Hi friends-

I just finished translating/transcribing interviews and stories, so now it is major writing time. It's taken me a bit to get into re-writing stories (I've been only into poetry and non-fiction for a while now), but here is one example of a longer rewritten ancestor story (still in drafting mode, keep in mind, so comments are welcome!). Also is a poem and a quote from an interview to show you guys the different types of writing/editing I'm working on. Cool. Everybody's project looks fantastic and I'm stoked for October...
cheers- Christa

1) How Coconuts came to Karkar
Sun glowed from behind a thin layer of fog as it approached dusk, a circle of orange that could be looked at straight on, though their mother told them never to try. The sun didn’t like to be stared at, the sun was naked and it was indecent to stare at something so round and beautiful.
So Peter and Malek, as they paddled toward the center of the channel, looked forward or down to the light reflected in the small waves which built with every hour. Their paddles and canoe, made out of the dame diwai (tree) when their grandfather was Peter’s age, held and moved the ocean well.
When they reached the deepest point they knew of, the water was smoother with current and they knew that by sundown they would have drifted halfway around Karkar. With motions betraying instinct, the older brother, Malek, slipped pieces of abus (meat) onto rusted and voluptuous hooks, which Peter hopped toward the bow of the canoe and cast.
It was the kind of day where seagulls descend in giddy non-formations toward the froth of the upsurging schools of fish. Peter hardly had time to cast a line into the melee before a silver-shriek uplifted the water and swallowed their hooks whole. Malek, his feet swimming in fish scales that made the bottom of the boat squiggle in translucence, bit the heads of the fish quickly, their tail drop, their fins fold, the brain crushed under the practiced weight of his incisors. It was that kind of day. It was that day.
When the boat was cramped with creatures, the two pulled in their last line. The fish, a large tuna, when flung into the canoe, was half a fish. Her tail had been bitten off. Her eyes already rolled to a stop. It was then Peter and Malek felt the boat jolt.
They knew from stories their grandfather told. Soon enough, Malek pointed to a shark fin the size of his head part the water a few feet from their stern. The shark’s shadow dwarfed their little canoe, and as he swam toward their boat again, a wake formed around the top of his massive forehead. The boat tipped, some fish slid over the side and into the waiting jaws of the shark.
This gave Malek an idea. He told Peter to paddle as fast as he could as he threw the fish out, far away, to distract the shark. One fish, 5 meters toward shore. Two fish, 10 meters toward shore, 3 fish, 15 meters toward shore.
The shark kept coming back and back. The froth behind him was bloodied and shimmering with scales, his teeth buai stained red, like the boys’ own. The shark came back and back until Malek threw the last fish in the water and they were still 50 meters from shore. Malek thought for a moment, for only the space between two of Peter’s oars, and said,
“Because you are younger, you haven’t experienced so much about this life, i will give you the chance to live. You cut every piece from my body and feed the shark and keep paddling.”
Peter would not. He looked into his brother’s face and kept paddling, but said nothing, and did nothing. He would not. So Malek pulled the knife from his belt, cut off his left hand, and without a wince, threw it behind him. Before passing out, he handed his knife to his brother, and then closed his eyes.
So the elder brother gave himself up and every time the shark came to the boat, Peter cut off some part of the elder brother’s body to feed the shark. He kept paddling. His brother’s foot. He kept paddling. His brother’s arm. He kept paddling. His brother’s stomach. He kept paddling. The shark kept returning until all of Malek was gone and only his head remained, rolling on the floor of the canoe, luminous with fishscales. It was then that the canoe ran aground on the beach and the shark, kept at bay by the waves of the shallow reef, could not follow.
Peter put his hands around the head of his elder brother and carried him against his chest, onto the beach. Weeping until he washed all of the blood away, Peter dug a hole and buried the head of Malek.
Every day from then on, Peter would come to the beach and lay his cheek against the ground and cry, until one time, he came to visit the grave and found something strange. A small, green shoot growing above the sand. Peter came back, at dawn when the seabirds would scratch it away, or at night when the other kids would trample it playing in the surf. He looked after the shoot for one year, then two years, on and on through his marriage and child and mother’s death and the building of a small dock from the curve of the beach.
After a very long time, the shoot became a tree, and the tree bore fruit, and after Peter saw the first fruit fall off, he took it in his hands and he removed the cover of it and found the inside part of it and saw the two eyes and mouth, and said, this, this is my brother’s head. The village people came and took the dry fruits and drank them and ate them and called them coconuts, and to this day they sustain Karkar Island. So when you look at the coconuts now, you can see the eyes and the mouth and that is the head of the elder brother, Malek, who gave his life.

