I went to San Francisco last weekend to give a talk with Jeff Eisenberg about our projects on display at Swarm Gallery. It was a really interesting discussion, the kind that seems only possible in the formal context of a presentation. After, we got to work on our new installation, based on the animation I made for the Faculty Show here in Billings a few months ago (still above).All these images are from SF, a playful street mural. Enjoy as I meditate while typing.
I've been handling my stress poorly lately. It's very text book: new job, new bureaucracy, new location, new house, etc. No friends or family in town, so all associates are brand new too. I took a 22% paycut to take this job, in exchange for the elusive title of "tenure track" and the veil of "job security"; not surprising to say, I'm finding my financial situation much tighter than I've been in since working at a camera shop in Silicon Valley before the dot-com crash. Add to it a significantly colder winter and less sunlight throughout the year than Californians are meant to have (not just number of hours, but angle of impact, which I never really noticed until here). At least sunny days are more common than not, but the sun never gets high enough to hit the yard I can see from my bedroom, and my only south facing windows are in rooms I spend little time. Add to it things like a very conservative city/state, a stagnant cultural scene, and bizarre counterproductive interdepartmental systems, and I fell crushed under the weight of it.
It's easy to be tempted to throw in the towel. The whole idea of moving to such a remote, arctic (ok, I exaggerate) place is comical in retrospect and doesn't seem like a real, long-term plan. On the other hand, I didn't think I would be in Indiana as long as I was. I didn't predict missing Indiana either. But I also felt my body let out a sigh in San Francisco, felt muscles relax that I didn't even know were tense. And honestly. I think it had more to do with politics than climate. Who would have thought politics would be something you would notice (post-election) when just walking down the street from one coffee shop/wifi spot to another (I put in 30 hours easy on the upcoming project)? But it's little things. My mixed-ethnicity student who casually makes an anti-Latino racist statement during a critique. Another student using a discussion of Shepard Fairy's images to make an attack on the president that is also vaguely race-based. It's exhausting curtailing these kinds of statements. I'm so sick of racists, and they seem to go hand-in-hand in red states. 
It will be fine. I'm looking into sun-simulating lights to try to convince myself the situation isn't so dark. Have to find the best deals of course, since it's a splurge; I already bought a humidifier to try to counter the terrible allergic reactions I'm having to being in such dry weather with dusty, drying heaters blowing on me all the time. I just finished hanging my new curtains and rods in the bedroom: thermal ones to try to keep in more heat. A deal at $350 total. My room is too messy for a good picture, but I will post one soon.
Here is a picture of a rock with googly eyes glued on it.
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