An Addition to My Ceramics Study

The pictures below are Mimbres pots. The Mimbres people lived around what is now the American Southwest, and around 1000 years ago, they produced a vast amount of pottery and bowls, with vivid depictions of human-animal interaction, and possibly indicating some supernatual or ritual elements as well. This particular bowl below came from our Anthro dept. I need to illustrate every piece, and I was hoping to be able to reconstruct the missing pieces as well, giving a full view of an intact bowl. Then I could piece the copies together to see the bowl in its complete form. Piecing together a 1000 year-old bowl, however, is not the easiest thing to attempt. Masking tape, which is usually an artist's silent best friend, is more useful here as a temporary adhesive, one that won't leave sticky marks on the bowl.
It sucks that I'm gonna have to give it back, because how many times in my life can I say (with a clear conscience) "Yeah, I have a 1000 year-old Mimbres Pot on my kitchen table"?
Anyway, I'm not going to bait anyone with a question about this, instead, here's a link if anyone wants to learn a little more about Mimbres pots and people.
http://www.weisman.umn.edu/exhibits/Mimbres/Mimbres.html

You can see the whole picture better here. 

I know the shdows are a little dark, but it give you a good idea of the missing piece. 

Held together with a little masking tape, a little patience... 

Solstice

It’s officially the first day of summer. It’s roughly 5am, and there aren’t many clouds out, but the ones I do see are pink. There aren’t even many mosquitos bothering me when I go outside, though I know that’ll change in a couple hours. The lights haven’t quite gone off yet, and it’s still fairly dark in the Southwest part of the sky. It’s still a little humid, but otherwise not too hot out right now. I wonder how many people are even up at this hour? Quite a few, I suppose, but I bet they’ve barely even looked out of the window yet, let alone watched the sun rising. It’s technically the longest day of the year, but I’m sure I’ll still see it set. Here’s a question: I’m sure everyone’s read about Lucifer contemplating the sunrise and all that, but does any one know who the angel of Twilight is?

We saw Batman Begins Today

Fucking good movie.

Websites from Art Fest

Here are some websites of vendors from the Art Fest I was able to obtain:

http://www.minorfineart.com/
-I bought a watercolor print called "Canal Park Winter I" from these guys. I love their lighthouses.
http://www.winterstreetdepot.com/
They sold artwork, but they own (I think) the actual depot, which is kind of like a vintage shopping plaza--looks really cool!
http://www.michaelmaltese.com/
This guy is from Minneapolis and does some excellent landscape photography. Of course, like many vendors, he had shots from Duluth and Lake Superior.
I tried finding a website for Andy Van Schyndle (the guy with the oil paintings that ruled), but he only has an e-mail. Sorry!

Art Fest Underwater

I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one up right now. I've been sitting here at Travelodge doing homework all night, and the phone hasn't rang at all all night. Finally I get up to open up the gate to the dumpster for the garbagemen, and what happens? The phone starts ringing.
You guys are all missing one hell of a sunrise today. The clouds are still a little low overhead, so the red part of the sky is really vivid.
Karissa and I made this weekend an "Artfest" weekend. On saturday, we went with her mom & Kayla (that's whose dog it is on Karissa's blog, by the way) around 3pm. I had a blast talking to a bunch of the vendors. One guy drew train stations with inks ad colored pencils. I think he was a little slow, but I respected the fact that he never took any serious art schooling and still maintained such accuracy in architectural reconstruction. I got to ask a chick about how she makes her ceramic bowls, which weren't in the best shape, but pretty uniquely different from what I'm used to. One guy had a watercolors, mostly nature scenes, but he had a lot of lighthouses, too. I eventually bought a watercolor print from him of a lighthouse for our bathroom.
This one lady was selling various types of pasta and made us smell them all. Karissa almost bought some, but they ran out of the kind she wanted. My favorite artist was this kid from Green Bay who worked with oil paints, and produced some really fucked up stuff. His shading was awesome, and he liked doing stuff that made you think you were in some weird backwoods carnival, or seeing the struggle of a fish in a dark lake. One painting he had was of an astronomer, and he described it as a sort of passageway or rite of passage. I was blown away, because I could actually see it. Beyond a doorway hung a rickety bridge which led to a platform on which stood a telescope. The bridge was the liminal phase, a suspension between life and death, in which one is physically but not socially dead, and identity is lost. The other side (the telescope) represents the postliminal, in which social death is recognized, enlightenment and be seen, and the transformation is complete. Okay, shut up, I still understood it, so there. I realized that he started on a singular idea, and let his imagination go into some weird spots. I hope he was able to sell some of those paintings.
By about 4pm, we were getting pretty soaked (even Isabella got a little wet, but she didn't seem to mind), so we hid out in the Meadowbrook furniture store, then braved the rain to go to Mike's, where we had some Gatorbites which tasted off, and I got more of my Chicken Alfredo pizza. Afterword, I was elected to go get the van for the girls, so I got a nice shower in by the time wewere done.
Sunday, I left a German Chocolate cake on the back porch for Karissa. Later that morning, we went back to the Art fest, where I bought my lighthouse print, we wandered a bit more, and ate some really good food. We had deep-fried cheese curds, Karissa finally got her gyro, I had an Elk burger (if it can be ground, I'll try it in a burger), then we got some mini donut (the kind they make right there). I still can't believe how impressive some of the art was.
Our basement is a little flooded right now, but hopefully we can get most of the water out with a shopvac. The computer and my guitars, along with Karissa's princess stuff is still safe.

A Bad Drunk, a Studying Punk and a Mad Monk (walk into a bar...)

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. Hasn't been a really exciting week, to tell you the truth. The party was fun. We hadn'y had an official housewarming yet, and I was excited to see how comfortable the place would make for a party. I don't like parties where there's no room to breathe (why Doug is rarely seen at keggers) or where I don't know anyone. Of course, if it's at my house, it's not so bad to not know people, because I always try to make them feel at home enough to sit down and relax.
But, unfortunately, I drank too much. I was not the only one at least. Some of you guys didn't feel so hot in the morning, either! We had to (as in, no other choice was available) get to Mayville by 9 or 10, so we foolishly dragged our asses out to the car, and got on the road. I'll tell you guys one thing: I love my body. It always warns me about when something's gonna go wrong, but gives me time to realize what has to be done. So when we were on I-29 not 10 miles out, I felt that familiar "constricting" feeling in my throat that told me to find an Exit NOW. This happened once more before we hit the Exit to Mayville, and I'm proud at least to say that there were no embarrassing messes to clean up.
On a side note: I hope I didn't bore Ben too much with my talking about music, but when we get another guy in the fold, and I haven't pushed all my interests onto him yet, I go a little crazy. Especially if I've been drinking. It's like a religious fanatic thing. And if you guys party with us again, I'm probably gonna do it again. So there. Oh, and Ben get your Cello up and running, because someday I may stop over with an acoustic! Bastard.
Anyway, Devils Run was fun, but everyone's pretty much talked that one out, so I'm leaving it at that. Money's a little tight, but again, everyone seems to have been tightening their belts during this time, so again, enough about that.
I started my other History class Monday. It's about Russia since 1855. It actually sounds like it might be fun. We have to select a book to write a critical review paper on, and I'm excited about that, because of course I get to write about the Rasputin File. Although its 500 pages to read in three weeks, so that part sucks.
That leads me to the only question I have right now:
What is your opinion on Grigory Effimovich Rasputin?