Wednesday, November 18, 2009

man, its been a while.

In the beginning of the semester I thought to myself "This'll be nice, a kind of "easy" quarter."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA What a silly thought.

I'm going to post some of my 3d work.
enjoy.

Cicada Spaghetti Tower:
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Wearable Object- Lichen Cloak-thing:
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Sculpey Character:
Drum roll please...
Introducing Miss Camiiiiiiiiel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(like camel except not. get it???)

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Also introducing Gretta the dinosaur croquette:

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Monday, October 5, 2009

"i'm lichen it" -gbrilla

I'm doing a lichen project.
I'm finding out things about lichen I never knew.
Yes, it is interesting.

Lichen is apparently a combination of multiple species. 2 mostly, but sometimes 3. Mostly Algae and Fungi.

This is called symbiosis. when two organisms join and survive better together than they would alone (how romantic)

Both the Fungi and the Algae benefit from this connection, thus making a relationship called mutualism.

Mr. Fungi wraps himself around Ms. Alga's voluptuous cells and they produce baby Lichen.

Fungus does not have chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesize it's own food---that's where Algae comes in play.

Algae benefits because Fungi is better at finding, soaking, and retaining water and is also responsible for the reproductive structures and forming the outer body.

Thallus is the main body of lichen.

Lichens are sensitive to air pollution!! I'm not sure how St. James Parish has surviving lichen.....

Three main types of Lichen: (although there are more)
Crustose--crusty ( i like that word..crusty.)
Foliose--leafy
Fruticose--shrubbery

Squamulose Lichen- (i'm only mentioning this because i also like the word squamule)
"Sometimes crustose lichens develop blister-like "squamules," where part of the plant body, or thallus, lifts off the substrate on which the lichens grow."


The bottom is Crustose Lichen the top is Foliose Lichen



Foliose Lichen



Fruticose Lichen


yaaaaaay



Monday, September 21, 2009

Designer: Argentina: Spring 2010

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I. absolutely. love. this. dress. absolutely.

I'm excited about this. very.

Thank you.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

oh moral contemplations.

A lot of emotions are flowing through me right now. I'm not sure how to put them all into perspective or how to explain or get any meaning out of them.

Yesterday my roommates and I discovered multiple spiders nesting on our front porch. I believed them to be baby golden orbweavers because of the stripes on their legs mimicked what I thought to be similar legs to those.

They are harmless, so why kill them? Let them be. Still a little freaked out...but I wasn't going to kill them.

They were gone in the morning. but then back again later tonight.

Tonight after taking more pictures, then doing a good amount of research I realized that these were in fact not baby golden orbweavers, but instead black widows and brown widows.

No one else in the house seemed to want to kill them.

BLACK WIDOW

But even though, as I've already demonstrated in earlier blogs, I hate spiders... I had contradicting thoughts and feelings about killing these spiders. Finally after contemplating... I went out to get rid of them. We sprayed and killed all of the ones that we could see. There were at least eight of them and one had an eggsack.

Now, I've killed spiders before. Many a time. And did not feel a lick of pity towards them. In fact I joked about it.

It's different now. I almost feel like I got attached to these spiders. All the contemplating and thought that went into them. I really got attached to them...and I killed them. I even watched them die. I saw them as they could barely move. I watched as the male spider went back and forth and knew that the female was dieing. I destroyed them. But my thought was... let me destroy them before they destroy me. That's what Darwin said. right.....

I feel completely stupid for feeling very upset about killing them. And even more so about actually writing about it.

But I feel like it has some sort of significance. I can't exactly elaborate on that. But it does.

While researching I did find out some interesting facts. These most feared spiders, the most venomous spider in North America is not actually as crazy dangerous as we all have been lead to believe. I found a statistic that said that no one had been killed by a black widow bite in 10 years in the U.S. (not sure how hold that stat. was though). Also, only about 1% die from the bite.
Here are some other facts.