2) The bats left Madang town

Migration

And every time Susan says it in Tok pisin
No gut bats. No sawe bats stap lo where?
No one knows where the bats went.
Not the elders who saw the volcano
Birth the island, Not the university
Dwellers who sent their electrodes into
The trees not even Susan not even me.
The plague? Heat wave? Tsunami?
Stomach knocks into a stone, I’m not
Superstitious, not at all, but the bats fled
like too many soldiers filing out to battle.
The bush hut settles into a strange silence;
What God means
When he talks about warnings.
You should have known! He says
You should have had faith in my creatures
As if I could see a migratory anomaly to mean
I was sinful, needed to obey the holy ghost,
Practice abstinence and repent, repent, repent.

Exodus

Lucy fled to the highlands
Roger stayed Australian put
Susan prayed, Selfi shrugged
Her shoulders, like, God loves
Me, no worries, chill out, little
White girl with the nervous face on.
But I know nothing about faith
And resign myself to apocalypse,
Which may be the same thing.

Diaspora

When the bats sink toward the Sepik, believers
May curl into our own colonies, curl the messengers
Into our untrembled elbows and rinse ourselves in the din

The safe surrounding of galip nut-sized brains,
Who still hear the earth shudder and take her seriously
I will remove parts of my cerebellum

Until I return to instinct, or belief, or both, or
Whichever comes first. Remember how to
fight or flight and learn how to flock in formation

The white girl left with the flying foxes they would say
Grow black leather wings from my triceps and armpits,
Toenails long enough to grip, a taste for overripeness and
Exoskeletons.

Ghost Town

Trees black coral spires
Against midnight.
Outside crickets
Howl lonely,
Insects flutter
In glee. Fruit
Left rotting
The island smells
Sweet and dead
Already.

3)PNG time

PNG (Papua New Guinea) time is phrase to describe a conditioned behavior pattern that has just erupted because of the laziness of the person to understand the Western system that was in place. In traditional times before the first white man came, Papua New Guinea used to live a lazier life, a nobody cares life, like everything that I have is right in front of me and I take life as simply as I can. Move the way I like, sleep whenever I like, and eat whatever I like. When the first white man came, they introduced health solutions, this education system, and eventually this government system with us, hoping that it would be better for us to adopt these styles. I don't know. Maybe, but I don't know.
-Jared

yo. just realized that I didnt have the photo attached. here tis :]

I know it's taken me ages to post - but its been a pretty hectic summa. I'm in Kuwait right now but I'll be back in good ol'California on the 14th of Sept. 

So, I'm including a couple of pictures of the portraits I did/have almost finished @ Stanford. One is of my roommate/good friend Sheilan and her mother. The other is also of a friend of mine, David Geeter (i've also included the photo that I used). 

My project is basically a series of 6 portraits of faces around Stanford. They're all 36x36 (just so you guys have an idea) I'm pretty much done with the three others that I started in Kuwait. I'll add those soon enough, now that I finally have this blog up and running...

Anyway, everyone's work looks incredible so far :] Hope you all are enjoying what remains of our summer.

