Six months have passed since my last post. I suppose this speaks either to the rigours of academic life or, more likely, to my utter lack of ambition and creativity.

To recap: school has finished for the term and I am bereft of a meaningful occupation, not to mention living in financial dire straights. Subsequently, I shall discuss the humbling topic of job hunting; a particularly poignant subject for those trained in service and art-related industries.

Given that I currently live in a petite tourist community, with little natural charm remaining, the service industry stands as the only potential suitor for those of us looking for work in the area. The awkward thing is, I am too old to work as a sweet young thing and despite having worked in the service industry for the past 10 years I have no local connections, therefore my experience appears defunct. So here I stand, employed part time as a 27 year old hostess. I am possibly the oldest hostess in the history of all hostesses. Humiliation wins again. Side note: the only local job available in the art community bypassed me, due to my overly artistic nature and lack of business sense; a humorous depiction at best given that I am such an uptight, straight-edged dork. Oh well, daily shame and overwhelming feelings of inadequacy keep me humble, one rejection at a time.

Work aside, this ever lengthening season of coastal blossoming is gorgeous, freezing and temperamental. Forging for nettles and sneaking stolen kale blossoms provide a sense of tremendous pleasure to this lonely girl. The countryside here is reminiscent of my part of Ontario, with corn fields and dairy farms speckling the landscape; childhood memories inspired by an aromatic nostalgia for cow shit. This year I have no designated dye garden, due to a lack of ground to cultivate, however I have a long list of wild plants to experiment with. In the coming weeks I intend to keep posting discoveries, disappointments and diatribes, if I can quit watching bad TV, I will also try and be more interesting in the future. Step one, get a life worth writing about.

I have no idea what the cigarette butts are about.

Image courtesy of Ben Portz

Today I locked myself out of the apartment. It was an intensely stormy morning and I was halfway down the stairs, on my selfless mission to save the garbage can from rolling down the street, when the locked door slammed behind me. No spare key, no money, no phone. Shit. Luckily I remembered to put on pants. I spent the next half hour figuring out how to break into my house. It’s actually pretty easy; I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. After some brilliant moments of deduction I went next door and begged help from my 83 yr old neighbor Margaret (once I asked Margaret if she had any children and she responded with “one; we tried ‘that’ once and once was enough”). Winter storms on the coast are  windy, wet and extreme. A short while later I made it back inside and now am contained within my petite, yellow palace feeling rather grateful that I didn’t have to spend the day at the library in my pajamas, on the other hand, maybe I would have made a friend.

November is nearly over and nearly three months have passed since I last wrote a word.

So, instead of pretty pictures of natural dyes today you get my ‘Art Rant’, lucky you.

Things I have Learned in Art School:

1. Art school is really meant to teach individuals how to think and talk about art, not make it.

2. Contemporary ‘art’ is just a philosophical study of the world. 

I am having a bit of a crisis regarding the utter pointlessness of art at the moment. Bear with me. I go through this every couple of years.

In my opinion:

1. ‘Art’ is one of the most narcissistic, pretentious and wasteful creative mediums.

2. The current over-intellectualization of art has created a generation of ‘art academics’. This tactic was largely implemented in the attempt to legitimize ‘art’ as an institutional practice to the greater academic community. Unfortunately, this has caused a tremendous sense of exclusivity within the art world and fewer talented artists to boot. After all, many of the greatest artists do not flourish within the confines of formal education and maybe they just suck at writing grant proposals. 

3. While I may agree that it is important and interesting to study the conceptual aspects of art,  I do not believe that the ‘idea’ alone makes the piece, if that were true art would not need any visual or experiential component; it would merely be written about instead of practiced.

4. The current school of intellectualized art is largely based around the concept of the anti-aesthetic. The idea is, if something is too beautiful it distracts one from what the piece is trying to communicate. Kind of like a pretty girl  trying to explain the European debt crisis to you, but all you can do is look at her boobs. 

5. I enjoy mental masturbation as much as the next person, however the anti-aesthetic of the day seems to segregate individuals according to ‘depth’ and wether or not you have a $40,000 fine arts degree. Frankly, to most of the world that piece of shit that you just conceptualized into a metaphor for ‘the meaning of life’ is just a piece of shit. 

September.

The month of new beginnings and back to school outfits, not to mention too short haircuts & skirts – the start of the unofficial new year. September is the month of memory, of sweet sorrow for summers end and the sunburnt evenings we forget come winter.

It has been a long time since my last post. Life gets a little harried sometimes. I made the decision to go back to art school, a foolish and expensive whim, but it helps me pretend that I’m doing something, anything. The curse  of the 20′s somethings: indecision and an unwillingness to compromise.

I have little to write about plants today, I intend to harvest some marigolds around this city one of these dark nights, but recently my mind tires far too early for night riding. Instead of plants and dyes I am surrounded by crack heads, asphalt, noise and loneliness. I procrastinate by making chili sauce and pesto, I will grow fat with autumn’s abundance – and chocolate.

Brown has crept into the landscape turning all to sepia in this late summer heat, warmth with foreshadowing. The heat is practically unbearable, my calves are sticking together just sitting here, but we must not talk of it, fore it will be here one day and gone the next. Replaced by rain and mist; a never ceasing stream of wet. When the onslaught comes I will be happy for my little cozy house with a bath tub, but for now I feel trapped by its containing walls – I long for the smells and sounds of outside.

Dusk is here – reminding me that I must go outside – I like to creep around in the dark for a few minutes at night, like the neighborhood felines, I frighten my elderly neighbor with my cattish behavior but you’d think she’d like that part.

WARNING

This blog may take an unfortunate turn for the worse, I apologize in advance – school will do one of two things, leech every creative thought from my head or inspire me to write and think more. Likely the former but here’s hoping.