s-track | Supergrass - St. Petersburg

Irritating backgrounds II.


Right. I have spent last weekend in Iitti in SE-Finland in International Colour Festival. I was lecturing in colour seminar on Friday and was quite nervous before (as being last on the list) but it went quite well. The time table was so busy that I had to shorten a little but it was ok. The following two days the Colour festival took place in the field next to the church of Iitti. It was raining quite heavily at time to time - that was a pity. The grounds were quite beautiful but what happens if you have a field + rain. Some mud. It's a bit shame that I left so fast. I didn't get time to say proper good byes to anyone - I just sort of vanished from the grounds.


Yesterday we drove to Helsinki to show Timppa's paintings to one gallerist. The gallery is situated in very good spot but anyway - money would solve a lot of problems. Timppa will have his first exhibition in Helsinki propably in next spring - more about that when it will be the time.


Tomorrow I'll have a meeting in Craft Museum about our colour exhibition. I should've had a meeting today with Ulla but I cancelled it because I haven't got anything finished. I'm so lame. Spineless.


I've tried to make all those little updates that my email ate while I was away. Everytime I leave the c:ter for a small time there are dozens of sweet little messages waiting for me. I'm not complaining about work. But I just hope I could have some kind of systemized mind to organize all the stuff. I wish to get my table cleaned even for once.


Small updates: Gallery Becker, Aino-K. Pajari, Alvar Aalto Foundation and The Craft Museum of Finland. And more to come.

s-track | Stateless - Bloodstream

[Written yesterday but since thunder came and I won't take another chance to blow up this &%¤# machine... I plugged out for evening. Feeling odd and empty withuot a cable connecting me to the world.]


OH MY GOD! I just realized that there is not time enough! Full time full size panic!
Updating Alvar Aalto Foundation took all day...


Tomorrow I'm meeting Ulla about our colour exhibition next summer. We should get to show our ideas etc in the museum the week after the next one. I've made some small digi-images of the museum layout but I'm still almost at the same point where I stood one month ago. BUT I've got some new ideas - have to call to Mikko first and ask if they are possible.


On Wednesday I'll be meeting teachers from JAO to discuss about my herring projects and if there could be some use for students. And vice versa. I was planning to make good layouts of how-when-who-where I had in mind... There are some nasty smutty drawings in several small post-it's. Not very convincing.


Next week I'm leaving to Iitti to celebrate International Colour Festival - as one of the seminar speakers. My subject is colours on web - but I just heard last week that they ARE NOT online. That's not a major problem (well, maybe a little: I can't introduce all those i.net sites I've found to be helpful). I have everything in html mode But as usual: my cd isn't burning! Crap. Installation day tomorrow. If it still won't work after one day fight, I'll go and draw pictures.


And yet to come: National dress project should be ready in two weeks...
Oh god.

s-track | Louis Furey - Hustler's Tango

Official no-money-let's-get-some-panic day.


I've done A LOT of small things but getting nothing finished. Or so it seems. New ideas are invading my head right now when I *don't* have any time nor skills to fulfill them. Where did the whole July go?


Yesterday I spent the whole day trying to inform all mailing lists and art info pages about our Live Herring. Today I've posted info about the new exhibition in Spirited Herring.


Updated f.ex. ArsLab3 + The Craft Museum of Finland. Send a working demo for Alvar Aalto Symposium 2006 (very clean and empty that one). Continued making Teija's 'Rakennettu arki' architecture learning project but some essential pieces are still missing. That project will be wild one...


Real life is too harsh now with nothing essential happening (work work tears). I lead so booooooring life right now, no one can even imagine. I'm starting to slip into dream world while making boring small updates with no mind needed - living in my fantasies as a Caribbean pirate queen (piratess?) Maybe this is because of my skull page (in plans).

---

¬_¬

---
Ok. Need some sleep now.

s-track | ...Trail Of The Dead - To Russia My Homeland

[Irritating background images #1]

The usual story: the sun is shining outside and I'm not shining inside.
There have been several small updates and several small ones and a few ones still waiting. I'm starting to feel that there is no sense in what I am doing. I have to make myself a list of what I'll have to finish and in which order so that everyone could be satisfied.


People are starting to return from their summer holidays. I know this by looking my mail box. I so was planning to cath up my doings during July but the time just flipped through my fingers. To slimy to catch. Damn.