-over'n'out

Bhutan

Hey friends!
After three days in Kolkata, I've arrived in Bhutan and am greatly enjoying the mountain air and dried yak cheese.
In Kolkata I visited a district where they make statues to immerse in the Hooghly river during pujas (ceremonies) in autumn and got some okay shots there, though the light was not too good. It was hard to find craftspeople in such a big city, and there was definitely more marketing of handicrafts than there was making. Our driver didn't understand what pottery was so we didn't really make it to the potter's area. Bummer.
I am planning on having better luck here in Bhutan. :-)
Tomorrow we will see some weavers at a textile museum, and some thangka painters and royal blacksmiths. Crossing my fingers for a non-rainy day... I really need this lighting thing to work out!!
Mkay, that's all for now. I'll try to upload shots if I can. Eventually. Later.

watercolor portraits underway

This is the beginning of my first watercolor portrait. (Things have been crazy this summer) As you can see, I just have the face, but I've spent so much time mentally mapping the composition that I think it should all go pretty smoothly from here.

I was very surprised by my materials in starting the project. I used much of my grant money to buy brand new high quality watercolor paints, and I couldn't believe how differently they behaved from the student quality box-set I had bought in high school. It took some getting used to, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Progress on animated short

Hey y'all --

So I'm doing an animated short. Sounds complicated yes, but it's merely taking pictures and nudging pieces of construction paper around. It's tedious, annoying, and sometimes makes me want to strangle something cute and furry. But the end result makes it pretty worthwhile.

Here's some pics of what I've been doing. Feel free to e-mail me with feedback/what other pictures you'd like to see.

STORYBOARDS

I had to storyboard the entire animated short on index cards so I would know what shots to use, which props I need to make, etc. etc. I thought it was going to be a short and easy process. I ended up drawing and coloring 200+ index cards. Oy vey. Below are also some scans of the storyboards.

MAKING THE CHARACTERS, SETS

I bought 20+ of construction paper and basically relived my kindergarten years making little cutout characters.

The classroom set for the animated short. I had waaay too much fun with it.




The chairs!



The toybox.



And of course, a necessity for every early elementary school classroom: the gold star chart.



The bookshelf/books.

FILMING

My film "set." I took over the living room in my house. Parents not too happy.

Some raw screens:

So that's what's been happening so far. There are more pictures on my facebook. Friend me if you'd like to see more.

Cheers!

Cristopher Bautista

song 4 draft

Spoken from Medea's point of view. The gods made her fall madly in love with Jason of the Argonauts, so that she would use her sorcery to help him succeed in his quests. He made a vow to the gods that he would love her always. In return, she became a cold-blooded killer who murdered her own brother and any other person who stood in Jason's way. Years after Jason married her, he decided to leave her for a young Greek princess, Glauce. Medea tried to reason with him that she had forsaken everything to be with him. His response was that she should be thankful he had given her (a foreigner) fame, financial security, and two sons. Maybe he should have realized that she has a penchant for murder when things don't go her way? Medea pretended to acquiesce, but then, in retaliation, she killed Glauce and both their children before flying to her escape in the dragon-pulled chariot of her grandfather Helios, the sun god. Here is my take.

Notes: 1) I chose the language of fire because this is the way in which Medea quenched her anger. She had her sons deliver a tiara and dress to Glauce, which upon being worn, exploded into flames that melted her. 2) The Golden Fleece is the famous object that Jason sought to retrieve. With Medea's aid, he succeeded.

No
I am not to be erased
I am not to be replaced
You have driven me farther than I can take
Everything you are become
Is the golden fleece I've spun
My hateful love, i'm coming undone

Your phantom touch

It burns my body
Quench me
quench me

(chorus)

So I'll play the docile part
Pull the wool over your wooden heart
I left it all for you
Now you leave me no other choice
Don't you know who i am
Too late, too late, already damned
No one spurns the daughter of the sun

For every part of me that bleeds
You'll repay the cost in seed
You should know that the end will be your misdeeds
All my love, all gone to waste
Oh my love is poison-laced

Sweet chariot, take me far away

Your swallowed words 

Flames twisting from your tongue

Quench me
quench me

chorus

No screams or impassioned pleas
are a match for your cold reason
But I am the mistress of deceiving

chorus

song 3

I really liked the art book Sister Wendy's Grand Tour. My AP Euro classmates liked to make fun of the nun, and while I don't know how legit her interpretations are, she humanized these paintings in a way that I could understand. One of these was the Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, which depicts a surreal, divine scene, untouched by humanity. I was fascinated then, with this scene, free from the burdens and stresses of our contemporary life; like perfection frozen on canvas.

