Results tagged “BFA” from NoMuse

Every time I try to write about myself, I wind up rolling my eyes at what I've written. A recent Facebook meme reminded me that Jodi handled her about page in way that I might ape. Here are 101ish factoids you probably didn't know about me:

1. My computer is named apophenia.
2. When I was young, I had to learn to cook something. My mother assigned me bread in the form of a family recipe for dinner rolls. I enjoy making bread. At this writing, I'm playing with a variety of flatbreads. And the best pastry ever devised, Kouign Amann.
3. I've run a personal web server connected to the internet for over a decade.
4. Haruki Murakami is one of my very favorite authors. I love the recurring theme of spaghetti in his stories and novels.
5. Stitch count matters.
6. When the Apple II was hot poo, I had my only formal programming class. The language was BASIC. I wrote a dungeon crawl game. It worked, but "game" might be a generous use of the word.
7. I studied film fairly seriously early in my university career. I wanted to be a filmmaker. Then I got a "real" job and being young, married, and poor became much less attractive.
8. I dabbled in critical theory and art history after I finished my bachelors degree. I was a much better student when I dabbled than when I was actually going to school.
9. I really like American Abstract Expressionism; although, I don't know that I would like Newman, Rothko, Motherwell, and Still without historical context.
10. These factoids are, at best, pseudo-random.
11. I love Ray Caesar's work. I bought the first bound retrospective of his work for Nat to give me as a gift. His print "Blessed" sold me on his work and remains my favorite.
12. I first used Photoshop version 2 on an Irix box.
13. Grep cured me of an early Microsoft bias and revealed to me the truth and beauty of Unix.
14. I worked for a commercial Linux company once. Before it became rabidly evil.
15. When I was in high school, I wanted to be James Bond. Near graduation, I phoned the CIA recruiter in Dallas, Texas and said, "I want to be a clandestine operative." The person fielding my call asked if I spoke Russian or Arabic. I spoke neither. He said that clandestine operatives were selected based on their psychological profiles, but that one language or the other would be useful. I learned some Russian.
16. I love porcelain.
17. I have enjoyed making teapots in the past. I think the idea of tea is fantastic. I cannot, however, catch the habit. My inability to regularly consume tea may be related to the general "boiled water" flavor.
18. I commute just less than 15 miles each way to work by bicycle several times a week. Year round.
19. I have a semi-charmed life.
20. I'm learning to play classical guitar. Again. I've just started a new twenty-year plan for learning the instrument. Or 10,000 hours, whichever comes first.
21. Orwell's "1984" is one of my favorite books. While I considered grad school, I wrote my application essay around the torture scenes in the second half of the book. The paper is titled "The Priests of Power."
22. You can catch me on Twitter as "jackskitchen." Intermittently. I tend to post when I've done or thought something that I find interesting. There is an overabundance of folk on Twitter, who tweet the minutia of life. You really don't need to know when I'm out to lunch. I mean, that's pretty much all the time.
23. You are in a maze of twisting passages, all a like.
24. In the when that was (circa 1987), I submitted 500 hand addressed postcard entries to a contest supporting the release of Pink Floyd's "A Momentary Lapse of Reason." The prize was an airplane and flight lessons. Someone within a couple hours of my home won the plane. He or she likely submitted one entry. I still love Pink Floyd's song "Learning to Fly."
25. If I had to pick one favorite restaurant right now, I would most likely pick the local micro-chain Mazza.
26. In 2004 I went a little barmy. I bought four '70s vintage Volkswagen buses. One ran. Sort of. After much dilly-dallying, I got rid of three. I made the remaining bus run. The engine started clanking less than two blocks from my house on the maiden voyage. That bus has been darkening our drive in an auto cocoon for the last four years. Two days ago I was struck by the thought that the clatter was more likely an hydraulic lifter than rod slap. I will seriously LOL and ROFL if its been sitting all this time without a real problem. I may even LMFAO. (Editor's note: It wasn't lifter clatter. I did not get to LOL.)
27. A few years ago, my brother gave me bamboo flooring as a gift. I took off a few days from work to redo the kitchen floor. With one thing and another, six months later, I had a fully remodeled kitchen.
28. A hasty departure from an undesirable location.
29. At this writing, I own 116 cookbooks or books related to food and cooking.
30. When our first son Cole was born, I stayed home with him half days until he was six months old. He and I watched and re-watched Akira Kurasawa's films. And napped. I miss naps.
31. I love romantic comedies. "The Lady Eve" sets the bar for what constitutes a good "chick flick." Not many romantic comedies even reach the acceptable level.
32. I keep bees. I keep what used to be a Yugoslavian variety, the Carniolan (apis mellifera carnica). I don't know if the bees are of Slovenian or Montenegrin origin. Knowing was easier just a few years ago.
33. I became so worried about my bees the first winter that I bought a stethoscope.
34. I started a vegetable garden two years ago as a way to reduce the amount of grass I have to mow. I look forward to the quiet of weeding the garden on Sunday mornings.
35. In 2008, I rode Lotoja, a 206 mile bicycle road race from Logan, Utah to Jackson, Wyoming, for the first time. I had a fantastic time and look forward to improving my course time this year.
36. I finished a studio art bachelors degree in 2004. I haven't made any art since the first year of my art program.
37. Is my favorite number.
38. I play a Cervantes classical guitar. I demoed a half dozen guitars in my price range at Acoustic Music, including a vintage Japanese model, the idea of which intrigued me. None came close to the tone and sound quality of the guitar I bought.
