Not dead, not for sale

Team! Hi!

Sorry for being so neglectful, my only excuse is that I've had a lot of work on, and whenever I find myself in front of a computer in my spare time I want to either a) look at wedding stuff, or b) play league of legends. Also netball. Netball is taking up a fair bit of my "not-at-work" time.

I think given that I now spend 40 hours a week looking at a computer and thinking about design, my motivation to post about my own work has been flagging. So I'm not going to beat myself up about that - if I want to post about my biz then I shall, but otherwise I'm going to use the blog when I feel like I've got something cool to share, or a rant that has bubbled its way to the top of my brain.

Sound good? Good. x

Cool Peeps: AJ Fosik

AJ Fosik is a total freaking bad-ass. I found him during my sculpture module that year I thought I'd be an Art School kid and I've been jealously checking in on his work ever since. The guy has SKILLS - he did a some brilliant artwork for the most recent Mastodon album (a video of him making it can be seen below!), and his sculpture is honestly just the bees knees. It creeps me out in the best possible way.

his facebook page | his website

Cool Peeps: Vivian Maier

I have always wished that I had the courage to be a street photographer but the fear of rejection, of having people angry at me for not seeking their permission - I haven't the kind of bold devil-may-care attitude of some, or the unstoppable force of curiosity, the compulsion to take photos, that other street photographers have.

Vivian Maier is the shit. She is amazing. Long story short, a whole bunch of her negatives (like, 100,00 of them - mostly undeveloped) were sold at auction in 2007 to a chap - he developed and printed her photos and was astonished at the results. Hundreds of beautiful images of people living in (mainly) the '50's and 60's.

Here are some of my favourites - click them to get glorious larger images :)

images taken from: http://www.vivianmaier.com/portfolios/new-york1/ - I love her sneaky self portrait on the bottom left, so sly!

BONUS: There is a doco coming out about her work/life/discovery called Finding Vivian Maier and the preview for it looks amazing. I can't wait.

Music Recommendations

I just realised that even though I worked in a music store for three years, I never really put any music recommendations up on the blog! Well, that's about to end. I'll try not to overload the blog with tunes, but that said, here are three albums that I have been playing an awful lot of lately.

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me

I freaking love this album. I love the moodiness, the loneliness, the angst - I always have loved angsty music and while Jessica has a bit of a country feel to her, her voice is so beautiful, lyrics so good, that I don't mind. (Kinds like Justin Townes Earle - more bluesy perhaps?). Excellent alternative folk-rock. Well worth a listen.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

These guys are nutso geniuses. I love how catchy and quirky their music is. This is hands-down one of my favourite albums to listen to at the moment. It makes me really happy.

 If you've got time to sit down and watch a 20 minute long short-film, you should check out Hi-Custodian: a conceptual film by David Longstreth (the main dude from Dirty Projectors) using the music from Swing Lo Magellan featuring the band which is just as strange, dystopian, and beautiful as one would expect. Recommended SO HARD!

Bonus: check out Amber from Dirty Projectors in her collab with Major Lazer, "Get Free" - it's so, so good.

Foals - Holy Fire
I am a long-standing fan of Foals: I enjoyed Antidotes, and thought Total Life Forever was the bees knees - one of those albums you can't help but play over and over again. I think Holy Fire might be my favourite of the bunch though - it has a sophistication and polish that is so nice to listen to.

I make few excuses for my earlier life as an angsty teen who loved Bush, Incubus, A Perfect Circle, Deftones etc yet I feel like even young (semi-tasteless) Lucinda would have approved of Foals' new album as much as current Lucinda does. So moody, so dark, so good.

Finally, a "Real Job"!

That's right friends, I am no longer a retail wench. It was sad to leave Marbecks after three years and I'll miss the peeps I worked with but for the past three weeks I have been ensconced behind a desk getting to grips with the behemoth that is the Otago University Students' Association. My new co-workers have been lovely, and none of them judged me when I was introduced to beer pong on the last day of my first week and got quite drunk. It was Emersons Pilsner! And I am competitive as all hell so losing a game just makes me want to win it all the more...

