new blog

for those that follow this blog, please see my new/better blog!

http://softbunny.tumblr.com/

Amimation: Untitled

Check it out! It took a lot of work over the past month but its finally done. Let me know what you think!

animation update

I have been working on an animation based on memory for a project I am submitting to TIWWI. I worked on this all weekend, and if I'm going to finish in time, I have to work on it constantly every night! Above is a teaser of one frame.

north by northwest

Last night we watched North by Northwest. It was pretty good, and reminded me of my teacher from Museum School, Patte Loper's paintings. She was inspired by the mid-century modern decor and instead of people, she imagined a situation where all the people have disappeared and the animals, specifically deer are left. Check out Patte's work, it's beautiful.

adventure guides?

It seems as if kids today won't have the same kind of childhood memories as I did in the YMCA Indian Guides. After the name and many of the practices of the Indian Guides were deemed racist and offensive, the YMCA has changed and renamed the program. It will now be called the YMCA Adventure Guides, and kids will be called explorers rather than guides or princesses. Although I loved it as a kid, as an adult I agree that many of the practices are utilizing stereotypes. I think the Native American influence had a big effect on kids, and at least generate interest fo future research into the culture. My biggest issue with the change is not the reason, but the result. Instead of making it their goal to work with the Native American communities, the YMCA extracted the Native American culture from the program altogether. Here is an excerpt from the article Y Programs Shed Indian Trappings now Deemed Racist from 2003 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"Ronn Wilson, who traces his heritage to the Willamette tribe, said if done appropriately, the use of Indian themes in such parent-child programs can be valuable in spreading cultural awareness.

'As long as the Indian is not used as a sort of mascot, I think using Native culture as a platform to teach respect, reverence and strong family values is only a positive thing,' said Wilson, who has consulted with the Eastside YMCA's Guides and Princesses programs for more than 20 years.

But consulting with Native Americans to ensure Indian themes are accurately portrayed is 'more the exception than the rule,' said Keith Officer, a Y-Guides parent volunteer with the Shoreline-South County YMCA."

Why can't this be the RULE? I feel like people are too afraid of offending anyone these days that they are depriving children of learning about other cultures. It seems as if the Native Americans wouldn't mind having jobs teaching kids about their culture, so why don't we initiate something of this nature?

soft bunny years, too cute

I finally feel like I have the drive to create something I care about. Sean was invited to work on a project for his friends artist collective in LA. He encouraged me to make an animation that follows their theme of reconstructing memory. I have been meaning to incorporate the influence of my participation in the YMCA Indian Guides into my artwork. I have found that this might be an outlet for me to deconstruct the memories I had as "Soft Bunny" my Indian Princess name. My close friends in elementary school and I were so enthralled with our experiences that we created our own club called the camping clique, and kept our own "Indian Guides Files." While looking through the file today I found a note that I wrote to my dad. It had to be at least 3rd grade because I signed my name in cursive. I started researching the history of the Indian Guides on the internet and was shocked to see the changes over the past few years. It will take to long to write about it now so I'll keep this post cute and nostalgic.

rabbit dreams

I have been struggling deciding what I should draw since Sunday. As I post these drawings and painting by other artists I am jealous and really want to continue my work like this as well. In the summer I took a video class at Museum School and my final piece was about a journey follwing a rabbit, (not Alice in Wonderland). My goal if this was to be an exhibition, was to begin with the video and then the rest of the walls would consist of painting of the rest of the journey in which I would be introduced to each of my 12 spirit animals. Let me explain, what I've learned about spirit animals is based on Native American beliefs. They help protect and guide an individual throughout their life. Zack's mom did a reading for me when I was starting out teaching. I think what I should do for my sketches over the next month or so is to draw each of the animals that I discovered in that reading. Eventually I want to incorporate them in a story version and paintings. I can't wait for that but I think I need to start slow. The picture is of one of the cards that I had a very good feeling I was going to get. It is the rabbit card, at the time I was having a lot of strange dreams with a rabbit and it started influencing my art.