Art, Doodles

How I Lost My Mind

How I Lost My Mind
Fall Schedule 1994

I was going through the studio closet, looking for, of all things, wood stain. The crate of paints and stains was at the bottom of a stack containing a crate full of old notebooks. I scanned a few pages from them, some because they have doodles, and some because I’m a little astonished at how obsessive I was about note taking. Also, the trip down memory lane was kind of entertaining.

First of all, the image above might help to explain how I lost my mind. Twelve credit hours was considered full time. I started out college taking half that, but when I switched to full time, I went a little overboard. Fall 1994, I had 16 credit hours, but the year before, both semesters I took 21 credit hours. Ouch! That was on top of working half-time.

The reason I took so many classes was so that I could cram in as many elective subjects as possible. One thing I was absolutely determined about was that my college education was going to be for me. I wasn’t interested in studying a subject based on whether or not it was going to make me money down the road. That strikes me as a sad waste of time, money, and effort.

Doodle

Doodle

Doodle
Early Latin American History, Fall 1995

I like history, but I didn’t take many history classes. I think I ended up getting a pretty good overall history education by taking art history. However, my last year in college, I got pretty deeply involved in researching a group of Precolumbian artworks at the art museum. To coincide with that, I took an independent study in Precolumbian art with one of the history profs, and then a course he taught on early Latin American history. Dr. Alves was one of the best teachers I have ever had.

Sketch for Painting
Sketch for a painting

Doodle
Greek Drama notes, Spring 1994

Doodle
Homer, Spring 1994

I never officially declared a second major in classics, but I had more than enough courses to fulfill the requirements. And then some. I liked the subject matter and most of the profs in the department. The subject matter dovetailed nicely with my art history classes, so for me, it was a no brainer. Just don’t ask me how many times I’ve read the Iliad or the Homeric Hymns. I think I could still recite passages from them by heart.

Doodle

Doodle
Early Medieval Art History, Fall 1993

Doodle
Early Modern Art History, Fall 1993

The Early Medieval notebook has some sort of complicated highlighting scheme that I vaguely recall corresponds to passages I highlighted in the texts. That course was taught by Dr. StuffyPants. Y’all remember Dr. StuffyPants, don’t you? Well, there is a reason why I did not take Late Medieval, and it wasn’t because I didn’t love the subject matter.

Notebook Cover
Comparative Religions notebook cover, 1993

Doodle
Comparative Religions, 1993

Doodle
Comparative Religions, 1993

Art, Artist Books, Bookarts, Collage, Doodles, Paintings

Little Boats

Little Boats 1

Little Boats 2

Little Boats 3

Little Boats 4

Little Boats
collage, gel pen, and acrylic on 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper
3 x 7 1/2 inches

I wanted a change from bottles and vases and plain old doodling, so I thought I’d work on something else for awhile. I bound this miniature book, using left over scraps of paper and book board I’d pre-painted with acrylics, about a year ago, as a demo for a book binding tutorial I wrote. Because of the sea foam greens used on many of the pages, my intention was to eventually do something water-themed with it.

Little Boats (open)

Little Boats (spine)

Little Boats (top view)
Little Boats
3 3/8 x 3 15/16 inches, 11 signatures of 2 pages each (22 pages total)
140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor pages, pre-painted with acrylics, bound with waxed linen thread

Art, Doodles

Doodle

Stonehenge Journal:  Doodle
Doodle
gel pen on 90lb Stonehenge paper
7 1/2 x 5 5/8 inches

I rewarded myself for finishing my taxes by watching teevee. That meant more mindless doodling, of course. I’m working my way through Upstairs, Downstairs right now, and it’s a looooong series, so it ought to take me awhile.

I also rewarded myself by ordering a new DVD burner. My computer seems to eat them, as this will be the second drive I’ve had to replace. Both drives were the same brand, though, so it it could also be that there was something hinky about them. I went with another manufacturer this time, just to be on the safe side. I nearly opted for instant gratification, and picked one up at Target, but I decided I could get one cheaper (as in, half the price!) from Computer Geeks. Altogether, a new drive, 100 blanks, and shipping were the same price as just the drive at Target.

Art, Crankypantsing, Doodles

Staff Meeting Doodle

Staff Meeting Doodle
Doodle
gel pen on steno pad

We had another training session today for GL3.1. What is GL3.1, you ask? GL3.1 is a royal pain in my ass, that’s what GL3.1 is. It’s the latest version of our cataloging system, and the most drastic upgrade the company has made since I began working in the program in, I believe, 1999. Supposedly, the newest changes were made in an effort to make the program ADA compliant. I don’t see how that’s possible, though. Aside from adding the ability to change the background colors, none of the other new GUI tweaks are actually usable. As in, we can, in theory, change our fonts, but in actuality, doing so will screw up diacritics. And, when in the previous version something could be accomplished with one click, it now takes about 20. I’m not exaggerating, either. One of my coworkers kept track today, and to import a record from OCLC and finish cataloging it, she had to make 70+ clicks. That’s ridiculous! But hey, we get pretty colors to compensate, right?

So today was our, supposedly, final training session. Of course, we’ve only been cataloging in the new system for the past month. Better late than never, I guess. Even with doodling to keep me focused, I started to glaze over about an hour into it.

Art, Doodles

Doodle

I said I was going to dig out the gel pens, and so I did. While watching another episode of Rome, I did some mindless doodling. For those who are familiar with both shows, don’t Atia and Octavia bear a striking resemblance to Eddie and Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous? I kept expecting Atia to call Octavia “sweetie darling.”

Stonehenge Journal:  Doodle
gel pen on 90lb Stonehenge paper
5 5/8 x 7 1/2 inches