part-time-art.

I still really don't have the time, but I want you to know I'm alive and well, and in some respects, extra-well. Other respects could surely use a boost in the wellness department, but all in due time, I like to think.

Being a part-time art student is weird and wonderful; I wish I'd been blogging about it these past few months. I guess I could still write about the experiences I've had, but that seems wrong, going back in the past. I'm supposed to be moving forward. I wanted to do some kind of a comic about it, but obviously that didn't happen. Hmph.

In just 2 short months, I'll be making the transition to full-time art student. Scary. Wonderful. Scary. I can't wait. I have to wait.

In the meantime, would you like to see some of my projects from my (one) art class this semester? Or would you rather wait till my final project is completed and graded, and final grades are in, so you can all bask in my awesomeness and inherent glory, and eagerly await January whateverth when classes start again? Your call... less than a month till this semester is over and done with.

See the thing is... I just don't have the time. :/

Girls will be boys will be girls will be boys.

Apparently, I am not a girly girl. I think I might be a man's lady. Or, alternately, a dudely girl.

Right?

I love pink. I love flowers. Baby animals. Stuffed animals. Baby babies. Chick flicks/chick lit. Scented candles. Fruity drinks (hi, new love of my life, Framboise). Fancy scented lotions and creams. Skirts. Dresses. Fancy underpanties. Silky things. Nail polish. Mascara. Getting my hair 'did.' The whole nine yards.

But I also really really love blue. Beer. Burgers. Baseball and hockey. Dude flicks (The Big Lebowski remains my favourite, most-watched, most-quoted movie). Robots. Graphic novels. Video games. Simplicity. Pants. Being stubborn. Being confusing. Being stupid. All very dudely qualities. (No offense, dudes, but... you own the patent on those last couple of things. I'll cop to women being crazy (see later on in this post where I elucidate my own crazy) but dudes broke ground on the stupid/confusing/stubborn front, built a foundation, and erected* a skyscraper upon it. Own it.)

When I google-imaged "stupid skyscraper" this came up. Seems pretty apt.

I squee (heavily) at cute things, but I also scoff at people falling down or getting hurt or (especially) getting hit in the nuts. I want a baby (someday), but I want a baby boy first, dammit and he is going to grow up playing baseball in the park if I have to be the best single mother in the world ever**. My hips swing when I walk, but I curse like a sailor, when I'm not at work***.

I have a handful of close-ish female friends, the most I've had since I went to an all-girls Catholic high school a million**** years ago and little to no choice to have at least a coterie of girlfriends (especially ones who had boyfriends at the all-boys school next door, so I could acquire some much-needed dude friends). But my closest friends, the ones I consistently turn to when grumpy, needing a drink, or need help dissecting matters of the heart, are resoundingly male. I grump to my lady friends, but I always feel a disconnect, like they're not getting all of the story because I'm forgetting vital parts of it, mostly because I probably am.

I also don't get invited out "with the girls" as much as I do with the guys, probably due to my propensity for drinking too much beer, swearing too loudly, and making lewd jokes at every opportunity. The retort "This is why we can't have nice things" basically applies to me and intangible things: I will never be able to serenely sip from a Cosmopolitan or Sex on the Beach in a sophisticated dress. I will be the girl in jeans in the corner, playing darts or pool and drinking pint after pint with the guys, telling highly inappropriate tales and guffawing at theirs. I've only recently found a little niche of girls who somehow, for some reason, like me and want to hang out with me, even if I am too loud and too brash.

I do love dresses and skirts, and I use girly perfumes with names like Seductive Goddess, and I like***** being a girl, but I like hanging out with the dudes, because on the whole they are so much fun to be around, except when they are being TRULY dudely and mucking up everything around them. Which is often. Very often.

I might just be metro-Detroit's version of Sweet Dee, only fatter and shorter and browner-haireder. If I found a baby in the dumpster, I'd probably call it DB too.

Last week, I spent a few hours at my friend Darin's house, with a couple other dudes, watching the tiebreaker game for the AL Central Division. I got teased, mercilessly, about something that came up during a no-holds-barred game of Balderdash last year - something highly inappropriate, that I can't even share with you, internet, other than to say that it rhymes with boatmucking, sorta. Anyway, it was crass and crude and I blushed and demurred and fobbed it off ("I still have some decency left," says the girl who once explained something that rhymes with mukakke to a bunch of dudes who, in retrospect, probably knew what it was and just wanted to see if I would get embarrassed talking about it. Note: I did not get embarrassed) but I still took that goodnatured verbal abuse and rolled with it. Because I'm The Girl Guys Can Talk About (Really, Super) Gross Stuff With. I think.

