Bethany, CT

So I really need to be writing a cover letter and fixing my resume for the Rocky Hill job, but I wanted to blog quickly about yesterday before I totally forgot.

For the last official class of metalworking, Ann decided to take us on a field trip of sorts. We all met at the CAW as usual, and then piled into three cars and drove out to Bethany, CT. It was about a fifteen minute drive. On the way I saw a bizarre billboard that said "Diabetes is one of the leading causes of amputations." I don't know if it was a diabetes warning, or an ad for a prosthetics place.

The first place we went was a fabricator. The guy who runs it had to be gone, so he had given Ann the key ahead of time. It was basically a big open workspace, with an office and tools scattered around the periphery. There were two pieces by Tim Burton they were working on (one was a chrome end table and the other were a pair of chairs). They were super cool. There was also a piece by Donald Judd and one other person I can't remember. They also had pictures of some of their work pasted on their office door, and apparently they did one of the instillation of the entrance gallery at the Tate Modern. It made me too happy.

Next we went to the barn/studio of a guy named Erwin Hauer who Ann is apparently good friends with. The barn his studio is in is apparently condemned and he's supposed to move everything to his new location. He sculpts some figures and birds, but mainly he does these "screens," which are essentially walls with clever holes in them. They were pretty cool. He talked to us forever about his method of "lateral thinking" (in his german or russian accent- I couldn't tell which at the time). Basically, he meant that he would take one idea and try to take it in a new or different direction over and over. He said that you don't need a lot of good ideas, just a few good ones that you can use over and over. All his stuff was pretty cool though. He actually does have a wikipedia page, mostly since his stuff is in hotels and other public places all over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Hauer 

Last, we went to Ann's house which was not far away at all. She has five horses and a dog named Tonto who was super excited the whole time we were there. Her house reminded me of the bloomsbury group house because so much of it was made/decorated by her. She gave us pie which was delicious. On the way back, the car I was in got totally turned around and it took us longer to get back than it should have, but it was fine cause none of us had anywhere we needed to be.

I finally also watched Coco avant Chanel last night. It was really good I thought. Alden fell asleep about half way through. Made me really want to not get up this morning, but I made myself since it was my last lecture at Yale EVER. Also got through my first final today. It wasn't horrible. I suspect I'll get somewhere in the neighborhood of a B-, which is totally fine since I'm taking it credit/d.

Okay- time to try and get a job now.