Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Makin' a move to a place that's right for me

Hello to any and all of my blog readers; I'm writing this to let you know I have decided to move this blog over to my dedicated website at www.theorakvitka.com/blog.  All of my old posts have been uploaded to my website, so nothing is lost. Now my portfolio and blog are integrated into the same place, which hopefully will lead to more updates, site hits, and maybe even more sour gummy worms. Please change your links and google readers and whatnot, if you use any such things.  And while you are at it, check out my new site layout- I think it's pretty snazzy!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Pet Peeve #2

I don't work in the fashion industry anymore, but I think I have enough credibility and aesthetic sense to say: Just Don't Do It.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Squashed

Life has felt a little bit like the above, lately. 
...
Bedtime.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Monday, June 4, 2012

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Dance the Night Away


Like what you see above?  You can bid on my paintings (8x10" framed gouache triptych) at the Mich-Mash Productions Garden Party fundraiser event!  The silent auction/ dance party is happening this Friday, May 11th at 8:30pm in Washington, D.C.  With the purchase of a $25 ticket, you can bid on items in the silent auction, receive two drink tickets and hors d'oerves.  Or for $10 you can BYOB and your groove thang.  If you'll be in D.C., I strongly encourage you to go!  Micheline knows how to throw a party.  Click here to purchase tickets.


Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Title Translations

I have some continuing translation work for the photography book I mentioned before. Right now I'm helping to translate titles of some photographic works.  Most of them are pretty straightforward, but I am showing those below in order to get help. The photographs are all beautiful and an interesting window to Chinese photography in the 1930's-40's; I'm excited to see the book in it's final form!


吴中行 Wu Zhongxing, 恨晨光只熹微  Depressing Dim Light of Dawn, or Regretting the Light of Dawn  . Perhaps he feels a regret (hatred?) of the passage of time?

 司徒怀(沙飞)Situ Huai (Sha Fei),绿波留恋浣纱人 Green Waves Yearning for the Washerwomen. Or, less poetic, Green Waves surround the Washerwomen
留恋, Liu2lian4: reluctant to leave
 


 冯四知 Feng Sizhi, 仙山在何处   Celestial Mountains or,  In the Mountain of the Immortals or, Heavenly Mountains
 
 
吴中行 Wu Zhongxing, 杏花雨欲湿牛衣   Wet Cows and Clothing from Springtime Rain (Apricot Blossom Rain?)

 欲? as in 欲望? Or it is just a literary "for"
and is 杏花雨  poetic for Spring rain?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Carrying Conversation

This isn't going well.


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hooded

The Trayvon Martin case (or, tragically, lack thereof) has been all over the news.  I don't need to say anything more about it, but it was on my mind when I drew this.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Translation

The last three weeks, I've been working on a translation of an article about Jin Shisheng, a Chinese photographer who passed away in 2000.  The article was written by Wu Hung (if you know who he is... well, you know how big of a deal this is), and I was both honored and terrified to get this opportunity.  The article is going into the bilingual version of a book about the photographer, and will be published by Tongji University Press. After much stress and lots and lots of work I finally turned it in on Friday afternoon. Wu Hung is going to look at the article (he speaks English but wrote it in Chinese) and so I'll be a little nervous until I hear his response!

After I finally emailed it in I was exhausted, but really squirrely.  So what to do?  Have a dance party, of course!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Retail Posture

Drew this the other day.  Glad to not be faced with the above any longer!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Yoga Bitches and 'chos


I've been doing yoga for 4 or 5 years and I recently bought a Groupon for hot yoga. Before now I'd only taken two hot yoga classes and wasn't sure I loved it, but I figured it would be nice to have a sauna-like environment in the middle of the winter. Plus, yoga is expensive, and so if I want to do it at all, I can't be too picky.

The studio's website says the classes are typically between 90 and 95 degrees, but I've read the thermostats in there, and they lie.  Once it was 115, and that wasn't the hottest class I'd ever been to.  It just depends on the teacher and how much they want to crank it.  Plus, the more bodies in there, and the more you are all moving, the hotter it gets. Sometimes it's so hot, it's all I can do to lie down on the mat and pray for it to be over soon.  It gives me some idea what beached whales must feel like.



Even though it's really hot, that doesn't mean it's naked yoga. In fact, much of the time it is a Lululemon fashion show in there, and all the yoga bitches have all their gear on.  Additionally,despite the fact it's 2012, most women want to preserve the idea that we only 'glisten', and wearing less clothing will reveal exactly how sweaty we get, which is, not surprisingly, VERY SWEATY.
^I have yet to see a woman dressed like this.^
 
However, the men in these classes, who I will now refer to only as Yogachos (yoga + macho) are of a different opinion.  To them, 1) it's so effing hot in there, you'd be an idiot to wear any more clothing than necessary, and, 2) Hot yoga with all the hot yoga bitches is a great excuse to show off your hot sexy sweaty hairy speedo-ed body.  I have never seen a Yogacho younger than 40ish, with the median age probably around 55.  Would you want a hairy sweaty dad in your yoga class, leaving giant puddles of sweat everywhere? Didn't think so.
But really, it's not their all-too-visible bodies that bother me, it's their Yogacho attitudes. The classrooms are filled with mirrors, giving Yogachos the perfect opportunity to show off (they generally are extremely muscular and not very flexible=> sooo manly).  It also gives them the chance to look around the room, and make eyes at you in the mirror that say "You checkin' me out?  I think you wa' jus' checkin' me out, honey, yeaaahhhh look at this".  And then do a shoulder stand or kala bhairavasana to show off. 
Because why else would a yogacho do hot yoga, other than to meet hot yoga bitches and show of his hot yoga bod?

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Shannon Gillen, choreographer


CLAP FOR THE WOLFMAN, excerpt from Shannon Gillen on Vimeo.

I am so inspired by this!  Unbelievable movement and interaction between the dancers.  Check out her website for more.  I wish I could go see a performance.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Fancy Chair

Chair I saw at the Millionaire's Rejects consignment store.  I'd take it!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

New Room

Vivian and I are rearranging our apartment to use our dining room as a studio.  That leaves the third bedroom free!  I'm feeling inspired to use it as a garden room- a little winter oasis (maybe even bring in a humidifier and a space heater to make it "tropical"!). I made a new pinterest board for inspiration.

Feeling In Transition right now and I haven't been completing any comics. I don't intend to stop, but I'm keeping busy with some other artistic projects and studies; hoping to find what works best for me! For reasons unrelated to this blog, my retail manager suggested that I "part ways" with my retail job, so I did.  Pro: no longer will be spending half my income on clothing! Con: no more fresh Retail Life material for comics.  Darn it.  That was really the only reason I was sticking with the job.  Oh, and for the $.