The last few weeks have been very successful. I have been collaborating with the eco-school and the Heritage Park nursing home to get this community based project in full force. After two weeks of visiting the eco-school and doing slide shows and demos of painting techniques, we went over to heritage park so the kids could familiarize themselves with the residents and ask them what they would like to see on their garden mural. The children sang songs and made art for the residents, everybody loosened up and there began to be some interesting dialogue between the kids and the residents. It was a successful day and a wonderful experience. The next week we met at heritage park to start the mural. My mentor, Teresa Bond and I arrived early to set up for the children. We played some music and gathered the residents to have some powerful interactions. The children arrived and the painting began. The children interacted with the residents and they were able to paint the mural while sharing ideas. I feel this experience was one of the sweetest things I have been involved in. I recognize the importance of bringing two differnt groups together to share one idea. The outcome is priceless and the experience is something that both sides have benefited from. I myself feel this was a nourishing experience and the begining of many more wonderful projects.
May 2009
May 13, 2009
May 13, 2009
Well the last week is upon us and I’m sure we are all sad to be going home, except for the few who will stay. For my last blog I would like to take the time to thank 5th street studios for a semester of experiences that definitely helped me to know what to look for in a studio and future internships I might stumble upon. Not being paid is certainly one thing I got used to and also doing the grunt work. Hopefully this has made me a little more conditioned to what other internships might entail. My final project is still in the works and we are having a little bit of trouble scheduling wise but I think we can work it out. If all else fails, we decided we would go ahead and use the studio at UT, they have much of the same equipment and it would be a good learning experience in that it will test how well we could adapt to other studios, which is what many engineers here started out doing. Freelance engineering is becoming popular since it doesn’t require you to become tied down to a studio. Well I hope everyone has a good summer, I will see you guys for presentation.
May 13, 2009
This internship has been an amazing experience. In retrospect, I have grown as a designer, student, and professional. Over the past four months I’ve created and assisted on projects that uphold the UT standard of excellence. Also, I have made some great connections and friends along the way.
As I look to my not so distant future, I am beginning to look for the perfect job. Typically, people straight out of college have trouble and usually settle for less than perfect jobs, which I understand. However, thanks to my internship, I have gained skills and experience for the professional world that make me feel confident to apply for a job and be ready to take on whatever they give me.
Looking back at the start of my time at the printing press I realize that my design skills have tightened and cleaned up. Learning some prepress operations has helped me develop an eye for minor mistakes that most people to cannot identify. However, these small mistakes are what make the difference between amateurs and professionals, which I am striving to be. I understand that I still have a long way to go and much time to put in, but this experience has helped me get one step closer.
May 13, 2009
I can’t believe I’m wrapping up my final blog!! The semester has flown by. I’ve been amazingly busy, but somehow this semester feels fluid in that my interests are seeming to come together. Although I’ve had many stressful days and felt overwhelmed by my workload, I’ve really loved it. Somehow, it has all worked out - and I think it is distinctly because I feel that each piece has found its place in my life, whether significant or small. I am graduating, and applying for a graduate program at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. I’ve known for some time that I want to take my love and passion for art into some sort of career in service. It was a confusing conundrum at first, because I knew I loved art.. I knew I wanted to get a BA in Studio Art.. but I didn’t have the drive to get an MFA or to have any sort of career as a practicing artist. Although I love art and will actively pursue doing art for the rest of my life, I also felt overwhelmingly compelled to social service; I want to help others.
When I first read about the Masters in Education in Community Art at Lesley, I felt that the program was written for me. It truly inspired me and drew me in. It was exactly the liaison between my two orientations, art and service. Ever since I made the decision to apply and attend, if I can, I’ve felt like my remaining undergraduate studies have been working clearly toward that goal. This internship class has absolutely been the highlight of that ‘gravitiational’ pull. Working at AMOA has allowed me to see how loving art doesn’t necessarily coincide with creating art. I can express my passion for the arts in a different way: by bringing art to others and working to spread art into broader spaces. I am so very thankful for all of the valuable experience and lessons that working at AMOA has granted me, and I feel motivated and inspired in my future. I send out a heartfelt thank you to Mary, Eric, and everyone who made this class as important as it has become.
May 13, 2009
This Monday I got to run sound and lights in the new High school room at Austin Ridge Bible Church. The event was All-City Young Life Club. There was about 600 kids packed into the room…it was awesome! The PA in the room consists of two line-arrays (speakers that are attached to one another vertically that hang from the ceiling) and four 18″ subwoofers. Lets just say it could melt your face off. It was mostly iPod music and four vocal mics. The one thing that made it difficult was the placement of the sound booth. Where the tech booth is located is on the second floor in a corner that over looks the room. The sound is much “boomier” and “bassier” in the tech booth than on the first floor, so you just have to trust that if it sounds muddy to me then it probably sounds good in the room but if it sounds thin to me then it probably is way too thin in the room.
