A while ago I found this beautiful photo on the Internet.

At that time I just thought: wow, it looks so cool. I had no idea whose picture it was or why it was taken – I knew nothing at all. And then I completely forgot I had the picture.

Until one day I was at home, doing my best at being the worst couch potato ever, not wanting to go to bed, but being too damn tired to do anything else but watch TV. My remote control zapping stopped at History Channel. There was a show on about photography. I just watched and enjoyed and was totally mesmerized when they showed Sally Mann’s photos.

She had taken black and white photographs of her children. And the pictures were gorgeous, there was so much mystery about them. And then I saw it, the picture of the girl holding a cigarette. And I put two and two together. I have been in love with Sally Mann’s work ever since. She has an eye for things.

I especially love the Immediate Family series. I wish one day I will be able to document my family in such a way, with such honesty.

Nice. I love how the paints interact with the texture of the canvas. All pictures are taken from here.

It’s almost here. I’ve got yummies in the oven, PB on the way with extra champagne and a headache sneaking at the back of my head. It’s all looking good.

I think Al and I are going to have a quiet evening together, with PB passing through, and then we’ll go and greet the new year in city centre. It’s only 5 minutes ride on the bus and we’re there so why not.

But you never really know how quiet an evening you’re going to spend until you wake up the next morning. Last time I thought I was going to have a nice quiet evening I woke up getting flashbacks of me and H staggering home at 4am, eating snow along the way. Not to worry – the thick snow had just fallen, so no yellow nowhere.

So what will the new year bring for me?

I will have my first meaningless and stricken with hopelessness twenty-something birthday.

With any luck I will graduate from university and get my BA degree.

Summer has to be spent working, but with the recession and everything I have no idea whatsoever how that’s going to work out.

And in autumn I will have to decide whether or not to go to school again. I would love to go and study something that I will actually be able to benefit from, something practical that will allow me to work with my hands. But, yet again, the recession has teeth and they might bite hard.

So who knows. But it will be a pretty interesting year, that 2010.

It seems that I’m on a roll with these art entries. I couldn’t help myself, I found this photorealist who painted butts. Women’s butts. And I have one of those! So I had to write about it and share some images.

At the risk of sounding kinky:

nice, eh?

I really like his work. The sketchy and angular less than moral contorted figures. I think this is one of the reasons I like Aeon Flux as much as I do. You know, because the figures are very much like Schiele’s.

Helmi-Elfriide Arrak is a friend of mine from high school art classes. I have always admired her flowing, smooth style. Looking at her work (especially in pencil) leaves the impression that it has been done in one long stroke. At least that’s how I have always felt. Now that she has studied art more thoroughly for a few years, her work has evolved anatomy-wise. She is more precise, but still in that cool flowing way. And I love the way she uses colors. Even when she is copying Klimt or whoever, she makes it her own thing.

Helmi will rule the world one day, I have no doubt.

… has to be “Boy with a Violin” (Poiss Viiuliga) by Tiit Pääsuke. I even copied it in my art class, but didn’t get the expression on his face right. My boy looks like he’s had a bit too much candy and does not feel all that well.

No matter how enthusiastic I am about some class, sooner or later I am going to sit there, not listening to the lecturer but drawing on my notes. My favorite thing to doodle/draw with is a pen. A blue pen. I have gotten so used to it that when I drew in pencil this summer, I did not know what to do with it. Erasing? What is that?

I doodle chicks. Hot chicks, weird chicks, chick parts, boobs (I am a fan), too skinny chicks, psycho chicks. I usually don’t bother drawing the hands and feet (which has caused me to forget HOW to draw them, oops) and so I draw amputees. Which comes out kind of kinky.

This semester’s best doodle classes: ethics, psychology and the history of the English language.

It is always funny when an American tries to read some text in Latin. It’s especially funny when it happens on screen. Usually it’s priests and such, trying to act all serious while reading “in nomine patris et filiis et spiritus sancti”, but you know, the pronunciation is messed up. I’m not accusing anyone of being stupid or anything. But it’s fun.

There is a lot of American Latin on Buffy. It’s hilarious. They read the passages, make serious faces, but they are so far off the side of Latin that is Latin that it diminishes the awe that I should be feeling. You know the drill: the end of the world is nigh, bad things are happening, people are dying… but then Angel starts reading something in Latin and you can’t help but smile.

I’m observant like that.

Procession of Alexander the Great Large Plaque

Pipilotti is an artist from Switzerland. I looked at her other works and I did not get it. But I like this song.

I first heard it when (kind of) working in the infamous Lai 10 secondhand shop in Old Town. There was always something going on there. But I was so shy I never took the chance to get to know all those people who were there. I worked there on some Saturdays and Sundays. It was always fun.

It was Lee who played me this song and for about 5 years now I had not heard it. I had forgotten it. For some reason I remembered it last week and since then have listened to it too many times.