Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving holidays are wrapped up!

I decided to sneak back to the LA Auto Show to visit the Countryman at the MINI display again after doing some REALLY fun volunteer work for Art Center.

Change-Much needed.

Ive decided to make a few changes and hopefully the repercussions will be better than worse in the long run. Consider it a mis-step that was not handled when it should have been and thus grew to the giant ball of doom which led me to these past few weeks. Hahaha.

So my last few posts seemed a bit doom and gloom and let me tell you, thats not me. Ive had to do some soul searching, some time catching, and some serious r&r. I went home to Nashville for a week. I had to get away from my classes, from the people, and from generally a place that was not making me happy for a while.

So let me be clear to you. I have been having an extremely tough time lately and I dont know why. To resolve this I re-situated myself within what my quarterly goals are, slightly pro-longing the end result but only by mere months. Going home is like therapy to me, its the smell, the slower pace, the nice people, and the feel that I get when I am home that just crawls over me like a warm towel out of the dryer. I went home to just feel right again. In doing so, when it came time to come back out I knew that this week would be HUGE. I had a few classes to get out of the way and two GIANT days of awesome, also known as the 2010 LA Auto Show Press Days.

Now, let me remind you that I was able to attend last year by the grace of God and a very ballsy move to write a very important person in the business to help get me press passes to the show. As a silly kid from the south just attending his first classes out here I was a little fish, but I really truly felt on top of the world and so I knew that this year would be twice as special because not only was I able to receive the passes but It was that much more special because I had been religiously following the creeping information coming from my favorite source for Auto news, Autoblog.com, but the two biggest sights for me to see (the Chevrolet Volt and MINI Countryman S ALL4) would be there. MAN oh man were they incredible the day-of when I finally saw them both.

So many pictures!!!

More info and story to come soon

AMG

So one of the three projects that I am working on for next week was officially completed tonight. Im feeling pretty good about the other two now. So I thought it would be a nice opportunity to fill you in! :)

First project-Magazine Spread.

I chose Mercedes SLS AMG and utilized and edited Chris Paukerts article within his review from www.Autoblog. com (the number ONE site I read) Enjoy!

Screaming so loud but realizing when you wake up that you were dreaming

What inspires you?

What gives you confidence? Poise? Balls?

What makes you create?

What motivates you?

Questions as of right now I am afraid to ask myself-

Also, can I PLEASE update this quicker?

My first initial year in CA, has passed and I am good and knee deep within beginning my second and I am irritated first of all. Why does my hometown not properly have the facilities, like art emphasized schools, to properly prepare students and young adults for art school? It bugs me at times to think how people say "if I had to go back I wouldn't change a thing". Well you know what? I would. I would have kicked my own ass into high gear and looked a little harder to get into an art school sooner-even before graduating-so that I could get my feet wet as to how it really is. Tennessee get it together!

Ive been sneaking onto my friends Netflix account to watch different documentaries that I would LOVE to bring up here, one being Objectified, which is a wonderful look into different brands and Industrial Design as a whole. The other called Helvetica, a beautiful look at typography and where and when one of the most used and famous font types was born. The last documentary is called Art & Copy and it is focused more on advertising but also allows the viewer to see a side of marketing that not many people starting out in Industrial Design get a chance to take a look at, but all three of those are just amazing.

As of today/this morning-the assignments in my classes consist of taking an animal and then creating it into a machine, which is in its beginning stages. Another assignment is coming up with a design of a vehicle-and in my case a small 12 passenger bus. The third assignment is pretty well along in its life and it consists of taking a fancy cursive font and helvetica and melding the two together to create an oxymoron-mine being Soft Rock. The final assignment in my digital tools class is creating a spread-like in a magazine utilizing InDesign in the Photoshop creative suite, and that should be immensely exciting if i can go photograph the vehicles that I want. I want to take beautifully designed cars and really pull out the power and class that simple touches in design can evoke.

Lastly in this post. In my mind I have been debating back and forth wether or not to post this because It deals with just nasty emotions that can be misread or misinterpreted and I dont want that, but I had spoken with my best friend about feelings I have had lately and I was thinking just before I started writing that I ought to share it. Cause I hope someone who has been in the same position or has simply felt the same can relate.

It has to do mainly with the fact that I woke up last week and I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home and quit. Quit this bullcrap that I feel like I have had to endure out here with the (PLEASE PLEASE excuse my language) shitty people that have crossed my path and this whole 'californian way' of reasoning and lifestyle that no matter how hard I have tried to become accustomed to and adjust, just feels so forced at the end of the day and I am exhausted. I am tired of being away from my comfort zone-and I am tired of being so damn disconnected from my family that at some points I would give everything up just to return back to. When I come home after being at school for 9 hours, no one has helped with laundry, no one has offered to pick up dinner, no one has filled my fridge with a gallon of milk and cereal in the cupboard, no one is here to break the silence when all I feel like sometimes is just crying. My creativity feels like it is at an all time low and I had to resort to finding my friend with Adderall last week and getting two pills from him to just see if that could help round me out. Nothing it feels can fix this mess that I feel that I am in and If it truly does not get any easier than this, I feel like I will want to end up choosing my sanity and happiness over it all. Which, after writing it out like that sounds pretty freaking selfish for a 23 year old, but back before I even stepped foot in this state, I said that I wanted nothing more than to ensure my happiness for the future. I knew I loved cars and I know I love design. I guess at this point I just want to re-state my goals. I want to be a car designer and I want to be happy and successful.

I will be looking into Art Center at Night classes here when sign-ups are due in two weeks-for the spring. Also looking at College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Its complicated.