Summer Road Tripper

Taking to the open road has been a staple of my summers since childhood. Whether traveling across the Canadian prairies or heading south to the States, I think the days spent behind the wheel to see the country is something quintessentially North American (who else has this much wide open space?).

As we're now well into the summer I've been wrestling with several ideas to travel. Immediately I was reminded of the previous trips that I'd filmed and shared here on this blog and wasted a good chunk of time reviewing those. I have a feeling that these clips are going to have some influence when it comes time to make up our minds again this year.

What I love about a good road trip is that no matter how much you plan, you're bound to run into something you never expected. Not to mention, there's no better way to feel connected to where you are.

The Move

This month marked the beginning of a brand new chapter since I came back to Medicine Hat in 2008. As my first place (that hasn't just been a basement or dorm) I packed up and moved into a beautiful downtown loft in a building that I'd had my eye on since I moved back. In the same way I said goodbye to residence life I wanted to share a few pictures from the move to mark the experience.

Art School Confidential Critiques

In the movie, Art School Confidential an art major goes through the typical post-secondary creative experience as he tries to find himself . . . yadda, yadda . . . the movie was ok. The few things that actually made the film memorable (in my opinion) were the spot-on critique scenes. This round table or review process can also sum up every film production class I took in film school, which should come as no surprise as to why I'm sharing it.

The mix of perspectives and lifestyles really brings out an array of comments in any creative forum, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that no one wants to seem ordinary. We all model ourselves after our idols and talk about our work like we already have all the answers - thus is the ego trip and bubble that surrounds most art classrooms I imagine.

These two scenes from Art School Confidential are easy to appreciate if you've ever been in this situation yourself, but essentially all of us can attest to being confused by various displays that are presented as 'high art'. What starts out as post-secondary banter only becomes increasingly perplexing as money and actual status come into play. The point of the matter is that the process is usually quite eye-opening and funny.