He was lucky enough to attend STS-135: The last shuttle launch. Even though I wasn’t in Florida to see it for myself, I was still able to experience a taste of what was happening because of Twitter. It was because of that I decided to enter the next NASATweetUp lottery as soon as one came up. When I entered and won a spot, I was ecstatic! I tweeted at @Lartist mentioning I won, and if he had any advice. He replied saying to look up the TweetUp info sites and to get involved with the facebook group that will inevitably be created for it.

For the past year and a half I had really become a hermit. I was on break from grad school, I didn’t have a job, and most of my friends had moved away. I was stuck in Rochester. I was freelancing a bit but it was no where enough to support myself. I had some crumby self esteem. Locked up in the apartment, I was suddenly an introvert – the complete opposite of myself from high school. This sucked! Winning the spot at the MSL TweetUp was finally a way to break out of this hole I placed myself in. I wanted to get involved and make this a great experience!

Turns out that part of the experience was to create a shirt design that people could wear to feel part of the group. Another part was to have a “Thank you” poster to sign and give to NASA and JPL to show our appreciation! To make it a lot more fun there were also patches and pins. I wanted to be a part of it. @Lartist created the poster for STS-135 TweetUp and I wanted to make one, too! As a group we submitted ideas and designs then voted to the designs we liked the most.

To have my designs selected by my peers and then to see them worn and printed felt really good. I no longer feel stuck at the bottom of the hole. I’m not completely free of said hole but I feel hopeful that I can get out of it. Thank you for liking what I had to offer and allowing me to be part of the TweetUp.

And thank you NASA for one of the greatest experiences of my life! I hope you keep this going.

My store is still open for whose who still want a TweetUp shirt. I am in the process of trying to design a TweetUnion MSL shirt for when she lands in August. Maybe design a few shirts that are completely random. who knows…

MSL Curiosity Poster

I had a class last quarter (because RIT still has trimesters and it’s better, damnit!) that the professor used a stand-alone projector/speaker system. Not one class with him went by where he didn’t make a snide comment about technology. “It’s the projector, it screws up the colour.” “The speakers don’t work.” “The projector doesn’t project the entire screen. School of technology, heh.” “The copier must’ve screwed this page up.”

Really?

It’s not like he’s new to all this. Some of his work is digital…

But it isn’t just him. Many artists in my school are fearful of technology. Someone openly admitted to me once that she has her boyfriend check her email because she doesn’t know how to turn on the computer.

Granted, I might be spoiled in my knowledge of how a computer works because my boyfriend and I built our own computers a few years back. Back in high school I taught myself the basics of the computer and programming websites. I feel, however, that if you gave it the time of day most of what you need to know is common sense. Even with a new computer, fresh out of the box, you knew where to plug in the monitor and the keyboard because the plugs fit in perfectly-

So why is it like trying to fit a cube into the opening shaped like a circle for these people!? really!? We had presentations for our finals and some of us brought our own laptops. One person had an older Mac and was trying to force the VGA, or the new mac proprietary video plugs into places it didn’t fit. I had to say something at this point. I grabbed the laptop, noticed it was a DVI connection and grabbed a DVI to VGA adapter from my bag to save the day.

Because I’m the only loser I know who carries around a DVI to VGA…

Oh dear readers… when it was my time to present my final, I indirectly handed it to my professor… I gave a quick rant that it isn’t Technology’s fault… the problems existed between chair and keyboard. (One person actually got it. Thank you friend in the back.) I also said that it hurt some people’s feelings when technology got the blame when it wasn’t at fault. No one takes care of it!

I got a small applause for that. My Professor didn’t say a word.

But it isn’t hard to learn! Why are artists fearful? Is it this hatred that it’ll make crappy art to replace hand made art? No… It’ll be crap art because PEOPLE will make crap art on the computer. The computer is a tool, just learn to use it, and it can do really amazing things…