39. I have a mostly healthy obsession for merino wool clothing.
40. When I was in my teens, I took voice lessons once. My money was refunded. In elementary school, I was assigned to run the lights for a school choir concert. I should have accepted that I'd never be a singer in a rock and roll band at that point. At least I got my money back.
41. When the TI-99/4a was hot poo, I started teaching myself to program. The storage mechanism was an audio cable interface to a cassette recorder. I couldn't ever understand why I wasn't able to restore my programs to the 99/4a's memory. Much later at university, I took a class on the physics of high fidelity audio. One of the class's labs involved the variance in recorded audio quality between Type I, Type II, and 10-for-$1 audio cassettes. I'll leave the guessing as to which type of cassette my parents bought me for my programs to your imagination.
42. Is the answer. To that one question.
43. I received my first moving violation a couple of weeks before my sixteenth birthday. My law enforcement employed father was not amused.
44. My friend Chris gave me my first classical guitar, a Yamaha G-65, twenty-some years ago. I still have the guitar, which is younger than I am, but older than Nat is. It lives at my office and twangs a bit during lunch breaks. Behind my closed and locked door.
45. I am mostly happy with how my life is turning out.
46. Though I own a full set of the Sandman graphic novels, I've never read volume 10. I haven't wanted the story to end.
47. Whiskey tango foxtrot.
48. I have entirely too many audio CDs. And my taste in music is highly suspect.
49. I really like modern, european board games. I am only occasionally frustrated when the packaged instructions are only in French. Or Sumerian.
50. Though I love my children, I don't love having children.
51. Suboptimal.
52. I suspect that David Addison's and Madelyn Hayes's relationship had a significant formative effect on me. Boink.
53. I have a definitely unhealthy obsession with jackets. And bags.
54. The reverse vampires in conjunction with the Rand Corporation...
55. I met my wife because my best friend was in smit with her best friend. Nat had a boyfriend and eventually told me to never speak to her again. We've been married for over 12 years, and, as far as I know, we're still not speaking.
56. In 1996, I applied for an internship with a local bank rewriting web content. Along the way, I wound up writing a web-based loan application that interfaced with the banking application. I was hired as a regular employee and one thing lead to another.
57. I enjoy knitting, but I don't make any time for it.
58. Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you.
59. William Gibson is another favorite author. His 2000 novel, "Pattern Recognition" included a character who wore a Buzz Rickson reproduction MA-1 flight jacket in black. The jacket was almost elevated to a character in the narrative. I wanted one. Really badly. Right up to the moment that I learned that Buzz Rickson didn't make a black MA-1 before the demand from Gibson's fans added it to their catalog. I don't cope well with simulacra in my life, though I find the concept a fascinating idea/subject.
60. I don't watch much broadcast television. I do watch TV series once they go to DVD. I'd much rather wait for the DVD than put up with commercials. And waiting week-to-week. However, "Dollhouse" and "Castle" may break me. As long as I can continue to watch them at my convenience online.
61. Welcome to late capitalism.
62. I'm a bit envious of folk who have always known what they wanted to be when they grew up or who have found a vocation at some point in their lives.
63. The majority of my wardrobe is black or charcoal grey, though some blue grey finds its way in. I had to learn to wear black. I suspect that I needed my art degree to provide myself permission to wear black. I still tend toward pre-shrunk 501s in the slightly faded blue flavor.
64. I have the best mother-in-law ever. She's one of my favorite people.
65. Terry Pratchett is definitely one of my top 5 authors. His novel "Night Watch" is my favorite. The story centers on a time paradox for one of my favorite characters that Pratchett sets up in the previous book and executes beautifully with nary a retcon to be found.
66. Where's my cow? I used Pratchett's story book in story book in novel to teach the children many of their animal sounds. I am very pleased when the children recognize that the storybook being pulled off the bookshelf in the story is the storybook that we are reading.
67. A few years ago, I took 24 hours to play in New York City. I searched for a turtle. I saw the Rauschenberg retrospective at the Met. I encountered my first Still, Rothko, and Pollock paintings in person. I had lunch with a friend. And I saw Ray Caesar's "Sweet Victory" show at Jonathon Levine Gallery.
68. I recently started a project to finish all my unfinished projects. As I result, I found a pair of cherry tool boxes that I started a few years ago. One just needs hardware installed before it is useful. The other requires tools to dado, rabbit, surface, and size a variety of panels. Though I'm a little giddy to have the boxes finished, -- they are, after all, hard-sided bags -- I am a bit whelmed by yet another project that has a long and ordered list of operations. And, I wonder if I haven't started another project that I won't get finished.
69. This line was left intentionally blank.
70. I really like the movie "Cashback," though the scene where the protagonist undresses the women frozen in time in the market makes me uncomfortable. I like naked women, particularly naked pretty women. This particular scene reads as overt and stereotypical objectification of women folk. Yes, I realize that the protagonist is imagining the scene. And I realize that all representational art is an objectification of that which is represented. I'm still discomforted by it.
71. No comment.
72. I really, really, really like Cold Stone Creamery's Peanut Butter Perfection. A whole bunch.
73. I have three bicycles and three classical guitars, though I might argue that the third guitar makes a better canoe paddle.