Later that night, though, I found myself out and about with three of my wonderful lady friends, for an event I like to call "lady burgers," if only because it sounds a little bit perverted (again, that's a pretty dudely quality). I'd left Darin's house still on a game high, since it was only the bottom of the seventh and I would've loved for the Tigs to clinch the pennant, even if we didn't stand a chance against the Yankees in the league playoffs. We girls sat in a booth far away from a television and I strained to see the game, while the Tigers struggled through twelve long innings. Not being able to see the score or anything really except for dots of white and grey and blue and black on a field of green, I determined what was going on in the game on the enthusiasm of those seated far closer, and provided such helpful commentary to my boothmates as "They're fighting? I think it's a happy fight. There are people still on the field and they're just standing there so it can't be over." I almost got kicked out of 'Ladies Night'/the girls club when I demonstrated my too-vast knowledge of sports****** ("Baseball was invented in Cooperstown!"), but quickly regained my hold by being adorable. I think.

Basically, it was a weird night. I was almost too girly to hang out with the dudes, and almost too dudely to hang out with the girls. Catch-22.

My friend Jon once drunkenly told me "I don't know why you don't have a boyfriend. You're so awesome. You get along so well with dudes - you're like one of us," and then decided that that was actually probably the problem.

The problem is actually that while I am in many ways, shapes, and forms very dudegirly, I have the unwieldy and totally out-of-control emotions of a girly-girl. A pretty vulnerable girl who sometimes always tries too hard and is a champion natural-born-worrier and invents elaborate scenarios in which people screw her over relentlessly just for bragging rights. I overthink, I overanalyze, I worry 92 hours of the day, I think you don't like me, I think I screwed up, and it's mostly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bonnie says I have to "rein in the Rebecca." But that Rebecca, she's a headstrong one. It's a dirty job. (PS Mike Rowe, you are welcome to help me.)

I am trying really hard to not let that happen this time. It's a slippery slope, with wicked turns at breakneck speeds. I've gotten "good" enough to know when I start slipping, but not good enough to know how to stop once I've started down that hill. I pump the brakes and tell myself I'm entering a world of pain, a world of pain, but it's no use. I'm there, I'm on it, I ride it out as best I can. I've recognized it this time, and am working on stopping that vehicle of destruction, and I'm trying to chill the fuck out and maintain the best parts of me, both girly and dudely (please see the opening paragraphs) because they are me and I am pretty awesome, if you must know, so if you are reading this, please realize this! I acknowledge my faults, am working to mend them, so hopefully you let my ludicrous overreactiony (but quickly-realized, remember! Remember!) antics get in the way of your enjoying my out and out awesomeness, which is plentiful and intense.

It's funny, because I started this entry a few months ago, with no real idea of where it was going, until the universe spelled it out for me recently in no uncertain terms. Keep being a dudely girl, but chill down on the crazy girly-girl emotion bullshit. Okay? Okay.

Rebecca is trying to abide.

Rebecca abides.

She's calmer than you are.

Far out, man.

*okay, so yeah, 'erected'? I LOL'ed at that when I was typing it, and left it in for comic relief, for myself. For real.
**which will probably happen, as I'm not convinced that anyone will ever be stupid enough to want to marry me, given my extreme levels of fucked-up-ness.
***mostly.
****ten
*****This was originally "I love being a girl" but then I remembered periods and how much they suck and how every month they cost me money, sanity, and normal human contact as I sequester myself from humanity so as not to lose all my friends when my hormones raise their nasty, ugly, many-tentacled heads.
******here is me being a girl: when my friends Ron and Eric start talking about sports (mostly college and pro football) too much around me, my eyes glaze over and I stare off into the distance until I can't take it anymore and just blurt out "sports." That's usually their cue to talk about something different. An acceptable segue is cupcakes, since sometimes they talk about cupcakes in relation to college football, a connection I haven't yet figured out, but might have to look more into. I'll suffer college football for some cupcakes, you know? Mmmmm... cupcakes.

I am terrible at blogging lately. Between a new barn, new barn job, regular job, new school (!!) and new boy (!!!!!), I have no time, motivation, or inclination to write sometimes.

I have lots to say! I'm going through lots of awesome things! But that's all I feel like saying right now. Maybe this week I'll have a few minutes to sit down and type up something right and proper. Maybe.

(no guarantees)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been a little crazy.

Life has been, if not difficult (but it is) then at the very least, confusing and weird, and I have not been responding to it as I should.

I found out roughly a week and a half before classes started that I actually was accepted, which resulted in a rush of trying to get my financial aid taken care of, and registering for classes, and an inordinate amount of freaking out.

