The Grind

New year, new groove. Tomorrow I go back to RISD and the next day, Wintersession starts. Wintersession is six weeks of elective classes, and it's meant to be a kind of break. I'm taking a painting course and a film course and will maybe be looking for ways to be a bit more enterprising than I've been in the past months. In old news: I think I promised to show some more work of mine, so here is a drawing from my first semester drawing class, and a link to all of my assignments from that class. Some are more conventional, and some are experimental to varying degrees. My work from other classes is not so well organized so I may take a while on that.

oh and they are all like 12 square feet at least


http://www.flickr.com/photos/claralieu/sets/72157627607103959/

Life has been good, except for Alec being trapped thousands of miles away all the time. There's always the internet anyway. Above all, I am excited for 2012. And if it's the last year of human existence, it had better be a good one.

Happy new years!
-Daniel

Oh ya and alec's album roxx

bad boys II

Daniel said it,

we

are

back

i've been in portland since august/september and it's pretty rad
there's less rain and work than i thought but it's a good balance
the only real bummer i can think of is that most shows are 21+ but i saw dan deacon a few weeks ago and he was filled with good vibes
otherwise i've just seen shows hosted at my school which isn't bad at all
surfer blood, thee oh sees, das racist, total bros, weed, and hausu have all rocked it (along with a buncha other bands)
people dance at shows here, it's nice
as far as what i've been up to, i finished recording some songs back in august and daniel did some art for me
if ya check it out i will love you forever



workoutculture.bandcamp.com

i've also taken some pics and am trying to get a photo zine together at some point

i'm in the airport right now about to leave for berlin



xoxo

alec

Rebirth

Hey anyone, as it turns out, we haven't completely forgotten about this blog. I've been at Rhode Island School of Design for the last three months and things have been pretty hectic. On the bright side, I have been making art a lot, and I guess I probably have some stuff I could share. Providence is a lovely and tiny city, and I've started longboarding to get around. In fact, my new board came in just yesterday:

Unfortunately, I'm still in the midst of final critique week so I won't have time for a proper art post for a few more days. Anyway, we're back, and I'm pretty confident we'll be able to get a respectable blog running again.

Daniel

XO KID

former heartthrob XO KID is being stuck doing whatever in your middle-upper-middle-upper class-teen-life going to school (public/private but probably public) and going to your "shit ass" part time job to make money for college or just because you "have to" get a job this summer or whatever and being so bored (so bored) but you stick through this because what else is there that's better to do it totally sucks where you are nothing goes on and you wish you lived in the city and you wait through all this (hating it) until that show or that weekend or that friday or that new mp3 download or going skating or summer when everything seems good and you realise "yeah, this sucks" but only most of the time and while you can't wait to be somewhere else and leave high school you are in the perfect place "for me" (even rondout valley) and it's all worth it when you finally have that moment.

XO KID is that moment. THE SLUMP is that moment. XOKID09 is that moment

xoxo

alec

Richard Long

Hey there,

I'm just going to get right into this. Richard Long is a geographical sculptor, which is to say his sculptures are inspired by geography and affect it. He's been working since the mid 60's, and his website shows and tells of his love for exploration and sensitivity to an individual's interaction with his environment. Many of his sculptures represent (or, are) paths created by walking over and over in the same area, and many others are simply visual representations of travel, energy, and geography.

This is an instillation done for the Sao Paulo Biennial, called White River Line. While some of his works represent naturally occurring landforms, others deal more with different ways of visualizing distances traveled. Via:
"A line the same length as a straight walk from the bottom to the top of Silbury Hill." Mostly I just think his work is very clever and unlike what any other artist I have seen. So, look at his stuff. I cant write anymore tonight. We are shitty.

Daniel

PURE X // PURO INSTINCT

PURE X (you may know them, previously, as Pure Ecstasy) is sitting in the kitchenette of a friend's with a friend (not necessarily that friend (although that is acceptable)) feeling warm feeling content and everything is still going on around you but you are separate and removed and can just "chill" and look back and understand and feel akin to lying with your head in between two pillows feeling "not fucked".

there's a chance that i wrote about these guys before but it has been so long since we've posted and i didn't want to lose motivation. they don't have any official albums or anything (just 7"s i think) and are really easy to just hype machine or something.



PURO INSTINCT is karen smith of the plastics of mean girls. she is very polished to a degree of plasticity yet despite this sheen not bad. It is off putting at first giving false impressions but when you delve a little deeper and get to know her you find that even she is actually very nice and has a "good personality" with well meaning intentions and ideas and you wouldn't expect it but there is creativity in her and a creation of something unique.

Headbangers in Ecstasy

we still suck
xoxo
Alec

APs

Well this is the first week of AP testing and I'm currently enrolled in 5 AP classes, so I have been busy. I'd do a proper post but I am in need of sleep. So here are some things I'm sending to the AP graders. I hope they like them (and you too.)
Named "BraveNewShit.jpg" in my AP folder (also maybe a good official title.) If you couldn't tell this didn't take much time, but it is actually a pretty serious submission.

Anyway
-Daniel