Sunday Mornin

Joe and I stayed at the home of Laura and her Grandmother Saturday night. Had an awesome breakfeast and then saw this stuff:

Went to the biggest protestant church in Uniontown with Laura's sister Jan and her friends. The preaher had a decent message about how Christians shouldn't expect their life to be great by default.

We went to see W that night with Jen. The movie seemed less artificial as it went on and it was comforting that it was a sympathetic film. Afterwards we went to Coffee with the brothers Howell, but got yelled at by a neurotic woman.

Crocodile Night

The other night our friend's at the Castle had a party and I got to utilize my crocodile get up. I lasted about 30-45 minutes before I took off the head and reverted to a pioneer costume.

Welcome to 1948

The first part of October was spent preparing for the the Donora Smog Commemoration. After disassembling shopping aisles and painting the walls, we turned the Central Drug Store into a makeshift gallery.

I did some word paintings that ended up as either enticing examples of the work inside or prominent window decoration.

Kellen created an indoor campfire from recycled materials and sketchy soldering.

The Freeman utilized some found wood.

Ross did a few pieces with cloth and Iron Oxide. He's also pretty much responsible for the legitimacy of the Smog Commemoration's advertising campaign. His smoke-stack logo is on banners that line the streets in Donora, and is also seen on the sign of the Donora Smog Museum. The Museum is located across the street from the gallery space we hooked up. Whereas our space was an old drugstore, the Smog Museum was formerly occupied by a Chinese Restaurant.

The Weather Channel and some other news station showed up. They covered the museum but not the gallery across the street. Strange event overall. We felt surprisingly good about the whole thing in the end.

No school today

Painted all night monday.
Went to coffee last night with Andy but was falling asleep
Woke up today and went to Phil's Cornerstore for a hoagie
Got a nice casio at the thrift store
waiting for Hebda to pick me up at the library so I can go to Habachi with them

Antomcial Insights and Shrimp Crusted Wontons

Thursday morning was spent in Donora.
Deanne from Donora wanted us to paint the shelving unites on the walls of the Drug Store with white spraypaint. For some reason none of us thought that this was not the appropritate solution for paintiing the walls. With 10 cans of paint we had covered 10 sections of shelfing with one horriblly splotchy coat. There were 24 sections fo shelving. We had also filled the place up completely with toxic chemicals. Ironic considering this was in Donora. After realizing that it would take 50-75 cans of spraypaint to finish the job, we used the Smog society's card to instead buy a 5 gallon bucket of white eggshell and rollers. After we took a lunch break, we painted the place and sent for a ride back to CAL.

That night was the Jason Shorr show. Joe made a bangin rice dish with chickpeas/mushrooms/blackbeans/tofu. I made a bunch of Ore Ida fries that I got with free coupons. The lecture went well and then we went to this girl Brittney's art show at Jozarts. She has better brie than we did. Her art was pretty good too.

After that went to Lagerheads with Jason and that was pretty fun considering we got 13$ worth of free food each from the Art Club. BAM

There was a party afterwards but I left way early.

800

The town puts white paper bags over top of parking meters during parades. They have

NO

PARKING

CALIFORNIA

POLICE DEPARTMENT

stamped on them. Today at work I made 800 of them. Baked a bunch of carrots, zuchinni, and chickpeas and served it over brown rice for dinner today. Fixed my bike. Fixing my life.

21

Yesterday Jason Shorr came to the school and we set up his show in the gallery.

Today I found out I need 21 credits to graduate.

Tommorow life continues.

Holiday to Pittsburgh

Friday night was the art crawl in Lawrenceville.
There were some good shows but the high point of the night was one of the Gallerys having Krishna food. I had some hot chai.

Joe actually met one of the Krishna's at Burning Man, so that was neat. Small World.

After the art crawl we went to Oakland but the party we went to was ridiculously bland. However I did run into my old next door neighbor (c. 6th grade -college) Small World.

Craig and I stayed at my friend Joes that night and in the morning went to People's India. Food was great and I had some hot chai.

I got some free ore-ida product/tgi fridays coupons, which were designed by my friend who works at Heinz.

We went to our friends Holly's house and ate dinner with her and her roommate Kimmy. I drank some wine, mango nectar, and some hot chai.
They also gave me one of the bottles of Jack Daniels BarBQ sauce that they had also received from our friend who works at Heinz.

We went to Braddock where the new Mayor is trying to create an arts community, and seems to be suceding. Really good poetry being red, a bonfire, and a large outdoor brick oven baking free pizzas and bread for everyone. We met a from Portland girl who had recently moved into Braddock. She read about the gentrification of Braddock in a magazine during a flight from Austin to Portland. Now it's more a of a funny world.

After the Braddock event we went to see Langhorne Slim at Club Cafe. Definately awesome, and the first show I've been to in a long time where I wasn't waiting for it to be over. Very good time. We ate some fast food and went to sleep at Holly's. The next day we came back to little California and got back to normal life.

Garbage Pickers of America

The CAL U litter pick up, which Craig had organized went down on Friday. About 16 of us combed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd streets, and most notably Strawberry Way. Once you start picking up trash you realize how much there really is everywhere. Though, trash-goggles to see a few inches of debris wedged between two walls behind Rite Aid. While essentially scooping it up and storing it in bags we found some pieces of really large bones. There was talk of saving them but I'm not sure if it was even worth it for someone to do.

Former Disaster Site

This morning, and yesterday morning actually, I traveled to the town of Donora. If you've never heard of Donora, you may have at least heard of the Clean Air Act. In the 1940's the smog produced from the town's zinc plants got so intense that it claimed 18 lives in 3 days. With 50 deaths all together from the polluted air, the government began develop the first Clean Air Act. So here we are in 2008 and there is going to be a Smog Commemoration.

My friend Ross designed a logo for the commemoration, which is printed on banners lining the street. It's also on the sign of the Donoroa Smog Museum; which is a converted chinese restaraunt. But across the street, at the abandoned drugstore is where we come in. We are essentially cleaning the place out for the guy who owns it, and exhibiting an ecologically themed art show. The buzz is that the Weather Channel is showing up.

The Tribune Review was in Donora yesterady interviewing the people at the Smog Museum and taking pictures. Pinkham wanted someone from the university to be there for the photo-op and to talk about our show, however he had class during that time. So I led an expedition of 5 students to Donora, and we spent a few hours dissasembeling the sales racks of the drug store. Sadly the Trib people did not care to hear about the project or even humor us enough to ask for our names.

Today was part 2 of the drugstore cleanup and everyone who made it to class on time made the commute. Everyone worked well together and we probably learned more about being artists in that moldy drugstore than we will in any class.

Other occurences from today:
Eating an MRE for lunch.
2 ten minute power naps in a row.
Painting til the AM.
That's where I'm at.

Yesterday was Tuesday.

Things that happen on a yesterday:

Potluck dinner with about 20 people. Very cheesy. Very mexican. Very italian.
Running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.
Watching a video of your bosses 4th degree blackbelt test.
Getting some sleep.