A field trip and a check in

Yesterday went on this field trip out to a fabric showroom. There we saw a lot of fabrics that people use for industrial/commercial upholstry. See the pics over in the usual place. It was way out in this convention center type of place. All of Scandanavia is on vacation for most of July, so there was no one there, and we got to look at a lot of different types of fabrics, Laser cut, burn out, and all sorts of weaves in all sorts of colors. It was pretty nice to see some of the things that are available on the market right now.

For the past couple days we have been thinking and doing exercises which are leading to final patterns for the end piece. We have been working on preliminary ideas in color and pattern. You can see some of the things that I have been working on. Now I need to take a lot of these things into line art, to make sure they can be accurately represented on a silk screen. Today we had a Checkin with the instructors to see how our progress was going, I was the last one to go, they had very little to say, I think it went well, they liked what I had to say, and they are excited to see the next step.

Anyway, Silvia comes in tomorrow, so the amount of posting might go down, unless I can convince her that she wants to guest spot on here, in which case the writing will get so much better.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kenzan

Some patterns, and other unrelated thoughts

So we have been back for a while, been working in the studio now. These days we have been doing a lot of work at the desk, and the print rooms have been quiet. I had a chicken falafel for lunch. Check out the photo page for some early work. These were tests to show us the variety of things that we can do and how to place things on the page to get repeating patterns. I have been working a lot right now on my final project, I have been sticking to my guns on the clouds and rocks pattern, to which a number of people have commented that my designs are very masculine. Perhaps that is true, but I maintain that the only reason people think that is because my design is not based on flowers, trees, little girls, or leaves.

Tomorrow I can show you some of the work I did today on the rock section. I want to have a pretty large repeat, something that is more scenic than graphic. A couple of the instructors thought that wasn't a very good idea, but I think its going to turn out great. As on of my friends said, its interesting because rocks always seem to be waiting to get rained on anyway, so this will be some sort of discussion of that. But really this is going to be an expression of the study tour, most of the images that I am using, come from the study tour. It really has become an expression of patterns that I have seen in those cities.

The weather has been unusually shitty here, even the danes say so, but they are prepared for it, most every one has a full rain suit, complete with wellingtons, and happily ride around in anything up to a full downpour, and even then they are out on their bikes.

I went to see Die Hard four point oh, AND harry potter last weekend, both amazingly bad/good in their own way. If you want to see a balls out action movie, go see DH4.0, you can see how bad of an actor that "i'm a mac" guy is.

Anyway movies here are $15-$17 so that will not be happening too much more, although My friend Carly wants to go see Transformers this weekend, I think I will go.

In any case, the sun is shining, and that's a rare occurrence, So I'm off to ride around, and look out for some more photos tomorrow.

k.

pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/kenzan

some more crap

I have no idea how often I am going to up date this, but if i can get to school early, I will post small updates as often as possible. I am also currently accessing the interweb at a internet cafe, mostly used for CS and CandC. So its not my computer and therefor no photos yet, but i did take 546 on the study tour, and of course video. soon my friends soon.

Since I have gotten here, I have learned basic silk screening techniques and then ran off to on the study tour to Stockholm and Helsinki. Both of those are so amazing, they deserve their own posts. Conceptually, I have been thinking about clouds and rocks a lot these days, and they might be the final concept in my pattern.
I have been attracted to a lot of lighter colors and pastels here, that has been reinforced by a lot of work in watercolor, the color pallet of helsinki and just a general shift towards more delicate colors in my general thought process. I think there is certainly an excitement in being able to make 5-10 yellows and make them feel different and vibrant. But when i say yellow, I more mean to say, is that it has been raining and there has been a lot of looking at clouds seeing so many gradiations and tones in the grey of the clouds. the weather and the physicality of the area are so similar to the PNW in the way that it can be hot and sunny and 3\4 of the sky is cloudy and threatening rain. Also watching the people, they dont stop when the weather gets bad, they go out in all types of weather, and seem to have a sunny disposition. well, as sunny as the danes get, which is equivalent to mildly overcast all the time. I have also been watching some danish movies, and those are really wanked. If you think Lars von Trier is wierd, wait to see all the ones they dont let out of the country. Anyway more thoughts from the northland, Cristiana and the euro disco on the boat, and all of that too.

bye

Welcome to Copenhangen, all that and the rest.

