DIESIS

Been working on a ton of stuff at once. Thanks for everyone who...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:02:00 -0700

Been working on a ton of stuff at once. Thanks for everyone who still follows me even during the slow spells. This is a pattern repurposed from my promo card for Without Roses. Secret purposes are secret.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Sorry if you’ve been getting weird double posts. My queue...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:01:30 -0700

Sorry if you’ve been getting weird double posts. My queue is rebelling against me.

It’s probably jealous because I had a refreshing First Thursday night. Checked out Hellion gallery, which has an awesome book of Japanese artists called Tall Trees of Tokyo. Also grazed Compound to see gorgeous work by Yoriko Youda and Tomoe Taniguchi. Galleries remind me that the texture of paintings can never be captured, digital or printed. Taniguchi’s especially had a pastel, chalk-like surface, while Youda’s watercolors emphasized the handmade paper texture.

Then we were super mature and crashed our neighborhood park — which has a waterfall wade pool! — and used some anonymous child’s toys to wage water wars.

Shout out to Caroline, Aftyn, Tim, and Andy for showing us fine times.

Cover for a short story, “Porcelain.” ‡...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 03:01:00 -0700

Cover for a short story, “Porcelain.”

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

I had an image in my queue the past two days, and I finally started wondering why it hadn’t...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:12:00 -0700

I had an image in my queue the past two days, and I finally started wondering why it hadn’t posted. I had scheduled it, by chance, to post “tomorrow, 3am.” And sure enough, each day it was to post the 5th, then the 6th, and finally the 7th…

Really, tumblr. You’re gonna give me sass?

Previews for a booklet. ‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:01:28 -0700

Previews for a booklet.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

This is the flip side of my Tin House comic. While I submitted...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:02:00 -0700

This is the flip side of my Tin House comic. While I submitted it as a single page, these panels are closer to the actual comic. The whole comic is two pages, printed on the back and front of cards representing night and day.

This is the Day side, wordless, where worries are relatively carefree, drowned out by the busy day.

Night brings out another view, where the quieter world allows worries to surface and overwhelm the room.

Click to read the comic.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

I forgot to post this. Did a spot comic for Tin House late April...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:08:39 -0700

I forgot to post this. Did a spot comic for Tin House late April and it recently got posted. Not my known style, I’m going to try working lines and flats more.

Tin House had to post it as a single image, but you guys get to see it closer to the real comic. Printed, each panel is its own card that you lay out to make the comic.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Without Roses is finally up. Without Roses was my undergraduate...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 15:01:39 -0700

Without Roses is finally up.

Without Roses was my undergraduate thesis which sought to deconstruct Western binary thought as it related to sex — and therein gender and sexuality. Binary thought - a system of thought which generalizes concepts into either/or categories - directly shapes the illusion of a binary sex, which then acts as a base for all other misconceptions following, including gender, its roles, and so-called masculine and feminine traits.

The paper is by no means a finished piece. Rather, it is the start of a conversation, meaning to promote general conversation surrounding subjects of equality. The page seeks to be as an interactive resource for people to submit thoughts, questions, answers, responses, essays, and links to other resources.

Without Roses is a space where I began my thoughts — and I hope you will share yours.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Graduated yesterday and saw everyone’s thesis show up....

Mon, 27 May 2013 16:50:00 -0700

Graduated yesterday and saw everyone’s thesis show up. Crazy amount of talent and personal heroes walking through that school. I’ll definitely miss a lot of people, but a good amount are becoming locals. Portland will be the better for it.

I’m in the last stages of setting up the website for this project, hope you’ll enjoy it. More importantly it means I can work on other things. Sounds good.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Out of respect for the Feminist community, and as a Feminist, I...

Sun, 26 May 2013 04:50:00 -0700

Out of respect for the Feminist community, and as a Feminist, I feel obligated to contextualize and reframe this conversation.

