#I wanna re do this on an actual Canvas tho

[badartistsblog]

Last hope

Description: “even though we are given challenges, we have to keep going. Until our last hope ran out, we are still ALIVE”

[atrial-ofhorror-if]

Hey y'all! Long time no see!

This was supposed to come out in May, but I was lazy and just looked at the post for a while before deciding to write anything. I don't know what it is about 2023, but BAYYBE, it feels like it's on Speed or something. We are already halfway through the year, and it feels like it just happened in a blink of an eye! Kinda spooky, no? I'm planning on taking a break this month for June, partially because I'm tired and overwhelmed. It feels like there's always something going on in my personal life that puts me back. So, while I'm handling that and trying to disassociate as much as possible, I'm gonna be MIA. I'll still be around, just not as vocal. Am I really that vocal though? Nah.

This will also translate over into Maboroshi as well, even though I have a shit ton of unanswered asks I have to get to in there too

I'm hoping that I'll be rejuvenated and feeling better so I can hit the ground running for July.

Clerical Update

May has been the month of creativity and having a fire underneath your ass, because I've been completing and starting some things I didn't expect, I would do!

I've reached out, or tried to reach out to everyone who filled out the beta testing form! I'm planning on sending them the game in mid to early July.

I removed the demo of ATOH from Itchi.io. I know, weird right? But I'm just re-reading it and trying to edit it a bit before I re-post it back on the page! I wasn't satisfied with how it looked and realized that there was still a shit ton of errors, coding and otherwise within some of the passages so I wanna try and do a deep dive on my downtime of writing and patch some of that up. Am I gonna be completely successful? 🤷🏿‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️ dunno, but I won't stress myself out about it.

I've FINALLY got an idea for a cover page for ATOH. Wild how I've sat with this game for almost an entire year and I've never once had a cover page idea that I liked. I messed around in CANVA to try and replicate the idea I had in my head and am gonna mess around with the code to try and get it into the current demo.

Something secret, something mysterious 👁👁 something sinful. If my money is right at the end of July, and the product turns out like I want it to. I'll be posting a lil something. Won't tell yall what tho 👁

Writing Update

I ended up getting to 100k...

Yeah, I don't know how that happened either 🥴🥴

I had actually ended up getting rid of almost 10k+ worth of content because I felt that it wouldn't fit with this update, and somehow, some way, I ended up adding 30k+ more to make up for it. Of course, I believe that the majority of that word count is variation of choices, but it's still a bit shocking for me, ya know? 🥴🥴🥴

I'm gonna go through those new paragraphs and try to find any find any issues but hopefully I won't find anything too crazy.

I'm planning on sending beta testers the game in Mid or Early July. And then polishing up whatever I have left.

Think that's it? If you guys have any questions, please let me know! My DMs or ask are always open 🤎

[fainthedcherry]

PARAMORE RELEASED THEIR A24 TRIBUTE COVER TODAY. AND I GOT INSPIRED BY THE LYRICS AND THE VISUALIZER.

IMAGE CREDITS BC VERY OBVIOUSLY THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL PIC COLLAGE PIECE PRIMARILY BELOW DESC (I DID NOT TAKE THE COOL PICS OBV.)

OK GIANT CREDIT BLOCK GO (Freepik and pexels my beloved saved my entire college year lmao):

1 OCEAN WAVES

2 OCEAN WAVES AGAIN

3 YES A THIRD OCEAN WAVE

4 VERY COOL DROPLETS

5 FLAME. OO FIRE PRETTYYY /POS

6 BG I CHEATED YOU INTO BELIEVING IS RAIN

The drawing though is made by my acoustic arse /lh

THE LYRICS ARE TAKEN FROM THE VID I LINKED. HAYLEY'S VOICE MY BELOVED AND FOREVER DEAREST ENTIRE BAND /POSPOSPOS. I wanna sing like Hayley so badly, she is such an idol to me, when it comes to vocals and I wish to sing as expressive as her some day 🤧✨💖

--

WHAT MORE CAN I SAY, OTHER THAN I'VE BEEN EXPERIMENTING WITH SHORT DRAWINGS, THAT TAKE UNDER A DAY TO COMPLETE TO FIGURE OUT SOME THINGS I WANNA DO AS AN ARTIST AND POSSIBLY COMMISSIONS. + These drawings genuinely kinda de-stress so it's been free therapy too, oops. I wanna do more of these vector-style drawings, that are just me taking lyrics and creating these fun collages, of things that inspire me or I like. It's a chill practice and lets my creativity actually do the work for once, instead of my usual need to outdo myself in every drawing and improve lmao. Improvement is cool and all, but dear god did I not realise how hard my need for perfection last year stress and strangle me tf out. I seriously need to re-evaluate the way I approach art as this massive, intimidating medium, when most artists literally draw for fun, and for me it's been like...A Sisyphean task.

--

If you enjoyed seeing this, I might make a sequel with C'est Comme Ca and w/ Marco in it instead and a red BG,, if I want to, I might turn these into a series, just like those aesthetic icon drawings I made of my 2 boys, started Lotta, and IMMEDIATELY lost that sketch due to my USB's death back in 2022 and lost all motivation for art due to that massive loss /neg

--

Not sure what else to add here other than my thoughts that I already did!! Other than ofc, the usual, MASSIVE thank you to my friend Hollowed-Hartlocke for introducing me to Paramore back in 2019 <3

Think I'm done rambling now tho!! OH WAIT. I can add, that I had to actually pull out Adobe Illustrator just to add stretched text for aesthetic purposes. Then I got so impatient with the effects panel not showing me the usual layer-effects and me being too lazy to look up, whether InDesign was the one, that had the usual layer effects I use in an Adobe program or not. Btw still mooching off my college acc that shoulda been dead long ago but just isn't??? LMAO I'M STILL GONNA USE IT IF I CAN ALRIGHT.

OH YEAH BTW. This drawing took 3 hours. NO I'M NOT KIDDING. PEOPLE WOULD PROBABLY BE SHOCKED THAT SUCH A LAZY LOOKING PIECE TOOK SO LONG. BUT I GENUINELY AM RATHER SHOOK THAT I TOOK SUCH LITTLE TIME TO CREATE THIS. TBF I threw MOST proportion checks and canvas flips I do out the window, so there's a BIG chance I will hate this, if I flip the canvas xD ANYWAY I RAMBLED LONG ENOUGH I THINK NOW. JUST ENJOY EXPERIMENTAL ART

^Before-bed edit; Yeah his torso's a TAD too much leaning to the left, it's off-center to the rotation of his pelvis to be in fact, but maybe? I'll roll with this mistake. It kinda gives the piece its abstract nature..I kinda like the mistake?? This is the first time in my life I ever tolerated a mistake I did and now declare it on purpose and will probably build one into the next piece as well. Hell, maybe it'll yield an interesting result. Anyway, it's 12PM as I write this, and I have to get up at 4AM for my train soOooo, yeah, gotta sleep ASAP for school.

I have NO clue again what to 100% accurately tag this, so forgive me if the tags are wrong LMAO, I just will believe what I believe it has overlaps w/ within art-genre.

