On to the next one

Blogger is SO five years ago!

Not that anyone reads this anymore, but anyway there's too much social media I have to keep up. So I don't plan on reviving this one... you can find more spurts of my babble and inspiration at my Domojun Tumblr account, @mightyjune Twitter account, "mightyjune" on Instagram, and my Flickr photos.

As of this moment I'm still freelancing as a Designer & Illustrator in beautiful, sunny Los Angeles, CA, and about to partake in the dating scene there as well! So far it's looking surprisingly pleasant, but I don't want to jinx myself. Wish me luck!

xoxo

Singlehood: Not So Annoying

Today I got a really sweet response on a dating service:

"Why is it that no one has scooped you up already?"

But my instinctual response was "Because most men are annoying." No, I didn't actually write that back. I just didn't write back.

I realize there are exceptions, and that's why I have male friends and female friends/relatives in perfectly lovely relationships. But browsing what's available on personal ads on dating services makes me want to kill myself. Well not really, but it certainly doesn't motivate me to date anybody.

Anyway, I am gonna go fix myself up my home version of an Egg veggie Sausage McMuffin sandwich and continue with my less annoying singlehood until someone not so annoying (but rather, hot, inspiring, bright, expressive, and supportive) comes along.

From Spouts to Spurts

In this age of social media and spurts of information, my ADD has grown and, well, I rarely am in the mood to spout on for paragraphs about stuff anymore.

I suppose I am spending more time nowadays either exploring and absorbing information and inspiration and then making stuff, like this:



You know, less talk, more action!

So I started a tumblr blog that will hopefully be more regularly updated and less wordy. I'm debating whether this will have some redundant posts that I put on Facebook, but I suppose it will be nice for my non-friends who just like my posts. And maybe that will be easier for searching archived posts, because right now Facebook really sucks at that.

And in the rare times I feel like I have more to say, I will come back to this blog. Who knows? I started this blog years ago, just to understand why people blog and how it works. I guess I'm still figuring that out.

Man of the Hour

Man Of The Hour - Norah Jones

I just heard this song by Norah Jones, and I really like it, particularly this part:

But I can’t choose
Between a vegan and a pot head
So I chose you, because you’re sweet and you give me lots of lovin’ and you eat meat
And that’s how you became
My only man of the hour

You never lie
And you don’t cheat
And you don’t have any baggage tied to your forefeet

But what does it mean if he's the Man of the Hour? Does she have a different one for each hour of the day? I can barely handle one.

Meh, I guess I'll go back to drawing those effing butterflies for work. I hate butterflies.

P.S. The tiger dress arrived and fits! Now I think maybe it's not as crazy to wear it out semi-casually as I thought. Unless I'm slowly turning into one of those older ladies that dresses a little kooky. Or did that already happen a long time ago!?

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

(That's Mandarin and Cantonese for Happy New Year)

It's the year of the tiger, so I found it appropriate to indulge in this ridiculous dress I found on eBay. It hasn't arrived yet, so I hope it fits. And I hope to find an occasion to wear it... Traditionally I think people are supposed to wear new clothes for the occasion, but I don't have anything weather-appropriate that's new for now so instead I am wearing new nail polish.

Or I may head over to East Village and maybe find something else new to wear. And possibly check out firecrackers and food in Chinatown. Hope you all have a healthy and fortuitous new Lunar Year!

Inspiration of the Week

I have to apologize for my Facebook friends for the redundancy of this post, but I've decided that while Facebook is great for sharing fun inspiration with friends, it's not great for archiving those links.

So here are a few things that I found to be really amazing creative work recently:



Luxirare

As I was chatting with someone recently, things that are hand-crafted seem especially precious in today's digital age of mass-production. It even seems a little rebellious, which is why I find this artist/designer/crafts-woman so amazing. I don't even know her real name; she's chosen to be anonymous but has branded her work as "Luxirare." She sometimes models her own fashion wares but keeps her face obscured. But what I really love about her site is that she carefully documents her process, which is always the part I wish were more revealed somewhere when I look at creative work that I like.



I first discovered her set of hand-crafted crayons, composed totally of food items. Do you draw with or eat them?? Also as someone who is generally a little sloppy and poor at physical cutting and pasting things together, I find it all a little insane and impressive.



Some of you may remember my foray into baking where I made cakeball pops? Well those seem terribly amateurish when you check out Luxirare's PIE lollipops. She even crafts some amazing and edgy fashion, such as her crazy-tall platform boots.



***

Mouk, by Marc Boutavant



I discovered this children's book at the MoMA gift shop. The pages are abundant with little animal characters, introducing you to little cultural tidbits of daily life in different countries. PLUS it includes a few pages of STICKERS!!!