In responses to a Who Needs Feminism’s recent submission there was an outcry insinuating that the girl herself was insulted to be identified as lesbian and that her submission was contrary to the purpose of Feminism. I feel this viewing is misguided, but can see how the conclusion would be made from a single vantage point; I hope to expand that perspective now with a secondary vantage.

To be clear, the post does not have the ability to conclude either way whether the girl was/wasn’t insulted by the identity of a lesbian. What can be concluded is that the girl was categorized merely on the basis of her clothing and that lesbian was used on her as an insult, to which she objected. Responses to the post judged that the girl was insulted to be identified as lesbian, but the wording she used was “to be called a ‘Lesbian’” — “to be called” is to be negatively categorized, labelled by the speaker; anyone who has ever ‘been called’ anything should know the phrase relates to slandering, insulting.

Looking at the same situation from another perspective, take the gay man who has ever been called a fag in public, as a means of insult. He is gay, but the usage of the word as an insult acts as a means to belittle him.

Didier Eribon, a French intellectual on sexuality, laments in his 2004 work Insult and the Making of the Gay Self about his own experiences being insulted with gay terms in public:

I discover that I am a person about whom something can be said, to whom something can be said, someone who can be looked at or talked about in a certain way and who is stigmatized by that gaze and those words. … Insult is more than a word that describes. It is not satisfied with simply telling me what I am. … That person is letting me know he or she has something on me, has a power over me.

Although we can’t conclude what the girl’s own feelings are towards lesbians, we see her post as a reaction against her insulters who have categorized her not on her identity but on her clothes.

How was the conclusion of ‘lesbian’ was derived from her clothes? The girl says her shirt featured a female artist, which we can presume she admired: If anyone knows the specific artist (I can’t see the image clearly) feel free to message me. For now, I believe that the girl was categorized based on her objectification as a female.

For instance, to conclude that the girl is a lesbian from the shirt, assuming the insulter doesn’t know the specific artist, several leaps have to be made which objectify both the girl and the artist based on their sex.

First, the conclusion of the girl’s interest in the artist is based in sexual attraction. This assumption which can only be made from viewing the girl within the limitations as a sexual object. Second, the conclusion alludes that the female artist’s only worth of interest is for sexual attraction, ignoring all other creative talents inherent with the descriptor of “artist,” which clearly marks the artist as an object as well. Apparently to the insulter, a girl admiring another female can only be in the interest of sex and therein the mark of the lesbian.

In this light, it can be said the girl’s post objects to objectification as well as shallow categorizations through clothes, though the short submissions of Who Needs Feminism has no means to expand this and the girl herself may be lacking the knowledge and vocabulary to even describe the situation. We need Feminism because society jumps to conclusions about sex, gender, and sexuality; Feminism itself should continue to be a conversation, as a means to divert this one-sided binary thinking imposed by society.

Edited:

A kind Anon wrote:

The artist that is on the girl’s shirt is Lady Gaga. That itself might have something to do with her being called a lesbian because she’s wearing a shirt of a known “provocative” woman and a GLBT right’s activist. Gaga is naked on that shirt. Though no part of her body is showing other than her arm and back, but the idea of nudity is still present. A girl wearing a naked woman must be lesbian, right? Just my insight

Photos of last Friday’s Illustration Juried Show put on by...

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:30:00 -0700

Photos of last Friday’s Illustration Juried Show put on by PNCA. Awesome crowd of artists showed up and there was talent dripping everywhere, it must have been a mess to clean up.

Awards went out to Kayla Mayer, Matty Newtown, and Samantha Mash for being sugoi. Molly Mendoza also showed up with a killer sketchbook of (painted?!) illustrations and made us all feel bad. Caroline O’Grady’s kinky thesis was too cool to show, but graced us with her presence none the less.