It is so good being challenged on a daily basis. I know I complained about how much I wanted a challenging job while I was at Marbecks and, well, you get what you wish for right? REAL JOBS ARE HARD. Man, but they are so satisfying! My brain has been pulled and stretched like taffy over the last three weeks, and thankfully it hasn't fallen apart yet.

There are some pretty exciting projects coming up in the next month - the annual Capping Show which this year is themed around the Wizard of Oz, and the Battle of the Bands being the two massive ones. I've been spending a fair chunk of time on designing stuff for the Uni Games which are being hosted here in Dunedin in April. So much!

Here are a few wee things I've done this month and a taster of the Battle of the Bands artwork! Ooo!

x

Matt Langley @ Puppies

The lovely Mr Matt Langley asked me to make this poster for him. Such a treat! If you're in Wellington, head along - it should be a fun show to see Matt perform with a band for once!

Getting amped about Amped. Heh.

 

This has to be one of the projects I am proudest of from last year - making a logo for Amped (formerly known as the Chick's Project).

Amped is one of the raddest things in Dunedin providing music mentoring for high school kids, and setting up booze free shows so that they can showcase their skills to their peers (and, to be honest, a lot of older folks like me who can't help but dig their music too).

If you want to download (for free) some sweet tunes made by some hip young things, you can do so here.

Paquin 2012 Tour Poster

Woohoo! What a fun time I had (until I smoked too many cigarettes and made myself seriously ill... never again folks) listening to bands and socializing! Dunedin in December is wonderful if only for the fact that the weather is good, the couches are unburnt, and people who normally live in warmer climes return to have family time.

The Prophet Hens were great, Males were excellent, and Paquin were fantastic. So good to see bands I had (shamefully) never seen before, and at the same time get to hang out with old friends again. <3 br="">

Hey Friends! It appears to be 2013!

Sorry Mayan apocalypse theory lovers, guess you'll have to get out of your bunkers and on with your lives. I am quite happy about it not being the end of the world but it does mean that I really ought to get onto planning both a bathroom renovation and a wedding. Gah! I am a terrible procrastinator and both of these tasks are not the kind of thing you want to leave to chance. Better get onto it eh.

One of the good things about the world not ending in mid-December was that I got to celebrate NYE/my birthday with a bunch of chums. The wonderful Dr. Salis hosted a shin-dig for me at her house complete with a sheet fort in the backyard, temporary tattoos, punch, party hats, delicious snacks, a cake-like thing of deliciousness, pass the parcel, watching the Octagon fireworks from the backyard at midnight, AND a piñata. I tell you, that lady knows how to throw a party.

There are a bunch of things that I have done in the last year that I have that I never posted about - some logos, a couple of posters, and a wedding invite that just went to the printers last week! I will throw some of them up onto this bloggity-blog-blog laters. Promise.

Speaking of things that I have done recently, I painted a room in our house and made a roman blind for the window! Making the roman blind was simultaneously easy and hard - hard because it has been such a long time since I sewed anything that simply pinning two squarish pieces of fabric together and then sewing in a straight line on three sides was a challenge that I was not really up to. Moral of the story is that I need to sew more.

I think the room looks much better now than it did before, but I'll let you guys be the judge using these amazing photos I took before and afterwards.

Before:

After:


Better no? Please forgive the scruffy door - all the doors in our house are equally scruffy, so at least we're co-ordinating well right?

So now we just need to:
- plan a bathroom renovation (purchase all the guff, hire the trades-peeps, get accustomed to hose showers)
- repaint the ex-lounge (now dining room) and buy a dining table that we both like...
- move the pantry to the alcove by the pantry
- move the laundry into the pantry
- put down new floor in pantry/kitchen/laundry (NO MORE CARPET)
- add extra insulation under the house, extra lining to the curtains, and insulate the hot water tank
- build in bookcases in the living room on either side of the fire
- garden. Garden. GARDEN. GARRRGHGHGHDEN.
Easy right? Piece of cake, get that lot finished this weekend no worries.

:-/