Art Battle & lung nuggets

On a balmy Saturday night a few weeks back, Don Kilpatrick & I hobbled together some supplies and attended the Art Battle at the Russell Industrial Complex where we faced off against students, alums and fellow artists in the Art Battle. Don painted a gorgeous female tree figure whereas I slugged back some caffeine and drew volumes of art (31 drawings in three hours- geez, I must be slowing down). The Russell wasn't heated, we were next to people using aerosols, there was dust & grit all over the walls, throbbing music, strange people asking odd questions, it was smoky, and we didn't win the big cash prizes.

Even though we loved it, we did go home smelling as though we rolled around in a chimney or ashtray. I'm sure our poor wives smelled us coming a block away too.

For pics of the event:

link

Guest panelist on UDM's Ask the Professor

Just last week I got invited to be a part of the panel on the Univeristy of Detroit's Ask the Professor program.

It's one of America's longest running radio programs and I've been a huge fan of it since I was a wee little lad in search of useless trivia. The premise of the show is that listeners can send in questions on all sorts of topics in hopes of stumping an esteemed panel of professors. And while by CCS standards I'm not a professor, I was welcomed as one of the panelists whose job it was to answer the questions. Along with moderator Kathy Bush, I sat along side Roy Finkenbine, Elizabeth Oljar and Matt Mio in the basement of the Briggs Building on the UDM campus for an hour recording two episodes of the ATP show.

From long time fan boy to being a guest panelist. What an honor.

Living life huge at CCS

School's full tilt into the semester and I'm living life large teaching Senior Studio with Don Kilpatrick (thankfully no relation to Kwame), my Intro to Storyboard class, and Portfolio Presentation. It's a handful but the kids have been great and things are cooking along swell. They're such a motivated and talented bunch it even amazes me; they keep me on my game and I'm constantly fending them off with sticks wrapped in barbed wire.

Heck, I just found out tonight that Alyssa Cieslak, Andrea Kowch & Kristina Rafalski got accepted into the CMYK Show.

See what I mean?

Wotta new year so far!

Phew. It's nearly the end of January and I'm just getting around to posting again. It has been hectic to say the least. Work has been streaming in. I even re-connected with good friend Regan Warner who works at McCann Erickson, New York for a crazed Bertolli Food project recently (see art) among other things. The deadline was insane but then so's working with Regan- that crazy talented New York City chickee that she is now (shaking fist at her).