Well.. Woohoo! i got invited to AUS (School of Archiecture and Design) to be a juror at this years ‘Foundation Jury Exhibition’ along with Lubna (Fellow Alumni) and Nesreen (DubaiTV) and …

errrmmmm… i thought that the work was.. well… interesting. Most of the pieces seemed to focus on exercises and seemed to lack a sense of style and concept. – having said that … i do realize that i am being extreeeeemmmeeeely critical and that on a very practical level it would be wrong to expect the presence of either style or concept from students who have just been introduced to design. So our criterias were left quite loose and focussed around the essentials such as the understanding of design principles. The award ceremony following the jury session went quite well and there seemed to be quite a lot of happy faces around … so im glad!

What really reallyy appealed to me (more than the show and the winners) .. was how well the non-qualifying entrants of the ‘FJE Show’ took their fall. Basically ~ the ones who got judged out of the show … went all ahead and rounded up the refused pieces and had their own exhibition – with posters and everything ;) VERY VERY COOL ! I almost felt bad being a juror then (broke my heart)…. but as Matt and Paul said – ‘…this sense of spirit is a great sign for the future of the school’.. i agreed. :)

It’s funny going back to University as an alumni and seeing new faces in familiar places — some working away and some slacking off … and you realize for a moment that ‘WOW! i was here … i went through all this too once upon a time – the pain, the joy, the misery, the accolades…and after all that – to these new faces … i am just that – ANOTHER NEW FACE ! .. wow!

Lil Sis shared similar sentiments – she got invited back to her high school to be a jury member for the ‘Interschool Dance Fest – Jhankaar 2005′. She refused … but decided to perform a solo dance number instead. Lovely performance – if i may say so myself ;P

A few quick pics i took for her folio after the show –> click here

Projects Update:

1. ‘Talking heads’ project is on hold until i can get hold of some webby-netty kinda stuff to create textures on the leaves. I am thinking of ‘the white net stuff that we use in printmaking to wipe plates – but DAMN!! I JUST CANT REMEMBER WHAT ITS CALLED !! – its starts with a ‘t’ … any guesses anybody ?? tartalin .?.. tartan..??. tarrr… ??? .. arrrgh!!!

Right now the leaves lack dimension’n'detail and they could reallllly use some more definition. Also am looking forward to play around with some arabic calligraphy on the other side of the painting .. I’ve got a couple of things in mind .. but any further suggestions are most welcome.

2.Mise-en-scene project now christened as ‘Rubicon’ has been quite an addictive piece lately and ive been dreaming up loads of follow up sequences to it…quite enjoying it. Have asked a friend to write me a few lines of poetry ‘il postino’ ishtyle to accompany the seqeunce as a score…. lets see how it goes. The illustration now stands at this point (below)…. i quite like it so far.

Suggestions, Comments .. most welcome – Fire Away Peeps!