This piece kiiinda gives pop art??? So I'm gonna tag it as such as well, but but might be incorrect. If a pop-art enjoyer wants to correct me, PLEASE DO. I'm going off the definitions of pop-art I learned in high-school. So I could most def be wrong about me adding this tag in particular. How tf do people confidently tag their posts when I doubt almost every tag I add man. Tagging is the worst part of uploading art to me due to how hard it is to label art really, not meant to be in a genre. xD

Def adding Paramore tags tho bc I NEED to know more Paramore fans out there bc we feel like such a tiny community, when they're literally one of the most influential rock bands of the 2000s and 2010s imho AUGH

[yeswevegotavideo]

i's always so much fun to discover new stuff that are different between US and Europe. Here we don't use the top sheet (seriously I've never seen that) because our sheets are not scratchy? What kind of material do you make bedsheets from? We use plain cotton canvas which isn't scratchy...Also beds are a lot different, the way people in films always get "tucked in" like somebody pushes the blankets under the mattress so you can't escape? Strange

So if I'm putting bedsheets together I need them to do several things:

Be heavy, but not overly heavy, so I feel like there's something actually covering me

Keep me at the right temperature, neither cold nor hot

Be able to be shoved aside easily so I can stick my feet out whenever needed

Feel smooth & soft

Conform to my body enough that there aren't huge pockets of air on either side of me

When I'm making my bed, from the mattress up, it goes: fitted sheet, top sheet, thermal blanket #1, thermal blanket #2, throw blanket large enough to sleep under. (When we get to summer it will be fitted sheet, top sheet, one of the thermal blankets - probably the heavier one.)

To clarify, I was talking about blankets when I was talking about scratchiness. Our sheets, both top/straight and fitted, are fine-woven cotton (or linen or flannel if you wanna get fancy) and smooth and comfy. But blankets come in a variety of materials and most of them have, to me, a Bad Texture to sleep in direct contact with.

Take, for example, the humble thermal blanket:

I have always slept with a thermal blanket, for as long as I can remember. In the summer, it's usually my only blanket. The best way to use a thermal blanket is as a layer between the top sheet and other, heavier blankets, so that it acts (unsurprisingly) like a thermal layer, keeping heat in but allowing some air through to "breathe".

But you see that crossweave? If I were to use a thermal blanket WITHOUT a top sheet between me and it, I would be SO uncomfortable. I would feel it all night, and in the morning I would have that crossweave pattern imprinted into my skin, painfully. Not to mention, without the top sheet the "thermal" quality of the blanket would be less efficient. It might let too much heat out, or if it gets too hot I won't have the top sheet for "wicking" purposes.

Now, some (probably many) people around here don't use thermal blankets. Some people don't even use what I would consider "normal" blankets, like quilts or whatever. They use duvets, or more often their cousin known, inexplicably, as "comforters". There is literally nothing comforting about a comforter. Now, idk what comforters are like in other parts of the world, but in mine, they are usually made of a semi-rough, stiff fabric (I swear to god it's like they're trying to make cotton as burlap-like as possible) and filled with a thin layer of what I can only describe as "stuffed animal fluff". They are both too lightweight to actually feel like you're being covered by anything (see last bullet point above) and somehow, simultaneously, an instant ticket to being uncomfortably hot & sweaty regardless of the season. They're like the world's largest, most useless throw pillow. I honestly think they're supposed to be decorative but I personally know people who use them as blankets. And it confuses the hell out of me.

As for duvets, they're usually better in the weight department but that's about it. Everything else is basically the same ad comforters. I just...I need layers. If all I had was a duvet I would be stuck between "too much blanket" and "not enough blanket" and no other choices. I don't get that.

I've never understood the tucking the blankets under the mattress thing either (see bullet point above re: foot freedom) so I can't help you there. I tried it once and I just felt like I was in prison lmao.

Lemme ask you tho, when you buy sheet sets do they just not come with a top sheet, or do you just ignore it? Here a standard sheet set is usually a fitted sheet, a top sheet & two pillowcases. (Or one if it's a twin or single set.) Is that just not a thing in Europe?

[sarinataylor]

Hey what do you think the fashion sense and styles of queen would be in a modern au? Also would any of them have piercings or tattoos or anything like that? Hair styles and stuff?

........ ooooh boy here we go

freddie: a much more gender-fluid sort of style, i think. very put together, his outfits are nearly always planned very well. on trend. enjoys experimenting with fashion, his body, and the public gaze. performative. at home a lot more low key. skirts and tees, jeans and tops. but as an artist is very aware to the degree that fashion is performative and so takes advantage of that, uses it to a) make himself feel good and b) challenge society. i think his hair? would actually tend towards his shorter 80s hair? im not sure he’d have the patience for the 70s longer styles, i think in his hair is where you can see him bowing to functionalism. his ears are pierced, and no matter what he’s wearing his nails are painted. he does stick n pokes but has no tattoos of his own, the permanency is off putting. 

brian: vaguely on trend, fashion wise. you know men who are sort of getting it right but also sort of not? brian. doesn’t want to stick out, knows he does anyway. has an ill thought out nose piercing from his teen years that he allows to close up (and then re-pierces when he hits his stride in his mid-twenties).... he was totally an emo wannabe from 14-17 (as in he idolised that style, enjoyed the music, but also didn’t want to commit to anything so. leaned dowards dark colours, considered growing his hair out but never did.... it me, folks). he still leans towards dark colours, mainly now because he hopes they make him less visible. he doesn’t like taking up space. probably has a buzzcut which makes him look very Sharp. again, in his mid twenties he starts taking more risks as his confidence grows. ends up with an undercut type hairstyle for a few years until he decides to grow it out completely. bounces between the two from there on out. no piercings other than the nose, has one tattoo on his wrist (semi colon)

john: soft boi. Soft Boi. like, he looks like a fuckboy and it’s hilarious to everyone who knows him. baggy shirts, jawline length hair. one ear pierced. skinny jeans and sneakers. sometimes there’s a half and half man bun. funky shirts that make him look a bit like a dickhead and a bit like he just has no regard for fashon whatsoever, but he still looks good. hides behind his hair a lot. cant decide whether he has no tattoos or a full sleeve. if he does it started as a stick n poke by freddie and then he sprawled outwards with colour -- there’s a lion, a cup of tea, jigsaw pieces and a cartoon styled cyndi lauper. no piercings tho i kinda wanna give him a prince albert lmao

roger: very feminine, and yet also the most masculine. probably the most assured in his masculiity/uninterested in playing with gender. very 70s rog? so. he differentiates from freddie in that his outfits are not planned, they do not take into account what fits together at all. still trendy, he’s aware of what’s happening. but. in the day to day not performative for anyone but himself. likes attention, but likes feeling good more than that. what makes him feel good tends to garner attention so, it’s a win win. clashing prints, strange textures, shirts tied up into crops because they look better than way with his high waisted pants. not so much into skirts or dresses, but still comfortably presentative as androgynous a lot of the time (im specifically thinking right now of the photoshoot of bowie with angie and zowie in the pantsuit???? overtly feminine, yes, but with an edge of masculinity that hovers just under the surface). long hair, bc im a whore for it. covered in tattoos. he’s freddie’s favourite canvas. his ears are covered in piercings, and he’s constantly talking about getting a tongue piercing but he never seems to get round to it (freddie calls him a pussy ab this. a lot.)