The painting from left to right: Mercury, the winged messenger god; the three Graces; Venus, goddess of fertility, love; Flora; and Chloris with Zephyr.

Below is my draft:

Grace

there's a silver wind
where three daughters play
in a circle, skin and linen
all this shameless beauty

feet on cool grass
palms turned, lifted
in a timeless dance

if you tried you could not find
this secret place
if you tried you could not find
this purity, this Grace

there's a golden world
how i'd like to run
in this primavera forest
never fearing anyone

open field beyond
i'd turn my back
on all it lacks

if you tried you could not find
this secret place
if you tried you could not find
this purity, this Grace

then one startled look
everything could change
there a stranger stands
wings on his feet
the whole world in his hands

i don't know what happens next

i don't know what happens next

draft of song 2

Inspired by the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. It's the story of a great/crazy sculptor who decided to build a statue in the likeness of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. He then proceeded to fall in love with his own creation, the "milky-white" woman Galatea. He had no eyes for any other woman, and finally, moved/flattered by his devotion, Aphrodite brought her to life, whereupon the couple was married and lived happily ever after, I assume.

I decided to explore the relationship between muse and art and came up with this song. It sometimes parallels the Galatea myth and at other times is its inverse (life transposed to art instead of art coming to life?). In other words, the speaker wants to capture the exuberance of the muse by some artistic medium. All the pianos in Wilbur are occupied currently, so I'll have to record a rough video some other time maybe. p.s. I hid a personal reference in the lyrics.

Muse

i'd like to write you a song
you look so bright, bathed in dawn
just like the music, linger on
i'll sing it again

i'd like to paint you to life
and reacquaint ourselves tonight
you always knew you were my muse
every time

i am a page tucked in your storybook
(i am the storybook you'll read when you are old)
i see the stage on which our future looks
(i see our future looks like blue skies when I'm holding you)

you have a life that words cannot express quite right
and when you sing to me, my heart is a kite (oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)
even if i can't hold you here in the city of light
i know we'll be all right

i'd like to write you a song
you look so bright, bathed in dawn
come stay with me, we'll linger on
it won't be long

B-natyam, thus far..

Hellloo everyone.

I thought that being stuck inside, smack in the middle of the Indian monsoon season, was as good a time as any to blog. Bangalore, one of the biggest cities in India, where I've been taking bharatnatyam dance classes, is lucky enough to skip out on much of the heavy rains that browbeat the rest of India (or unlucky, if you consider the daily power outages-electricity here is almost completely dependent on water).

Anyway, you could say the outside weather is reflective of my current state. I'm in a rut. For the past week, my dance teacher has been sick with dengue. Dengue fever is common right now in Bangalore, spread by mosquitoes, which are also rampant during monsoon season. Half of my family here has some sort of fever right now, I myself having a fever last week.

But I digress. Thus far, bharatanatyam (Indian classical dance) has been a great experience. In Miami, my hometown, I danced bharatnatyam for nine years before I completed my arangetram--a three hour solo performance that I worked very hard for. It was probably, and still is, the biggest day of my life. In the U.S., many girls do their arangetram (the first solo stage debut), and it is seen as a graduation, or culmination of many years of hard work and dance. Here, it is almost the opposite. An arangetram is still done after seven to ten years of dance, but instead of being a graduation, it is seen as only the beginning. In my arangetram, chief guests (usually a family friend of ours and a senior member of our Indian community who has no real dance knowledge) made speeches glorifying what a great job I had done, but at the two arangetrams I went to here, the dancer was barely complimented. Instead, chief guests who were famous dancers themselves used rhetoric such as "we hope she goes on to take advantage of the the teachers she's got and become a good dancer in the future."