Spirited Herring exhibition should change soon but as it is: I haven't even got to select the poster yet. So I'm a bit worried about that. I've so pleased with the invitation work to Spirited Herring (by Mika) this time but otherwise I'm bit down. I've managed the whole project really badly. Well, not badly but worse than I had planned. I realize now that I have too many projects in my mind and too much to handle. Maybe I learn *this time*.


I try not to complain too much. I've had my share of this summer ok - yesterday we had a extraordinary beautiful day at shopping malls... And on our way back I collected a large amount of tansies for dyeing purposes.

s-track | Chemical Brothers - The Boxer

I've been lazy - and now I'm panicking with all projects. The worst of these are The Online Gallery Henkevä Silakka / Spirited Herring and Live Herring. But I'm getting there...


I was so releaved today when I received the invited art work from Mika who did great job in very short time - I invited him a bit late. I'm soooo happy right now about that - I can hardly wait a new exhibition to open.


Now I'm taking my words back: I actually haven't been lazy, I've just concentrated on wrong things. Like making unique colouring pictures. Last week I started drawing something while watching telly and though 'well, this could be nice to color'. And I made some more pictures. But instead of colouring them myself I took them to Gallery Becker yesterday. Go, fetch, buy.


Actually my soundtract now is Leya which is playing live on Gideon Coe on BBC6. Beaaaauuuutiful.

...I really should start my working day now...

s-track | Louis XIV: God Killed The Queen

I feel sooooo miserable right now. This day just sucks.


This has been a sort of manic depressive July so far. Some absolutely fantastic days with sun shining and ice creaming and all. And then the days of universe killing our machines (the latest one being our dear Spirit of St. Louis phone - propably hit by lightning yesterday). And then these gloomy days when nothing seems to be right.
This day started nicely: with rain dropping down to window pale. I like to push my head deeper into pillow and listen to the sound of rain. It's still warm and all the balcony door and all the windows were open and light wind blew over. Enjoyable morning. But after I got up, everything sort of started to go wrong. I've been up for about three hours now and I feel like I've done a twelwe hour day already.

Whining, whining. *sob sob*


Yesterday morning started by installing windows repair disc - which itself wasn't a big job. I actually managed to finish some layouts for Aalto Symposium 2006 which has been there half ready waiting to be forwarded. Hopefully they will do. Even though I'm not really satisfied with myself. Configuring this damn machine (even Photoshop, my dearest friend, refused to start properly) always pushes me to the edge and even though I remained sane yesterday, it really didn't need much to knock me over.


I really need to close this damn machine right now and go to get some fresh air. Maybe walking around could help a bit.

s-track | Louis XIV: God Killed The Queen

Where did time go?


I've forgot to pay my VAT and my bills because the time has suddenly just passed me. The two last weeks have been totally bbbbeeeeautiful summer days - and total waste of time. I've had nothing finished and my working is so spineless it's even embarrassing me. If I had a time to have some holidays this lazyness wouldn't be any harm but as I'm in a hurry with a couple of messy projects... I+Sun=no good.
I've done some fixings to Sibelius Academy project but nothing big yet. I'm avoiding it a bit. I really like that project and with knowing my ameba condition... Nothing good would happen. Right now I'm actually fixing the first page - which I have done a lot within the last month - but I'm not yet satisfied so I haven't made it to the net so far.


I *should* make some informing about Live Herring, update the regulars and finish my coloring images project. More of that latter one later.


Heart burns. Eaten too many strawberries with ice cream.

s-track | Ordinary Boys: Boys Will Be Boys

I planned this week to be a very intensive week with work + Coloria... But universum has its own laws. Yesterday we got a new fridge/freezer which took the whole day to install (+ clean etc). Today I turned on the washing machine only to see it break down in front of me. The smell was awful and I thought the fumes were dangerous so I called the fire department to ask what to do. So, three charismatic firemen came to visit and noted that there was nothing to do - buy a new machine. But the fumes were no dangerous so here I am.


Anyway, Ulla was here after the evil-machine incident and we planned the 2006 colour exhibition a bit further. A few days ago I started to make some kind of visual script for the exhibition with Photoshop. Today I continued by drawing my ideas - it's so hard to hold pencil these days. At least the way I'd like to. How come the straight lines I try to draw are nothing but.


Now I'm about to update Aalto Foundation site.



Woaaaah.