[franeridart]

Do you care for any of the dekusquad?

I care for most if not all hero-related characters in bnha! But if with care you mean if any dekusquad member is between my favorite characters/if I care enough about any of them to draw them more than once every blue moon, then my Todoroki tag might tip you off, there lol

Anon said:Will you ever draw Bakukamikiri again? I rlly loved how you did them!!

Thank you!!! And I think I will, though I don’t have any project to do so in the near future, sorry!

Anon said:Soo KyouHaba day (6/16) is coming up and was wondering if you could do some seijoh next gen stuff. Yahaba is often forgot about a and Kyoutani isn’t really included in a lot of Aoba Johsai stuff. Feel free to not do anything just suggesting something

Aw sorry anon but I don’t have the time to do day-themed stuff right now! KyoHaba is currently the hq ship I’m most likely to draw for, though, since they’re the only ones I’m still reading fics for! So I don’t think any will come around 6/16, but I don’t exclude I might draw them anyway in the near future! :D

Anon said:Omg your taking part in a zine!! I’m so excited! And it’s a BakuSquad one too! Ik I’m definitely going to be buying it when pre-orders open up!

I’m taking part in TWO zines, actually!! Both the @takemyhandzine and the @sixthwheelzine !!!!! I’ll be making comics for both, and if you do decide to buy either I really hope you’ll like them!!!!

Anon said:whats a zine?

In general, a zine is an amatorially published magazine! Specifically tho here we’re talking about fanzines, so magazines put together and published by fans for other fans! The ones I’m taking part in are both about kiribaku, and will include both fanart (fancomics included) and fanfics! Depending on how much you wish to spend on it, you can also buy a bundle with fanmade merch too, and the Sixth Wheel zine is gonna have a pdf version too, in case you’d prefer to buy it like that! They’re super cool projects I’m insanely happy I got invited to take part in!!!!

Anon said:Your art style is so pretty and I love to see your amazing bnha drawing on my dash

There is literally no way I could ever stop being into d gray man ever and I’m also still following hq’s manga, yes! I dunno if and when I’ll draw for either fandom next, tho, sorry! ;^;

Anon said:Everytime you draw kiribaku I gain 1 life,,,,, tysm I love ur art SM ur such an inspiration,,,💖💖💖

Oh my g o d s thank you so much ;^;

Anon said:Your Kiridragon is the cutest, I love him and want Katsuki to protect him forever. Thank you for sharing that last story with us!!! (Ps. Can we expect more Kiridragon adventures in the future? *puppy eyes*)

Thank you for liking him!!!!!! And if you’re talking about the fantasy AU in general, I’ll 100% for sure draw more for it! If you’re talking about them as kids tho I can’t say for sure - I definitely want to, tho, right now!! ;^;

Anon said:As a suggestion, could you maybe do Kiri*Deku, whether it be romantic, platonic, or misinterpreted by Bakugou and he takes Kirishima because that’s his sunshine boy thank you very much, get your own

Aw anon sorry but krdk is…………. really not my thing, so I don’t take suggestions for it ;-; I might end up doodling them in the future anyway since I have in the past, but that’s only gonna be if I find an idea I really really really wanna draw, I’m sorry

Anon said:Just wanted to say that I love your art and I just went through a majority of your blog. But I noticed you used to draw erasermic but haven’t recently and I was wondering if you still ship it??? It’s okay if you don’t or if you just haven’t gotten the inspiration recently, I’m just curious. Anyways, keep doing what you do and being amazing

Thank youuuu!!!!! And I’ve actually always drawn erasermic super sporadically! They’re one of my main ships in the fandom honestly, but since they’re sorta hard to draw for me I rarely end up drawing them? I do still love them with all my heart tho! You can expect to see more of them in the future, for sure ;u;

Anon said:I came for my kiribaku fix (it HAD to be him I’m dying all over again) but. God ur art always blows me tf away ur so good and skilled and ur improvement in like… everything inspires me SO much so bless u and I hope u have a WONDERFUL day

I’m so glad I can inspire anyone, oh my g o o o o o o d ;O; thank you so so much!!!!

Anon said:Wow your dragon kiribaku art is so cute! Will there be a sequel!

Not for the immediately after, for now! Since Horikoshi is yet to give me the official design for Kiri’s mom //sob - but as I said up there I do want to draw more with them as kids in the fantasy AU, so maybe, yeah!!!

Anon said:I absolutely love EVERY SINGLE facial expression that Bakugou makes in your Fantasy Babies comic strip. He’s such an unapologetic little shit.

THANK YOU!!!!! I was mostly trying to convey the fact that he’s too young to think about the consequences of his actions before doing stuff like calling the rage of a dragon mom upon his city l m a o glad you liked him!!! :D

Anon said:The way you draw the baby bois has me weak 💖💕❤️💗💞💓💝 That baby dragon Kiri 💯💯💯💖💖💖😊😊😊

Thank you so muuuuuucccchhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:EYYYYY! Love your art, the newest comic made me laugh so hard that I almost chocked to death :D (Jk, I just couldn’t breathe normally) God bless youuuuuuuuuu

I’m SUPER HAPPY it made you laugh!!!!!! heck!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;^;

Anon said:You content makes my heart go doki doki doki doki doki

THANK!!!! YOU!!!!! SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:the way you draw wings is so cool, i love it. your art is just amazing in ggeneral to be honest, like akjdjkhdlkdl

AAAAHHHHHHHH I’M HAPPY YOU LIKE THEM I have so much fun drawing them, honestly!!!

Anon said:I love the fact that mina and kiri are cannonically childhood friends (middle school counts as childhood right??) Like I love their friendship so much and they both deserve the world.

Real, they’re adorable and I wish Horikoshi would actually have them interact a bit more in the manga, since as for now their scenes together are pretty much non-existent aside from their backstory ;^;

Anon said:THEY ANIMATED IT!!! THE HAND GRAB!!! IT’S IN MOVING COLOUR!!!

HELL YES I DIED IT’S BEEN NEARLY A WEEK AND I’M STILL DYING WHAT A BEAUTIFUL TIME TO BE ALIVE

Anon said:You with your beautiful beautiful art and Chonideno with her beautiful beautiful writing about Kiri and Bakugou makes my heart so happy and warm and just… Thank you for existing and love Kiribaku! I don’t know, your art makes me so happy

Ohhhhhhhhhhh boy what an honor to be put at the same level as mag ;^; I love her and her writing so much, honestly !!!!!! thank you so so much for the compliment, anon!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:Kirishima braiding his hair while he talks is both adorable and relatable. Thank you for that.

I’m!!!! mostly happy you caught it hahahaha thank you !!!!!!

Anon said:Hey. You seem insecure but your art is great. What kind of color scheme do you see for Hawks?

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I honestly don’t like thinking about stuff I think Hori will give me in canon soon enough? But out of instincts I mostly imagined him in shades of brown, I think - typical birds of prey and/or aviator colors, you know!

