Kafkaesque Apologue

I made some dolls and put them in this stop motion animation. The two-faced doll is a Kelly Barbie doll with another face attached to the back of the original. The bear is hand sewn out of canvas and stuffed with cotton and rusted metal. I was excited about my new IKEA clock, so I put it in the background. The book is a compilation of some works by one of my favorite authors Franz Kafka. This animation is after Mr. Kafka's work.

"Isms"

2008-2009 Drywall, clay, tree branch, wood, paper, acrylic, rusted metal, ink, and string.

One day in an art class, I had a sudden bout of class-ditching-fever along with a good spell of angst which led to a random excursion off campus. I ended up in an alley between a car mechanic's garage and a flower shop across the street from a grocery store. There was an old building behind the flower shop being remodeled and some hunks of drywall were left leaning up against a wall. So naturally, I picked up the biggest piece. I transported this chunk of drywall all the way back to school in a small shopping cart that had made its way across the street from the grocery store. I might have drawn some attention as I lugged the awkward drywall slab into the back of my car in the parking lot. A couple of months later, I ended up with this:

 

I was thinking quite a bit about a whole bunch of different world-views and ideologies at the time. Just trying to figure out how things were and enjoying getting quite lost in the experience. I went through a bunch of philosophical sort of titles for this piece such as nihilism, existentialism, relativism, theism, deism, and ended up just titling it 'isms.' I think it is a nice representation of the multiple-ism sort of ism I was going through at the time.

An Important Leaf

I found a leaf at my feet amongst many other leaves under a tree while sitting at a table outside. I wrote on the leaf "this leaf is important." I left the leaf among the other leaves.

A video/photo

A video/photo

I found a discarded white envelope on the sidewalk underneath a freeway bridge while riding my bike frantically around town one freezing cold afternoon. So naturally, I picked it up. I wrote "something important" on it and let it fly off into the wind only to land pathetically a few feet down the road. Many cars drove past without noticing. In fact, later on I passed the envelope myself without a glance.

Older Sketches 2007-2009

Sketches from my older sketchbooks 2007-2009. 
I went through three pocket sized Canson sketchbooks and roughly two and a half handmade sketchbooks (made of old yellowed index cards I found in my grandparent's attic) during these two years. 

These are some of the sketches that I fancied. Some of them served as precursors for larger works.

My white shirt at church...

Some skeletal figure who
has apparently stopped
learning.

This is when I first started
'thinking critically' as the
textbooks say.

Some more skeletal
figures, expressing their
young love.

Quite the infamous piece
among my friends.

Mr. Loquacious
confronted by
Mr. Taciturn

Frankly, I was sick of
taking exam after exam
in school.

Poisoning some brainpipes.

More ropes.

Ropes.

A horntail.

Wounded Knee

One very depressed
tree.

After Chinua Achebe

Despair

Suddenly becoming
disillusioned on the
drive home from school.

Emasculate

An empty space I drew
without reference. It
might exist somewhere
quiet in my mind.

My math teacher. I was
quite fond of him as
you can tell by the
violent stamping.

A friend depicted in a
Japanese Ukiyo-e style.

Fishy man with arrows.
(future reference for
Battle of the Dogmatists)

Shakespeare and dying
dogs.

After Franz Kafka

Angry mulleted self-
portraits.

Thinking about congnition
and mental connections.

Another horntail.

After Bertrand Russell

I drew this while hiding
in a corner of a classroom
as an assistant at the
local elementary school
summer school program.

Ozone Nozone

The effects of two
sneezes.

My paisley design
I drew in class turned
into an octopus.

After Of Montreal

Some sort of enigmatic
response to a dead fish
left in a jar on my porch.

Periodically purging
one's brain is quite the
soothing experience.

Some angry dogmatist

The noise of a scratched
record.

Seed of degeneration

I was told I was shallow.

Ellipses and George Orwell

Skinny Dali-esque
figures.

Fish head being tantalized
by a fishing line

This snail is frightening.

A representation of car
sickness.

A response to certain
social pressures.

'The one spot I
didn't cover'

Breaking free of some
sticky-note confinement.

Studies of my dog reclining.

Some weird looking guy...

After Sylvia Plath

Feeling quite burdened by
my copious amount of
homework.

'The Great Fishers'

A man in a tree.

Another man in a tree.

'Waiting for an epiphany'