My turn, yay!

Friends,

Hello! I'm so glad that we are doing this. I am excited to hear from you all. I always look forward to updates!

So first, I want to show and tell about work. As you know, I am working full-time in floral now. And I can't say enough how much it pleases me toe doing what I'm doing. I think something I've had to process and deal with over the last couple of years is coming to terms with the work I'm doing. I have had to deal with the ordinariness of it. The unimportance. The lowliness. That somehow with the degree I have, and with the expectations set out for me from family and friends and culture, that I need to be doing more. Or making more money. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It sucks. So anyway. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to be ok with the fact that I love my job. And that I am not a career person. And that I may not ever make more than $20,000 a year. But. I'm happy. I love my work. I get to make pretty things. I get to be outside. I get to make other people happy. I get to use my hands. I am learning new things every day. And that is enough.

Here is what my day looks like:





And here are some pretty things I've made:









With the kind of work I do, I have more brain space and freedom to do other fun stuff I want to. And although I haven't been productive in the fine-art sense, I'm finding that there are so many other things I love. I love food and cooking. I love clothes and shopping and making things fit me perfectly. I love a good bargain. I LOVE making my home a home. Here are some things that make me happy in my home:

My craft space.



Once I put my thread up, it was like I could breathe. I love things color coordinated. (See next photo… duh.) I love my old book collection. And my white vases. (This picture was a while back, and both collections have grown… heheh).



This is my livingroom from the kitchen. I should have updated the photo, because since I took this, I've put more artwork up, including a cupcake photo by Syd, yay, and a baby-on-sheet-music piece by Jamie, yay. On this particular photo day, I was enjoying the bounty of a green, albeit flower-less, garden.



And this is my bed. This was in my old apartment, but the bed's the same now. I love this bed. Syd, you have the same one, from Ikea. I first fell in love with it at your place when we were there for New Years. But I wanted a black one, and they didn't come in black. So I went all DIY and painted it. It was a hellish experience, but so worth it. I LOVE this bed.



Here's some random stuff I've made recently. Like this pumpkin that I entered in a contest at work. It didn't win, but it was pretty damn cute anyway :)



And this is a rock I nabbed from the beach when we were all (mostly) together in San Diego a while back. I brought it home and always wanted to paint it, but didn't get around to it until a couple weeks ago. It's so happy!



And this is a purse a friend commissioned me to make. I think my favorite part about it isn't the bag's shape or style, but the quality. I am most proud of my workmanship. My momma taught me well.



The same friend has commissioned me to make her wedding dress, huzzah! And I'm super excited. These are some preliminary drawings I did after we tried on some dresses and decided what she wants. I know it's not that fancy looking in sharpie on pink paper, but hey, it's a first draft:





Ok, now for my adorable niece. This weekend we are celebrating her 4th birthday. Yowza! I'm so in love with her. I am giving her a giant box of dinosaur figurines and the Land Before Time DVD. Yay!



This was at the Oregon Gardens during our family reunion in August. I love this picture. This is pretty much how I feel about her, and how she usually responds to my affection:



This is why you should visit me in Portland. Because occasionally we have SPECTACULARLY gorgeous days. And this is what they look like.



Finally, something I can't get enough of: Music. I am constantly obsessing over discovering new tunes. I love matching up songs and albums with my current state… creating a soundtrack. I become extremely sentimental about music and the memories that a song can recall. A good playlist might sound nice to someone else, but to me it will tell a story of a certain time. Here are some albums that are making up my story these days:

The Wombats / This Modern Glitch -- Found out about them from the (free, booyah!) satellite radio I listen to in my car, Altnation. I love Altnation. But yeah, The Wombats are a lot of fun.

Foster the People / Torches -- I guess they are a favorite among teens these days, but I don't care. They make me want to dance. And the show that Lauren and I saw last week was amazing! So much fun.

