I never really understood remixes? I thought it was music but twisted up to seem original. But it turns out it’s anything artistic taken from the OG, then you just.. uh. Mix it up I guess? So is fanart considered a remix? Those things where it’s “Draw the Squad in this Pose”, are they remixes? Are fanfics, where these people take all these different tales and mix them all up into some beautiful amalgamation- is that a remix? I feel like the concept’s become completely de-familiarized to me in a single conversation.

I rarely draw any fanart but I was inspired by a Christmas meme made by a Youtuber named GHOST, that I still play because of quarantine, called Jelf the Elf. He’s just this odd goblin looking fellow who sings a horrible parody of Jingle Bells.

And so I was like, what if, he was, cuter? But still deadly? Would people want to bring the meme back?

Add a copyright? Heavens no, I believe the best defense against anyone trying to steal this would be that very specific moment right before they click ‘Save’ where a person starts to carefully think about why in the world they want to remember something so maniacal and irrelevant. And stupid.

But I really will get embarrassed if I see this anywhere other than this hidden blog, so please ask first.

Wait, does this mean I made a remix of a remix? Since Jelf the Elf is based on the Elf on the Shelf and his song is a remix of Jingle Bells-

The truth is, I feel bad when I take other people’s work and twist it to my tastes. I understand that I add my own creative “genius” to the mix but in the end it’s theirs, and the least I could do is own up to it.

This wasn’t even something that she drew, she sent me the picture, asked me to edit it, and I did that. And neither of us posted it anywhere. And neither of us claimed it as “our creation” because that’s not what we’re about. It was just us having fun trying to twist the photo around and then making something we liked enough to put out there just because we liked it.

COVID QUARANTINE STYLE

5/10 would not try to paint bubbles with watercolor again I’m just too careless.

It really did look fine five minutes before I took the photo… biggest mistake was using so much water and then painting my name in there while it was still wet. I admit I got a bit angry at it. Watercoloring is so much fun that it just gets so easy to become careless, and then get frustrated because of my carelessness.

I think I’ll paint more bubbles after all.

Exhibition Information:

Artist: Kiyomi Fukui

Exhibition: Conversation on Conflict

Media: Origami paper cranes of conversations Mrs. Fukui had with her father

Gallery: left unmentioned…

Website:

Kiyomi Fukui is a Japanese American artist with an MFA in printmaking from California State University Long Beach (CSULB) and a BFA in graphic design from La Sierra University. She’s a firm follower of art therapy, and the concept of “impermanence and fragility” are a common aspect of her projects. Thus, the motivation behind her work is often to capture and recognize the moments in life that pass on all too quickly but remain with us all the same. Such moments that reveal a fragility in people that is not easily portrayed.

Conversation in Conflict is an interactive artwork which was inspired by the Japanese tradition of folding a thousand paper cranes, through which its completion is meant to grant a wish or create a miracle. People would simply come in, sit down in a circle, and use the sheets provided on the table to continuously fold cranes as well as take the opportunity to chat with others in the circle. These sheets were printed by Kiyomi Fukui herself, which record her conversation about what it was like to grow up as a Japanese-Korean citizen with her father.

This was a subject that, in her youth, caused Mrs. Fukui to become “othered” with him. The verb “(to) other” is similar to de-familiarizing, but much closer to what happens when a person becomes too strange to a group for them to consider that person as one of them, and continue interacting that way. Examples include: segregation, bullying, and getting kicked out of the house. Her conversation with her father brought her closer to understanding him, and she dedicated her multitudes of folded cranes to that. The miracle of understanding something you thought you never would.

While it’s true I never experienced the more formal types of “othering,” as a child I never had friends, for all that I was as happy or romantic or intelligent as a normal person ought to be, but I was never too bothered with it. I learned quickly that the trouble wasn’t worth it because I was happy enough to sit down and read on the benches, and that made all the difference in how I treated my isolation.

But I was always a bit shaken whenever my parents asked if I had friends to invite to my birthdays. I felt bad for them. I hated when they worried about something that I used to think was pointless.

