Broadway Market

Today I went to the Broadway Market with a girl from my class.

We began the afternoon with strawberry beer in a cozy little pub while sharing a delicious lavender cupcake. And then we braved the wind to wander the food market. I really lucked out, and for the first time since I've moved here I am excited to cook all the healthy food in my refrigerator.

Currently I am stocked with a huge sweet potato, parsnips, carrots, fresh rosemary, a creamy goat cheese, ripe oranges, green apples, an incredible fresh pesto, organic heirloom tomatoes, green onions, chicken breast, and of course a homemade brownie.

I can't wait to cook dinner!

Along the walk to and from the market my classmate and her boyfriend pointed out all of their local hang out spots. I now know a great Chinese place, a yummy pizza joint, some delicious restaurants, a good local cinema, and some of the best pubs in the area by their standards. It's nice knowing people who have lived here a year longer than I have.

Yeay food and nice people!

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I've been wide awake at 2am, curled up in a warm bed, laptop against my knees. Or maybe it was only five weeks ago, but my life in San Francisco feels so distant now. I can recall all the places and people that pieced together my life there, but somehow life is completely different nowadays. Well, not completely different, I suppose. It is somehow still exactly the same while being entirely new.

I meant to write something on October 20th to mark my One Month in London anniversary, but I recall the 20th consisting of a very emotional evening after a very tiring day. Had I been in a more optimistic place that night, I would have toasted making it this far with a mini bottle of champagne and a single champagne glass. But I was not in that headspace, and there will be plenty of other dates that will be more significant in the future.

Some friends from California just emailed me to say that they are in London for the next few days. On top of my friends in Poland coming to scope out apartments, I also have SO MUCH to do before The Boy comes to visit me in ten days. And all of these social engagements are going to have to be worked around a very big homework project that is due on Friday. As I discussed in an earlier entry, I really have to work hard on my next couple of projects to make sure I don't remain at the bottom of my class. This project needs to be Good, as in the Capitalized G and italicized variety of "good". I will not get up in front of this class and present another project that I feel the need to apologize for. I refuse the suffer that humiliation again. So this week I might not be posting much.

It's 2:30 exactly and I am starting to regret that delicious cup of coffee I made at 6:00 after two failed attempts at an afternoon nap. Why oh why can't I be the napping type? I could get away with so much more late-night drawing sessions if I could just nap every now and then. I envy people that are good sleepers. Like beauty or brains, there is a gross inequality of good sleep amongst the human race. Someone should see to that.

2:33, and I am starting to feel a hint of sleep at the corners of my vision. I might be so bold as to suggest a yawn is imminent.

Yep, that was a yawn. I guess that's the sign that this redhead needs to unplug and shut down for a few hours.

Good night dear silent readers, whoever you are. Like my favorite Central Line train operator says on Friday mornings, "please remember to take all your belongings with you when you exit the train. And whoever you are, where ever you're going, and whatever the weather, have a lovely weekend and stay safe."

A Few More Fabric Experiments

Today I went into class feeling like shit. I didn't get any great ideas from all my drawing and painting last night, and spent the better part of the evening having a really difficult State of the Union discussion with The Boy that went until 2am.

I had decided to run with the theme my teacher suggested (peacocks) and to my dismay, I'd come up with nothing I liked. I painted, I printed, I did hideous things to fabric all morning long. Finally I decided it was time for a coffee break. Nothing takes care of your woes like some caffeine, and a few people asking if your quiet morning is the result of sleepiness or something more. It's nice to feel cared about, even if it's just a casually friendly classmate's kind of caring.

I came back to the print room wanting to try something different. So I stopped drawing literal illustrations, and began crumpling up fabric and smearing dyes around until I got something I liked.

The results of these experiments used the colors I kept pulling together for my peacock illustrations, but used them in a less obvious way. And when I smoothed out my crumpled fabric I was reminded of origami. And while talking to my new favorite gay boy, I arrived at the conclusion that I wanted to do menswear tailoring with my brightly colored fabrics.

So I took out a book on origami, a book on menswear, and a book on Pucci (just for good measure) and I'm trying to work from there.