74. I like the idea of Dungeons and Dragons, but the implementation leaves me cold.
75. Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk!
76. In 1986, I bought Stephen King's "The Gunslinger." I loved the book and the world it created. However, I required a period of many years and many readings of the first movement of "The Drawing of the Three" before I could read the second movement. King is one of my top five authors.
77. I was obese for a while, though I didn't realize it at the time. I corrected my lifestyle, but I still don't have an accurate body image.
78. I develop recipes to bring the food we eat closer to the idea in my head of what the food should be.
79. We've participated in a community supported agriculture subscription the last few years. We tend to finally wipe out the previous year's potatoes about the time the next year's distributions start.
80. I went hunting once, when I was 17 or 18 years old. I went with a group of guys and few adults to hunt racoons. We were all armed with .22 caliber rifles. I killed and cleaned the raccoon for its hide. I regret killing the raccoon and never wanted to repeat the experience. The hide remained in an ever growing ball of ice in my parents' freezer until they moved from Texas. I had wanted to cure the hide, but in the pre-internet days of my youth, the books on tanning were always out at my local library and placing a request always seemed like too much effort.
81. I came across a good-sized rattlesnake that had been badly damaged by boys with rocks while I was on an organized camping trip. I killed, cleaned, and ate the snake. I harbor no regrets over the snake. I was hungry and it became food from which I had no separation.
82. The building where I work is located on the edge of the foothills. Last summer, a baby rattlesnake found its way to the immediate area of the entrances to my building. I phoned the campus police to have it relocated. The officer who responded ineptly bludgeoned the snake to death with an eight pound sledge hammer from the trunk of his patrol car. He later revealed a police vendetta against all rattlesnakes since one of his co-workers had been bitten and hospitalized. I'm still not sure whether I was more shocked by his matter-of-fact death-to-snakes attitude, his inability to quickly put the snake down, or that I completely forgot that I was holding, but not using, my camera during the assassination.
83. I think that I would like to hunt feral hog or javelina. What little meat I do eat tends to be pork. And, I'm curious whether or not I'd regret killing for food.
84. I have what my doctor calls an aversion to poultry. Though I love to eat chicken and turkey, my body rejects it violently.
85. When I find an piece of clothing that works for me on some level, I tend to buy several copies of the same item. This leads to questions from my wife when she packs for trips like, "How many uniforms do you want?"
86. I have a complete set of the AD&D campaign Planescape, but I've never played it.
87. I really enjoyed my limited intersection with the original Traveller RPG. I don't recall playing per se; but, I spent many happy hours designing characters and ships for the game.
88. After viewing the disaster that was "The Phantom Menace," I swore to not give George Lucas any more money on the Star Wars franchise. "Star Wars" was one of very few movies I saw in the theater as a child. Yes, I'm aware that the Star Wars universe is George's to screw up any way he sees fit. I see no need either to finance the rape and pillage of my childhood memories or to reward George's inability to leave things alone.
89. If a garment's care label reads "Dry Clean Only," it doesn't belong in my wardrobe. The same standard may apply to clothing that requires ironing.
90. The world has moved on.
91. I love Robert Munsch's "The Paperbag Princess." It is an important book. I try to give a copy of it to all the small girls that I know. Sometimes I forget that I've already given a young lady a copy, and she gets a second. The book is that important.
92. My copy of Jeff Moss's "Bob and Jack: A Boy and His Yak" still makes me cry. In several places.
93. I'm a fan of bookmooch.com. I've enjoyed shipping books for which I have no use off to new owners and homes where they'll be loved.
94. I collected comic books for a time back in the mid '80s. I preferred the X-Men and the various related titles of the era. Number Three spent an inordinately large sum of cash on a collectible Transformers comic, then proceeded to trash said collectible item. The paternal unit lost it and decreed a ban on comics. I had to sell my collection for a pittance. Somehow, I managed to hide away my favorite limited series -- "Longshot." For a bit, I thought that the mullet was a cool hair style.
95. I dabbled in comics again in the early '90s. I got hooked on "Sandman," "The Mythology of an Abandoned City," and "The Maxx."
96. I had my last, brief flirtation with printed comics in 1999. I really enjoyed J. Scott Campbell's "Danger Girl." It had spies, hot women who were spies, danger, cliffhangers -- what was not to love? I have a set of some of the toys that were marketed with the series. Still in their unviolated packaging. Cole often asks when I will get them out to play with them.
97. When Neil Gaiman came to Salt Lake City as part of one of his book tours a few years ago, I paid one of my younger brothers to stand in line and get Gaiman's back catalog signed. Whatever I paid him to do it for me was likely insufficient.
98. Last year, my buddy Jason invited us to catch a Rick Springfield concert at a small venue nearby. I'd never been a serious fan of Springfield's music, but his show was sufficiently amazing that I've become a fan. I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to see him in concert.
99. The number of concerts to which I've been can still be counted on both hands: Huey Lewis and the News, the Beach Boys, the Moody Blues, Bon Jovi, Sarah McLachlan, Wynona, and Rick Springfield.
100. I really enjoy working with plaster. I like making molds for both cast and pressed ceramics. I like the smell of plaster and the exothermic reaction when the plaster sets.
101. What I say three times is true.