Anon said:I love ur drawings but i also love reading ur tag. They re so funny sometimes

lmao that’s good too!! As long as I can make people enjoy a couple of moments of their time I don’t really mind how I do it hahaha

Anon said:your art is beautiful anfndfnd

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:Hello fran, just wanted to say i’ve been here for a long long time (since the h/q times :‘o) and today i was thinking about some of your old art and if you remember, you had a soulmates au for b/n/h/a that was super good and i really loved so i wanted to tell you!! You as an artist have such an impact on me and that au is my fave of yours!! ;0; have the nicest day ever!! -soulmates anon (4 future ref!!!)

OH MAN I’m so happy to hear you still remember that one?? It was such a fun experiment to play around with, I’m glad you liked it this much!!!! Thank you for telling me omg !!!!! ;^;

Anon said:Hi, so where did you go to watch Haikyuu (I’m assuming probably Crunchyroll but ya never know) and where might I find the dubbed version?

Aw anon sorry I don’t watch the dubbed version! Since I’m Italian, I don’t really have much use for the English dubs haha I’m pretty sure you can find it on kissanime, tho!

Anon said:could you briefly go through the process of making and completing one of your comics? I wanted to start some short bnha comics but idk where to start, thank you!

Sorry this took me an age to answer - I have answered this question a while back, I think it might be in my art tips tag! But to go through it fast, my process is something like

find a line or an exchange I want to deliver, or a topic I want discussed (usually happens randomly as I’m doing other things)

spend a million years just staring at a wall or at my ceiling or anything else as I build a whole scene in my mind to have the lines or topic take the form of an actual comic (might take two minutes, might take a month)

draw a rough sketch of the whole comic - I do this with all panels (and pages, when I separate a comic in pages) on the same canvas, so that I can look at the whole scene all together and get a good sense of the general flow of the storytelling. This process includes cutting panels, moving panels around, reshaping panels, trying different poses and angles for the same panels to find the right one, writing and deleting and re-writing lines till I’m sure the wording is what I’m going for*

line the panels - I mean the actual panels, the straight lines delimitating the panel, I line them all first and put them on a separate layer

line the people!! All the characters in every panel are lined in this stage

line the backgrounds! In case there are backgrounds and the comic is meant to stay in black and white, if not then color the backgrounds! (I always start coloring from the backgrounds cause they’re the boring parts and if I leave them for last I never do them ever #rip)

in case of black and white comics, we fill in flat, gray-scale colors at this point (or, as I’ve lately started doing, I only put down shadows and leave it at that). If it’s in colors, we color the people!

Write down the dialogue!! *at this point we change a lot of the dialogue again because enough time has passed since I sketched it that I changed my mind on everything, don’t be like me

you’re done!

All of it is done on one single canvas, unless it’s a comic with separate paneled pages in which case they’re all done on their own canvas but still drawn all together. That’s about it, hope it was at least a little bit useful!

Anon said:Hi! I just wanted to thank you for your art, especially your KiriBaku. I was exactly in the same situation than Bakugou in the post tagged “bakugou being blunt about his feelings” (except we are 2 girls) , so I used it to confess to her. She said yes! X3

OH MY GOD I’m so super happy to hear that!!!!! Congrats on your gf, anon!!!!!! *throws hearts at u*

[shysheeptrash-blog]

N: I tried making these digital prints. Like I printed them on the wrong side of photo paper. Then I just stuck them in a frame. I mean you can still sort of see the image but something/ something/ happened.

B: I feel like I remember seeing these, maybe not these exact ones, But now the frames killed them like I think there was one of one of Sarah.

N: Yeah Yeah

B: but something happened

N: almost looks like snow or something.

B: or like celluloid burning or something.

N: and its progressive too. This is one of like Mia thompson. From back to the future. I just downloaded a whole series of photos of her as a like tenneager. Like she had done some modelling or something

B: hmm though is that an eye

N: No its a mouth dripping with milk see because the ink pooled in weird ways.

B: is that a body

N: Yeah

B: Is that your body

N: Yeah

B: Are you naked.

N: Yeah

B: And that's a palm tree haha

B: I kinda like it.. Its like a fridge science experiment.

N: There are actually a fair amount of writers in detroit actually.

B: well that stands to reason. Cost of living is reasonable. I feel like it'd be a good place to write a novel or a poetry book.

N: not art writers unfortunately tho

B art writing kind of piggybacks off of the commercial art world though, and less the like, the like ritual and practice of art.

N: there's not really a commercial art world, so theres not really art writers here.

B: Is that good?

N: I think it's bad.

B: Really?

N: I think its bad.

B: Well, money is good. You need enough money to eat. Haha. Is important.

N: But also, I think feeling like people are looking at what youre doing. Feeling seen. And what's the word? Feeling acknowledged. There isn't any, well, okay so recently, well actually, maybe we should go to this today. One of my friends, put together, at the cave a big industrial warehouse, a show with a bunch of artists from Chicago and Detroit. And a few days ago my friend send me the review, this person wrote this and its basically like well I don't get this. This makes me feel stupid. I don't really get it. I didn't understand. And it's like, why would you write that. Why would you put that into the world.

B: like did you talk to anyone.. like at a certain point, maybe try a little harder.

N: she went to the show with the curator.

B: Okay but like the digitigi-- uh digiti-- or didigi I can't get the word. I'm skipping over it, is the digital version like a scan or a text?

B Do we have a plan today

N No. Chilling is the plan.

B Food is probably part of the plan.

N Yeah.

B do you need to work today

N today or tomorrow

B okay.

B: What are you working on right now?

N: Two art fair things to work on. So, the thing that I, here I can show you. Um, so. That's gonna to new york. This is what I need to work on this weekend. That's also gonna go to New York, when we head back. There's a fair in Cologne in april. That and that are gonna go to that. I might make a bigger version of this. This thing took a long time. But ironically a bigger version doesn't take much longer. It's just detail-y kind of fussy work. I've also kind of changed the way I'm doing things somewhat. So like, if you look at this one, even the relatively flat areas get lots of layers and adjustment. Where like you can see here, where theres not a lot of paint and you can see the weave of the canvas, versus here, where you can see its all filled in.

B: Who's the guy in this one.

N: You wanna take a guess?

B: noam chomsky

N: it's bernie madoff

B: ohhh what happened to those feet?

N: I don’t know. I did those what do you call them, bigger frilly socks, but I didn't really like them at that scale. The background there will just be white.

B: Hmm?

N: That's another. That's a kind of—I had this period where I just started everything, just to see what I liked. I started working on these triple penetration paintings.

B: Oh my god! Are those from real images.

N: Its yeah, it's taken from a porn.

B: It's kind of beautiful but at a certain point, it's like what are you saying when you bring that into the gallery.

N: Yeah, it's definitely like what are your saying white boy, and I'm trying to be careful.

B: Yeah I feel like getting at that uncanny or intimate thing with the body and like you know like cropping it or cutting it off, its like kind of a violent gesture.

N: Yeah I've been, I don't. Well heres an interesting question. I had a show in London and it sold out and they were like if you can keep doing that we can keep giving you money. So like now I'm trying to repeat some of that. So the next step was like, well this was interesting to do, but like will it continue to be interesting.

B: and the ones for that show were they all bodies?

N: Here I'll show you. So here's this thing. There’s this and that and that and that.