All that said, I had a blast and finally got to mix in the room I helped make the mic and lighting cables for. It was a great culmination of the semester.
May 13, 2009
This week I helped Jeff make acoustical panels to go on the wall behind the drum set in the new high school room. The drums have a drum shield (clear plexiglass panels to block the sound from bleeding into vocal mics and such) in front of them but the drywall behind the drums shoots the sound right back out and is really bright. The acoustical panels will help to absorb that sound so the sound engineer can have more control over the way the drums sound in the mix because all the drums are miked. The goal is to have the quietest stage volume possible to get the best possible sound FOH (front of house).
We went to home depot and bought some 1 X 6’s for the frames and some pink insulation to stuff in them. We made the frames, stapled burlap to close one side of them, put i the insulation, covered the other side with burlap then finally covered the burlap with a fire retardant black fabric made for use on stages called duvetyne. Then we hung them on the wall behind the drums. I have yet to hear how well they work, but I’m sure it will be a big difference.
May 6, 2009
February 4th, 2009 by jcg596
Finding Balance between school, work, exercise, and a personal life can become difficult to manage very quickly. So how do we find that median where we can co-exist as students and people…and not become machines? As we enter the transitional phase of going from a sporadic school schedule to working 9-5, I do not find myself as upbeat as the country song. Rather, I find myself exhausted, irate, and at times not caring about anything.
Suddenly, one day at work I had a revelation as I was struggling with “designer’s block” and a lack of creativity, I realized that I don’t know how to prioritize. Slowly, I started organizing myself more and multi-tasking easy projects. All the sudden, I begin to notice that I’m starting to have more time left over. I became more engaged in my work, concentrate on my school work, and not feel as stressed out.
I realize that for some people going to bed at 9pm will never become the norm (We are known as vampires or night owls). However, we can use our nights for recreation or relaxation instead of catching up on work. I understand that this is not something that happens spontaneously and it will be a challenge the entire semester, but I feel confident that it will help me every day.
May 6, 2009
So the semesters coming to a close and im assuming everyone is hard at work with their final project. Fortunately, so am I, or so are we I should say. Valerie and I began to talk about the project today and what it might entail. We both knew we were going to do a mix but wasn’t to sure about it till this weekend. This weekend I was in Houston and I was able to acquire a recording session from a good friend of mine. We are basically going to take the entire song and mix it at the studio. I have all the files all we need to do is drop it into protocols and do what we do. The mix is surprisingly a small part of our presentation. We have stuff that were going to hand out, a surprise of course, and other subjects that we will touch upon.
At first I just wanted to have a rough outline and just wing the presentation, but Fortunately, Valerie, being a much more organized person than I am, convinced me to help create a more detailed outline. And after about an hour of writing, we have a semi final draft. I purposefully made my part of the presentation less detailed cause I hate to fallow such things, I’m more of a ad lib person, hopefully it will go well.
May 6, 2009
Recently, I have been working on the Agenda for TACUP 2009. After two mail outs, different conference forms and signs, we are starting to put together an outline of events for the conference. Tables have always been one of my weaknesses. As a designer it is hard to have something look organized, aesthetically pleasing, and easy to read. Last Friday, after a long week of classes and work I looked down at my light table and noticed that I had done 4 different renditions of the itinerary. They were all awful!!!
So I did the only thing I knew, went back to the drawing board. I kept struggling as I added more photos and overlaying layers upon layers of imagery and text. By the end of the day on Monday everything still looked like a giant mess. So I grabbed all my files and through them away, and crinkled all my prints and through those away too. Start fresh, clear your mind, take five seconds to your self and GO! By doing this I was able to clean up my design and simplify. It worked, I was able to organize, beautify, and make the text more legible.
This project helped me learn that sometimes you just have to know when to STOP! We clutter our minds with ideas and sometimes have trouble letting go of concepts that are not so great but have invested so much time in. The solution was easy…clean up and start again.
May 6, 2009
So not only with creating and following through with this event, another student and I have started a new organization based on using creatives passions. We are offering opporunities for students to get involved in the music industry, whill still attending school. Personally, I have been going through the process of coordinating events, and getting people/connections for future events. We have made some really big connections not only here in Austin, but else where like LA and Miami. We want to not only bring artists in that the students and community will enjoy, but also give students that are interested in pursueing a musical career the chance for an opportunity. I believe the singer songwriter event will happen every year, yet the genre of music will change, and the business we partner with will change. Not only growing our connections as an individual and organization but allowing students to continue with their dreams and passions. Latley, I have been thinking about artist management more and more. I keep coming across the issue of how people in the music business world cant relate/understand the artist due to the lack of creativity or artistic nature of the business man. I have been thinking about ways to personally change that, and create a bridge between this problem so that artists are presented with creative ways of getting their things taken care of, and allow the business to still be able to count on the artist to get these things accomplished.