So the last two months have been a humbling but gratifying experience. I haven't danced for the last two years, and I thought, coming here, that my biggest obstacle would be getting physically fit enough to dance the way I used to. My dance teacher was told that I had completed my arangetram, so she definitely didn't expect someone so out of touch with the art. For the first two weeks, I sucked! I was physically out of shape, of course, but more importantly, it turns out that my teacher in Miami wasn't nearly the perfectionist that my teacher here is. My dance teacher was definitely surprised, and not in a good way. I, too, was frustrated, and a bit embarrassed. I started from the basics, or restarted, I should say.

But after two weeks of dancing and practicing every day, my dance teacher seemed to be both astonished and pleased. She says that unlike most of her students, I am good at correcting the mistakes she points out, and that she thought she could finally actually teach me something. Compliments are not cheap here, but I like that she's blunt.

Now two months have gone by................and I've learned several complicated pieces (yay!). I was all set to start some serious hardcore choreography on the history of bharatnatyam piece that I had planned, when.............I got a fever. For a week. And now my teacher/choreography genius has dengue. And there are some logistical issues.

More later on that very soon, because now I have to run. BUT I did use this week that my teacher fell sick to make a quick 3 day impromptu dash to North India, where I saw the Taj Mahal for the very first time. I was such a tourist, and I loved every moment of it. And thus I can't help but attach this picture.........




Next time, pictures of actual dance. I promise.

Tumbuna (ancestor) stories from Karkar

Hi friends!

I've been spending most of my time translating and transcribing interviews I did last summer on Karkar Island in Papua New Guinea. Here is a first example of the bizarre stories (partially directly translated and partially edited by me) that I've been working with. By the end of the summer I, if all goes as planned, will have a whole book of interviews, essays, poems, and stories. cheers, Christa

1: Story bilong (about) Grille man:

note- This story is interesting to me for three reasons. One, it is a love story that doesn't end well. Two, it was told to me as a legend, but it involves the modern conveniences of a flashlight and perfume. Three, it is about a man with grille, a common plight for young Papua New Guineans which involves chronic flaking of the skin all over the body.
---

During Lotu (church) Grille Man picks fish-scale layers of skin off his arms. During class Karkar Meri (girl) looks at all the young men singing, the ones singing with their head down, quiet, singing all belly and out, but not at Grille man. Never. After the first few blessings, Grille man sees her, bright moon eyes, mountain fire mouth, sun skin.
That night, like every other night, Karkar Meri slips away from tok story (conversation) around the cooking fire and steps by the light of a small palm torch to a clearing in the jungle. There she prays, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry.” That night, like every other night, she listens for an answer and hears nothing, only the bats giggling in the higher branches nearer the sky, molded into one black around her. That night, however, unlike every other night, Grille man has followed her. He hides behind the mango tree.
The next morning, Grille man waits outside of the Chinese store until the lock is opened by the man with the big cheeks and the straight-haired baby. He buys soap, perfume, sheet, and a torch (flashlight).
That night, Grille man hides in mango tree near where Karkar Meri prays. Soon enough, he hears the pressing of her feet and sees her light flicker off just a few feet away. After listening to her prayer, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry,” Grille man turns on his torch beneath the sheet so that all she can see is a white light from behind the juicy tree.
He says in a thin voice, “I am angel of God and he wants you to marry the Grille man.” Grille then turns off his torch, runs back to his house, changes, and waits. Karkar Meri, sweating and still from this divine communion, finishes her prayers, thanks God, and goes to the Grille man’s house immediately to marry him.
One would imagine they live happy ever after, but instead the Grille man, trusting his wife of many years, tells her the truth. Karkar Meri leaves him. He lives alone until he is a very old man.

