Three days (is it longer? I'm not sure) of rain has forced the ants that live under the grad student house, Ahmanson, to come inside. Ahmanson was built on an ant hill. Why? Why would you build living spaces on an ant hill? I have wasted much of my time yesterday and today killing ants with kitchen cleaner and the dish sponge, I am not sure how you are supposed to get rid of them - my method is not particularly working. I don't like killing insects but reasoning was not working - we tried that. Now I have a lot of ant blood on my hand. Metaphorically, I have washed them.
This is the second week of the semester and the first 3 weeks are devoted to 'practicums'. A practicum is a 3 hour workshop over 5 or 6 days in something practical. They are taught by CalArts grads and other 'young' (emerging?) teachers. I think its a great idea, it warms you up for the semester and you can pick up some skills. Grads can only take one practicum. I'm doing frame making - as in get wood and plexiglass and mount your photographs in an actual frame. I think its really cool. It also gets me into the Super Shop (woodworking/sculpture fabrication place) which I would like to use but have not really been in there to acquaint myself with it. I am also TAing (teaching assistant) studio lighting/medium format practicum. I was about the fifth person who was offered the role, but I think I'm doing pretty good on it and have actually been able to answer questions. I have quite a low opinion of my technical knowledge, so it has come as a total surprise that I know stuff. I only get paid $9/hour but it looks good to do it.
I need the money too. My scholarship money came yesterday. It was meant to be half the total amount but was actually significantly less. I think they must have deducted tax or something. It makes life that bit harder for me financially. This whole two years I am only just going to manage it financially and if I am honest it is a worry. I try not to think about it though. Good fortune keeps happening, I just need to hope for some more.
However, I am going to do a long term car rental. It sounds extremely decadent but saves me a lot of hassle of finding a cheap car that is safe and reliable and then insuring and registering in LA. I have really, really tried with public transport and continue to persevere. It's not good though. I do not feel particularly safe and it has taken me hours to travel across LA and if you get on the wrong train or bus that adds so much time on to correct yourself. Not having a car makes me feel very disconnected with LA and unable to easily get equipment and materials for my art practice. Its been getting me down so much that it seems that regardless of the expense, I would be wasting this experience if I did not get a car.
This is turning into one long moan. I think that's ok though, it at least is a counter-point to how much I love CalArts. And I do love CalArts.
My final point is really a couple of observations. Post-Husband time I'm feeling a bit Americaned out. In general I can cope with Americans and the kind of people at CalArts are on the whole pretty cool. But, I've been noticing the collective traits that seem to be on display in many people here, to a greater or lesser degree. I think that they are very LA traits but I also think that they are probably common to other American urban cities. The first trait is an inability to commit to one thought at a time - ADHD focus - talking fast, changing subjects quickly, never finishing a sentence, zoning out. It seems very childish to see in adults. Some people approach their practice and life in general with this ADHD focus. I am not like this at all and it can be alienating. I can feel un-listened to and out of step for being so committed. Having said that, it makes me feel like my most meaningful affinities are with the faculty, who all have very esteemed careers and are generally around late 40s and 50s and as a result are able to chill-out in themselves. I relate to their attitudes and behaviour much more. I think that maybe that's ok though, I think I am popular with the faculty and maybe post-CalArts they will be my network/friends. Having said that, the MFA1 Photo students are not very ADHD, its mainly either under-grads and other subject people.
The second negative trait is arrogance. Its subtle, but prevalent. It manifests itself in the way that people speak about themselves without the tiniest hint of self-deprecation or humour. Think about it. As a Brit, how do you engage with that? It is not possible to NOT be self deprecating, it is too intrinsic to our conditioning. When people go on and on about their fabulousness, personal connections, possessions etc it feels like a weird kind of bullying. Arrogance in shops and cars is awful too. The driving style here is really 'I'm coming through, I'm more important than you, gedoutta my way'. A general rudeness or inferring your own importance is de rigueur in LA. It makes my skin crawl as much as the ants.
I have to emphasise that not everyone displays these traits, there are exceptions and its usually very slight when I come across it. But at present I feel over-sensitive to this negative behaviour and see it all the time. Hopefully I'll grow a thicker skin. Anything, but pick the traits up...
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Friday, 18 January 2008
Catch Up/Love Rat
I'm sorry I haven't been blogging, it means this one will be long and probably incoherent.