-They are nocturnal.
-Most spiders live for a year, although another site says that they can live up to 5 years.
-It is rare for a Female to kill the male after they mate.
-Anywhere from 25 to 250 and 100 t0 400 eggs are laid in an egg sack. only 1 to 12 live because of cannibalism.
-Baby black widows are white and they molt several times in their life.

-"Ordinarily it feeds on insects; however, it also consumes wood lice, diplopods, chilopods and other arachnids. Usually, the black widow spider enswathes prey caught in its snare, bites it, and later drags it to its hub, or retreat, to be eaten. Latrodectus mactans inflicts a small wound on its prey, uses its cheliceral teeth to mash it up, pours digestive enzymes on the prey; and sucks up the resulting food. The whole digestion process takes place outside the spider’s body...."

-Black widow venom is more toxic than rattlesnake venom. 15 times more.

-The female black widow spider, though it is the most venomous spider in North America, seldom causes death as it injects a very small amount of poison when it bites. Reports indicate human mortality at well less than 1% from black widow spider bites.

Apparently only the female is black and from some sites it's said that only she is harmful.
I've also found information that the males are about 1/2 the size of her and are yellowish with red bands, with longer legs.

But we also had Brown Widows. There was only one Black Widow, and in her web there was a smaller spider with longer legs.

Now I've started to look up brown widow information.

-"Although the bite of a widow spider is much feared, the widow spiders are generally non-aggressive and will retreat when disturbed. Bites usually occur when a spider becomes accidentally pressed against the skin of a person when putting on clothes or sticking their hands in recessed areas or dark corners. " this makes me feel worse by the way

-"According to Dr. G.B. Edwards, an arachnologist with the Florida State Collection of Arthropods in Gainesville, the brown widow venom is twice as potent as black widow venom. However, they do not inject as much venom as a black widow, are very timid, and do not defend their web. "

A lot of people will think I'm completely silly for being so concerned about this whole incident. But I am, so..so be it.

The Black Widow:

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One of the Brown Widows and her egg sack:

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Saturday, August 22, 2009

Mango Tea

This is Julia Berbling.
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She is mi amiga. Who happens to not have a left hand in this photo...

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We talk a lot about a lot quite a lot. It's nice to see her because we always tend to simply migrate around town, yet do the same thing in every location...which is talk-about random but important also unimportant topics of everything and anything.

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This was at the Lakefront. Do you see the really long Dinosaur monster fellow????

This blog, despite the fact that I have given allusion to being about a one, Julia Berbling, is not. Infact, it is simply about Julia's shit.
She collects a lot of it...and how wonderfully fascinating and random and beautiful it all is.

BUT FIRST!

As Julia and I walked into her garage after we left the lakefront I spotted this little bugger on the ground upside down.

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A CICADA!!!!!!!!!! I had never seen one in real life before. Some also call them Locusts... specially after they shed their skin and grow wings. They make that beautiful noise that fills the Louisiana evening. Most I think find them to be aggravating and are said to be the noisiest of all insects. I got a book a while back off of that "take this book because no one apparently likes it anymore" shelf at the library on North American Bugs and there is a section on the cicada. It says that their sound-producing mechanism is probably the most complex in the animal kingdom and that the female, in most species, is mute. But what's most interesting to me about this insect is its life cycle. With the different species it kind of varies but because this little guy was found in the South he's more likely to have the more interesting version. They have either seventeen year cycle or thirteen year cycle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The females lay their eggs in paired slits which they make in the twigs of forest and orchard trees. Nymphs emerge in about six weeks, drop to the ground and , aided by their strong fossorial front legs, dig into the soil at or near the base of the tree. Here they remain for the thirteen or seventeen year period, feeding upon the roots of the tree. They then emerge, plump and amber in color, sometimes as many as 40 or 50 per square foot of soil..................................................climb up the bark of the tree or onto pilings, and transform to adults. In four tho six weeks, having feasted on tender twigs and leaves, they mate and disappear.
It also says that they are safe to be eaten by man...if need be.

anyway. We saw him struggling so after the photo op we brought him to a near by tree so that he may transform.
The next morning we went out to find this:

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ahhhh!! How wonderful is that?????!!!