I freaked out because I'm switching majors entirely, meaning I have to get all of my college-specific courses done (most of my cores are out of the way), and besides that, it's ART school. I have always kept my 'art' pretty close to the vest and never really considered schooling in it or a career in it until a talk with Bonnie sparked it and set the wheels in motion. But as I am not very good with criticism or critique or bullshitting art students and art teachers about art, it's a little worrisome.

I freaked out because I really cannot afford school right now, especially if my financial aid doesn't go through. I already had to have my aunt buy me my studio/design class supplies and my astronomy textbook, and am scrounging for parking money by finding coins in my couch cushions and returning pop bottles that have been languishing in my kitchen for months and months. As of right now, I don't even have enough gas money to get to both my jobs tomorrow, much less eat anything besides ramen or oatmeal (staples in my residence). Today I dropped off the last of my documents for the aid office to review though, and hopefully some dollars will be forthcoming.

I was only able to register online for two classes, all the others I wanted or needed having been filled up by people who were probably notified of their acceptance more than a week and a half before classes started. After hemming and hawing and considering I could just show up to some of the others I wanted and wheedle and whine my way in, or wait a week and register in one once some losers dropped out (and therefore miss a weekish of academia), I decided to stick with the two classes. For one, in case my financial aid *doesn't* go through (fingers crossed), it will be far less of a strain on me; also, given that I'm trying to a) balance my two jobs as it is and b) find a new job or get more hours at my current job, only having two courses to work around (one of which is an online course) is a lot more flexible and less stressful.

All that school shizz aside, life is STILL pretty ridiculous. I'm still dealing with stupid feelings for at least three people I shouldn't even be thinking about, plus having at least two crushes on people who probably aren't interested in me, my terrible knees, the whole ridiculous work situation, stupid barn drama, my lack of commitment to losing weight because I don't have the money or time to eat well right now (or so I tell myself), money drama up the wazoo and out my friggin' ears, and general malaise, and, well... I cracked a little bit, a lot bit.

Last weekend I was in a fairly depressive state and rather stupidly decided to watch Grey Gardens, which I'd never seen even though I'd owned it for probably two years at this point. Well, let me tell you that this is not a good movie for a crazy girl with a crazy mother to see, ever, much less when she's already in a fairly depressive mood. I spent the evening laughing at some of the film (the parts in which I didn't see either my mom or myself) and crying at the rest of the film (the parts in which I saw more of myself or my mother than I'd care to admit). After the movie was over, I felt restless, empty and scared. Really scared. And then proceeded to delete the whole of my phonebook (except for my mom, my aunt, my grandma, and inexplicably - Twitter). One of my crushes texted me shortly thereafter, because I'd logged onto facebook and said I was down (true) and he didn't want me to be down (true). He helped erase some of the crazy, but there's only so much other people can do.

Sunday was fine. Barn, riding, good times, etc.

Monday, Monday had another incidence of crazy. I worked at the barn in the morning and then met my mom up at the State Fair for the last day of it. We took a million pictures and ate a million foods and had a million funs. I was ultra-tired when I got home, so I chalk some of the crazy up to that, but really, not all of it. When the evening news came on, they started talking about the State Fair and its closing and what would happen to the fairgrounds, and I fairly lost it, again (so maybe some of the crazy can be attributed to my feeling of helplessness over that whole situation - but maybe I'm winnowing down my feelings of GENERAL helplessness over my whole life to that one thing; scapegoating, anyone?). Well, I became a quivering, sniveling ball of mess, thinking Very Bad Thoughts about life and how I didn't want it anymore. Cue text-sniveling to a good friend, and phone-sniveling to Mom, and I fell asleep, restlessly, uneasily, but asleep nonetheless.

Nothing's really been fixed in the past week, but it's a new Monday and I'm still here and I've got friends I love who love me back and it's almost my birthday and my horse is doing great in her training and I am officially a (part-time) art student and my dog is being good and my house is (slowly) getting clean and ultimately I have a lot to be thankful for and be proud of, even if sometimes I need a giant fucking smack in the face to realize it, and I will not end up like Big OR Little Edie.

I promise

*Your* Michigan State Fair!

So, every year my Mom and I journey (uhm, a mile) to 8 Mile and Woodward to partake in the country's oldest state fair - a state fair that is unfortunately on its very very last legs. In its 160 year history, I have gone approximately 19 of those years, sometimes multiple times in the week-and-a-half course of the fair. This year, Mom and I went twice, and she's already been once without me, and will likely go by herself another time or two.