I feel pretty refreshed after the Christmas break - 4 weeks. Husband was here for 3 weeks so that was soooo lovely. We went up to Big Sur and stayed in a hotel of little cabins built by a Norwegian in the 1930s, called Deetjens. It was just so restful. We also dog-sat for Kaucyila - a beautiful, placid English Setter called Cricket. We had fun with her and staying at Kaucyila's was ideal for us as she is in a hip area called Silver Lake in LA - we're definitely thinking about living there when we come here for the Autumn Semester. On Christmas day we went to where Alex, a BFA4, was house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills, a very nice place, very fancy. We took brought-from-home Christmas Pudding and ate a lamb roast (me just the veg), with her Australian Jewish family. Not traditional in any sense, but they were great company and Mom had been educated and worked for a bit in Britain, so there was enthusiasm for our Christmas Pud.
Before the end of last semester I had so many deadlines coming at me it was really stressful, but a nice kind of stressful. By that I mean, when its your own stuff, and when its ‘school’, your in control of it, if it goes wrong, its you you let down. But it didn’t go wrong and I got HP in all my classes except Yoga which I got P for – that’s because I skipped 3. CalArts is not into grading, I think the ethos here is more, get the knowledge, not worry about grades. So instead, they have (which is still a form of grading), High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, No Credit (for not doing it), Incomplete – when you still need to submit work to pass and NX but I can’t remember what that is.
By the way, I must warn you. If you are interested in coming to America to study, consider this, it’s not written in any of the prospectuses that I ever looked at. (BTW I never looked at any other prospectuses that CalArts, just successive years, I was very sure I wanted to come here) Knuckle-cracking. Everyone, and I mean everyone, without exception, including most teachers, crack their knuckles. Each class you can hear at least 3 sets and a set is not merely 10, its every joint in the hand, so that can be a minimum of 20 cracks. Unfortunately, knuckle cracking is the only sound that makes me heave. For some, it is chalk on a board, but for me its knuckles. Every time I hear joints being forcibly clicked I recoil and tense. It makes me quince unbearably.
I went to Photo LA last weekend and like Frieze, it is difficult to really gush over the experience. It does what it says on the tin. Galleries get booths, put their best work on the wall, buyers look round, and… buy. Students at CalArts look round desperately trying to see a gallery that may be worthy of them. I approached 3 galleries to find out what their submission policy is. When I have a website again, I will, maybe, email them.
However, I met somebody. That you, English blog readers, will absolutely be impressed/horrified by. But no-one here knows who is, so so far no-one (except Husband via Skype) has been impressed. Impressed is not the right word at all, let me explain. I got into to Photo LA for free because Alexis was working on it, on the front desk, because her friend Sara’s mum works for one of the top commercial galleries in LA. I ended up being there for 2 days, for quite some time, looking at work, at the people there and catching the talks. Taking some time out I sat next to someone in the café area who is a friend of someone in my class. They worked together at A&! – that’s a commercial photo specialist/finishing place. We chatted and I talked to his friends. Then, I bearded man came up – young, about 30, in hip/casual clothes and started to talk to friend of friend, in Estuary English. There was something familiar about him. When he went away I asked who he was. None other than James Gooding, the infamous Kylie Love Rat. Apparently, he has gallery representation in London and LA and does rather well, thank you. He is also a regular photographer for a hip LA magazine. He lives in his girlfriend's place in a fancy pad on Mulholland Drive. For his work that he sells, he travels round America photographing, a la Eggleston, Frank et al. Not bad, eh? Not content with that, or to put it another way, I was caught staring at him a couple of times, when I passed him in the corridor going to the loo, I couldn’t stop myself, I said ‘You’re English aren’t you?’, ‘Yes’, ‘I’m sure I know you don’t I? You’re face is just so familiar’, ‘No sorry, just got one of those faces’.
The day before yesterday I went to a lecture/presentation at REDCAT by Walid Raad/The Atlas Group. He is pretty quiet and soft spoken, but if you get the chance, go to one of his lectures. He’s work is so very well negotiated and what is startling is that it is not the nature of his material that makes him so prominent but his handling of the material. He absolutely knows what art is and how to get the most creatively out of his ideas. I can’t really articulate my opinions on him better than that, for now at least. I’m just very impressed. He is artist as investigator and years ago, that was how I thought of myself. I’ve been getting a bit off track I think since then. I want to go back to my material and compose it thinking a bit more like Raad. Yesterday there was an hour long Q&A session with him at CalArts and I actually asked 2 questions. His answers were very lucid and really spoke to me and my current work. He spoke about an author, who he feels he, in only the sense of being in dialogue with his text, collaborates with, the author is called Jalal, who I know nothing about, but will find out about.