The Kooks / Junk of the Heart -- I started listening to them when I was with Steve. And I haven't stopped. This album is lighthearted and fun. Good stuff.

Dawes / North Hills and Nothing in Wrong -- I heard about them from the cute boy I told you about from my church. We are going to see them next month. Date? I don't know about that, but we'll see ;)

Feist / Metals -- Ughhhh, Feist. How I love thee. Can't go wrong here.

The Civil Wars / Barton Hollow -- Just found out about them. Remember Joy Williams? (Sweet girl-pop Christian music?) Well now she's making country-folk happiness with some dude. And it's good.

City and Colour / Little Hell -- First heard about them from Greg, and oddly enough started listening to this latest album because of Steve. Eh, full circle.

Cults / Cults -- These folks are touring with Foster the People. Listen to Go Outside, and then go outside. Yay.

Josh Garrels / Love & War & The Sea In Between -- A free album on his website, this guy has a great voice and some really lovely and thoughtful songs.

Brooke Frasier / Flags -- She was one of my on-repeat breakup albums. I love this album, and she has some great songs.

Sara Bareilles / Kaleidoscope Heart -- The song Bluebird makes me die. This has been my five-months-post-break-up album for sure.

The Weepies / Be My Thrill -- I finally saw them in concert this summer. So good. This album is not as great as their others, but still happy.

Gavin Degraw / Sweeter -- Oh man, he reminds me of my sophomore year of college for sure. Such good memories. This album sounds pretty much the same, but has some great new songs. Several of them have lines that have gotten me a bit verklempt.

Ok, there you have it. If you want more music recommendations, I'm so game. Happy listening :)

Love love love to you all. I'll be checking back to really read each person's update. Yay!

SHOW...TELL...Part Eleanor.

It is coming down to the end of the day here in California you international folk. My studio wall (as I don't have a picture for you like JAMIE does) is rather bare as I have stripped it to share it and tell it!

So, I moved back from Madrid to San Diego- two places that have nearly nothing in common. But I have got these images that I started working on in Madrid and the shapes continue to bounce around in my head...the floating/flying girl who keeps relocating herself and turning up in different places, the seed pods, the cathedral ceiling shapes. There are no hidden messages here, I too am just swinging around with color and meaningful shapes until something catches my eye.


So this is a strange colored paper, it's not quite gray and not quite cement colored, and I have limited myself to watercolors, pencil, ink and paper.



This is a strange painting I've started and that remains silent. I don't know what to do with it but I like it and it is currently the only thing hanging from my wall, dead center.


Here I used two colors of acrylic...the other limitations apply and now, the paper is white. Dead sunflowers whizzing around and things dripping from a bird's feet. I do not know why I keep coming back to using sparrows, although they have played a large role in my young and present life, but I see their bodies as carries, they hold things in their claws and in their beaks and I like how they cry out...


This is a series of drawings that I am working on and they are simply based on photos taken of placed observed by myself over the past few years. I suppose you could call these the two veins of work I am currently following.


I find I am not too interested in reading these days, strangely, but have been doing a lot of looking. It is too early for me to jump back into large scale pieces, I am reschooling myself in some of the basics. But I am in love with the sunlight here and I am interested in natural shapes such as the leaves and seed pods I am collecting on my table. Like this one:


I am reading: Things I Didn't Know and I don't know if I like it. Hughes allows his personal opinions and biases influence his memoir writing SO much that the book kind of reads like his history writing.

LET's DO SOME SHOWING AND SOME TELLING!

Good Evening Interwebs!

Newest video:

It's Work from J.R. Uretsky on Vimeo.

Title: It's work

I should probably talk about how I got to this point...you know, the point where I frequently put sort-of-naked videos of myself on the interwebs. I have always been interested in how sculpture affects one's physical space while also having the ability to do something to a viewer's mental and emotional space as well. I am very interested in the emotional aspect of all that. While in grad school I came to grips with the fact that I am a bit of a creep, in that I like to watch / read people ... constantly ... and that I am deeply affected by people's body language, gestures, mannerisms, etc.