B: I like these dogs.

N: those are margaret cho’s dogs

B: oh! Awwwww

N: haha yeah

B: I think these are kind of around fashion and textures. Less bodies. Or I mean, it not triple penetration.

N: Yeah. Oh heres peeing baby. I really like peeing baby but the gallery was like

B: mmm maybe next time

N I love peeing baby.

B let me see peeing baby again. Yeah I don't know man. Like its like funny and whimsical but I can't see someone buying that.

N: I feels so religious to me. Like Catholic. Like the hand gesture and the posture, and like I don't know.

B: But yeah I see why its sticky because while that's beautiful, representing and then selling a body part could definitely be framed as a violent act, while erasing black bodies from your work which is making art about fashion and beauty and bodies and rawness within those spaces is like also fucked.

N: I don't know

B: the lips are beautiful, I feel like I saw a bunch mouths in a museum once as a kid, and I was like wow look at the mouths, and I'm forgetting who

N: I dont know

B: were like wet and like grotesquely over-intricate and like pearls in them

N: marilynn minter

B: yeah

N: but also like, feminist activist and different background makes that gesture like totally legit.

B: yeah yeah.. Yeah. Okay have you done any of these doll parts ones yet, because they're like freaking me out.

N: I started. And they're not dolls, or they are dolls but they are medical dolls. So like doctors teach how to do things on the different parts.

B: What are all the dicks for?

N: maybe like testicular disorders.

B: The catheterization one is activating a deep horror.

N: of course that's the only one I've started. And like moving towards this space where there are these surrogates for bodies, like it feels interesting for a little while maybe.

B: What were you doing before this? I remember there was some stuff that was moving towards bodies. There was that cliff face that was vaguely yonic. And the the rope that said like breathe or relax.

B: Have you done any paintings of Marcel and Henry?

N: Not yet

B: Haha, well when you have time, I feel like they deserve that from you.

N: Yes.

B: Why did you start doing bodies in the first place?

N: I don't know, like the image of the socks was part of the impetus.

N: I need to like just figure out a way to be confident about this stuff.

B: I mean. Or not. Being careful isn't bad. Yeah I dont think its bad to be careful. I feel like, I dont know but like images just work in such a different way. Like they work, and I recognize that now. But like I feel like a lot of the time, I can figure out what I’m doing as I’m doing it. Instead of having to know what I'm doing ahead of time, because you can't change around the syntax of an image on the fly to the same extent. But I mean, I am also have a little bit of a what am I doing here right now. Like ive been in that place as well, for, not too long.

N: uh huh

B: I think that like I became super enamored with this really clean, kind of distanced way of writing, that aims to elide subjectivity. And I got there because I had crushes on a few writers in a row that were in that vain. And then like the last thing that I did, I was fucking with it for six months. And in the end it was only like 20 pages. That shouldn't have taken six months. And the reason it wasn't working was it was supposed to be this highly structured formal gesture that was a commentary on influence and the canon, but what it actually ended up being about was trauma and trying to escape a memory. And I think having to make that admission and then go ahead and write that piece instead of the super frozen over one about influence, I think admitting that knocked me a little off course, in terms of thinking that writing sterile well structured things was the way to go.

N: when did the shift happen

B: like december. That's when I pushed that one out of the nest. Cause I had it in my pocket and was like I'll fix it I'll fix it I'll fix it, but then just published it the way it was.

N: I've been kind of curious whether people are making big shifts because of the election. I was apprehensive about this stuff before the election, but now I'm like I need to re-consider what I'm doing.

B: Yeah i've settled into team reconsider. I'm looking to get a little more uhh skin in the game.

N: Yeah I can totally see that

B: To like raise the stakes or something.

N: I've been wanting to bring the process closer, but I'm still using found images and not trusting myself to make my own images. Like I met up with some friends a few weeks ago and I had them all paint their faces with clown faces. Hand then took photos of them just hanging. And I started to think that I can get to the place where I can use my own images. Here, heres uh. And I also started reading like about the protest culture kids are starting to paint their faces to avoid facial recognition software.

N: Whoop. Yeah I think, or I mean when I first started doing this stuff, I listened to an interview, and it didnt prefigure the socks painting, but it was relatively soon afterward and I started to think about the subjects of the paintings in a different way. Because the socks painting has this kind of leisurely, fashion-y, and like just a little hint of sex and I sort of saw that as a sort of contentious space that we arguing over. Leisure time. And what leisure time means in different contents. The left sees leisure time as like citizen time and the right sees it as unproductive time or like laziness in a way. I like the idea idea of thinking about bodies at rest and I started reading a new book about the use of bodies, in a more basically political sense. Like what do we do with all of our useless bodies as automation advances.

B: I think one thing that could happen or that might be useful, is that the marriage of capitalism and like almost calvinism, whereby wealth is conflated with morality. And that particular america schema where virtue and work ethic are conflated. I would like for us to have those two decouple. But it feels like we are going in the opposite direction right now with debt and internships and the gig economy. But yeah images and stories that celebrate rest and decadence even if thats just laying outside on a nice day and doing nothing, time wasted in play or useless creation. Like a meaningful life separated from the market and from labor.

N: Yeah like non-instrumentalized creation, bodies in states of repose, and playing with culture and commodity as a kind of flouting.

B: I think the travel paintings looked more relaxed, but these look more decadent. And in terms of representing other possible ways of being, I like how you let that remain a little torn or bruised or uncanny. I think that that like better serves a narrative of another way of being, complicated, but also not caught up in that system of work or at least not caught up in the same way. I don't think a like overly romanticized version of the decadent or leisurely life would play. Given how cynical we've gotten. But a when we let bodies fold and wrinkle and bruise while they play or rest or shimmer or hint towards illicit sex, I think that's seductive. I guess I'm also talking about non-domestic spaces, or like ways of like occupying private spaces that aren't caught up in domestic labor.

B: and like I'm not signing up to be a part of a heterosexaul relationship and care for a big brood. So I think a lot, about becoming isolated as I slip into the like margins of society. I can't remember where I heard it but it rang pretty true for me personally, that queerness is oriented towards death.

N: Like we don't valorize seeking deep meaning except as it is consumption. And the other thing is—well with sex, or whatever do you think that there's any political value in the major city non-monogamous thing? Like are we actually getting away from the enforced solitude.

B: Mmm until society has achieved racial and economic justice, the way it's mostly set up now is rich white people LARPing as revolutionaries while not realizing that its like just their privileges that allow them to have access to these spaces. Yeah there's some potentials that inhere there. But the way its commonly concieved of or the versions we here about --if that's the main site of your political struggle, then you're fucking up. Now granted a fair number of people in collective living situations are involved—are activists or like allies in some respects. Its just that walling off a garden for the rich, white, and able bodied and then calling it eden. That's like actively shitty. Granted that's mostly not how it works, but it does sometimes work that way. But, the ones I've seen in new york, like you have to have money to have that house. There are some phenomenal exceptions. But like mostly, its walled gardens. It doesn't fix the problem, because everyones coming into your collective with an individualist mindset and the goal of accumulation of capital and a self rooted in the concept of work. I think there is a potential that inheres there, but it doesn't fix the real problem.

and of course that's good, but I think that that progress stands alongside the kind of stripping out and monetization or like collapsing into commodities of every other belief system. Like you said yourself that one nice thing about being in the commercial art market is that there is a sense of validation that comes from selling. Like everything gets abstracted back into like capital. As much as you like try and even as an artist where like you are trying to reach out and see other value systems and youre in somewhat of an okay like positions to try and like reach for other value systems, you still get something out of it as work, like work-work, and out of working on it and getting paid for your work.

