Skip to main content

Posts

Anna Strikes Again

The graduation ceremony here is quite different. It's similar to how my high school graduation was. The faculty read a really nice blurb about each person graduating, even taking quotes from their final paper. Like my acceptance letter from the school, except longer and more flowery. Everyone was crying. Boxes of tissues circulated through the audience. The event was being live-streamed via internet, so that is good to know. The diplomas were given to the graduates from a member of their families. So people's spouses, parents, siblings, children, whoever they chose to be their person stood up on stage and present the graduate with the diploma. It was really nice.

Right in the middle though, the power all went out. And of course, people were attributing it to Anna, and as far as I know, no one even tried to turn the power back on.

The president of the school stood up and said he had prepared a few words and proceeded to read his speech. Somewhere in the speech he said directing…
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

We're Going to Make It

Yesterday was meeting after meeting. First, a workshop in the morning about critical reading, then I met privately with the program director to talk about scholarships and grants, then I had a meeting with Dont about my Artist-Teacher, then I had a meeting with my group in the library to talk about my research topic. Just boring meetings all day.

The library A post shared by Jaime Tamrakar (@anonymous_hermit) on Jul 27, 2017 at 8:15pm PDT
The program director is so kind. She is just one of the warmest nicest ladies I've met. I was in her office talking about financial aid and somehow we started talking about the baby and what I'm going to do next residency. She said, have someone come with you and bring the baby, stay off campus, I have a resources I know some places nearby. She had it all figured out. She has a little two-year-old boy who is arguably one of the cutest little kids I've ever seen. I don't even say that about kids, but he is really something. Anyway, she …
Post a Comment
Read more

The Hallmark Club

How is it possible to wake up more tired than you fell asleep seven hours earlier? Somehow it is and I have done it. I was so exhausted after breakfast that I accidentally fell asleep and almost woke up late for my critique with photographer Adam Pape. Then I woke up and had a few minutes to get there. But I really had to go to the bathroom. So I had to make a judgement call: "What's more important: being there on time? or staying regular?" I chose the bathroom. That's where I'm at right now.

On the way back from my critique, I had a conversation with Zach, a fellow photographer further along in the program. He has three kids, the youngest being three months old and the oldest looks about five. He has a full time job, and is doing this program. He asked me when I was due and if I had a plan for how I was going to handle balancing everything. He expressed how life is super freaking difficult to balance all of his various things.

I also talked to a student in my gr…
Post a Comment
Read more

Culmination of Criticism

Here's a collection of all the feedback I got from all the Critters.

 Harmony Hammond (badass critiquing skillz) They are strikingly beautiful and intriguing. They are rich, luscious, sensual. The feeling of being transported to another plane we don't often get to see. Think about getting the pictures off the wall. Maybe have them hanging a few inches away from the wall, or presented in some other way. Maybe having only pins in the top corners have the bottom corners free. Experiment with different papers, more unusual papers. Think of ways they can have more presence in the room. Think about size, should they be bigger? Maybe they should be "larger than life" as in, larger than people. What else can you do? Juxtapose more than one kind of veggie in the frame? Play more with multiples? More techniques like incorporating more photoshop/drawing/painting? 
Heather Ferrell (Museum Curator) If the project is about shape/form/texture maybe have them presented in such a way th…
Post a Comment
Read more

Hashtag: Asylum Life

Two in five artists, people. Two in five.

It was the number I came up with after my research a couple classes ago, but it seems to be pretty accurate. You know what I'm talking about. 
Apparently, it is tradition to come up with a name for our class. I can't think of such things. Someone suggested it has to have something to do with Js because there are 5 of us whose names start with J: Jaime, Jason, Jessica, Jessica, Jo. But then that leaves out the rest of them so I don't think that's a good idea. The graduating class' name has something to do with Dolly, which is why the dance is Dolly Parton themed. One of the other classes was Wanderlust, which got shortened sometimes to Lusters. 
It was raining pretty heavy when I went to sleep last night, and it rained all through the night. I left my window open and listened to the sound. This morning the rain seems to have subsided.  With the rain has come a strange musty smell in my room. I'm not sure where it's c…
Post a Comment
Read more

Deadlines, Deadstudents

Today an interesting thing happened. In the morning for breakfast, one of the older students asked me if I had a critique scheduled this morning. I said I didn't, and she asked me if I wanted to have a critique with Harmony Hammond, who seems to be one of the more highly-acclaimed critters here. All of her critique slots filled up immediately and no one had a chance. This lady had a critique scheduled with harmony this morning, but she realized she has a conflict, and can't make it, she doesn't want to leave her high and dry, so she was trying to find someone else to go instead. I think this means I'm lucky. And boy, what a difference it made. Harmony is great. She had really interesting ideas and feedback for everyone. I liked the way she always started by just simply describing what she was seeing, or thought she was seeing. With my photos, she was convinced that it was somehow painted/drawn elements intermingled with the photos. She asked the group how they felt loo…
Post a Comment
Read more

All the Students' Tears

I woke up this morning to all of the student's tears pouring down across the campus after last night's strange lecture somehow about the history of modernism, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, ideology, and artist burnout. I would like to ask others if anyone understands anything from that. I would be surprised. It was an odd way to end the evening.

I woke up to this. A post shared by Jaime Tamrakar (@anonymous_hermit) on Jul 24, 2017 at 3:48am PDT Yesterday afternoon, we had a research methodologies meeting where people brainstormed together what was our schick when it comes to research. And Dont (yes that's his name) was talking about how when we find something that blatantly contradicts, we tend to just throw it out, like "Ah, ha! I caught you!" and throw out the entire source. Or we then seek out to prove or disprove the statements. But what we should do is let those contradictions sit with us and they "become the borders around a path that needs exploring.…
Post a Comment
Read more