Now What...

     am I going to do?  I like/d my work. I can't re-make any of my sculptures.  They are what they are. They signify my total sum experience and and creativity in sculpture. If they are truly "bad", it is because  I really do not have an accumulated expertise with my media.  Again I say, two and a half years is not enough time to master one's field.  My thesis show represents only where I am THIS MOMENT, not all I will ever be.
     I started this project in November and have really tried to make a concerted effort regarding a cohesive body of work.  I just don't have any more time. I had to use Photoshop to create some imagery. I know it looks fake.  That really wasn't a quality I intended to exploit.  As it turns out, I tend to get stuck in the mud when I try to shoot in the winter, literally.  Also, my productivity is fairly limited outside when it is below 40 degrees. I fucking tried. I did reshoots, even. This is what I have.  This is all I have.  I'm sorry if I let you down.  Just let me graduate and you'll never have to see me again, ok?

Um, Awesome!

I was doing some research last night and came across this image of red blood cells in  a vein.  I made a photograph that looks just like it without even trying!

I don't wanna.

I don't know how much more I can do this.  I'm really, really burned out.
As of this moment, I have a syllabus to create for a class I've never taught to be overnighted with a new job packet tomorrow morning, my prelim. thesis to finish before tomorrow morning, 20 packets to prepare for CAA for next week, and an entire wall of art to make and frame by Feb. 27th.
All I can do is just sit here and cry...and type...

Anybody Want a Kiss?

Four weeks until my show, four days until my last committee meeting until my show, five days until I waste a week of time at CAA, whoring myself for a jobby-job and I got a nice, fat cold sore of stress!
I look like a groupie from Spinal Tap!
You know you want me.

Hope vs. Reality

I've been doing some critical thinking lately and I'm really becoming terrified that I won't be able to find a job after graduation. This MFA was supposed to be the first move up the career ladder, but I'm afraid that it only let me live on borrowed time for three years. When I quit my job to come back to school in the summer of 2007, I only missed the corporate mass layoffs by a few months.  In that respect, grad school let me dodge a bullet by handing me a teaching job and a living wage. By the end of this May, I have a gut feeling that I'll be facing destitution. It weighs heavily on my mind because I've already been in this position before, having graduated with a bachelor's degree eight months after 9-11.  I worked part time in demeaning jobs for a couple of years before I got a chance to do freelance work, but, I was young then and felt like I had the rest of my life to become a professional.  Now, all I feel like is that time is closing in...
Logically, I know that new MFA grads are lucky to get a semester of adjunct work.  I know that I'm fooling myself, wasting time even, by applying to Associate Professor positions for which there will be hundreds, literally, hundreds of more-qualified applicants than myself.
My reality, at this point, is to return to my hometown and live rent-free with my grandma. I should be grateful for the opportunity considering the alternative, but all I can think of is, "Wow,  32 and living in a basement, jobless with no prospects for marriage or children in this decade.  Sweet!"
Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong way. Maybe it'll be my big chance to be no-obligations, full time artist!  Maybe I can get a semester of work at my old community college and everything will have come around full-circle.
I know on a long enough timeline that things work out, but I don't know if I have the intestinal fortitude to weather the storm until then.
The sadness is setting in...

Back to the Grind...

...Even though I never really stopped in the first place!   Yesterday was the first day of my last semester as a graduate student.  It was real hard too- had to read a whole syllabus to my one whole class- totally tragic.
Beyond that, I didn't really do anything productive, besides going to the ice rink to work on my non-existent Axel jump.  I need to figure skate.  It's the only place in the world where I can block out the whole world and just concentrate on the task at hand.  But I digress...
I'm now switching work modes from my tasks being paperwork heavy to getting back in the studio to make shite. Last night I surfed around for scanning electron microscopy images of what else?  Spores, mold, and fungus! (to quote Egon Spengler.)  I find a brilliant pic of mold, whose structures I am going to mimic for my next piece.
It's weird that way I work.  It used to be: Think of concept, gather materials, make work.
Then it became: Make work from whatever I can find, think of concept, assemble.
And now it's: Have concept, make work with whatever, incorporate the two.
I just want to evince a strong concept with a strong series.  My thesis show goes up Sat. Feb. 27th.

ARRRGHHH!  Why didn't I push it back to April when I had the chance?  Oh who cares?  I'm still going to keep working on this baby until next year, probably.  Deadlines be damned, I'm a-trucking now!