I do

I'm getting married to @TimDennisLive.

Tim proposed in Central Park during my last few days in New York City, and since then my life has been filled with packing, unpacking, more packing, art making, thinking, celebrating, quality time, family, and lots and lots of planning. I promise this blog will not become a blog of wedding-inspiration, but today I'd like to share some images we're using and things we're excited about. We, like many others whose stories can be found on Etsy's Handmade Wedding series, want to celebrate our decision and commitment with our closest friends and family in a way that fits us and our friends. Here are the things we've been looking at and inspired by... enjoy!

 

(thanks, MarthaStewart.com)                                  (thanks, Sufjan Stevens)

   

(thanks, intimateweddings.com)                      (thanks, theknot.com)

Drink to me babe, then

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with art.

It's been a tough month, but today was one of those fantastic breaking points: things are getting better. (or, as Ben & Jerry's would say: Yes, Pe-can!)... I really just wanted to use this post to share a photo, to mark a change, and to talk about food.

Important steps to recovery/success:

1) Buttered toast, a fried egg with pepper, bacon, and massive amounts of coffee.

2) Avocado, mayo (or greek yogurt with lemon and onion salt), mozzarella, and tomatoes on dark bread or in a quesadilla. (also good with bacon or turkey)

3) Stella!

4) Ice cream: vanilla with strawberries. and this picture.
**all must be made FRESH and accompanied by supportive friends/boyfriends/co-workers/pets

(thanks, popshop and Slashfood)

You looked like a swimmer

After a few twelve hour work days, this is my first chance to post about my trip to the MoMA and The American Folk Art Museum last Friday. As I meandered about and inundated myself with the act of looking (as opposed to seeing, which we do all the time) I did something out of the ordinary for me and my sketchbook: I wrote about it.

I feel compelled to share it with you, if only out of a desperate desire for more honesty and more transparency between artists about their work and their process and their thoughts and their inspirations. Here are mine:

"I'm not sure if I'm on the right track or if I'm light years behind. As an artist, I must take comfort in the inherent uniqueness of my work being that it comes from ME and I DID IT. The things I like in these great works overlap with things I love in my own. Logically, I know this is normal, and possibly even a good thing. Themes and stories and patterns that occur and reoccur in art and history are great -- standing the test of time indicates that the content deals with questions of humanity-- yet, I find myself wondering how I can compete with the likes of ERNST and JESS and DALI? With the bookmakers, printmakers, and drawing-based artists who have years of experience, time, funding, training, patronage, and practice?

YET I CONTINUE TO MAKE.

I take comfort in the inherent me-ness of my work. I take comfort in the practice itself. and I take comfort in the knowledge that great artists make crap too, sometimes."

Here are some pieces I enjoyed and wanted to share:
Mona Hatoum (medium: paper and hair)

Rivane Neuenschwander- I love this. The colors, the idea, everything.

MAX ERNST and a biology poster. one of my most surprising finds. and strangely encouraging. (as in, if he can take an actual biology poster and dissociate it from its content this much, then I can definitely use organic-inspired elements and not have them just be illustrative)

I would love to hear your thoughts.

(all photos from MoMA's website)

I heard a rumor

I feel obligated to let you all in on a secret...

I've got a few things in the works, and can't wait to share them as soon as they're finished.

In the mean time, blogging may decrease in frequency, but stay tuned!

all I want, are four walls

My cost-effective life still allows me to have some creature comforts. Here are a few of my future investments!

Gardening, apartment-style (and super easy). You can find these online, they're called "egglings"

Chalkboard paint: 1 cup paint, 2 tbs unsanded tile grout. Apply to a primed or painted surface.

(Thanks, Martha)

Recycled glass bottles made into drinking glasses. 

find them at YAVAglass on etsy, or other places like greenglass.com

I also love fruit in glass bowls.

photos from YAVAglass

thanks, 2000dollarwedding.com

this is it

It's so good to be back in a lab again. The first few weeks in a new lab are always tough but nothing compares to that unbeatable rush of doing something for the first time, for seeing something new: the same feeling I had as a kid when I first pulled a worm out of the ground or when I learned why the sky was blue or the grass was green.

Today I spent far too long doing an extremely simple task: move 5 worms from one plate to another. But as I sat there and chased those guys around the plate with my little apparatus, I had some of time to think about the connections between my art and science. It's a topic I'm afraid of in a lot of ways. It's a topic that makes me question everything that I think about myself as an artist and as a person (what are we if not perception-ists?). There are times I don't know if my science influences my work, runs my work, or is my work. I don't know if I should even try and stop it any more. More importantly, I start questioning why I make and why I don't just observe. But I can't stop. and sometimes that in itself has to be enough. 

Here are some images that bring out this apprehension: they are some of the most beautiful images I've collected and ones that I come back to again and again.

DNA at metaphase (when you can see chromosomes most clearly. it's the way we all pictorially think of chromosomes: as little Xs) without the proteins that hold it together. So, all of those loops are DNA strands. The skeleton is what the DNA usually holds onto to look like an X.