So I lied to them.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Thinking of my current age, I spent a little less than half my lifetime lying about this to my parents)

The point is, this project really reminded me of my own miracle. Friendship had always been an “otherness” that I thought was like, a hobby. You have your life, and maybe with a sprinkle of pepper and friendship on the side, and some people don’t even like pepper so it’s probably not even a necessity, right? I also eat my food without sauce or extra salt, it’s a good analogy, my 5 year old brain once said. Had fake friends, the give and take kind, until the second semester of my freshman year highschool I finally met the friends that I’m still best friends with now.

It sounds really cheesy, learning the true meaning of friendship, but it was a miracle for me. And a thousand cranes probably take a couple years to fold, if you take your time…

So I came up with the idea to make a wreath out of flowers and leaves that fell on the ground. They were already mostly dried out so it was difficult, and many of the flowers ended up cracking and falling out…

It was depressing but I ended up with something that could pass as a bracelet. I tried putting it on afterwards to take a picture and…

To make it even more depressing, it completely fell apart.

I was actually inspired by the wreath-making tradition during May Day. The first day of May is technically considered the first day of spring, which is the season of life and rebirth. Spring is often a symbol of hope. A reminder that, even when mortal souls pass on, the Earth will always provide, even for us small funny animals.

“We’re all just little animals, falling in love and having breakfast beneath billions of stars.”

– tumblr post by user youphoric really captures a rather romantic version of existential dread.

But let’s face the facts, it’s simply impossible to expect that this humble, caring abode can truly sustain our current behavior of taking more than we know how to immediately return. And while it’s true that ice ages and other such extremely dangerous climates have taken place in the past, the point is that we weren’t even messing with the ecosystem as much as we are now for those to happen. This time, it could end up so much worse.

Of course, there’s no forcing anyone to believe that we’re possibly doomed-not even I truly believe in my heart that everyone’s in horrible peril. This world, unlike everything we are and have, will continue to exist.

Just. Not the way that we want it to. Not in the way that the little animals could continue to use it, and live on it.

https://youtu.be/ZKYQay-7xww

I REALIZE THE VIDEO WAS UNABLE TO UPLOAD PROPERLY IN THE POST IM NOT SURE WHY AND ITS FAR TOO LATE TO FIX THIS

Isolation is commonly considered to be a terrible fate which nobody should be subjected to. And heaven forbid someone voluntarily isolates themselves for no tragic reason.

It’s also true that becoming distanced from others can damage your psyche. Symptoms of loneliness include depression, insomnia, a severely lowered immune system- just such terrible things.

However, due to the current international crisis, people are forced whether by law or moral integrity to essentially isolate themselves.

Still, this doesnt necessarily need to become loneliness.

There won’t be a next time, given the fact that social media bores me, but next time I ought to record myself talking and then put it into the video.

Favorite youtuber? A lot, but in terms of preference it’s usually gamers or the top youtubers who don’t get into scandals or social media wars every other month or two. Basically people of high moral integrity- which, most gamers don’t actually share a lot of their lives? You really can’t judge a person by how they play video games, this I know.

And authenticity certainly does affect performance but they’re not the same thing. Performance will always reflect some sort of ingenuity, but it’s never too close to being authentic.

Sienna Browne is a fourth year artist in the Drawing and Painting BFA Program in CSULB’s School of Art. Besides art, she works as a lifeguard and is a student athlete. Her artwork has been thoroughly influenced by her experiences in life, and she considers the process of making art to always be therapeutic.

Her philosophy in the creation of her solo exhibition is that art is meant to honor the past, so that one can separate the present from it and move on. Thus, the exhibit is to be presented as a timeline from the first paintings she made in early highschool (2015) to today. Within this time, her style of painting and the mediums she uses have evolved. In the beginning, Sienna Browne says she had a running theme of painting plates of food balanced on people’s heads, as a joke. As she continued she later discovered the truth of the influence behind her artwork, and in coming to terms with the eating disorders she had been going through, her artwork rather evolved into pieces that combined both aesthetic and disturbing themes, which both enchants and repels the viewer.