Extend Exchange series: For Eleanor, 2011

I would make sculptures such as my sculpture titled For Eleanor that were inspired by my interactions with others. However, when asked what my work was about I would never have an answer. I never considered these sculptures portraits, they were closer to prayers.

From my thesis:

I make abstract sculptures about my relationship to specific people. Each sculpture is a window into how I experience an individual. I am never really sure for whom the window is made, the person the sculpture is about or me. This sort of self-satisfying engagement with others reminds me of prayer. I used to pray from my friends and family. Prayer was a comforting verbal expression, to God, of my gratitude for the people around me. My exchange with God ceased, but the exercise of gratitude never did. Perhaps that is why these tiny constructions come so naturally to me. Sculpture is my language and the installation Extend/ Exchange is still a set of prayers; I have just exchanged one language for another.

This has been a part of my practice for a long time (see: Eleanor 2008, I Put Her on the Shelf 2006, Abba Abba 2010 .. and so on and so on). After making It's Work I FINALLY understood that even though there was an extremely emotional attitude to my sculptures, over all they are just kind of wonderfully formal and funny. It was a difficult conclusion to come to, considering I had poured my heart into works like Size 6, a piece "about" the time I was so depressed I dropped from a 14 to a size 6 in a summer or Shut Up, Speak Up that, for me, illustrated quite clearly why my engagement to a wonderful man ended. The bottom line was that I wanted (still want) my work to be rich with dichotomy. The work should elicit both humor/joy and profound sadness. Why? Because, that is what I am feeling when I make the shit and I want people to relate to me goddaminit!

Anyhoo, this video It's Work, is getting closer ... ?? It started with a difficult conversation with someone, went through a few edits, then I took my pants off and crawled inside of this sculpture that I made. BAM ART! When I think about this piece now, it seems far removed from the original conversation; however, I still like to think some of the feelings transfered over from conversation to weird ass video.

Ugh, yeah. Swinging the art bat in the dark until I hit something.

I am getting really interested in:
setting up structures/tasks for myself where I fail and video taping it
"queering" a body - whatever the fuck that means
the monstrous body - objects attached to the body that make them different, strange, freakish (queering?)
giving gifts / art as gift
celebrating people via abstract sculpture
doing more private performances where the audience is small, specific and sometimes nonexistent

I am reading this book:
Queer the Art of Failure



And am liking at these artists:
John Wood and Paul Harrison

Let's get our critique on!

Guten tag!

I am kicking off the posting early as I will be on vacation this upcoming week. My mom's best friend and her daughter are visiting Paris so we are meeting them on Monday and I am looking forward to some quality museum time. I have also been reading a lot of Hemingway and stories centered around the Lost Generation in Paris during the 1920s so I am excited to see if I visualize what I have been reading. It will also be lovely to simply look around and relax!

Lately, I have been watching a lot of web design tutorials and have been improving my skill set in that area (mainly with working on this site, though that is a long, funny story for another post). Suffice it to say, I had never been completely satisfied with my website/portfolio/branding so I wanted to really think about my branding's look and feel, as well as update my html with my new found knowledge. A coworker/friend/future roommate is a photographer so I bartered with her for a portrait shoot. I found a dress at a flea market downtown and decided that the dress and photo shoot would drive my branding identity. I vectorized the rose pattern from my dress and developed a color palette from it as well. I have included screenshots from my improved site but I would also hope that you all would go to my site, click around, and let me know how intuitive and user-friendly it is.




In addition to the website, I am designing calling cards--mainly because I still have yet to memorize my cell phone number over here!



Well, I think that just about sums it up--I look forward to everyone else's posts as well as the conversations to follow!

Dankeschön!
Sydney

“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.” - Eve Ensler

P.S. This game is super nerdy. And awesome.