And since we are on the subject of cicadas in the middle of suppose to be talking about all of Julia's great collections...
Here is what a cicada adult looks like:

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That's his butt.

She also has a Dung Beetle :D that looks like a rhino and a triceratops!

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And a Click Beetle. Atleast, I'm pretty sure its a Click Beetle. Some type. possibly.

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There was once a great fascination of wasp nests...

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Then it moved to moths.

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and butterflies

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and seedpods and fungi and birds and owls and the moon and tree bark and shadows and OF COURSE ceramics everything else that's wonderful and great of course, fascinating.

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Julia.

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and I drew this on my leg one night.

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and THIS is the amazing Mr. Owl in all his glory in a very blurry, but I think cool looking, picture.

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Betty Davis - F.U.N.K.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

we love to funk you Funkenstien

Today at work a lovely lady came talk to me while she put the satin rope back into the back of a southern bell corset dress. I met her a while before this. From what I know, she's the type of person who knows how to do a little of everything.. from fixing a car to face painting to knitting and sewing. I was just embarking on slightly frustrating mission to tackle and understand a muslin mock up of a Morpheus (yes the Matrix) jacket when she we started talking. She was telling me about the dreams she had and how she has decided to go back to her initial plan which was to become a rock star. It's never too late. She can't sing she said. Then she realized that her initial plan was to marry a rock star, which she then realized that she just wasn't the type of girl to hang with that life style. She's dated rock stars.. but they weren't for her, she's not the 18 year old model and she doesn't want a man who wants an 18 year old model. A friend of her's said she couldn't get a rock star even if she wanted because of the model factor. Then she realized that if Courtney Love could do it........ Then she mentioned that no handsome successful rock star would want a woman with some immune disorder she had. But just the other day on the radio she heard Rob Thomas talking about his new song and how it was about his wife who has some immune disorder and how he still loves her yadda yadda. Rob Thomas is a handsome successful rock star....... The final point of all of this partly caffeine induced jumble of interesting stories and tidbits was... not to sell yourself short.
Which reminded me of that incredibly chick-flicky chick flick "He's Not That Into You" which is all about "the exception"
Assuming makes an ASS out of you and me people.

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This is Hamlet. He use to love me... now he hates me.. my feelings use to parallel his.. but now I'm just amused by this.....hateful creature. I take joy in teasing him. ....okay and when he lets me fluff the back of his neck. He's still hateful though.


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Joy pretty much fills my being when I see one of these little fellows in my yard.


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Bell Pepper pit. It has come to my knowledge in some random way inwhich i cannot remember but.... does everyone NOT call them Bell Peppers? Do people call them Green Peppers? I don't understand you people. (okay so they ARE green but... so..)

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So I was fortunate enough to see this wonderful creature outside my house on a power line. He stayed there for a while ...not long enough for me to figure out how to get a clear picture. I don't think he liked being a model because he hoo'd at me a little then flew away. I felt kinda bad after, like I invaded his privacy too much. Next time I think I'll just sit and watch him instead of being the paparazzi.
Is that word Italian?


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The sky reminded me of some grand Kingdome. As if it were some other universe that I could only get this little peak of.


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This is a decaying crawfish getting eaten by a bunch of tiny snails at the bottom of a failed fish tank. Interesting.

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This is my birthday. Thank you Halie!!!


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This is my eye on my birthday.
Nick and I were laying down one day and I saw his pupil move... and move and move. So I watched. And that's what I was doing before I took this picture. It's pretty crazy.

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This is me and Tronie Ronie Baloney Patroney on mah bday. And Flee and Aubree :D

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This is funny and was getting on the interstate infront of me one day. You should click it and check out that hard core face busting out of the bricks on the back window.


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This is a bugs most unfortunate demise.


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It's pretty though.