what is gender

I often wonder if this is why you so commonly see the sentiment that we are in an era of uniquely bad literature, or at least that the fact that most books don't have artistic aspirations and are not aiming to be anything other than mindless entertainment is new. In fact what's new is the idea that everything is worth preserving (and also the internet making it easier to preserve it). The dumb artistically unambitious trash books of the past have survived only sporadically, because people thought of them as literally disposable.

I just sync my breathing to match hers and I’ve taught myself to smell when she is upset. I learnt her thesis off by heart before I ever even met her and I angle my body towards hers whenever we’re in the same room. I watch her sleeping sometimes and I bought her matching pyjamas that I keep in my bedroom and one day I’ll give to her.

this joke operates through absurd extension.

there exists a real argument that animation is "for children." this is an argument most people have encountered at least once in their lives. whether they agree with it is irrelevant; they recognize it as a familiar position. the joke takes that argument and extends it beyond the point of reason.

instead of saying animation is for children, it says ALL movies are for children. instead of stopping there, it goes further and suggests that the moving image itself is inherently juvenile. instead of stopping THERE, it goes even further and implies that enjoying images at all is childish. at each step, the claim becomes more ridiculous.

this is a rhetorical device called reductio ad absurdum. one takes a premise and follows its logic to an absurd conclusion, demonstrating that the premise itself may be flawed. for the post to be sincere, one would have to genuinely believe that the entire medium of cinema is intrinsically childish. that the technological phenomenon of projected moving images itself is puerile

(which is not a position held by any meaningful school of criticism, philosophy, aesthetics, media studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or common sense)

the sentence "the moving image is inherently juvenile" is not written like a serious claim. it is written like an exaggerated parody of a serious claim. it adopts the language of academic certainty while attaching it to a proposition so self-evidently ridiculous that the contrast becomes the joke

a useful comparison, in this case, would be: "all books are for children because they contain little pretend symbols."

or: "all music is for children because adults should not require repetitive sounds in order to feel emotions."

or: "all food is for children because mature people should not require a little snack.”

these statements are not arguments, nor are they “mean” (to whom? movies?? people who watch them? almost everyone in the world????). they are comic escalations. some responses have argued that the post is not a joke because it is not funny. fortunately, the presence of humor is not determined by whether a particular individual laughs.

a joke can fail. a joke can be unfunny. a joke can be poorly received. what it cannot be is transformed into a sincere statement by virtue of somebody not liking it. if i tell a knock-knock joke and nobody laughs, i have told a bad joke. i have not unintentionally published a manifesto on knocking doors.

So yeah! I LOVE ABORTION AND I THINK EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD TOO! ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.