N: How do you feel about ice cream.

B: I feel excellent about food. I kinda want noodles. I'm lactose intolerent though so maybe not ice cream. Unless theres like a sherbert situation.

N: I was gonna offer mochi.

B: Could they be rice milk?

N: nnuhh I dont know.

B: Where do cows live? Like where are they originally from?

N: I don't know.

B: I mean I know milk is everywhere. Because global logistics and shipping and stuff. But where are cows? Uh you have the same soap as my partner. And he has the same soap as my ex, and for like a week it was freaking me out, like what is that smell, but I didn't say anything because it seemed weird. But I'm used to it now so it's fine.

B: Also I did an interesting job of packing this morning. I have a short sleeved silk button down and a velvet leotard and a floral bomber. Nothing reasonable. I don't know what I was thinking.

N: We should go thrifting. Oh I wish you could meet the woman I've been seeing. She's so good at thrifting.

B: Ugh my voice. Well like I also do the upspeak thing too. I don't feel super femme, as I'm like wandering around the world in my person body. But when I hear my voice or see pictures of myself, I'm like oh—that seems like a woman.

N: Uh huh

B: With the upspeak and the likes

N: I've heard that women tend to put like in the front of sentences, as a way of cordoning off meaning. And the kind of like that we tend to associate with women's speech, the inserted, like creating a pause

B: like an um

N: Yes

B That was a literal like right? I've lost track of when a like is like and when a like is an um

N:This is what blew my mind and I want to look into this more is that the original definition of like, like in old english, the original definition was a synonym with the word body. Right, like if you go all the way back. The similarity definition, is a corporeal similarity.

B: Whenever I'm using like a lot in a sentence I'm just bringing everybody's bodies to bear, fully.

N: inserting your body into the sentence.

B: I wanted to read you something – uh! Beautiful cat! Look at this butt. Skinny butt. I don't like that their assholes are so visible. This is what I wanted to read you earlier about bodies.

B: I mean.. I have those reactions to like cats though, too sometimes. I'm just like oh you're so beautiful. Oh can I set my stuff in your room.

N: Oh so my bedroom is the one room I didn't clean.

B: Oh no worries.

N: Though I really should wash my sheets.

B: I still really don't care unless there's something truly alarming.

N: O-okay?

Scorpios are like intense and sociopathic and super slutty, and like I have my scorpio moments but that's not like the driving force um they're also super slutty, which again I hve my moments. I occasionally check my horoscope, and I follow astropoets on twitter.

N: I follow astropoets too. But I feel comfortable with that because it kind of feels like a joke, but IM not sure that its a joke.

B: I guess I end up touching it.

N: Touching

B: metaphorically, not grabbing grazing. Someething.

N: I guess I read libra stuff sometimes.

B: What are libras like?

N: Indecisive and deliberate, and kind of artsy.

B: Indecisive and deliberate: how both?

N: Those are the poles.

N: I have to go to court, I got in a car wreck, someone broke into our house.

B: What

N: Those are excuses.

B: I have to trick myself into reading my hard books, by sending myself on a trip and only packing my hard books. Otherwise I'll just read sci fi novels all year.

N: I've read like maybe 40 novels in my life. I only read the hard books, so I never read.

B: oh my god, that's like nothing.

N: I mean I read other stuff. Nonfiction, theory.

B: To a certain extent, novels sustained me through high school. I was so miserable and pretty lonely. And I just read all the time, because we didn't have TV or the internet really.

N: Wait.

B: Yeah, no because we were poor. Ish. And my mom was a luddite.

N: Yeah I grew up with the internet, like the first earliest version. Like 1994.

B: What even was the internet back then.

N: yeah it was super slow.

B: but there was no google and it wasn't social. How did you know where to go? Did you just hear rumors about cool websites to go to?

N: I don't know I don't remember really.

B: I remember the first time I went on homestar runner, was because I heard a rumor about it on the school bus, so I looked it up in the library later. Oh, did you have a myspace?

N: yeah well I was in a band, so. Actually a lot of my first internet experiences were through the band. Like emailing and myspace and stuff.

B: So I got the glass replaced, then I went to Texas for christmas and was holding my sisters cat and the phone, dropped the phone, and like the clattering phone freaked the cat out and it dug into my, look at that, the cat dug into my wrist and launched itself, and that's like three months old, and it's still visible.

N: I have one of those, see?

B: how old is it?

N: pretty old, super old.

B: yeah that's not going away. It was a cat?

N: No it was a box, at my old place. I was picking up a box and dropped it and it slid down.

B: eessh

N: Yeah. Do you have any other good ones?

B: I have a seven inch long one the wraps around, you know the sticky-outy bone on the outside of your ankle? Yeah. I have a scar. That's a surgery scar. It’s all nasty and ropy. I've got two little crucifixes on one knee from another surgery. I had a partial ACL tear and a cyst had formed around it and the cyst was interfering with my movement.

N: On both knees

B: Two holes, one knee. We're going to get through all my injuries by the time this weekend is over, huh? Oh I've got a scar on my butt, from when I fell and broke my ribs and back and stuff in july. I scraped my butt, and it ripped my dress. It had a big gash on the side, and I lost one shoe. So the sent me home in hospital issue shoes, these giant velcro converse looking things, with a gash in my dress. It was a good look.

N: Of all the indignities, I feel like losing a shoe is up there. That's like a punchline.

B: You get hit and the shoe just flies off screen.

So part of the reason, obviously not the whole reason, but part of it is she's ready for that new york dick

B: I don't want to shit on new york dick but...

N: Let's just hold on that phrase

B: I feel like its not that great. Um. I mean, I've only really done Boston and New York. But..

N: however mediocre you think it is, it gets worse outside of new york.

B: Of course there's some dick that's so good you have to really make sure you don't lose track of it, but the vast majority of dick just scratches an itch.

B: Yeah, I'm being gone down on not that often right now, like if I ask sure, but now I learned how to come from like heterosexual penetrative sex. I mean not dick only, but I've learned like which positions and what I need to do or whatever. Which is a neat thing to learn how to do as a 26 year old.

N: J is so small she just slivers away and hides in a crease in the sheets when I ask.

B: Haha, you make it sound she's a silverfish. Iunno sex is weird. Like I'm 26 and I just learned to come from dick. Granted I'm super attracted to my partner right now, and my sex drive is a little higher, so I don't really feel picky in that situation. It's been nice to fall a into a pattern together, and learn some stuff and be flexible.

N: Did you see this?

B: I like the big wax tongue.

N: You can touch it.

B: Oh my god it feels amazing.

N: yeah it’s made of a foam rubber

B: Eek! Is that the art?

N: Yeah

B: I stepped on the art. I'm supposed to step on the art, right?

N: Yeah. It's a long unfolding performance art.