Cheer me up someone.

s-track | We Are Scientists: Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt

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The work and fun project I wrote about earlier has quite not yet realized. I've worked, yes, but I've had less fun than usually. Wednesday evening was fun though - we drove to small town of Jämsänkoski (Rune, Timppa, Naoji and I) to a Pöllölä gallery for exhibition opening. After the opening we went to see the dam/falls/what ever (...I think we went there accidentally while trying to find a way out of the town but I'm not sure - fine place anyway). And after taking tons of pictures we left for Jämsä. It was a true summer trip: we ate ice cream on the market cafe/beer terrace where everyone else were enjoying their beers... And then we continued the trip. There was this strange ghostly kind of wooden house and we left our car next to it. We headed to the river and walked to see a environmental art piece by Pertti Karjalainen (The Herb Garden of the Pharmacist) whre there are several herbs planted and pickable. We took some coriander and mint before leaving to see another environmental art project near by river. After a while we left home - enjoyed sun shine and rain and double rainbow...


Anyway, not any work project finished on Wednesday or yesterday (spent the whole day with The Craft Museum of Finland updates) - no time to Coloria. Today I realized that there are still 25 emails (read: updates / wishes) to fulfil so... Maybe tomorrow.
Argh- the sun is shining outside. It's hot and THERE IS NO MORE ICE CREAM ON OUR FREEZER. But on Monday we'll have a new freezer with more space. I'll dedicate one shell to ice cream only.


With these thoughts... *opening my DreamWeaver*

soundtrack | Salad: Drink The Elixir

Back to work. Timppa left for Jämsänkoski to put up an exhibition with five other artists from Central Finland. I would have liked to leave with him to help but since yesterday was some sort of thunder head day and I practically slept through the whole day... That's it.


I just made a decicion to divide my work days during weeks to work and fun (read: work and Coloria). Coloria has been linked to YleX radio station pages which has brought me A LOT of new visitors and comments about Coloria. And I'm feeling a bit down about it since I really have wrote only few sentences to the site since the beginning of the year. Last week I received a book by Arturo Péres-Reverte from the Finnish translation for thanks (for a little help with one colour related thing).
I've sort of taken the easy step closer to Coloria. On Midsummer fest I had a lo-fi fest: I went to my parents and left the work totally. I took my portable computer wth me and studied their books and some articles and wrote bases for colour stories. And I had some wool with me which I dyed with madder, Dermocybe mushrooms and nettle with boletus mushrooms ...Could it get more lame? I'm ruining my reputation as rock chick.

Still one more foot note: I still find it nicer to listen to radio (hard core BBC6 fan) while working but I have to say The buther and The Butterfly by Queenadreena... Gives me some extra kick I need in mornings.


And so it begins. Work.

soundtrack | Dover: Die For Rock'n'Roll

Spirited Herring here...
and

Live Herring there...


For your information: No, I'm not dead, just a bit older! Last week was busybusy and then theere were minimal birthday festitives and after that maximal rock festitives. After a long weekend of hectic running around sand fields and bridges over the river at Provinssi-rock working feels like holidays. It was great though - seeing Marilyn Manson and NIN live... The weather was better than good and I found a good festival theme: I started taking pictures of people wearing clothes with skulls. It's a shame I got it so late, I only had about 30-40 pictures. But this will be ongoing theme with me in future fests too - so wear your skulls!


Before we left I managed to finish an awful lot of projects - and still there are many left. But Live Herring is online and so is my new artsy bitsy Uninvited words which is also exhibited at Spirited Herring. And propably in Chicago next month if everything goes well. Today I also filled in the work description for Rhizome ArtBase...


On my birthday (16th) the only festitive thing was a birthday dinner: we ordered all appetizers on the menu except one. Otherwise I worked through the day. ...Well, I had to try: Timppa bought me two PS2 games and I had to try Sonic collection a little. I knew it was a mistake - I almost couldn't stop. After finishing these couple of late project in my hands, I'll play a bit.


So: following are the exhibition space thingy for Mikko in Craft Museum and rest of the site renewal for Kirsi.

soundtrack | Magazine: Shot By Both Sides

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What?! Yesterday night I lost Britain from the world map! Tried to open BBC6 on RealPlayer - and nothing. After a while I thought I lost the contact to the whole world but soon realized that only the British pages were banned. There was no problem in getting to German pages (for some reason the obvious choice for me was to try the homepage of Berlin...) Glad it's back though - most of all BBC6. Right now I'm easing down listening to Phill Jupitus Breakfast show on BBC6. I've said this before but I will say it again: time zones are great! I can wake up at my own time not feeling quilty about not waking up at early morning like rest of the population seems to be doing. When I start my work and open the radio there is breakfast show running. It sort of gives me more hours to day as I can pretend that I have woken up early. I'm actually going to mail this to BBC. Right after I've managed to get through my most important thirty about mail waiting for reading. Actually, I have mentioned BBC6 so many times they should actually send me some stuff for this. T-shirt or something. Today's world as it is: nothing for free.