Its 18:27 in Danmark, as the Danes spell it. I'm sitting at Julia and Kandice's house waiting for them to come home. They live 2 blocks from us in a nice two BR renting from a nice guy named Thomas. They have a lot of flies. No one knows Whys. I have been going to school for a little over a week now and have learned a number of things. I have learned how to mix reactive dyes, how to mix opaque pigment, how to do a burn out, how to wash and set pieces, and learned a lot about repeat patterns. Today we had a big lecture about scandinavian designers.

Some things I have been doing:

I went to Paris. There, Ben and I walked around a lot. We got kicked off the Metro when it closed at 1. In Paris, there is not a last train, which you catch or don't catch. at the stroke of 1 or slightly before, it stops at a station, and everyone gets off. not matter where you are. You could be all the way across town, and you are walking or in a taxi. We drank a lot, we visited all sorts of nice people, we saw ocean's 13 in version original, I bought a bunch of clothes.

That leads me to the other winding thread which ties all this travel together. Britsh Air, or BA or Bitch Ass, Has not been able to get my baggage to me from the transfer at Heathrow. No one I know has been able to get a good experience getting over here, people were late all over the place, baggage has been all sorts of lost, and remember that I got to Paris on the 26th of June. SO, I have been buying clothes like a rich man; not too many, but some nice things because they have not been able to get the luggage, which we now know is in italy, to paris, Amsterdam, or here. yesterday I bought a really nice jacket from a danish designer, a pair of levis and a hoodie. Today I bought a backpack, a digital camera, a matte knife, a ruler and some other shit. I was expecting to buy things, but its getting out of hand. H&M is a friend of mine. I'm about to start buying watches and a new Sport Coat. I'm hoping for a 1st class upgrade on the way home, because I don't really want to ever ride this airline again. Heathrow has been a mess, they shut it down for 24 hours, after there was a threat at galwaith. not to mention that we were delayed at all points on both legs of the flight.
For instance:
1. Off the gate at JFK
2. On the taxi way at JFK
3. Waiting to land at Heathrow
4. On the taxi way at Heathrow
5. At the gate at Heathrow
6. In the terminal at Heathrow (I wrongly rode the tram all the way back to terminal 1 went through security, was told to go back to terminal 4 to talk to the ticket agent there, and I still beat some of the people who went through security at terminal 4.)
7. Before pushing off at Heathrow
8. On the taxi way again at Heathrow
9. landing at CDG
10. On the taxi way at CDG
11. Waiting for a malfunctioning Jetway, and then waiting for the stairs to be driven to the back.
12. That was the one bright spot was that I was in the last row, so suddenly I was first off the plane. I was taking pictures of getting off, and they asked me to delete the pics on the camera. I think If it was JFK, they would have arrested me or at least detained me. But the guy walked away before I erased them. I will show you that pic later when I can get my computer hooked up to the internet.
13. Then, everyone who was on the original flight was missing their luggage, the whole thing went to Milan. Where I assume, its been sitting since then.

I don't really want to fly back with them.

From paris, Ben and I took a Beautiful Thalys train from Paris Du Nord, to Amsderdam Central Station. The weather continued to be bad, and we quickly found Mr Charles Mitsui who took us back to his amazing flat. We kept going to this coffeehouse near his flat because they had internet, and we wanted to use it. He lives at this intersection of two canals and over a nice restaurant, and there never ceases to be interesting things to look at. we spent the first couple days looking out the window, but quickly moved to sitting in the window sill and hollering at girls who would ride by on their bikes. We again, walked around a lot. It was interesting because we visited Berenis, our friend in paris, and Chuck in the twilight time of their stays in Europe, and they were both so excited to have some american people around. There was a lot of chilling. There was a lot of lurking. There was a lot of walking around just checking things out. Drinking beer. At Chuck's we BBQ'ed s couple times. We relaxed in his palatial flat.

From there, Ben headed out to London, I got on a train bound for Dusseldorf. I have to say that the german ICE (InterCityExpress) has some new trains just delivered by Siemens which are super smooth and quiet. they have this fresh fold down step that almost disappears when the door is closed. The trains got worse as I moved north. the train from Dusseldorf to Hamburg was a little less nice, and the train from there to Copenhagen was the oldest and least smooth. But it had the distinction of riding the ferry. I had been asleep, when I awoke everyone was getting off, and we were clearly on a ferry boat. They had loaded the whole train on to the boat. The boat itself was two cafes, a money exchange, a huge duty free, ( why are they always basically perfume and booze?), and an ice cream stand. I was awake when the train rolled off the ferry.

Tell you about CPH soon.

K.