B: I am part of the art, then. I wonder how many other people it terrified.

B: Are you in this?

N: That's a good question, I don't know. I stretched some of these canvases though.

B: Is it cheaper to stretch them yourself.

N: well it's cheaper to ship them unstretched and then stretch them

B: do they ever crack?

N: Yeah but I'm doing it to my own stuff mostly.

B: ah. Is it hard?

N: yeah.

pop

B: ahh, I'm wary of the floor now

N: hehehe

B: ahh

N: hehe *continues popping the floor poppers*

B: I really want a new tattoo, but the idea I have is super lame. Egon Schiele has these kind of wrecked looking flowers that I like, but it's a bit of a tumblr girl thing.

N: He's maybe a little a popular for the wrong reasons, but still good. I don't know if I've seen the flowers though.

B: I feel like if I was getting a nude, on ma body, that'd be a little redundant. But--

N: You should totally get a boob like slightly off on your boob.

B: Yes! I really wanted wild flowers though, but they were all too pretty. These are rougher or something. Wildflowers just remind me of home, and of my mom.

N: Schiele kind of looks naive or something as well, which is a good way to hit that from the side.

B: What's the plan. Drinks, chatting, friends, dancing?

N: Theres no plan. I might have a date, but you can come.

B: Would we leave it on if we hung out with people. Also should we like establish boundaries or anything? In terms of your date and the M situation, I kind of want expectations for me and boundaries in place.

N: What do you mean?

B: I mean, we have had sex.

N: Yes, I remember.

B: So like how am I introduced in this context? That seems awkward.

N: I'm putting like no expectations, I mean not 100% comfortable but I'm pretty happy with things just being relaxed. I'm not tryna fuuck.

B: Okay, yeah. I didn't know if I was signing myself up for a threesome or something.

N: I don't even know what this would be, or if it would go anywhere, but no.

B: Okay, yeah. I mean. Yeah, alright. We'll see.

N: Oh your head is cold, why is your head cold? Maybe you were lickin’.

B: Maww

B: how do you .. okay i understand this isn’t a real question, but, how do you make the paint paint? It looks hard.

N: Make the paint paint?

B: How do you make the paint paint? Noun version of paint, verb version of paint.

N: What?

B: It looks hard.

N: Uh

B: Like physically hard.

N: Oh. Some of it is hard. I scrape  it off with this razor blade. Oil paint doesn’t dry, it oxidizes. You can sort of reinvigorate it to a certain extent by adding oil, but only to a certain extent because it becomes a hard resin.

B: Oh

N: Actually something else that’s, well this isn’t related. I used to paint on these ones, and now I’m using these

B: canvas and gesso

N: You can’t sort of see, here look at the edge here. There’s a thin see through plastic product.. can you see, where can you see, here.  Feel this. It’s soft and then it’s rough. It’s called PDA Size. It’s used in book making. And I’ve been experimenting with using it as a gesso.

B: Ahh. The white ones are crisper.

N: I’m kind of letting the linen texture and color show through to a certain. Yeah and also to some extent I think there’s a reference, one that I’m trying to induce to a traditional technique. Contemporary image logic in a traditional environment.

B: it’s good for flesh

B: Is this alright

N: Are you asking the cat if you can take a picture of him?

B: I’m asking you.

N: Yeah. If you make kissy noise he’ll look at you.

B: Uh, how much gin is in this? Just so I don’t put myself under the table.

N: Like two fingers.

B: you can see it swirling

N: Oh that’s so good. Let me see if I can get it.

B: It kind of stopped. Do you want me to stir? Ohh it started up again.

N: Pretty good. Are you recording?

B: Have been for a second. It’s just there.

Well I do think that I’ve taken on some of our collaborations in the past year into my extended art practice identity, that I’m not just someone who makes paintings, that I also make funky language stuff with you. And so when opportunity came along… Well, and I read a lot of interviews and I’m interested in them, so I am interesting in how their are done. I guess I also feel like I function better on one-on-one, socially.

N: Out of interviews. I think some of it is fantasizing myself into the scenario, like a casual comparing of sensibility. Maybe in a way, that’s a little too meta. But I listen and try and think how would I respond to that?

B: Who do you fantasize yourself as, the, well I guess it’s hard sometimes to tell who’s doing who..

N: I kind of like fiction that feels like my inner voice. Well, I had this thing with a friend in Berlin, this bookclub we started reading ernst junger, and we had plans to read cioran

B: Oh my god I love cioran. I read him in college when I was super sad.. so

N: Excruciating nihilism. At least Nietzsche is kind of enthusiastic about it.

B: Invigorating nihilism. Like it can get perversely generative. Versus cioran is just soo. Ugh. He’s just like morose. In a way, it also wraps back around and becomes a kind of idealized melancholy.

N: Oh god, but he’s just a slow drag on your soul.

B: It was interesting to me, because I want to be more immediate, and have a clearer emotional stake and like psychological or something  stakes in the work I’m doing. I like the idea of fantasizing yourself into a situation, [I really like the idea that I’ve fantasized myself into this situation, given the history and given the way desire seems to work on me. It isn’t exactly untrue.]

N: Do you feel like we have clear emotional stakes?

B: By emotional stakes, I don’t mean a channel of intense desire or rage.  Though there is some desire and some compexity to it. I mean closer to my self than say an algorithm trained on another person’s texts can get. In a way. Not romantic stakes. I mean I want good things for you and the kitties and the art. And you’ve known me for a while, and in a few different contexts. And the longevity is cool, because we’ve gotten to be different people along the way.  

N: I’ve floated the idea with a few people, a few friends that it’s better to have fucked first and then become friends. Like it gets rid of something, or establishes something, or does some sort of work.

B: Thats one thing that continues to flabberghast me. The way that I feel like I know someone after sex. Like I’ve seen them naked and somewhat vulnerable, and they’ve seen me naked and well usually super vulnerable.. That’s true especially lately, in that I’m less alienated from the experience of sex. But I just feel closer or something. And I keep having the experience of feeling close and known, and then that not at all matching up with the other person’s reality, that honestly breaks my heart a little. Like, most often with older straight guys. Like I’ll think that we’re becoming friends, have sex expecting to become better friends, and then have them never speak to me again.

N: Like they’re aiming at something and then once they get it?

B: Yeah, but it kind of baffles me, because I’m not hot shit. Like if you’re trying to make notches in your bedpost, I’m an odd target. I think it’s more that there’s a script or schema in place, where casual sex means someone is disposable. Versus I’ve not had that experience in my queer community. Like sometimes or rarely things will be weird for a bit, but it resolves. Versus these older dudes, just leave me hanging oddly. The younger straight dudes have less of the idea that if you speak to someone after you fuck them, you’re suddenly married.

so like omg do you really need that much moral cover to be a slut?

N:  This boy M is just the softest boy, non-threatening and beautiful. But he sleeps with everyone. He slept with my friend and she said he could not admit to himself that he liked sleeping around,

B: he had to keep up the lovelorn performance. God that’s even more violent. Like if a boy is an avowed slut, then you can hit them up and just be honest with eachother. I know those boys. I’ve bedded a few in a my day. They’re great to hit up when you actively dont want emotional work, but want to fuck something. Versus that whole, I’m really serious about finding love but there’s something wrong with you narrative is horrible.