Here are my favorite results from today's experiments in Heat Transfer Printing:

My original test that inspired my new theme:


A follow-up test using a sheer fabric and overlaying fishnet:


A variation of my colors and print method:


And lastly, I shoved this fabric into what used to be a fishnet stocking, tied it up unto a ball, printed it, squished it in another direction, printed it, took it out of the stocking, squished it and printed it again, and did it once more for good measure:



So, yes... peacock colored origami menswear-inspired womenswear. We'll see how it goes....

Dinner = NOM NOM NOM

One of my room mates and I made dinner tonight. We baked chicken breasts that I rubbed in olive oil and seasoned with black pepper, chili powder, garlic, rosemary, basil, and lemon salt. We baked them with onions and sticks of seasoned carrots and parsnips.

The chicken was crispy with seasoning on the outside, and perfectly moist on the inside from all the olive oil, and the veggies were amazing! We shared half a bottle of white wine, and enjoyed our 20 minute meal that was delicious and healthy.

Go team!

Early Fabric Tests

Keeping in mind that we were only given bright colors to work with, and the way the fabric dyes paint make it impossible to see what sorts of colors you're working with as you're painting, here are some of my favorite fabric printing experiments:

My favorite:


And then the same thing, printed through fishnet:


A splatter test:


Trying to get a muddier color instead of all bright neons:


One more test, printed on silver lamé:




I donno what I'm doing, and these were all just tests to see how the dyes react, and how the colors blend, and what happens when you print on different fabrics.

But there you go. My first trials in heat transfer dyes. TA DA!

It's Getting Better All the Time....

While I let this paint dry I thought I'd take a moment to catch you up. After a very difficult week, I am pleased to say that I have had a really good couple of days.

We have begun printing on fabric. It's been SO much fun playing around with dyes while we try to get a feel for painting with the intention of printing. Of course the real work is about to begin because we've all been just messing around with the dyes, giggling at the unexpected outcomes of our work. But now we actually have to figure out how to make the medium do what we want, as we begin designing a small collection using our prints.

I've been sketching and painting at home, trying really hard to find the direction I want to start working in. I've had no luck so far. After a meeting with my tutor today I have a better idea, but I still have a long way to go.

Besides the fact that printing on fabric is incredibly fun, it's had a few side benefits as well. Now that we are all working together in the tiny print room, we've started talking and developing relationships with one another. I'm finding that I really get along with quite a few of the other students, and some of the people I thought I'd clash with are turning out to be decent folks who were just as nervous as I was those first couple of weeks.

Thrilled by possible friendships, I am making excuses to invite people out. So, on top of the hours I'll be putting into my project this weekend, my next few days will hopefully be filled with things like attending a fashion lecture at the V&A with two classmates I really like, a trip to a farmer's market with a girl who lives down the street from me, and possibly going to the new Warhol exhibit with this girl I met on.. um... ok I met her on facebook, but she goes to my school. Anyhow, the point is I have a busy weekend ahead of me, and thankfully some of the busy stuff is social.

In the last two days I ordered some shelves from IKEA, found an awesome vintage "rock star" jacket, found three great fabric stores, began teaching myself how to paint, had a bonding moment with a gay boy over trashy drag queeny fabrics, got my first locker in the entirety of my educational history, was asked to design some graphics for my friend's T-shirt startup, and bought myself a printer/scanner that is already going to good use. So I guess, life is busy, expensive, and generally good right now.

I had my mp3 list on random the other day, and the song "La Vida Es Un Carnaval" came on. The lyrics of the chorus can be roughly translated to say "No need to cry, because life is a carnival. It's more beautiful to live it singing...." Maybe it's cheesy, but it kinda picked me up with its lyrics about people never truly being alone in life, and how you could be sure that nothing is going to change, but that things will always get better. Thank you Celia Cruz for a much-needed reminder.

And now I'm off to Sainsbury's with a room mate to buy food and a decent chopping knife. Hopefully this paint will be dry by the time I get back and I can continue working on my project before I go to dinner with another room mate for a drawing date.

Remember

When I have nights like tonight where I feel so lost that I cannot see light in any direction, I need to remember that I am in control of my life. And that I define what my life and future will be.

Dorm Progression, week 5

To counter the gloomy nature of my last few posts here's a pretty picture or two of my dorm room, as it's slowly getting more livable.

You can see why I need shelving and drawers. It's getting a bit cluttered, and I hate clutter.



