This weekend was oddly relaxing. I did not do any homework and yet I somehow am not freaking out (although I'm guessing that tomorrow morning will be a different story). My mom's chemo went well. She was in a good mood this weekend, at least until today, then she became very tired, but at least no puking or anything. Well, with $100 per pill antinausa medication, you'd hope she wasn't puking. I had a good time just laying around at home doing nothing, which I think is what I needed after a month of stress at college. It seems like sometimes I let things build up too much and then I need some time to let it all go again.
I would like to take some pictures of some of my mother's treatments for my project. This first couple are in the mornings so it will be hard for me to get home, but I think she will have a few in the afternoon in early November... I guess I will just go with the flow until then...

This week has not been good… Let’s see, I’m sick and seem to not be getting any better, I have tons of homework and don’t understand any of it, and this weekend will be really stressful and nothing to look forward to. I’ve have been losing weight again and to top it off I have a cold that I can’t get over. So, I finally hit rock bottom this week and tried to make a doctor appointment, but my specialist left the state and now there are only 2 specialists left in Columbus for my disease (which is Crohn’s if you care). Well, now I can’t make an appointment for 2 weeks. And then when I’m sick I can’t concentrate in class and I get I’ll this homework that piles up and I finally get around to doing it and I don’t understand a single word of it… At least I get to go home this weekend, but I doubt it will be fun. Tomorrow is my mom’s first kemo treatment. I’m debating whether or not to shave my head with her or not… I have some time to decide, I think her hear shouldn’t fall out at least until her second treatment which won’t be for another 2 weeks. After I visit with my mom it’s off to my fiancée’s family. His birthday is next week, but more importantly to his family, his grandmother’s birthday is also next week. So, his family will be celebrating both birthdays in one day this weekend.
Anyway, I tried to post my video last time, but this site won’t accept flash files. I’ll mess around and see if I can convert it to a quicktime or something…

I really needed the feedback from the critique this week. I've been kind of stuck about how to go about certain things in my video. I really need to research flash video transitions and how I can use them in my video to my advantage. I've been thinking that I need to look at how I can make the pictures and "painting" aspects flow together better... I need to make the both parts flow together and right now that doesn't seem to be happening.
So I will post my video again so that you can leave feedback..

I've really been trying hard this weekend to work on my project. It seems that I am somewhat behind, at least I think I am for the time we have left in the semester. I don't want to post any photos or anything because of the critique tomorrow, but I'll post some of my inspiration. I know that Adam posted early about some of his favorite artists, so I think I'll steal his idea and post some of my inspirations for my project.

If you've taken art history then you know this is Venus:

This is Musical Sphere, by Kransyansky:

I've always liked Kransyansky's work, not that it has really inspired me on this project, but it has inspired me on previous projects.

And this is what it says it is:

Rembrandt has also been one of my inspiring artists. I really like his etchings because of the black and white contrast.

So I've finally ot started in flash. Most of my flash video will be pictures of my family. I am trying to find ways to transition from picture to picture. I would like to have the illusion of the page turning and fading in and fading out. I need to find code for all of this though... So, if any of you know of a good book or website with flash script, please let me know.

Gosh, so we have to post three times a week... that's a lot for me. Anyway, I made my slides for the MOCA show this weekend. It was the first time in awhile that I had to write an artist statement. It is always very hard for me to write about myself... I really am never sure what to say. The problem may be that, unlike some people, I've never really had one focus in my artwork. I just do a piece because something at that moment inspired me. So, how do I explain that in my artist statement? I don't want to sound like I don't care about anything. That's my dilema right now...

So, this weekend went well for me. My mother spent the past week in the hospital dealing with blood clots and infections, but she had surgery and came home on Saturday. She is doing much better and her mood is improving.

I spent most of my time at home collecting photos for my project. I went through all my old photo albums and picked out the pictures that I wanted to use for my project. It was a little hard to do, because a lot of the pictures were of my aunt (who was also my godmother) who died two years ago… The pictures that I think will be the most helpful to me are the ones of the whole family. They show three generations together that were all affected by breast cancer, and I think that these pictures will be my inspiration and focus.

I also spent some time this weekend listening to music for my flash piece. I was really inspired by a lot of music, but most of it was copyrighted… In the end I guess it’s a good thing I can’t use copyrighted music. I think if I could I would rely too heavily on the lyrics to push my piece. I need to use a musical piece without lyrics so that I will have to focus on the visual more. Anyway, right now I am thinking about using Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” It’s 4 minutes, which gives me plenty of time and it’s a good tempo…

My Project

So this blog is going to be long, but I think I owe it to you to explain a little background about my project this semester… I have chosen to focus on breast cancer as my topic for this semester because of how much it has affected me lately. Breast cancer has always run in my family, but it has now become more personal…
My story starts before I was born with my great-grandmother, whom I never met, and I really don’t know much about. All I really know is that she had breast cancer and that it eventual killed her. She was diagnosed at a time when doctors knew that cancer was bad, but had little treatments for it.
Then the year I was born, 1987, her daughter, my grandmother, was diagnosed with breast cancer also. She was retroactive and had a mastectomy, which was rare at the time. She beat her cancer and lives on to tell about it. But it left her with guilt and anger. And I will tell you why in a minute…
Just six years later, her oldest daughter, my aunt and godmother, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She thought she could beat it. She had surgery and chemo. But she didn’t realize she was pregnant… So her daughter was born mentally handicapped, unable to develop mentally past the age of 8. My aunt thought she had beaten the cancer. She had another daughter and loved them both, but she lived in fear. She never punished them or said mean words to them for fear that she would not always be with them. And she was right… The cancer came back. It spread to her bones and her organs. They gave her chemo again and again. She fought for 13 years, but it didn’t matter… When she died she left behind 12 and 11-year-old daughters, 3 sisters, 3 nieces in fear, and one guilt stricken mother.
Only 18 months later, early this summer, comes the story of my mother. She found her second lump in her breast. The first time she found one, it turned out to be nothing. This time the blood test and MRI showed that there was cancer. My mother decided to be like her mother and be retroactive, she wanted a double mastectomy, she was going to take no chances. So that is what she did, and it was a good thing she made that decision. When the surgery was done, the doctors said they not only had found the lumps of cancer, but a second type of breast cancer that forms in strings and can’t be felt or seen on MRIs. She is in a group of less than 5% of women with breast cancer, she has both types. So now we play the waiting game… It took her all summer to recover from the surgery and it almost cost me my summer job to care for her. The chemo was supposed to start this week, but there complications this weekend… She is back in the hospital because she has blood clots and infections. She will have to have surgery to remove her expander (it’s something they put it to pump your chest back up so they can put in fake boobs). Then in a year they will have to start over again and try to put the expander back in and hope that she doesn’t get another infection... I just hope that the chemo isn’t as stressful as the surgeries…
So every female in my family is a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off. And I want to make a flash animation about how breast cancer is not always full of pink ribbons and hope and happiness…