As a part of my final studio class for the ever useful Bachelor of Fine Arts with emphasis in ceramics degree, the instructor set up some studio visits with local potters and ceramic artists. I had mixed feelings about these field trips, mostly negative. It was a pleasant surprise after the first two visits to find myself excited not only to produce ceramic work again, but to complete my home studio.

One of our visits took us to the home studio of Aaron Ashcraft, where Aaron was in process of opening up his Olsen 16 updraft kiln. The virtues of the downdraft kiln have been iterated to me so many times, they have become a part of my thought processes. I believed high fire reduction necessitated a downdraft kiln design. This pattern of thought combined with my experience firing both types of kilns at the University of Utah left me unprepared for the sight of Aaron's opened kiln. Not only were Aaron's pieces beautifully reduced, the kiln fired evenly top to bottom.

The updraft kilns I've fired on campus have differed up to two full cones top to bottom. I have heard rumors that it is possible to fire an updraft evenly. Until our class visit to Aaron's studio, I had never seen proof. I walked out of Aaron's studio knowing two things: 1) I could build a high fire, reduction kiln fairly inexpensively and 2) it was possible to make some money selling pots. I hold few illusions about being a potter or ceramic artist. I will most likely not ever make enough money to pay the mortgage and support a family with clay, but given Aaron's figures, there is a potential for a significant secondary income source.

I began to scheme, plan and research.

I was shocked to learn how expensive insulating fire brick and other refractory material is. Over one third of my total cost will be refractories. My estimate, given pricing from the local Harbison-Walker rep, is $2,400.00 and should cover two courses of brick on the floor and walls, the sprung arch and mortar.

The install fee for an upgraded natural gas meter was educational. Local lore tells stories of the gas company installing larger meters without charge save an increased meter fee. This is sadly not the case at present. The kiln I'm building will run seven burners at seven inches of water column pressure (the same pressure for natural gas in most US homes) and have a peak consumption of 350,000 BTUs/hour. The sales engineer calculated a larger capacity meter at the current pressure. My meter fee remains the same, but I get to pay about $500 for the privilege of buying more gas from the gas company.Though a painful immediate payment, paying for the meter up front is better over the long term than a quadrupling of the meter fee and the necessity of regulating each of our home's gas appliances. At least I keep telling myself this is so.

