what sean said in 1970

In 1970, Ralph Arlyck shot this kid Sean, who was only 4 & 1/2 years old at the time and lived with his parents in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.


this short film is fascinating. it's an interview of a four-year-old who lives in the haight-ashbury district of SF during the 60s. it was so captivating that i researched it further and found that the guy who made it, ralph arlyck, created another film 26 years later called "following sean," in which we get to see how sean turned out as an adult. "following sean" is streaming on netflix, and i just finished watching it.

you can watch "sean," the 16-minute short film of him as a 4-year-old, here:

http://www.thecitrusreport.com/2011/headlines/what-sean-said-in-1970-living-in-haight-ashbury-and-being-only-4-years-old/

i really recommend it. obviously.


PS: adrienne, when james gets to be 4 and a 1/2, can i do something like this??

loosening up

today was the first class in which i actually painted. the teacher is really awesome. i've always known i have issues with loosening up. he came over and demonstrated on my painting how to loosen up. it was like something clicked, although i hesitate to say it yet because i've had such issues in the past. but after he gave this demonstration, i sort of had this conversation with him where i told him that was a main issue for me. he told me about ways he loosens up when he feels like he's getting tighter, and ways people he knows loosen up. somebody he knows went into the woods, got a branch with no leaves on it, brought it into her studio and just painted with that. using a crappy brush helps too. even though you might be afraid of ruining something you're working on, you just have to be brave and almost do something rash to it in order to break free.

so tonight, i got out my acrylics and charcoal, set up the light and the mirror, put on "purple rain" and loosened up. i painted this in less than half an hour.

spring semester

last thursday i had my first painting II class. it seems cool, and the teacher seems really nice and all. but i keep getting a little nervous because i feel like my painting I class was so amazing that it's going to be kind of hard to live up to.  i LOVED my teacher, i felt like we not only hit it off personality-wise, but he really taught me so much and basically helped steer me in a certain direction as far as my painting goes. i felt like i absorbed so much knowledge from him. not to mention that the class was PERFECT: there were about 12 of us, and we all got along. i could be in the worst mood, but when i went to that class, i was immediately uplifted and we all laughed together, and it was so much fun and so comfortable.

the painting class i'm in now has 20 people in it, and has a mix of advanced painters. it's a painting II through IV class! so there are students at all kinds of stages, and it's gonna be a little cramped for space, and i'm picky with that. i usually scope out spaces with the best light, but it's gonna be hard this time. my teacher seems really cool, and i was completely absorbed in what he was saying as we went through books of paintings during class. i just hope that we connect on a personal level, because that makes the class so much better. i'm just gonna stay positive.

i had to go to a lumber yard to get wood, because we're building our own canvases from scratch! as in, we're using power tools to build the frames....AAHHH! exciting and nerve-wracking.

SO MANY BIRDS, WTF??

so there were SO many birds outside my window today. these pictures can't even express the multitude of birds there were, but i tried. it was pretty amazing. oh, and i threw in a picture of mr boy soakin' up some sun for good measure.

self portrait

this is the latest painting i did in my painting class. it's the first time we did portraits in the class, and i think i'm going to continue on in that vein since the teacher is basically letting us choose what we paint from here on out because it's the end of the semester. portraits are my favorite thing to paint/photograph.

at the end of class on thursday, my teacher told me that i've developed my own style over the semester, which i was glad to hear and sort of already knew.  earlier in the semester he had recommended that i look up the painter alice neel, and i immediately went home and did. i'd never heard of her before, but upon googling her work, i was awe-struck and inspired. over the past couple months, she's been a big influence on me, sort of like a guide.  my teacher, peter, told me that i have a strong sense of line and color, a lot like alice neel and van gogh. 

before this painting class, i feel like my paintings were completely different.  i was always pretty meticulous and concerned with getting it just-so. i always felt i needed to loosen up with my art, but i couldn't figure out how. i feel like with the stuff i've painted in my class, i've loosened up quite considerably. i almost feel like i reverted back to childhood because they've become so much simpler than i was making the whole concept of painting out to be.  and honestly, i could probably apply that to my whole life too. a lot of the times i feel like i make things out to be way more difficult than they are. so even though my paintings now are simpler, i feel like they have more of a soul and more depth to them. i'm really grateful for my awesome painting class, and for my friggin amazing teacher.  going to school for painting is better than i ever could have imagined it to be.

update

• this is a painting i'm working on in my painting class!
• this saturday, i'm going to new york to take engagement photos of my friend syia, who i haven't seen in 8 years! we went to the university of hartford together when we were 18, and apparently, during our time there, she told me she wanted me to be her wedding photographer whenever she got married. well, here it is in the future, and she got in touch with me via facebook remembering this conversation, and has asked me to take her engagement photos! i'm really honored and i CAN'T wait to see her.
• my sister kim has offered to buy me a plane ticket out to santa monica to visit her this winter! sky might come too, depending on his schedule. i am super excited; i miss my sister, not to mention the state of california.

painting class; life

so i just have to say that i LOVE my painting class. I LOVE IT.  alright, so i've only had a few classes so far, but every time i go, i increasingly feel really disappointed when it's the end of the class. it's a 3 hour class, but it goes by incredibly fast. it feels more like an hour.

so the paintings we've been doing have been more like warm-up paintings instead of real, spending-lots-of-time-to-make-it-perfect paintings. the first one we did, we had to bring in 2 objects from home, and we just used three colors to paint it: ivory black, titanium white, and yellow ochre. so i brought in a glass bottle with a funky shape, and one of my old cameras.  while the class paints, the teacher goes around and talks to each student about their painting, giving us advice, and sometimes takes our brushes and starting to paint your picture himself. pretty much the whole time i was painting, he barely stopped to give me advice at ALL.  then at the end of class on the second day of painting the picture, he smiled at my painting and jokingly asked if i was planning on chopping my ear off that weekend. then he told me he thought i didn't have to do anything more and that i was done. so that was that.

the next painting we had to do was in color, and we all had to bring in fruits or vegetables.  so i brought in a pear, and i was fighting so much with it. i was all nervous before class and i feel like i got self-conscious and nervous about painting after the success of the first one for some reason, maybe because i stupidly thought that he liked my first painting so much, now the pressure's on.  so i was having loads of trouble just painting a measly pear, and he was giving me advice, then i'd work on it more, then at the end of class he basically was like, "i think you had it nailed before, but you overworked it and kept going," and basically fixed it for me. as much as it was a little frustrating, i STILL didn't want the class to end, i just wanted to start another painting and do better.  then when everyone was getting ready to leave, he came over and.talked to me about the pear painting. i told him i felt like should've taken a break when he told us to, and given my eyes a rest and come back to it with fresh eyes and perhaps a better idea of what to do. he agreed and basically told me he's been painting for years and how he knows that sometimes it gets frustrating. then he told me he thought that what happened was i got a big head after the "remarkable success" of my first painting and this one came back and basically fucked with me, hahaha. he didn't say it to be mean, he was being playful but i totally got what he meant. then i laughed and was like, "well, now i'm humble again. please teach me to paint!" hahaha

i really like my teacher a lot and i feel so lucky to be in an actual class and learning about how to do something i LOVE doing anyway. this is my first official painting class and i already feel so enriched and like what i'm learning is invaluable. i can't even express how much i'm enjoying it. the other day i was thinking about how disappointing it'll be when the class is over, but it's only september! i still have loads of time in this class!

oh, and here's my teacher's website, it's pretty freakin' phenomenal, and truthfully, a bit intimidating:

http://peterwaite.com/