And they arrived in a box that fit just perfectly in my mailbox. It was so exciting. Thanks, Natalie and Nell!

happy st. paddy's

Well ... that was a bit of an unintended hiatus. Whups. I got bored this evening, so I baked cookies. Yummy yummy chocolate chip cookies. And since today (yes, since it is past midnight, it is 'today') is St. Patrick's Day, I tried to make a clover-shaped chocolate chip cookie. It was marginally successful.


It's spring break for me right now, so I'm trying to catch up on reading and papers. And eventually I will finish the bag that I've been working FOREVER on. But yeah, schoolwork comes first!

ionic blooms

I haven't posted in a good long while. Ugh, who knew graduate school could entail so much work? Well, here's a drawing a did a good long while ago.


According to my sketchbook, I drew this June 10, 2010. I remember drawing it on the plane ride from the US to China and some of the Chinese people nearby were watching me do all these drawings and kept asking me about what I was drawing. My Chinese was pretty lacking at the time so the only way I could explain it was to say "flowers" but I don't think they quite understood. Ha. The plane ride itself was pretty horrible (middle seat for a REALLY long flight) so I was really glad to be able to talk to someone to break up the boredom.

Eventually I'll get around to turning it into an Illustrator file, but right now I just don't have that kind of time. Sigh. Off to do more homework now.