I finally got a cheap full length mirror (which I am using to hang bags off of, apparently). I happened to see this mirror for sale in a dodgy shop a few miles down the road from my dorm. I paid the nervous looking man, and carried it for the next couple of hours. First into a Chinese restaurant where I went to dinner, and then carried another mile or two home. It's a well-traveled little mirror.




And I got this wooden box originally to put some light-sensitive things in, but found that storing things in it and using it as a bedside table was much more pragmatic. And this afternoon I stuck some old pictures on it, and a collage I did a few years back on plastic. It's a little dodgy, but better than plain wood.

I'm Such a Fucking Downer

I think perhaps I shouldn't drink.

Not because I can't control how much I drink, but because I relax my tightly wound emotions when I drink. And then I fall to pieces.

"I am fine" is the phrase I keep using whenever someone asks how I am. And it's true, I am fine. But only until I let myself go a little. And then I am miserable.

But it makes no sense. I keep asking myself, "why am I so miserable?" I'm in LONDON for fuck's sake. I am LIVING in LONDON studying at one of the best schools in the world. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it is that is bothering me so much. If I could figure out exactly what it is, I could go about fixing it. But here I am, so miserable I can't even hold decent conversation.

When I am in a new social situation, I usually put on my "fabulous face" to get me through the nervous moments. But these days I am guarded and nervous, and I hide it by being quiet. Which doesn't lend itself to meeting new interesting people, surprisingly. I'm just so wound up I can barely contain my desperation, and no one wants to be around someone who's desperate. I know I don't.

In short, I am boring because I am depressed.

The worst thing is that I realize I am fucking this up. This should be the most interesting, wild, creative time of my life. I should be out meeting people, doing things, seeing things, having fun. And here I am at home, wasting it by being miserable and lonely. I am so mad at myself! But I can't seem to fix the problem. I don't even know how to go about starting. And I have no one here to help me do it, either. No one to drag me out despite my protests, and force me to have a good time. And I need that right now. I really need it.

Determined to become a more social and independent woman, I planned to go to a pub alone last night. I intended to have a few drinks, meet some new people, and then come home. After dinner my room mates and I had a few glasses of wine while they helped me pick an outfit for my pub crawl. We were discussing boys, sex toys, and generally having a good raunchy girl talk, when suddenly I stopped having fun. They had to go get ready for their own evening plans, and I began to silently freak out.

That's when I saw my boyfriend online and begged him to come see me. I mean, I begged. I became so damn desperate I couldn't control myself. I NEEDED to see him. Of course he couldn't just pop over. The couple of thousand miles between us makes it hard for him to stop by for a few hours on a whim. But I couldn't stop myself from begging him, wishing more than anything in the world that he could magically appear at my door.

This of course put him in the undesirable position of having to say "no" to repeated unreasonable requests. Each time he said it I felt like I was getting punched in the gut. I wanted to throw up. I was so disappointed (even though it wasn't his fault), and right then decided I couldn't stand to live like this anymore. I decided that I was old enough to know that I am putting myself through unnecessary torture, so I made the drunken, grand decision that I would move home after this quarter was over.

And then my boyfriend got pissed at me, and rightly so. He got offline to start his day and let me cool down. Suddenly alone in my panic, I felt even more miserable and hopeless than before. Furious at him, and at myself I went to bed early. No going out for this redhead. My outfit for my planned night was still laid out on my bed when I crawled under the thin quilt to sleep. I found it in a messy pile at the foot of my bed this morning.

It seems I come apart every time I talk to my boyfriend. He is the only person I can talk to with any honesty about how I feel, and he's at the center of most of my feelings about being here. So the poor guy gets to hear all the crap and listen to me break down every few days. He's handling it really well, but I can't keep doing this to him. And I know he's nearing his breaking point with my complaining. I won't be winning any Best Girlfriend of the Year awards, I'm afraid. I'll be lucky to get a Miss Emotional Stability ribbon.

I hesitate to say, "I should be...." because that is a verbal set up for failure. But I should be happy. I should be. I really, really should be. Or at least I should be a little excited, or a little thrilled. But I am finding it hard to live in the moment, and see this opportunity for what it is. All I can focus on is how lonely I am, and how lonely I will continue to be if I can't shake this downer bullshit.