Friday, March 19th stopped me cold in my tracks. After trenching 55 feet from my gas meter to my kiln location, I popped into the local plumbing store and asked for a pair of risers and plastic gas pipe. At which point, I was informed of the necessity to be both licensed and certified in order to so much as gaze on either item. A couple dozen phone calls later, I got connected with Marv from Shamrock Plumbing. His bill will be in the neighborhood of $700 for parts and labor to install and test the line in my trench. With a bit of luck, he'll be done Wednesday, March 24th and I can back fill the trench before a storm changes my dirt to mud.

The gas line delayed a fun Saturday morning of mixing and pouring concrete as I was not willing to pour nearly two yards of cement with an open trench a few inches away. If all goes as currently scheduled, the new kiln pad will be curing this weekend.

I've uploaded some photos of the project in process as well as a couple of notebook page scans with preliminary elevations and measurements for those with nothing better to do.

This remains a draft entry for the foreseeable time. That said, I'd like to capture some of what I'm thinking and feeling now, rather than recreate it later. Part of the magic behind the scenes here is that I can continue to make these private entries and not unleash them on the universe at large until we choose to air our little secret.

Sunday, December 14th, Number Six was up mid-morning rather than for dinner, as has become our habit. I was eating some lunch, and Justin and I were chatting. As he got ready to head back to his place, Nat disappeared upstairs. I did not think much about it at the time. Justin and I wrapped up our conversation and he headed out to do laundry. Nat reappeared with an object wrapped in a tissue. I was suddenly anxious, nervous, intrigued and repelled simultaneously. On one level, I was very aware of what she was presenting me as I ate my bowl of tomato soup, and I was quite excited that the news must bode well. In a darker place in my head, I was sure that I did not want to have anything to do with the item cloaked in front of me. Certainly not while I was eating.

I should, perhaps, step back for some history here. Nat and I got married in August of 1996. I've been a perennial student and she was still working on her bachelors degree and teaching certificate. I knew that children were part of being married, and we discussed the idea of reproducing on several occasions over the years. As an idea it seemed a fairly good one.

I was pretty sure of a couple of things. First, other people's children were really good -- mostly because they went home. Second, adopting was a great idea. Both of our gene pools leave much to be desired and adoption becomes a win situation all around. If you succeed at raising the adopted child into a productive member of society, it is kudos all around for your fantastic parenting skills. If, however, the child goes south in a hurry, the adoptive parents are left with the option of shrugging and saying, "Hmm. Not our genes." Nat was not keen on this train of thought.

Between our wedding and the present, we've tried our hands at keeping plants alive (marginal success), maintaining salt water aquariums (high success) and finally with raising puppies (sadly, two for three). In my head, we were preparing well for our own 2005 or 2006 model year mini-Nat (or Jack). 2005/6 seemed perfect as Nat finishes her Masters in teaching and I finish my ultra valuable Bachelors of Fine Arts this coming spring, 2004. We would both get done with our final year of currently scheduled education, calculate the optimized time to conceive, get Nat into a "motherly way" and baby would make three about the time Nat got done with school for the summer of 2005. Did I mention this was the plan in my head?

Early this year (2003), Nat strongly indicated that it was time. I disagreed. She decided to nurture a side career as a Corkie Lee sales person. It was a glorious five or ten minutes of distraction for her. Then, the full court press was on me. The recurring dribble was "baby now." Though I openly confess to being slow, I do eventually understand which way the wind blows. To my way of thinking, I was left with two options:

1) Continue to disagree about the timing for the child and be miserable until I broke; or,

2) Hop on board the crazy train, be happy and get busy reproducing, or trying, or... you get the idea.

I went with the crazy train. There was a bit of trying. There was a bit of adjusting. There were a considerable number of questions from me that went, "Are you knocked up?" There was a bit more trying.

Which brings us back to the pregnancy test wrapped up in front of me. I still could not quite bring myself to open it, so I made Nat open it. I'm aware of what it means when a woman (and by "a woman" I certainly mean Nat) with whom I've been sleeping regularly is off her schedule by five or six weeks. And, I was right. Nat went in for blood work to confirm her motherly state. It was confirmed. Surprise! I'm an adult.