N: bedded... Yeah, it disingenuous. It holds out a sense of false promise to people who are serious, and then it forces slutty people to engage in their weird game. Like over the winter the friend I was talking about got with him, and she said just wanted to cuff him for winter but he couldn’t stop with the

B: wait is that what cuffing means? I thought cuffing season referred to like cuffing your pants.

N: Explain that.

B: Cause it’s fall, so you put away the shorts and you get out the pants, but its a still warmer so you cuff them.

N: You might be right

B: No you’re definitely right, because I also thought thot was slang for a thing you think instead of an abbreviation of that hoe over there.

N: Oh that’s cute. But yeah but she just wanted to cuff someone and the guy thought she was being to calculating about things.

B: Ugh. I would much rather have someone be straightforward and say hey you’re gorgeous, and I want to sleep with you but have no emotional bandwidth for anything else. Like when people pull that shit of like oh I’ve had a crush on you for ten months, let’s fuck, and then I’ll text you for seven weeks, but not tell you when I get a real girlfriend.

B: well yeah. Though I mean there’s a balance to be struck. There’s been like four threesomes that I’ve straight up slept through.

N: Slept through?

B: Like my partner and whoever else set something up, knowing I’d be down, because I’m like perpetually, terminally down.

N: Haha

B: And then by the time they’re like back or ready or whatever I’m curled into a tiny, warm, ball completely unwakeable.

N: I like when they bite me, because they do it so carefully.

B: You like it.

N: less so when they use their claws

B: Oh you’ve never even smoked anything. Oh my god.

N: No and it felt really weird on my lungs. It kind of makes me want to go in a sauna.

B: Oh my god you’ve never been in a sauna? I went like three weeks ago.

N: There’s a big sauna near here that I’ve been trying to go to. It has like private rooms with a hot tub and a sauna.

B: Every trip I’ve taken recently, I’ve managed to get a spa type experience in. Which is super decdent but.

N: I’ve being trying to book this one near here for a while but I haven’t yet

B: We should go tomorrow.

N: I’ll call. Okay so its 25 dollars a person, and they have rooms available later in the evening.

B: You have such a decadent life. Excellent pants, covered in cats, surrounded by art

N: Excellent pants?

B: Excellent pants! Am I wrong? No I was just starting small and working up, but also to be fair, excellent pants are foundational for happiness. Oh, I need to call my sister.. Can I go do that?

N: Yeah

N: so my brain as come up with two options.

B: your brain has

B: I don’t like it. It’s like.. It’s like fake fun. It’s a bunch of people trying to convince themselves they’re cool and interesting. And they’re not. It’s like chill out, you’re a corporate lawyer, sure you’re whipping a woman in front of a crowd of other shills, but that doesn’t mean you’re cool.

N: What would it need to be actually fun?

B: To not be a sex club. To not be forced, or anonymous, or awkward.

N: Yeah well the schwitz is closing down

B: If I was starting a sex club, I would put it in a church and have only one room, with a max of 15 or 20 people. And everyone is chosen for a given party based on how well they’ll get along and how much they have in common. And then time is the factor that determines whether people get down or not, instead of like separate spaces where one is always already a writhing kronenberg monster.

N: I’ve got the avocado, and the hand one.

B: What’s the hand?

N: on my palm I have ‘Ne Travaillez Jamais’. It means never work. But the idea is that the more worn my hands get, the more the tattoo fades.   

N: I think I might get another one in new york. This equation kunst equals capital..

B: whats kunst. I know what capital is haha

N: art

B: ahh I see . I thought it might mean pussy is capital

N: haha no. The other one is a ken price drawing of a naked woman with her legs spread, and it says dont think about her while youre driving. But I don’t know how I would get it. Just the text or the text and the image and where

B: Get the image in right here, straddling you. Like you have to shave to get it, but then when it grows back it’ll be partially obscured. If you have any other patchy hair on your body thats what you should do with it

N: Fill it with tattoos

B: Fill it with cunts

N: Are you looking up long legged chicken in jorts?

B: First I’m looking up long legged chicken, because I want relevant results.

N: wow. wow. wow.

B: I might be sleepy. I might be ready for sleep. Is that okay.

N: Yeah.

B: Oh yeah long legged chicken in jorts. Here we go.

N: ahh haha, close.

B: In boxing shorts. The rest are chicks in jorts. Human chicks. You should put a variety of chickens in your backyard.

N: Christine has chickens.

B: Oh my god, does she have americunas?

N: I don’t know you’d have to ask her.

B: If she doesn’t she should get some. They lay colorful eggs. And I think they are good in cold weather as well.

N: Yeah. Okay, I told M I would call her before I went to bed so I’m gonna do that and then come occupy the other half of the bed.

B: Okay, I’m gonna pass out and cudddle your cats.  If you want me to sleep on the couch that’s also fine. If that’s neccessary.

N: I don’t think its neccessary.

B: Okay, goodnight.

B: Yeah I sleep okay, except I woke up with a hangover headache so I drank like six glasses of water, then I had to pee a bunch because of all the water. So I slept well except for self inflicted interuptions. Ugh these jeans I missed a button because they’re dumb and they dont have a zipper.

B: Who’s taking care of them while your away

N: Roomate. She’ll just pop down and feed them.

B: So what’s this one. I kind of read a crotch or a breast in the gesture, but...

N: A throat

B: right too furry for a breast

N: I guess my breasts are furry

B: No nipple on the throat.

N: some people have said they read the thumb as a nipple.

B: Kind of, maybe. And this, what’s this? I see a shoe, a foot.

N: Yeah and the blue wrinkles are the edge of a lap

B; so the foot is crossed over like

N: Yeah.

B: [inaudible]

N: [yelling] pigeons.

B: Yay! I think the thing that I liked about the idea, is that one of the art publications I read most is bomb. Which is literally subheaded, artists in conversation. And they have a shit ton of interviews, even a book of them. And I really like the kind of forced out, or half baked, or heavily mediated ideas that come from the space of a conversation between friends. It a faster, hotter way of coming up with stuff.  Plus it kind of creates an idealized space of flattened power dynamics. But then on the other side its super parasitic. Like you’re performing being an off the cuff or being equal in order to reap some sort of benefit down the line. Lord knows its somewhat rehearsed and scripted.

For the most part theres a mutuality. The reader gets to use the text to access a kind of empathy or intimacy. Its a cool form. You get more of a stake it your ideas, they’re associated with your self and your body in a way that isn’t true of a lot of other forms. That whole habermas thing about the public, where the subject is stripped away and becomes just a vehicle for an idea, for reason. It’s absurd, but I think the interview can undermine that in some ways. Your self is inserted back in, with its vocal ticks, and gestures, and habits of thought. The body responds to the interlocutor no matter what. I think selfie art kind of makes a similar argument, inserting the body back into the public sphere. We’re doing the same here, in a subtler or more obscured way

B: with images of women or sexualized images of women, its broken in the way that these come from the tradition of having been object for consumption. Which is just one way the subject can be broken there are other ways it can be broken, moreinteresting way. A relationship to a self as a object for masturbation