These are our last grand hurrahs, last-ditch efforts to support the fair in an attempt to revitalize it.

Earlier this year Governor Granholm unceremoniously evicted all the businesses* at the State Fairgrounds and announced that this would be the last year for the Michigan State Fair. There was outrage, there was protesting. There were townhall meetings where citizens voiced their objections to the fair closing and the grounds being vacated. One of Granholm's cabinet cohorts said "A two-week fair cannot support the 164-acre asset."** So... where was all the money from the year-round business ventures on the grounds going? I can't imagine that leasing a 50,000+ square foot equestrian facility on the grounds 12 months of the year was cheap, nevermind the six other businesses leasing space, nevermind the numerous trade shows and events that lease space throughout the year (Gun & Knife shows, computer shows, building material auctions, the Shrine Circus, wrestling & MMA competitions, etc). Something rotten in the state of Detroit?***

(Sidebar: can you imagine what's going to become of 164 acres laying vacant and unused at the corner of 8 and Woodward? My overactive imagination has come up with quite a few scenarios, and none of them are pretty.)

There's been a lot of conjecture and rhetoric floating around about what could become of the grounds, and a lot of (very good) ideas thrown about, none of which have apparently met muster. THIS is an excellent, outstanding, mutually beneficial idea, not to mention one that stays true to the fair's purpose. It's also one that I could fully get behind. But who decides what happens to the fairgrounds?

Partly, we do. It's *our* State Fair. If attendance is up from years past, then that (ostensibly) adds some weight to saving the fair.

Having attended for so many years, I've definitely seen a trending decline in many aspects of the fair: most notably in the agricultural sectors. Every year there seem to be fewer cows, fewer sheep, fewer pigs, fewer goats, fewer vegetables, fewer horse shows. Huh? Agriculture is Michigan's 2nd largest industry. Is the fair not targeting farmers and homesteaders in an appropriate manner? Surely with the growing interest in slow food movements (et al) it would behoove more residents to know WHERE their meat/grains/vegetables come from? Though there isn't AS much agriculture in the counties closest to the fairgrounds compared to the mid-state and northern/western counties, I've seen in years past exhibitors from Canada and Ohio - journeying from points much farther than our own in-state agriculturists. Maybe a better marketing program from the State Fair is in order, to more effectively draw in participants from all around the state (and beyond, if they want to come! Why not?). While exhibiting livestock in the fair probably isn't cheap, there are benefits to be had (exhibition points, premiums for winners, scholarship opportunities for junior exhibitors) and maybe they need to be talked up. With agriculture holding such a prominent place in Michigan's financial history, and the other industries losing ground, it could be poised to take their places in the future. Seems kind of silly to miss out on ANY revenue-building opportunities, given the state of the state (and nation). As far as non-animal-based agriculture, it seems like possibilities for urban farmers to showcase their work are being missed. "Google "urban farming detroit" and you'll see that it's getting to be a HUGE thing. Why waste THAT opportunity, especially in light of the aforementioned proposal to build an agriculture education center?

Another fair program I've seen less participation in is the Community Arts program, though this year seems to have bulked up again ever so slightly. This is SUCH a great program for the average (non-farming) citizen. For $12, you can enter up to ten items in varied "homemaking" categories (everything from knitting/crocheting to photography to baking to quilts to wine), and have the opportunity for the State Fair judges to tell you that your muffins or drawing or sculpture or pickles are The Best Ever (of That Year, in That State). Along with that honor come cash prizes, of $7 up to $25 per winning piece! AND, with your $12 entry fee, you receive two complimentary passes to the fair, and the option to purchase parking passes at $2 off the normal price of $7. A few years ago I made a bunch of muffins and got a 3rd on one batch (I forgot what kind) and a 1st place on my banana muffins - which also won Best of Show for All Muffins Ever (of That Year, in That State)! I won back $10, got to go to the fair, got a few ribbons and a whole lotta bragging rights. It's really a win-win-win situation! My mom, who enters almost every year, has walked away with $50-60 before, even after the parking pass and entry fees. Winning is fun, guys, but you can only win if you enter. I promise.