2: Poem about the creation myth of Karkar

The Story of Manub and Kulbob Version 1

The white one was Kulbob, the youngest.
Skin so new it squinted in the sun.
He departed for the mainland before his voice deepened

“Wanderlust!” Manub, the dark one, elder one, called it.
A sense of necessity and inspiration, Kulbob thought.
His skin predicated a lack of permanence;

Cloudlike and willowed. Kulbob careened in toothpick canoes
To Europe and Antarctica while Manub coveted their crater,
Tending to the fire of origin, the home of the mountain

Sun and soot. Snakes and secrets. The garden of Manub
Stretched all around the beginnings of earth. All lush
Like caocao and pawpaw, he grew it well. Kept it.

Lips small with thick pulpy sweet
Lemongrass and infants, old men
Telling stories in sugarcane fields

These are where the rhythms come from.
Humming of earthquakes. Home. Birthplace of races.
So much so you sing to the soil like “Father,

Mother, grandfather, son, I’ve been waiting
For you. I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve been
Hoping, brother, that you would return.”

a song snippet

Hey everyone,

I am on campus doing Econ research, so progress on this project has not been as good as I would have liked. However, I did want to post a rough recording of one song I have, for the most part, finished. I'm in the process of writing 2 other songs.

So this one is based on Helen of Troy. She's been written about countless times but it's too intriguing for me not to attempt my own version. There's a lot of focus on the battle, Achilles' drama, Hector's courage, blah blah, but I want to focus on the woman who is at the center of the storm, yet is only mentioned a handful of times in the Iliad. Some people have singularly praised her for her beauty, letting it overshadow the rest of her identity. Others have vilified her as a beautiful little fool who was the "destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities." Since we know so little about her, I decided to portray her as I see her, Aphrodite's pawn in the goddess's vain desire to win the apple of discord.



here is a song snippet; i just put in rando photos to make a movie since we can't upload audio files. the piano is hard to hear even though i was pounding the keys....i have yet to figure out a better way to record than using my laptop.


swan song

a thousand ships launched yesterday
creeping over the horizon
they come to take the city
not the girl *

when he first came
i was another's but, only in name
he traced his love with spilled champagne * *
he had foam-born Love on his right
i came quietly

(chorus)
nine years
behind these walls
nine years
before the city falls
so hurry, love me, for i am yours
till they break down the doors

every dusk, the dust on the field
clings to every unclaimed shield
from above, their wailing drowns my sanity
Her vanity
in a pool of blood

chorus

three times i circled the gift
singing the names of those who curse me
both the whore and the holy one
there is no modest mercy

chorus

* I see the war as an excuse to conquer Troy, not retrieve a trophy wife. Melenaus intended to kill Helen anyway, only changing his mind at the last minute because of her beauty. In some versions she saved herself by baring her breasts. i can't help but laugh.
** happened in Robert Grave's The Greek Myths

Project Beginnings

Hello Everyone,
I have just recently returned from a month long mountaineering trip and have begun my photo project. So far I have been contacting local farmers (Central Valley- in Yolo County) and conducting farm visits. So far I have visited two farms and have three more visits lined up for the next week. During these visits I have gotten a tour of the land and talked to the farmers/ their family about various issues of sustainability, life on their farm, and different reasons for choosing this lifestyle. So far the visits have been great and the farmers have been very generous with their time and produce! After my second visit I ended up staying the rest of the day on the farm and working for some great fresh veggies. I haven't really started sorting or editing my photos but I've included a couple from my last visit.
Mila

Learning Kathak

                                       

This summer, I've embarked on the somewhat ambitious plan to learn at least the basics of the classical Indian dance form Kathak, in addition to the Scottish highland dancing I know and love.  I have had two classes now and am getting familiar with the basic Tintal or 16-beat rhythm, and the percussive foot movements that go with it.  I had a practice session recently with Vanisha Gandhi '10, who has studied Kathak, so I thought I'd post some pictures.

                                                 

                                      

                                      

- Molly

People of Cayambe

hi all,

thought to upload in case anyone might have suggestions. code: the splattered chap is an oil-man ruined by his temper; the bald girl suffers from wernicke's aphasia and eats a diet of rose petals. there are two others.

