Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I need some focus

So my sleep cycle has been seriously messed up this past week due to Spring Break. Also, on Saturday night I ended up falling asleep early, like at around 6pm. I ended up waking up at 10pm, then I stayed up a nice 27 hours through Sunday. I then woke up at 3pm on Monday, slept at 3am Tuesday morning, then fell asleep at 10pm Tues.night. Now, it's 6:38am on Wednesday. I ended up waking up at about 2am, tossing and turning and thinking for 3 hours until 5, when I got up, showered, ate some rice, and have been fucking around on the computer for a while now.

The thing that really gets me is that I was super awake in bed thinking about art, and projects I want to work on, and shit I'm excited about, but once I got my ass up and ready to work on stuff, all my motivation drains out of me and I just want to play Settlers of Catan online for hours on end. Gah!

Anyway, on a good note, I finally got the barebones of Little Yeti up and running, and you can check out my site and my Little yeti blog at www.littleyeticave.com. Woot! Now I just need to fill in all those goddamn filler pagers with some actual content. Sigh. So much to do, yet after I finish posting this instead of editing the zine I need to publish, paint, design my personal website, etc., etc., etc., guess what I'm going to go play?

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Happy Birthday Eve!

..and Happy 4 year Anniversary to us! Yatta!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Eve of Justice

So after marching/participating in the rally to celebrate this Eve of Justice, I thought the most powerful thing that happened was a little girl falling.

No, not the thousands of people who came out and lit candles and marched, chanted, danced, played music, or just generally showed their support. It wasn't the awesome speakers, or the spirit of history in the making.

The most crazy awesome thing I saw was a 5-8 yr. old girl completely faceplant while running through the crowd. She was headed perpendicular to the flow of the march, and she caught her foot on the muni tracks in the street and fell forward. Now, this wasn't crazy awesome because some poor girl fell, but because when she fell she dropped her little plastic fake candle (the kind that has a lightbulb in it). As soon as she fell, instead of immediately crying, or clutching her hands, or whatever hit first, she shot her little hand out and snatched up the lost candle, making sure it was okay.

Although immediately following this she started wailing, I thought that it was pretty fucking amazing that even more important than her own well-being this little mini pro-queer activist kindergardener was concerned about her candle going out. I also noticed that she had a piece of paper safety-pinned to her shirt that said something like "My mom + mom love each other."

Maybe this sounds crazy or stupid, or maybe you just had to be there, but the look on her face when she scrambled to grab the plastic flame (combined with the protest note attached to her jacket) made me think that she honestly believed that the little shitty candle she held could really help keep her parents together. And that kind of determination and love is what it's all about.

Monday, March 2, 2009

If you haven't watched this by now, please do.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.


Even though I am in a long-term heterosexual relationship (I'm engaged), my partner and I refuse to marry until Prop 8 is thrown out. Marriage to whomever you love should be a basic human right and denying them this love is a crime. If you live in the California, I hope you can make it to one of the Eve of Justice Events this Wednesday.

Let us stand together on this brink of history in the making.
In solidarity,
Ri.S.K.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Zombie Wedding

So I don't think I posted this before (sorry if I have), but this is my Watercolor final project from last semester. I think it's some 25-30 hours of work, yet it still has a long way to go. I'm thinking of calling this a "study" as a practice go for a huge-ass painting I want to do that'll maybe be more realistic and stuff.

Copyright 2008, Rick Kitagawa. "Zombies versus Wedding." Watercolor on Arches Cold Press Watercolor paper, 18"x24."

On another note, I've decided that I'm going to start listening to my "essential self" more when it comes to art projects.

Hopefully in my "free time" I'll be working on some zombie studies, some cryptid paintings, and trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing next semester. Huzzah.

On a sort of different note, I've been taking classes at the SF Center for the Book. Or I should say this weekend I am taking a 3-day class to get certified to rent time on the Center's Vandercooks! (those are letterpresses for those who don't know). Huzzah! Soon, I will be printing as much shit as I can a)afford and b)make time for. Also, my instructor is Megan Adie, and you totally need to check out this fucking awesome print she did meshing trendy shit with a raging bear. I laughed at this for like 10 minutes the other day and am currently chuckling now that I think about it. "REAL BEAR!!!" he he he...

Anyhoo, off to class to do some book binding and hopefully more printing!