C. elegans

  

cross sections of C. elegans (1mm worms)

With the game and soul of an old school flick

I'm catching up! So. My birthday was last Thursday, two days before I left. Since then there's been a whirlwind of packing, leaving, loving, and running around. I do want to post this, if only so I remember it more vividly: I had the best birthday of all time.


My parents and I had lunch at Tom's Oyster Bar in Royal Oak followed by super delicious cupcakes from The Cupcake Station in Birmingham: so good!

my new birthday tradition: the pineapple delight cupcake. It has a real piece of pineapple inside!

Then I headed over to Tim's to help set up to have our closest friends over for a small, but perfect, celebration... Aussie-style! We made Australian burgers and had a plentitude of beers to choose from (it was my 21st after all) and after the BBQ we made a fire and all sat around, laughed, talked, played games, laughed, and had the most perfect night I could ask for. The next day I left for Rochester, spent a glorious day with good friends doing fun things (mostly walking around with Dory, the lovable long haired chihuahua), had dinner at my all-time favorite place: Dogtown, followed by an evening of games, music, friends, and fun. I got two perfect birthdays!

 

Bella and I sat on the porch while the guys got things done: I love having Boy Scouts around!

What are Australian burgers, you ask? We made two types: 

1) included cheese, fried egg, beets, sauteed onions, bacon, lettuce, BBQ sauce, burger, and bacon.

2) (pictured) same thing, but with turkey bacon and BBQ chicken. So delicious!

I love when things just work out the way they're supposed to. I love being able to say "the way it's supposed to". In conclusion: best birthday ever. Thanks for indulging me.

for the love of

for the love of PANTONE: just try to NOT want these

Pantone bicycle bag
thanks, designapplause
to go with your Pantone Bike

Pantone Rubix cube (Rubitone concept pieceby Ignacio Pilotto)

and the Pantone HOTEL in Brussels!


for the love of TRAVEL:
I've been daydreaming about traveling around the globe. Brussels ranks high on my list, and this new Pantone Hotel has moved it up a notch. In a perfect world, we could start by visiting colleagues in Prague (ahoj Alena a Petr!), take the overnight to Belgium to explore for a few days and staying in the Pantone Hotel, take the Eurail to stay at the Fox Hotel in Denmark, followed by Tim's dream-vacation in Sweden.

for the love of SWEDEN (goals):
Eat at a smorgasbord with only white-colored foods
Learn the differences (and names) of each of Stockholm's 14 islands
Find Tim's extended family/eat their food
Hike the Kungsleden trail
Buy beautiful, nerdy sweaters

thanks, knitting iris (flickr)

And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough

Not having my camera is so difficult right now!

Today I spent 10 hours in a car moving half of my earthly possessions from one place to another with Judd Nelson (also known as CrocodileMD):

It was incredibly fun. 

Fun enough that I feel like we definitely need to share the secrets to our road trip success:

Top 5 road trip tunes:

Johnny Cash- any/all

O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack

Beastie Boys- License to Ill

Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire- The Swimming Hour

The Cranberries (there is absolutely nothing better than yodeling along to Dreams in a Ford Focus in traffic in the somewhat great state of Ohio!)

Top 5 road trip stops and snacks:

Something sweet: after a beautiful last evening in NY spent with great friends, pie, ice cream, and our beloved Twin Peaks we decided eating a box of Tim Horton's donuts was more than necessary

Something salty: the worse the better. we choose Cheez-Its

Something caffeinated: copious amounts of coffee and frozen coke

Something real: stopped at Panera for a slightly less-processed, salad-based dinner
Something else: onion rings. glorious onion rings.

5 things I wish we had:

GPS/wifi

Snoop Dog: live, via GPS voice, or via MP3

a little more leg room

Mountain Dew and/or Dr. Pepper slurpees

fresh, road side cherries (one of my all-time favorite things about driving up north in the summer!)

personal masseuse(s)

Enjoy! I'd love to hear about your road trip favorites/rituals/etc. In the mean time, I'm enjoying my respite and commencing painting as soon as I'm unpacked. I can't wait! Happy Summer!

somethin' like a phenomena

Things have been crazy for some time. A lack of sleep, too much work, and no end in sight can get overwhelming. So, today I made lunch. No microwaves or pre-mades.

I feel one thousand percent better.

eggplant chip lunch: sliced eggplants (3 minis) into thin strips, blotted with pressure and paper towel to remove bitterness, lightly coated with olive oil and garlic mixture, then baked in the oven for 10 minutes, flipped, then an additional 10 minutes. sprinkled some salt and pepper on top and served with tomato and goat cheese.

Enjoy the beautiful weather, for those who have it!

He War: finality

Love this. (found: wiki for hair)

The air is filled with so much anticipation. I love (don't tell) finals week. There's a camaraderie on campus: we're all exhausted, over-caffeinated, and almost there. It doesn't hurt that I tend to work much better under pressure, and subsequently do some of my best work at times like these. I like having my own, class-free schedule. I like feeling justified drinking the equivalent of my weight in coffee. I also like feeling finished: no more papers, no more tests, no more stress. Those few days between finishing a semester and heading home when there's just nothing to do: they're golden. I don't have to be the one always leaving to do work. I can just be. Then again, I can't wait to get home, to see my (and Tim's) puppies, to visit my usual spots, to go running through my neighborhood, to have my laundry done for me, to see homey faces, to watch copious amounts of hockey (go Wings!) and ultimately to travel to NYC for my fellowship and all of the things that come with that. I feel lucky enough to perpetually be looking forward, but on Friday when I'm finished with everything, I'll be happy just to be here and now.

