The Devil Wears Chicos

it's 10:13 in the AM on Monday 10/16. I just woke up after about three hours sleep. I worked on one project yesterday/ last night/this morning for about 15 hours--here's to week three!

The assignment is to pick an ancient civilization and an animal out of a hat and then produce several final pieces of work which include a poster (made entirely of cut paper) and a gift bag (also made entirely of paper--which I must make myself!). The design of these final pieces must represent the civilization's design aesthetic as well as composition. I choose the Aztec civilization and a deer. So not only do I have to be an expert on the Aztec design, but I have to be an expert on design in general. My initial thought was: "this ain't so bad!....I’ll just put a few triangles on the page and see if it looks good, then go from there!!" I failed to realize that there are these things in design called an Area of Focus, point force, values, symmetry, and a whole slew of design concepts that I'm still learning how to use. There really isn't a book that teaches all of this, so it all must be self-taught in a short amount of time while under the watchful eye of one Sylvia Gaffney.

Sylvia Gaffney is known at the Portfolio Center (as well as Creative Circus) for her keen sense of design as well as her ability to stare you down and, without saying a single word, cause you to doubt the very breath you're about to take, not to mention your design ideas(she also has this way of starring right at you for an extended period of time after you've concluded a brief conversation, what's up with that??) In other words, she's there to weed out all the first quarter students who aren't serious about this program. She's already caused a few first quarter students to curl up in the fetal position and cry silently in their cars. I tell you this now--that ain't happening to this kid!! Growing up gay with an overbearing strict catholic Marine for a father (love ya dad!!) has definitely taught me a thing or two about perseverance, resilience, and not ever being broken!! Bottom line, I'm going to wrestle this class to the ground, punch it in the face three times, send it off to the taxidermist, wait three weeks for it come back mounted on a piece of drift wood with a plaque that says "Suck It" where I'll hang it on the wall and sit around it and tell war stories with my hunting buddies all while wearing boots and a flannel shirt.

To be honest, I am really quite fond of Sylvia. While her teaching methods consist only of extemporaneous lectures and do not include power point presentations, a book, or even a white board, I have a feeling that her lessons will be carried with me for the rest of my design career, and perhaps even my life! This class is not easy! But if it were easy, then there'd be no point. All of my design ideas first quarter will suck and be filled with mistakes! But that's the whole point, that's where the learning happens; in the mistakes. I hope to make so many fucking mistakes this quarter that I'll actually be able to write a manual for the next round of first quarter students coming into PC!!!!