Anyway, I've done a lot of work. Most recent updates: Gallery Becker, Alvar Aalto Foundation and The Craft Museum of Finland.

soundtrack | System of A Down: BYOB

...god. The beginning of June has been hectic. Most of the time has been spent with Spirited Herring - www.webgalleria.net - now open. Go, register as an artist and submit your Crime associated works! First invited artist is Lea Turto whose interbiew will be translated also to English. So funny - as the Spirited Herring is now a project of The Arts Council of Central Finland I asked them to give me a name of a good translator I could ask to translate the texts to proper English... They actually gave me the name of my old school friend - from about twenty years ago.


I've made some basic updates for Alvar Aalto Foundation and The Craft Museum of Finland but nothing big (if you don't count the Spirited Herring)...

soundtrack | Nine Inch Nails: The Line Begins To Blur

It's unbelivable stupid life I live. On Friday I got tired to get error notes from my c-ter and not be able to run chkdsk for some reason.

And the result? The new hard drive is three times bigger but as the last one was so silent and soft this feels like driving monster car or something. Crunch crunch crunch. And it seems that the problem wasn't actually with the system but with something else. The first thing that happened when I turned the machine on at home was: 'Epson scanner file is missing or corrupted... run chkdsk' - which it still doesn't do when I ask it to. And plus to that: the mouse is acting hectic. It takes about every third click as double click. I tried to update the drivers but Logitech site doesn't find the model and just throws me to some general support page.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Could I just hate this 1001001001 world any more?


Yesterday we spent the easy-life day visiting my parents: good food, playing cards, not much c-ter. Today the reality is back again: have to try to complete my most important work missions for today and after that installing XP again.


Something finished though: Piitu's small page is now online: http://www.piitunykopp.net.

soundtrack | Wednesday 13: Bad Things

Nerdy life continuum. I stayed in the whole weekend making final changes to Alvar Aalto Foundation site - now published. Exactly 6.30am this morning. I went to bed at about sevenish and a few moments after that Timppa woke up - he's restauring one wall painting by Jaakko Valo with Jaakko Valo for a couple of weeks and they start each morning early. It was actually quite funny: I had my morning alarm at noon and shorly after that I went to kitchen to make some coffee I saw them through the kitchen window heading for University (Ilokivi or Lozzi I suppose) for something to eat. Hmph. Funny? I'm functioning on overdrive. After waking up (and having straight week of only few hours of sleep each night) I've been feeling euforious. I've been laughing to every small thing and - ! - almost made the dishes, cleaning the sink... This can't be right.


But still no end anywhere to be seen: Muhi project and updates are waiting and phone is ringing again. As I've said before: no rest for the wicked.


Feeling very Joy Divisional - a couple of days ago when BBC 6 Music had Ian Curtis memorial day and played Joy Division the whole day I wasn't in the mood. But thank the lord for 'listen again' buttons.

soundtrack | My Chemical Romance: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge

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Angel's here! Angel's here! The last season just arrived from DVDon!

Nothing else much.


Most of the time spended with Muhi project and even more with Aalto Foundation site renewal - which is almost finished. Some polishing and all is set for publishing.


And the usual one: machines break down. I was about to write a bill to ArsLab3 when I found my offer *file corrupted*. I tried to run chkdsk but the c:ter doesn't allow - it only asks if I's like to run chkdsk next time I start this &¤%##/%#/ machine. And when I answer yes, shut this damn (/&%%¤%¤####! down and re-start - nothing happens. I'm doomed. I don't want to play games anymore with this because of the few crucial projects had to be finish first. So I just try to ignore the whole thing. Pretending works always.
Anyway, it tells something about my professionality that I had to contact Jari from ArsLab3 and ask him how much I had to bill...