I'll have to check out his other children's books as well; it's like a new European version of Richard Scarry (which I adored as a child). You could just stare at these pages over and over just to peruse the details, and I love his retro style. P.S. Drawn! is one of my favorite blogs.

It's artists like this that inspired me to recently buy a set of gouache paints to play with.

But I'm having difficulty focusing on a skill to master; aside from the gouache paints, I've got a Flash animation book on my desk, crochet patterns to invent, tap shoes waiting for their first lesson, and don't forget my DS Chinese lessons! Ohh and right now I need to work out and take a nap. And to draw more stickers that I owe my current freelance client. Damn my ADD.

Speaking of which, don't you miss Ace of Base? Don't judge me. This song got me over my first breakup.

Cousins!

This goes out to all my awesome cousins!!



Also I just really love this band, how can you not? So adorable and fun. Also you can download their new album at Amazon for just 5 bucks! Amazing. They also just seem like guys you could hang out with. (I think I especially like the drummer but they've all got their own brand of preppy-cute.)

Gettin' my regular art fix

It's happening! I am now seeing art on a regular basis! Last night I went to First Thursdays in DUMBO to check out a gang of open little galleries. It was a huge variety of things that ranged from abstract paintings to digital projections and tilt-shift photography.

There wasn't as much that I personally thought was great art, but it was just fun to explore, and I joined up with a new (and okay, cute) friend who was really great to converse with about making art and what we liked or didn't like about different types of art. Although, I realized toward the end that we probably missed out on some amazing people-watching, so I will try to take advantage of that next time I go.

We topped off the night with pizza at Grimaldi's (finally!) and a random goth-industrial-electronic music show, at which they played ridiculous 90s dance hits such as "Rhythm is a Dancer" in between bands. Surprisingly the crowd really loved the dance music and bopped around like crazy. I must admit that I got really excited when I recognized an Ace of Base song. Of course, later a girl was dancing and rammed her elbow into my beer bottle as I was drinking. I tried to check if my tooth was chipped by feeling around it but it was already chipped so I couldn't tell! (It was fine, thank goodness)

Someone handed my friend a huge flaming blunt? Or was it a cigar? (I don't know, I'm too straightedge for this) which I dubbed the Hipster Olympic torch. I'm talking awkward '80s frames, sawed-off haircuts and unflattering clothes all over the place. (Also looking around at this crowd made me think I was strangely fat but I didn't really want to be that skinny either.)

Anyway, in the last month I also checked out the Joshua Liner Gallery, the Jonathan Levine Gallery, and the Opera Gallery.

I was not as crazy about the neon surrealist art at Joshua Liner this time; I think it was generally all a bit too flat and the compositions were too scattered for my taste. But I loved the stuff at Jonathan Levine. The first time I went, it was Audrey Kawasaki, who had sold out of all her pieces. She does ethereal sort of erotic and very pretty female figures drawn on wood.



A week later, I returned to the same gallery with my roommate, when she wanted to see Saelee Oh's cut-paper and painted art. There was another painter called Doze Green who did large, colorful paintings that had a mix of various religious symbols and totem-inspired idol imagery. But I was most excited by Josh Keyes' work. Josh Keyes is this amazing surrealist painter who uses realist painting techniques and focuses on ecological themes.



I was admiring one of his immaculate paintings and said, "This guy must be really anal," but I didn't mean it in a bad way. Of course then I realized that he was standing behind me and then I felt like a complete jackass. But I have a feeling he wasn't too worried because I think he was getting lots of attention.



At the Opera Gallery in Soho, there was a theme of subversively cute portraits of cartoonishly giant baby-like heads. Maybe a bit Yoshitomo Nara-esque, but I love that stuff. Kathie Olivas did these rich oil paintings of children dressed in animal-suits, chewing on tentacles, with really lovely layers of highlights. Brandt Peters does these goth-looking vampy caricatures playing with skulls.



And there was an amusing pop artist called Mr. Brainwash who did some enormous Warhol-esque paint/printing over collage of famous faces and posterized images of celebrities formed from cutouts of vinyl records.

But the artist I found to be surprisingly impressive was an artist named John John Jesse. He paints these amazingly intricate and romantic portraits of gorgeous, half-nude punk rock, dangerous looking girls, surrounded by wonderful knickknacks, all rendered in brilliantly sharp focus. And I love how he sometimes used a sort of exaggerated perspective. Plus he uses a complex mix of spray paint, ink and oil on wood, all highlighted in gleaming sparkles. Very mesmerizing and beautifully framed.



The other side effect of all this art and a constantly growing collection of karaoke- enthusiastic friends is that my frequency of drinking has spiked this month. I have learned from my New Year's Eve debacle(s) and at least now I don't get too tipsy. But then again I'm not that young anymore, so I should probably take it easy and get back to some crocheting and learning Chinese on my Nintendo DS like a nice little old lady.