Christopher MacDonald in front of his work

On Friday I took the train to Milwaukee to see MIAD to see their senior thesis show. My buddies Chris and Boris, BoBo, were in the show. Both of them were my studio mates in New York and Chris came down for my thesis. I don't know why I don't go to Milwaukee more often. As you might recall I drove up earlier this semester. I would take the train over again. It's only $21 each way and they run about every hour.

BoBo

It was sortof weird being in a different art school. It was much more commercially driven than SAIC. I have become so used to being a super conceptual environment.

I went up with Adrien Moens (sp?) who did the NYSP with us all but also attends SAIC. We stopped at a place called the Milwaukee Public Market. It was really awesome. I wish Chicago had something like it downtown. It is an indoor market with mostly fresh foods and is on the cheap side. I scored a jar of fresh Strawberry Jam. It's really good too even though the label is in Comic Sans. Boo Urns.

Posted by Meg at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I didn't see Aretha Franklin this past weekend. While Lauren and I were getting directions we found out that Aretha had actually canceled. Boo Urns. So we didn't go to Pittsburgh. I had to de-install the BFA show which wasn't too bad. The photo above is an installation shot. I showed some of the same work from my NYSP show in December. I also had a small book that had some information about the project. Next week I'm going up to Milwaukee to see some of my studio mates bfa show.

Posted by Meg at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Emily Davidson and Pammy Pam Norrish ( I love these two ) sitting in Wicker Park after arriving in Chicago.

Okay. I really don't have any valid excuse for not updating. Forgive me. I guesse I should recap the past couple of weeks. First off the BFA show is over. Thank God. It was great. I know I should post some photos as Rachel has requested but I don't have any pics without my family in them. I am going to G2 this week so I promise to post some this week. The opening, although long, was really great. My family and Lauren's mom came plus some of my studio mates. Pam and Emily, pictured above, came the day before so we were able to hang out and catch up. We went to the MCA and caught the Karen Kalimnik show which I still don't really have an opinion on.

I have almost a month left of school which is a great feeling. This week however will probably be the most hectic. I have a bunch of homework due plus proposals for finals and then there is fellowship application I have to finish by the 4th. I am also giving two talks about the Underground Railroad project that I have been working on for the past school year. I'm heading to Pittsburgh this coming weekend to catch Aretha Franklin which I can't wait to see...I'll be posting some pics this week plus some highlights of my Pittsburgh trip. Have a good week

Posted by Meg at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been a tad bit busy as of late. The bfa show opens this Friday March 14th. Yesterday was the last day to install and everything look pretty good. My install was relatively easy. Although it was easy my week will probably be stressful. I have two papers due this week plus my studio mates and family are coming into town for the show.

I did have the chance to attend Alagon's latest show "Only Blue Dear Lonely American". Noelle Mason, Justin Cooper and Benjamin Bellas all did pieces they performed when I saw them in Boston last semester. I also had a chance to check out In>Time 08 at the Cultural Center. Well I probably won't post until the bfa show is over. In the meantime check out the Bad at Sports blog. I should be posting there often but have been falling behind on that as well.

Posted by Meg at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't know if i have ever mentioned this on the blog before but I love comic books. I was a huge comic fan when I was a kid. I used to attend conventions with my sister all the way up until I was 18. I stopped reading them though and in the past year I started to pick up on where I left off. Anyways, I really like a series that ended recently called Y the Last Man. It is written by Brian K Vaughn who writes for lost and Pia Guerra who is an artist. Over the summer I sent Pia a letter requesting a drawing of Ampersand who is a monkey in the series. On the envelope I drew my favorite ape Dr. Zaius of Planet of the Apes. As Months went by I forgot about it until yesterday I received a padded envelope in the mail from her. Not only did she send a drawing of Ampersand but also drew Dr. Z on the back of the envelope.

Posted by Meg at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Entrance to Phil Collins installation
I had a great time in Dallas. CAA was fun and a bit overwhelming. I wish I had more time to so I could've seen more of the conference. I can not thank the school enough for making the trip possible.
Attendees of the conference were granted free admission into some of the museums in Dallas. Lauren and I were able to catch Phil Collins video installation entitled The World Won't Listen at the Dallas Museum of Art.