-ben

Artists of India? How about... Bhutan? Nepal?

Hey everybody! 

So I've finally, finally confirmed my travel plans for this summer.

 I won't have any work to show until early September, but at least I know now where I'll be going. I'll still be in India, too-- Calcutta and Delhi, mostly. But my mother has also managed to convince me to come to Bhutan with her (yeah, it was tough!).

So we'll be traveling there for 10 days. While we're there we'll be visiting a Thangka painting school, a workshop of royal silver smiths, and a traditional paper factory, so those should provide some good opportunities for photographing traditional craftsmen at work! I guess my subjects won't all be Indian as my project proposal stated, but I think this will be equally cool. 

After Bhutan, we'll be making a quick stop in Kathmandu. No specific plans there yet, but I'm working on it! 

Then we head down to Delhi, where we'll linger around the Bazaar at Chandni Chowk, where there are lots of small craftsmen's workshops.  Also the Dilli Haat food and crafts bazaar seems to display a lot of traditional handicrafts, and hopefully I can track down some of the people who made them by asking around with salesmen. 

That's all for now. 

or upsidedown

umm finished an abstract. don't know which way is best - thoughts? the photo is pretty vague (the lighting sucks.)

sketchbook

hey i figured i'd post a few sketches from my moleskin here. i've been brainstorming my paintings and intend on starting sometime this week. oh, i'm working abstractly (at least that's the initial idea.) these pages are in no particular order.

Some paintings thus far...

So I thought I'd get things rolling with a post showing my work so far...

With this project my main goal has been to combine ideas of science, art, humanity, nature and growth/metamorphosis as such a combination seems rare within the art world.

The first painting I did in this series was the one to the far right with the bird. In this painting I tried to use the image of the bird with the upward-looking perspective to illustrate growth from the DNA as a kind of ladder or structure building on to something greater. The stairs were added to illustrate progression and try and drag the eye into and the up the rest of the painting.

I will write more about the other paintings later.

Please let me hear your thoughts on the works.

-- Tripp

How to Post to this Blog

If you're new to blogging, I just wanted to give a few little hints on how to post!

TIP #1: If you can, try to include an image (or video!). It's not that hard, and even a mobile phone picture will work. Get the image on your computer. Then start a post, and click the image icon to upload the image. Click "DONE" when the image has uploaded and you will see it in your post!

TIP #2: If you have a digital camera or a Mac laptop or iMac, you can make videos and put them on the blog! This is really cool, especially if your project is a performance, etc. Just record a video as a AVI, MPEG, QuickTime (.mov), Real, and Windows Media, 100 MB maximum size, and click on the video icon when posting to upload your video.

TIP#3: To insert a hyperlink to another website URL, select the text you want to become a link in your post, then click on the hyperlink icon at the top and paste the URL you want.

TIP #4: Before publishing your post, you can hit the "Preview" button at the top right to see what your post will look like before it goes live. "Publish Post" at the bottom will publish and send your post to the list. "Save Now" will only save your post, and not publish it.

Greeting de Paris!

Bonjour Arts Grantees,

My name is Cameron Drake and I too am one of the Arts Grant Board Members. Although I am currently studying abroad in Paris I look forward to working with you all this summer, I will also be on campus, so I can be a good resource to those of you who will be around here. I was an arts grant recipient this past winter and it was one of the more fulfilling things that I have done at Stanford and I am sure that you all will get just as much out of your experience!

À bientôt (see you soon)

Cameron

Hello!

Hi Summer Arts Grantees, my name is Jhanvi and I am one of the Arts Grant Board Members. I am looking forward to seeing your projects progress over the summer through blog entries, photos and Youtube videos posted to this page!
Good Luck and see you at Party on the Edge!!!

Welcome to the Arts Grant Grantees blog!

This blog is for documenting and sharing artworks in process funded by the Stanford student Arts Grant Program. Grantees receiving arts grants will post updates as they create their projects.