The themes of her work remained this way for a while, however, it was during a recent project about environmental awareness that she realized she no longer felt such a strong bond to creating artwork influenced by her experience having eating disorders, and instead her artwork has been about exploring different mediums and has been in line with her passion for feminism and being a lifeguard.

Sienna Browne is a bright and enthusiastic artist, with compelling philosophies about the nature of art. The idea of art being therapeutic has always been incredibly fascinating, yet something I could never fully grasp, given how negatively I often react to the process of creating things. Her viewpoints have helped to shed a bit of light on art therapy.

Not gonna lie, I wrote three poems in a handful of hours and chose the best one during the third hour to make into a song within two hours.

If that makes sense.

Writing a song is surprisingly much more difficult than writing a poem? Not only do the lyrics have to make sense, the sound does too. I only had my trusty bass to play while singing, since I suck at guitar. But I do make a good improv bassline, and I have a strong imagination for creating symphonies. In my song I thought about how a majority of Romantic pop songs were about Love, Body Parts, Politics, and Money.

And I thought about the 27 Club, urban legends, hubris and all that. Listened to “Hurt” by Johnny Cash, a bit of Ariana Grande, a bit of MJ,a bit of PATD, and admittedly, a bit of Billie Eilish as well. Grief, desire, or enlightenment/revelations are a very good basis for Romanticism, I learned, and thus incorporated it into the poems I prepared. Also the White Lighter and Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

I chose between the poems on the merits that they made sense, in a musical sense, because pop songs are supposed to make sense. And then I just played with it until I got, er, a whole song? But I’m really never going to be confident about something I wrote in, technically 3 hours? Since it was an hour for the poem, two for the song. I’ve already forgotten how it’s supposed to actually sound. I’m never writing a song again.

Before:

Had a lovely Friday morning dressed up as a female normal human at the beach. By beach, I mean Long Beach. And by Long Beach, I mean within the boundaries of CSULB since I don’t have a car and I’m not too fond of wandering during the day.

And it was all quite fine and normal, until I opened my mouth to speak.

After, or what they see when I open my mouth

I ended up forgoing the blood and the cape during my actual activity for a few reasons:

1. It was both sunny and cold.

2. Counterfactual literally means something along the lines of “besides the point.”

Ie. I may look normal, but I have fangs. Or is it the other way around…?

3. Social Experiments Need Volunteers, Not Hostages

What kind of social experiment? Well, I wanted to see how people would react to a normal-looking girl with sharp teeth. All I would have to do is say hello, and the people who do a double take at the glimpse of long canines would be my participants. Then, the trial often began with something along the lines of “Say, could you spare some time to answer a few questions?”

And then I’d convince them to give me their blood type and invite me to their house warming, yadda yadda

Hui Tan is a graduate in the illustration/animation program of CSULB’s School of Art. The idea behind the animated short film The Clean Life is “temptation and punishment.” The idea of guilt and desire for a clean life is something Hui Tan has observed in both eastern and western culture, and was the inspiration for this story. The Bear’s Return, on the other hand was highly inspired by Hui Tan’s observation of nature. Time spent painting the scenery of Big Bear mountain and Mammoth lakes has allowed for a stockpile of experience in creating mystifying natural landscapes. If only I took a picture of individual illustrations because the artist’s attention to detail in each of them is quite magnificent. The paintings of The Bear’s Return are set to near the end of winter, so the colors are rather monotone, however, there are detailed bits of color here and there that indicate the coming of spring, and the return of wildlife from hibernation.

The Clean Life has a more urban setting, one that seems to be in a well populated modern city. The illustrations depict a rather static suburban dystopic society of sorts- and I understand the negative connotation, however, the dark, monotone shades of the buildings and roads really bring out the much brighter shades of fluorescent lighting.

In turn, the lights become all too similar to flames. Which sets a rather eerie tone.

Hui Tan is an aspiring animator and illustrator who hopes to create a beautiful story for the theme of their short film for graduation.