The World Won't Listen

"Filmed in Colombia, Turkey, and Indonesia, the video trilogy features fans of the influential British indie-rock band The Smiths performing karaoke versions of tracks from their 1987 compilation album The World Won’t Listen. Along with the first-ever public presentation of Collins’ completed trilogy, the Dallas exhibition will also include a series of works based on letters that Morrissey, the band’s iconic lead singer, wrote as a teenager to London music weeklies"

I wasn't crazy about the installation but I did enjoy some aspects of it. Three rooms were sectioned for each video and one could walk around to see all of them as the people performed the songs. I was able to check out some work by Cosima Von Bonin who I blogged about back in January. They also had Felix Gonzalez Torres' Perfect Lovers which was really...I guess I'll use the word touching.

Posted by Meg at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday Lauren and I went with SAIC alum Amber Hawk Swanson and her girlfriend Sam to the Sixth Floor Museum. Since I arrived in Dallas I have been kicking around the idea of going to the museum, but the $13.50 entrance fee really put me off. It just seemed really steep to visit a former book depository. But I came around when Amber and Sam expressed interest. If you have not heard of the Sixth Floor Museum then I should let you know that it is the location in which Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy. The museum was really worth the $13.50. As soon as you get out of the elevator it is sort of a whirlwind of information from JFK being elected to him being assassinated to conspiracy theories. It was a really intense. Being able to stand in the location where Oswald was was really hard to fathom.

There was an exhibition on the seventh floor of home movies that people had taken of that fateful day. In a smaller closed off room they played the Abraham Zapruder film which shows the entire assassination and was pretty graphic. I felt really overwhelmed when I left the museum from both the footage and just thinking about all of the theories that are out there.

Posted by Meg at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I am a bit behind on updating my trip. I am leaving Dallas today and am just posting pics from 3 days ago. There has just been so much to do in Dallas plus there are so many people I know from SAIC around for the conference that I have been rather booked lately. So I'll try and catch up in the next couple of days.

The location of where Martin Luther King was assassinated.

While Lauren and I headed out to Dallas we stopped by the National Civil Rights Museum. I had been there once when I was 16 and really enjoyed it. The museum is built where Martin Luther King was shot. The kept the facade of the motel and two rooms intact. One was where King usually stayed and the other was the location in which he stayed as he prepared for his speech just before his assassination. I really enjoy the museum as a while because it deal with so much information in a really visual way. There are many installation based rooms of people doing sit ins and even a burnt bus. I am currently taking a class called Black Power Fantasies with Stanford Carpenter which is probably my favorite academic class this year. We are studying the black power movement and the black panthers and I was really puzzled by how little information they chose to present. Both where happening at the same with common goals and yet there really was almost no information being given except a wall in a hallway. But all and all I had a fun time and seeing where MLK was killed and being able to see how the movement struggled for equality was really powerful.

Posted by Meg at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On our way to Dallas Lauren and I stopped over in Memphis for two days. Here are some photos from our first day.

Were staying at a Days Inn that is not only across the street from Graceland but also has a guitar shaped pool.

One of the reasons we decided to stop over in Memphis was to visit Miranda Powell who 's studio was right next to mine in New York. Miranda goes to the Memphis College of Art and had us meet her at Huey's. They are consistently rated as rated one of the top burgers in the nation and they did not disappoint.

We then went to Sun Studios which is famous for recording Elvis' first single plus many other acts including Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. The tour was actually really good and it was only $10 compared to the $30 it costs to tour Graceland. If your in the area and want to visit a Rock & Roll landmark this is the place.

While waiting for tour to begin at Sun Lauren and I decided to walk around the neighborhood. We stumbled on the Hostess factory. I practically died and went to heaven.

Posted by Meg at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

New hat (left) Old hat (right)

If you know me you probably have not seen the top of my head. For the past two years I have worn my 1977 throwback Pittsburgh Pirates hat everyday. I have literally not gone outside without it. But as you can tell it is so dirty that I had to buy a new one. It's going to take a bit of time but I guess I'm going to have to get used to it.

Posted by Meg at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)