sketches

it took me 6 months of toiling away at my new job to realize that a scanning enabled copier was just 8 feet away from my desk. doh! here are some drawings that i made recently. they were created on a night when i felt sleepless and shaken. i share them with ambivalence because, like all things i make, they are from an unspeakable place inside me, and i'm trying to be less confessional with my work nowadays. if being an artist means laying out every bad thing that ever happened to you for the public to see, well, then i'm not doing it anymore. i'm working from a place of resolve right now, a place equally deep, mysterious, and unspeakable.

new year, new work

this month has slowly cranked and spluttered into action. i've been finishing up my school applications and making a drawing of a house. it's not quite sublime yet, but it's a workable blueprint for getting there, and encompasses most of what's been on my mind lately: monuments, constancy, repetition, grace.





i'm also wrapping up my participation in the sketchbook project, which i started last fall. if you have ever wondered what i dreamed about between the months of august and october 2010, well, it's coming to a library near you! here's a taste of the journal's contents:



it is not final yet, but there is a 99% chance that i will start work as a web designer for UCLA in the coming weeks. i'm excited about no longer being dependent on the us government. hopefully i'll still have time to draw some roman aqueducts.

nighttime story 2

my book from the sketchbook project came in! i'll be sending it back to new york city in january, where it will go on display in the brooklyn library and some lucky fool or two will be able to check out and read my musings on the theme 'nighttime stories'. the book will be a graphic documentation of my dreams a la carl jung (or carol yun as she's known in these quarters). of course my first order of business was to hand-letter the cover.

this kind of thing is just my bag, baby

i'm totally gonna do this!

the myth of the spider woman

return of semi-confessional understated drawings

guess what guys! i got the scanner at current workplace up and running! sad that access to electronics is the only thing that limits my inner monologue (age of the internet, i greet you with suspicion). anyway, i am working on somethings which will slowly trickle online with the aid of this new discovery. don't i always say that?

seasonal allergies, life, et al

i've been exhausted lately, but in a good way. or in a bad way, if you judge me according to my blog output. i made these drawings last night while watching the entire canon of radiohead music videos. give it up to thom yorke for consistently visualizing a world of blue-grey urban alienation.




the subject of this metaphor is open to interpretation.

i'll be switching jobs in the next few weeks. i will have more time to do arty things both in my personal and my professional life, which is a very liberating feeling. one of which is working on a new animation titled 'dreams about flight'. can't wait to actually have some footage to post!

texas ranger

forgetting is our way of denying that we'd lived the things that seem so far away, now. you need memories to be a person, you know?

how i'm feeling right now

um, cranky. cranky and overworked.

2 comix for the price of 1

hopefully the last comic explains the anticapitalist title and intentions of the series? maybe maybe? i've been -SURPRISE- busy with one thing or another, but hopefully projects will start to make their way onto the internet more steadily - because trust me, they're happening. art art art, work work work, boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend. that's seriously what my life has become, with 'apply to grad school' as an undercurrent through it all. the only thing missing is the think think existential reflection think. remember the days when we were required to read books and produce thoughts? oh man.

i bought a dslr last week. right now i'm using it to indulge my vanity on lookbook, but i trust that it will eventually be put to good use. exhibit a: in a month, i will be breaking it out at COACHELLA ELLA ELLA ELLA AYYYYYYYYY!

seasonal cheer

regarding matters of the saint valentine, i've become less curmudgeonly. it's as if i'm aging in reverse!

2 drawings about flight

the unbearable lightness of being fig. 1


the last time i felt undefeated was so long ago. i was 20. i felt like i could was willing to do anything.

my old piano teacher used to tell me that after 20, it becomes physically painful to acquire new technique in your fingers. your body stops being pliable and spends the rest of its days stiffening into its final form. i think that's why i feel a more urgent sense of mortality compared to others.

when you think about it in reverse, everything starts to make sense

some stuffs

i've been bumming out about the state of art in my life lately. i haven't had the time, energy, or facilities for meaningful artmaking, and my pessimism about the audience for art has only deepened. who sees our art, who places it in a historical context, and who the fuck cares? and yet, i don't want to give up or admit defeat by the system. maybe one day i'll find a place for my idealism.

two drawings of something i don't have a lot of:



and the second installment of normativity & robots:

january projects

things are settling and i'm slowly getting my life in order. my hands smell like alligator from... cooking alligator this morning. touching it felt like touching my boyfriend's flesh. i was thoroughly grossed out, and will probably never cook meat again, no matter how novel the source. ANYWAY,

1. i am in the process of redoing my website, carolstardust.com. if you have been faithfully following my work (HA!), chances are you've seen most of the work before. it's organized a little differently, which might prompt new insights. at least, it helped me write a fairly coherent artist's statement. check it out and TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

1.a. i'm thinking about making flipbooks of my drawings/animations for sale. or screenprinted clothing out of some of my drawings? would you wear passive aggressive line drawings?

2. i'm applying for a fellowship/grant thing this summer to do um, community/nonprofit/public art stuff. fingers crossed. i like the egotism of seeing my own exhibition history, so i'll also be working on augmenting that.

3. i'm starting my own comic visual journal about my life as a dejected twentysomething. basically, a formalization of what i already rant/draw about on a daily basis.


4. i brought back a bunch of family photo negatives from the last time i visited my family. i plan to organize them and print them as an ode to memory, family dysfunction and happy accidents. i also want to start a career in which i curate people's family photographs for shits, giggles, and a livable amount of money.

5. i'm still making doodles at work.


5.a. i'm trying to get better at my job. luckily, that involves a lot of trips to the art and architecture bookstore, as well as watching snooty art films. and going to coachella :-).

deluge

in the past 10 hours, i have taken a plane from los angeles to new york, taken the subway from john f. kennedy international airport to my alma mater's space in chelsea, reunited with life partners of yore and installed the work for my post-baccalaureate show. two things jump out at me in my sleep-deprived, caffeine-addled state: the ability of our bodies to adjust to drastic climate change, and the luxury of university facilities. in other words, i found me a scanner.

here are some drawings about, um, "relational aesthetics". we normalfolk call it "love".





here's a drawing i made while watching some singer du jour gyrate on a televised new year's eve celebration.



i'm nearing the end of my 13th or so moleskine (plain, black, large, sketchbook, in case you were ever lacking for gift ideas). the cover of each notebook assumes its own character over time, and this one is peppered with stickers from the dangerwork. life has changed a lot in the past 7 months.

stellet licht

silent light, carlos reygada, 2009

i have the sudden urge to take my view camera home and take mmm-mmm-chiapas-good images of the texas landscape. airport security will not like that. logistics are forthcoming. still, it's about time i started playing around with my sexy old-is-the-new-new toy!

and i mean, for all interested, this is the doodle i made at work the other day. whateva whateva. i am animating the last act of my current project. then epilogue! then credits! then away to new york for my postbaccalaureate show we go!

NEW WORK contd

this is all i'm posting before the final edited version. ohhhh it needs to unfold about 2x slower and i'm sick. eeeuch.

NEW WORK

i am taking a break from one of my jobs this month to make new work. which will most likely kill me and all. i've barely been alive (read: i've barely had time to squander my time on internet blogging) since returning from thanksgiving break. this is a short preview:

well i don't know how my bookmark got in there

the text says, "through land, air, water, i will find you." i've been...birds and stuff.