Debaser

Today was gorgeous. A perfect public market morning followed by an afternoon filled with insane college students and an impromptu (well, only for me, I'm sure someone planned it) concert on the quad by OK GO (that band that has the treadmill video, pictured below), then an evening of writing, pretending to write, and art-related tangents. Tomorrow I'll be back in the studio, working on all of the things I want to be working on all of the time. I know it's far too early, but I keep daydreaming about my senior show: I want hundreds of perfect prints, and tons of paintings. I want to fill the gallery. I want everything to be beautiful, understated, overwhelming, and inspiring.

It's that time of year. The time of year when I just want to go.go.go and slow.slow.slow. When I am perpetually, simultaneously overwhelmed and extremely content. I love what I do. I feed on stress. I perform better when things are crazy.

But.. I look forward to when things slow down, when I can lay in the grass and just BE (happy, silent, with Tim, content, watching, thinking).

Yesterday I had the chance to present my research to my home community. I realized my favorite thing to do is explain the things we do to the people who say "oh, no, definitely not!" when I ask if they're familiar with biology. I get to show my excitement: then it BREAKS OUT and all the viral particles run wild, right!? (HIV-1 acute infection of CD4+T cells). I think most scientists become numb to the awe-inspiring nature of our work. Yet, I'm so humbled by and fascinated with the things we study, and more importantly, the things we don't know.

and I will follow you into the dark

Tweeted: already have to stop myself from twice-daily blogging (recognized by the NIH as a class5 full roaming vapor): time for a twitter addiction.

Elephants & Juniper has added a twitter account! 

Follow me at: http://twitter.com/elephantsinjune

if I am a stranger now to you, I will always be

Yesterday I ran three miles, hiked up a mountain, presented my research poster, and found a Ring Pop for sale. In contrast to my action-packed day yesterday, today I had the chance to sit outside and read, take a long photo walk, talk to some really interesting presenters, and listen to Ryan Adams on loop. It's our last day today, and I have to say I wouldn't mind another day or two before heading to New York... and I can't wait to return here and explore the west with Tim sometime in the not-so-distant future.. though the per diem will be sorely missed!

Introducing: The Velvet Undergrads

April 21- May 9, 2010: Opening Reception April 21st, 5-7pm

The Annual Juried Undergraduate Exhibition

On another note: I received some good news:

I was accepted into the above exhibition! If you're in the area, definitely come by and check it out! My piece is entitled Observed and is a four color linocut. There are some beautiful pieces in the show this year. It's definitely the best collection work I've seen in this particular show in awhile, and definitely worth the time to see it.

R&R

Montana is gorgeous. Gorgeous enough that I'm giving a lot more consideration to Washington U in Seattle for my PhD work... a lot more. I've also loved the transition to mountain time-- waking up at 7:30 am to run was easy as pie!

Speaking of pie: my goal for this vacation is to find the double R and enjoy coffee with a nice slice of pie.

Honeybear

It's beautiful outside, my prints are finally starting to look like the image I have in my head, I've knocked several big things off of my to-do list, got pears at the grocer, and I get to print with the doors open while the sun's shining.

love is all you need (mischief managed)

Update
Dishes: washed
Laundry: in progress
Tim: talked to
Poster: half finished
Care package: on the way

This is keeping me alive. (yes, like everyone ever I'm coffee-dependent)

Makes coffee or espresso in 30 seconds with 1/5 the acidity!

little bunny foo foo (so say we all)

Alexa Meade paints people on people.

I went home for Easter and just got back yesterday. I have a week to throw together a poster (and data) for a conference next Wednesday out west and I'm behind in my printing from all of the traveling. Basically, I'm spending 24 hours a day in the studio and in the lab from now till forever. and I'm really, really excited. 

This was my Easter:

I'm also thinking very seriously about opening an Etsy shop. This way, I can have a year to get going, to get some of the kinks worked out, and then an entire summer (or year) to do it full-time before I start my PhD work. I'm not sure if the whole full-time Phd and full-time Etsy baby is a good idea, but this week has reinforced my conviction that I can do both and I can "have it all" (as Liz Lemon would say). If I want to. I'll probably have to start eating ham though.

she blinded me with science

Like every other scientist ever, I read xkcd sometimes.

Like every other scientist ever, I like and extraordinarily identify with this.

(Unlike every other scientist ever, I make a lot of art somewhat relating or alluding to this disconnect.)

Science Montage

Alt text: The rats are perturbed: it must sense nanobots! Code grey! We have a helvetica scenario!

now it's morning and we are the sleepyheads

I could use one of these

I've been busy.

(I'd rather be in the studio)