For the past few years, Mom and I have talked about how the Michigan Mart has devolved from a showcase of Michigan-made products into ... a trade show mish-mash of ShamWow! knockoffs, anti-abortion groups, cutlery hawkers, and all sorts of other salesmen of useless gadgets and ideologies. What if the Michigan Mart were actually... a place... where people could sell... MICHIGAN-MADE PRODUCTS? Scary thought, I know, right? It really is. Oh, sure, every year there's a maple syrup farm and a honey farm selling their goods (though this year there was no one selling honey - sad. So sad. I love honey. Honey loves me.) Okay, so let's set up a little farmer's market where you can buy fresh veggies and fruits from the people who won that nifty little Best of Show ribbon in the eggplant category. Or a mini artist's market/craft fair where our local creative community (which I assure you, is vast and varied) can sell their homemade, handmade clothing, prints, photography, accessories. Yes, there's still the cost to get into the fair, and the cost for vendors to set up booths in the fair, but also a possibility to generate more income and keep it in the metropolitan community. This is a business method that I think a lot of companies are scrapping strictly because of the economy, but scrapping it can backfire pretty badly - sometimes you need to spend money to make money.

Michigan is not in a position right now to close off any avenue of income or industry, and yet Granholm wants to cut off a channel of it off? Ridiculous.

Are you thinking of going to the State Fair? Have you ever been? You should. It's not the most inexpensive thing in the world (gate is $10, plus $7 per car for parking, or there are lots across 8 Mile that charge $5, or if you are a big cheapskate you can park somewhere in Hazel Park or Ferndale or Detroit and just walk)

Here's why you should go:

•baby animals GALORE. If you don't like baby animals, you are probably a terrible person. You can even see BRAND NEW, VERY BABY animals in the Miracle of Life exhibit! There are baby quail there that are so adorably bite-sizedly tiny. Too too freaking cute and precious. You can also get your picture taken with an adorable baby lion or kangaroo or fennec fox! The baby lion didn't eat me, mostly because Id idn't get my picture taken with her. She is very cute though.



•regular animals. Though not as cute as baby animals, they are still pretty cute. And neat. I guess. JK, I love them. Check out the poultry house for prize-winning chickens, pigeons, turkeys, and bunnies (uhm. Not poultry, by the by), and then go into the pavilion in the center to see a duck and goose pond! Stop by the dairy barn to get bottomless glasses of the VERY best chocolate milk I have ever tasted in my long and illustrious career of chocolate-milk-taste-testing for FIFTY CENTS a glass! Best bargain ever. Watch the daily horse shows, featuring youth classes, one-to-eight horse-hitch driving classes, and speed events. Meet a bunch of big friendly pigs or sheep or cows or goats!


•piggy races. So cute. Also, petting zoos with llamas, alpacas, yaks, and exotic breeds of cows, sheep, and goats. And you can see the Budweiser Clydesdales (well, one of six eight-horse teams they employ across the country)!


•rides, games, FUN!




•hello, fair food!


•this scary clown garbage can!


•things you might not have ever seen before! Yarn-spinning, sheep-shearing, horse-shoeing, cow-milking, etc! There are competitions you can watch and contests you can enter, and some crappy bands (sorry, that part is true) you can watch! Check the daily schedules of events here.


•show the Governor that you AND the State Fair mean business! Sign the Save the State Fair petitions located in buildings all around the fair!

*Joe Dumars' Fieldhouse looks to have escaped the guillotine for the time being.
**"State Fair in Jeopardy" http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090202/POLITICS/902020353
***Actually, there very may well have been something funky going on in the SF offices that billed our barn for utilities, but I'm not at liberty to say, as it is merely hearsay; we never figured out what was going on, as far as I know.
All images in this post are the copywritten property of Rebecca Pierzchala from the MI State Fair 2009 and cannot be used without express written consent

new art (and some old[ish])

(Don't forget to click on the thumbnails for bigger versions!)

Here are my doodles and sketches from the past week:






L to R (in order of date drawn):

•TOP ROW
he is careless - 8/23 part of a new 'series' called 'handsome men made ugly by hideous truths [and my pen]'
rainy day - 8/24
full of himself - 8/25 also part of 'handsome men'
sunglasses - 8/26 just trying out a profile
miss mary - 8/27

•MIDDLE ROW
pug dog - 8/28
handlettered a - 8/29
handlettered r - 8/29

•bottom row
michael jackson lady - 8/29 some lady in an article in Vogue looked JUST like MJ, only... older. And alive, I guess.
turtle - 8/29 for my mom!
cock and hen and chicks - 8/29
in his shoes/in his footsteps - 8/30


So I drew some dudes and there they are, mixed in the mix. I'm not 100% happy with them, but oh well. That's what I get for drawing only in ink where I can make more mistakes and they're less fixable.

To prove that when I actually dust off a pencil and sit down and concentrate on things I can draw a face pretty well, here is one I drew last year or so from a Fringe [hair salon] ad.



And sometimes I can draw dudes. Ish. Although this was done entirely in pen and no pencil, so really I have no excuse.


There is a week's worth of doodles, plus some sketchies culled from my sketchbook! Enjoy!