Hannah, Nikki, Sean, Minjin, Jiyoon, Jeff, Ona, and Shaleigh were also running around being cool. Everyone missed Matthew Seely, ate Martin’s food, and tried not to step on tiny underclassmen who’ll be fighting for our illustration jobs soon. Summary: good times.

Photos courtesy of Liliya and Beth. Thanks to all my illustration nakama for making this year the best.

Cover for fashion zine. The actual zine is a transparent double...

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:00:00 -0700

Cover for fashion zine. The actual zine is a transparent double envelope which opens on either side for prints. When all the prints are removed, the figure becomes ghostly and is completely encompassed by leaves. The fragmented title also appears. Opacity was adjusted to mimick the physical book’s effect.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:12:20 -0700

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

I think I finally answered all the asks.

Mon, 13 May 2013 02:31:00 -0700

I think I finally answered all the asks.

Least you should destroy me, the illusion of me. ‡...

Sat, 11 May 2013 10:52:00 -0700

Least you should destroy me, the illusion of me.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

The past few days have been an insane influx of support on here...

Sat, 04 May 2013 01:02:00 -0700

The past few days have been an insane influx of support on here and my portfolio! I can’t even begin to thank you enough!

I was feeling pretty burnt out after working on my thesis. But thanks to your interest I’m feeling human again! I’m still finishing classes, but in a couple week I’ll be graduating. I’ll have more time to devote to personal projects soon. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

yourdreamsmynightmares: Your Dreams My Nightmares Episode 045....

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:02:46 -0700

yourdreamsmynightmares:

Your Dreams My Nightmares Episode 045. An interview with Hunter Heckroth, Nick Sumida, Zachary Zezima, Nick Iluzada, and Kris Mukai. Music by Eel via freemusicarchive.org

You can download the episode here or subscribe to the show via iTunes.

Music

snow world under the white moon (EeL) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Little Prince Loves You - Sulumi remix (EeL) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

I don’t normally reblog things here, but this is worth the listen.

And if you aren’t following Sam’s blog check it out. It will teach you.

Distraction from pending presentation next week. ‡...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:30:46 -0700

Distraction from pending presentation next week.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

I finished and printed my thesis illustrations today. The work is good, but honestly I’m so tired of that project and the style. I want to move on. I have citations to write, typos to fix, but as far of the presentation is concerned, there’s a speech then its done. All I want is to flush out my portfolio. Goal #1.

Portfolio work from the beginning of the year, done for a...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 17:30:00 -0700

Portfolio work from the beginning of the year, done for a personal essay called Color Theory: Racial Connotations in the Visual Simplifications of Good and Evil.

The essay focuses on binary thinking and how this system of thought both reveals and instills problematic ideas in western culture, such as the trope of good and evil, which the pale figure is used as a visual emblem of Good while the dark figure is used as an emblem of Evil. This isn’t always portrayed in skin color, but the baseline connotations it carries affects people of color, affects my friends, one of whom grew up feeling ugly because of it: that the hue of a skin was correlated to an idea of good and evil, beautiful and ugly, segregated into categories deemed white and black.

This trope of good and evil, and all its visuals, has been used again and again by visual creatives because it’s established: That does not stop it from carrying a weight that falls upon a real group of people, people who are dark, and are made out visually in media to be villains. That does not stop it from forming subconscious racist connotations among a culture actively suffering from and attempting to combat racism. Good and Evil is not black and white, it is not simplicity or clarity: true good and evil is blurred, because the heart is not worn on surface, and the visualizations should reflect such.

Who did you think was the hero in that picture, the so-called good guy? And give me one reason that wasn’t based on color.

This is a call to artists and creatives everywhere: stop using this trope. We can communicate malice through others means: we don’t need to lay the weight on color.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin

Eight hand-bound, slipcover copies of my book Tough, ready for...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:48:00 -0700

Eight hand-bound, slipcover copies of my book Tough, ready for Stumptown, comics and zines convention in Portland, OR.

‡ Alexxander Dovelin