I feel pretty refreshed after the Christmas break - 4 weeks. Husband was here for 3 weeks so that was soooo lovely. We went up to Big Sur and stayed in a hotel of little cabins built by a Norwegian in the 1930s, called Deetjens. It was just so restful. We also dog-sat for Kaucyila - a beautiful, placid English Setter called Cricket. We had fun with her and staying at Kaucyila's was ideal for us as she is in a hip area called Silver Lake in LA - we're definitely thinking about living there when we come here for the Autumn Semester. On Christmas day we went to where Alex, a BFA4, was house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills, a very nice place, very fancy. We took brought-from-home Christmas Pudding and ate a lamb roast (me just the veg), with her Australian Jewish family. Not traditional in any sense, but they were great company and Mom had been educated and worked for a bit in Britain, so there was enthusiasm for our Christmas Pud.
Before the end of last semester I had so many deadlines coming at me it was really stressful, but a nice kind of stressful. By that I mean, when its your own stuff, and when its ‘school’, your in control of it, if it goes wrong, its you you let down. But it didn’t go wrong and I got HP in all my classes except Yoga which I got P for – that’s because I skipped 3. CalArts is not into grading, I think the ethos here is more, get the knowledge, not worry about grades. So instead, they have (which is still a form of grading), High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, No Credit (for not doing it), Incomplete – when you still need to submit work to pass and NX but I can’t remember what that is.
By the way, I must warn you. If you are interested in coming to America to study, consider this, it’s not written in any of the prospectuses that I ever looked at. (BTW I never looked at any other prospectuses that CalArts, just successive years, I was very sure I wanted to come here) Knuckle-cracking. Everyone, and I mean everyone, without exception, including most teachers, crack their knuckles. Each class you can hear at least 3 sets and a set is not merely 10, its every joint in the hand, so that can be a minimum of 20 cracks. Unfortunately, knuckle cracking is the only sound that makes me heave. For some, it is chalk on a board, but for me its knuckles. Every time I hear joints being forcibly clicked I recoil and tense. It makes me quince unbearably.
I went to Photo LA last weekend and like Frieze, it is difficult to really gush over the experience. It does what it says on the tin. Galleries get booths, put their best work on the wall, buyers look round, and… buy. Students at CalArts look round desperately trying to see a gallery that may be worthy of them. I approached 3 galleries to find out what their submission policy is. When I have a website again, I will, maybe, email them.
However, I met somebody. That you, English blog readers, will absolutely be impressed/horrified by. But no-one here knows who is, so so far no-one (except Husband via Skype) has been impressed. Impressed is not the right word at all, let me explain. I got into to Photo LA for free because Alexis was working on it, on the front desk, because her friend Sara’s mum works for one of the top commercial galleries in LA. I ended up being there for 2 days, for quite some time, looking at work, at the people there and catching the talks. Taking some time out I sat next to someone in the café area who is a friend of someone in my class. They worked together at A&! – that’s a commercial photo specialist/finishing place. We chatted and I talked to his friends. Then, I bearded man came up – young, about 30, in hip/casual clothes and started to talk to friend of friend, in Estuary English. There was something familiar about him. When he went away I asked who he was. None other than James Gooding, the infamous Kylie Love Rat. Apparently, he has gallery representation in London and LA and does rather well, thank you. He is also a regular photographer for a hip LA magazine. He lives in his girlfriend's place in a fancy pad on Mulholland Drive. For his work that he sells, he travels round America photographing, a la Eggleston, Frank et al. Not bad, eh? Not content with that, or to put it another way, I was caught staring at him a couple of times, when I passed him in the corridor going to the loo, I couldn’t stop myself, I said ‘You’re English aren’t you?’, ‘Yes’, ‘I’m sure I know you don’t I? You’re face is just so familiar’, ‘No sorry, just got one of those faces’.
The day before yesterday I went to a lecture/presentation at REDCAT by Walid Raad/The Atlas Group. He is pretty quiet and soft spoken, but if you get the chance, go to one of his lectures. He’s work is so very well negotiated and what is startling is that it is not the nature of his material that makes him so prominent but his handling of the material. He absolutely knows what art is and how to get the most creatively out of his ideas. I can’t really articulate my opinions on him better than that, for now at least. I’m just very impressed. He is artist as investigator and years ago, that was how I thought of myself. I’ve been getting a bit off track I think since then. I want to go back to my material and compose it thinking a bit more like Raad. Yesterday there was an hour long Q&A session with him at CalArts and I actually asked 2 questions. His answers were very lucid and really spoke to me and my current work. He spoke about an author, who he feels he, in only the sense of being in dialogue with his text, collaborates with, the author is called Jalal, who I know nothing about, but will find out about.
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
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