But I heard from Teija who's back from Italy. We'll hopefully meet next week! Something to be glad about. Which reminds me: I have to check if Tuija is already back from China - a small coffee moment withtravel stories would be good for my mental health.

soundtrack | Queen Adreena: Medicine Jar

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Life is vicious and against me. I've been practically a prisoner at home for over one week. On Friday when I finally got out my back started aching again - I + cold spring air = not good. I've been so mad and frustrated. I've tried to convinve myself that it's almost ok, I have work to do anyway and... Getting tired and paranoid. But I'm so glad: the summer is coming and hopefully warmer air too. I wouldn't like to stand dead stiff and hurting watching Marilyn Manson, NIN and Turbonegro. Or worse: listening the hotel room tap tipping through the whole weekend. Well, there are leaves on the trees already. That's a good sign.


German and Swedish language versions of The Craft Museum of Finland site will open tomorrow. There are propably still some odd typos - but still - FINALLY online. This has been one of the long-time sessions of this spring.


Yesterday I lacked life totally. I woke up after noon, *tried* to accomplish something ...but nothing. I actually then lied on sofa watching telly and wondering if I should play some Jak or Kingdom Hearts but I it was too big project for me (getting up and turn on play station). Instead of having any activity I Ended up staring to the emptiness and letting my mind wander around. I had these odd conspiration-sort-of-things like: Hey - there is only one letter difference between money and Monet. Could this be coincidence? I still can hear my brain snapping.


This can't go on much longer. I have to get me a life.

soundtrack | Sons And Daughters: Dance Me In

Drinking cold coffee and water, watching sun shining outside and having fingers tapping on keyboard. Normal geeky day.


Some Spirited Herring and Live Herring (net art events) done. Small things but they took a lot of time. I should be better organized for these kinds of thing.
Yesterday was actually a total head bangers ball - inside my head. Still: new article layout for Muhi project. Few new images added to Aino-K. Pajari's page and a couple of small updates to Colour Association of Finland.


And the Aalto Foundation... There was zzzzzzz with BBC 6 Music a few days ago and I went for BBC Radio 2 to hunt down for something complete different. I found this nice light music show Friday Night Is Music Night with musical themes and light classic music to go with my non-stop working mood. I was listening Finlandia by Sibelius with tears in my eyes (well, almost) while coding the Alvar Aalto site. Could it get more patriotic (and pathetic) than this?


Yes, the sun is still shining outside. I'm waiting for Timppa to come home and take me out to eat pasta/soup and some ice cream. And maybe some dvd-shopping...

soundtrack | Plastic Berntrand: Ça plane pour moi

ArsLab³ online...



My back ache continued through the weekend. It was quite hard for me to move at all - so when I sat in front of my work desk I practically didn't leave it very often during the weekend. These back ahces seem to be quite productive for my work projects.


I spent the whole weekend coding Aalto Foundation new web page. It was so sunny outside yesterday that I almost thanked Powers That Be (...hmph... living in Joss Whedon's universe I guess) for my back ache - I would't have gone out even if I didn't have this hardcore working session. Today I'm again as movable as I should be and no big hurting areas regocnized - but rain rain rain. Can stay home safely.


[Edit 12 hours later:]
Blogger threw me out twice but better later than never.
Today I have made small updates for other projects (before re-entering to the universum of the Aalto Foundation): small updates to Art + Architecture 2005 and small fixes to ArsLab³. Wrote an evaluation for one JAO student. And of course, the above mentioned ArsLab³ site which I finished coding last morning at five.


No go, no flow day today. Maybe tomorrow'll be a bit better. I promise to press my mental refresh button and not to be this dull...

soundtrack | The Scaramanga Six: Horrible Face

More pinkish, flowery desktop images on their way...

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O_o ... Haven't blogged for ages. Nothing to tell actually. Physically I'm decaying alive: my back has been hurting since Easter + right foot has been hurting for about four months now (no reason known which adds a bit to my restlessness). Yesterday I sort of stretched my back and had to stay in the rest of the day. And propably this whole weekend. I was so pissed off yesterday - I had planned to visit Anssi+Liisa in their new home but instead I played salt statue the whole evening.


Now it's a bit better - I can still sit. So working it is.


Actually, right now I feel I haven't been this busy ever before. Forget all my earlier whinings: this is the most turbo panicish time ever. The mother of all the oppression. I've been coding the new Aalto Foundation site like maniac, remade Muhi project layouts, coded Kirsi's pages and made LOTS of smaller updates. I haven't actually done anything else apart from working and watching reality television.
Now I'm lying: I've also worked with my 'hobby' - The Online Art Gallery Spirited Herring is now closed and waiting to be re-opened in the beginning of June. Jani visited here last week and we gave the project some reality check. Needless to say-