My view currently

group project hurt really bad.

group installation projects due in one week hurt really bad.

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catfish

i guess i made this out of metal this week.
wish i hade more time ?
pce

lolcats

groupons web design team may or may not be having a little too much fun on the job

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox0

to clarify majana and dalli finally for the first and last time ever.

I recently read irene geller's review of my work and it has come up multiple times this week that my internet persona and my real life persona are perhaps a little different because of my name change. i swear to god im not a liar i've just basically abandoned my last name 'majana' completely, and i don't give a fuck anymore. its not cool it reminds me of multiple things such as : marijuana, mangina (a man vagina), manana  (tomorrow in spanish), pajama also

 people don't understand how to pronounce it and neither do i.

people often say : muhyAna, majAna , muhANA, muhzzzzzjohna, muhjona, manjana etc. 

people ask me how do i pronounce this i say: i don't care 

people often ask what nationality are you: this gets confusing 

people don't know how to spell this. 

my mom saw this coming so instead of making my life a miserable disaster of no one understanding she gave me a second last name before my real one that acts as my middle last name that is on my birth certificate (once again very convenient). which allows me the power along with every other girl on facebook to change my last name to my middle name. although it is not "jessica ann" or "dana rose lynn" i have pretty much been Dana Dalli, my whole life, since birth. so if you've been confused for a long time please forgive me. 

if you have an specific questions you'd like to address speak now or forever hold your PIECE 

also this is me and mom Doreen Dalli 

this is a current photo of my dad and I 

this is my mom Doreen Dalli before she had me 

this is a picture of me, taken before i found the above picture 

this is a picture of my mom and my dad, Alejandro Majana, they obvs are made for each other 

this is a picture of my favorite person who does not share the same blood as me, Pete 

if things don't make sense to you please FEEL FREE TO ASK ????????? but here it is. 

apple pie ala mode pudding

quick highlights from the MFA first year show that I thought were worthwhile. 

not that the rest of it wasn't i loved a lot of it but i guess this is what i actually ended up taking pictures of 

i made this this week,

also i did this 

or maybe i just forgot to post these a long time ago, you'll never know.

tried to make this but it just ended up looking like total shit 

probs real sic of pics by now 

honey crisp apples

today is an emotional train wreck day for me.
coming to terms with having to apply for grad school/ how broke im going to be this time next year/ how hard it is to actually be an artist/ i dont want to be living in a shitty apartment or even worse with my parents until im 30 because no one wants to buy my work.
i sort of feel as if being an artist is the equivelant of being a child and no one takes you seriously for a really long time and you almost have to convince yourself that you are worth marketing. also i always thought of making art for enjoyment and not as business/ skype talk about accounting with kandis williams made me sick and made me have anxiety. anyway. im getting rid of everything in my studio this week and doing things a lot different when i get back from break. as for now the only artwork i am going to be working on is the centerpiece for my thanksgiving table. plus getting my camera fixed this weekend, or attempting to. hopefully i can start getting some nice high res photos soon. im having a somewhat crisis because i really need to start making pieces im actually proud of instead of paintings i like for a day and then hate for a really long time and then paint over after a few months.

my blog sux cause all i do is complain, isnt that what blogs are 4?
r u with me ? r u ?  R U ? R U ?!?!!??!?!?!?!?!
im going to try and update this week and blow this shit up while im bored at home

PEACE ~~~~~
happi thanksgiving!!!!!!

i saw some woodcuts from edvard munch at the moma this weekend. i was pretty obsessed, also looked a lot at albert pinkham ryder this week and i think that i dont know how i feel about anything anymore.
im not sure what the next step is for me to make work but i know i have to do something completely different or wrong in order to figure out whats next. this has been such a strange semester because of all of the non art related things im doing, or non painting related things that i'm doing. its hard to be all about it sometimes. this is a week where i'm accepting the fact that everything else needs to come before painting. also im wondering how different it must be to go to grad school and only have to worry about your work? maybe i'm not looking into it enough but psychology is bullshit sometimes. i don't quite understand the reasons why i am even going to classes or why its important. i like learning but i hate testing. i hate homework. i hate studies. also i feel like its really important i go home this weekend and get the fuck out of my studio and come back with some real dope new stuff.

sickabeinastudent sickabeintired sickawritinpapers sickasleepin


anyway
i was watching a video on amy sillman and i thought this video was so weird and i had to post it.

idk why it seems every wednesday i hate myself so sorry for the horrific blog posts.

ketchup

i found these beautiful paintings by Tom Burckhardt that are showing right now in New York. ---- I spent my whole week in a TV less, internetless household its so nice to see paintings again. I feel like every week something weird happens that is a complete set back. the hurricane is so strange. ive spent every day with people who are freaking out about not having television or internet. I guess I needed a break to not deal with any interuptions. sometimes i feel like i'm thinking about something wonderful and then i get a Facebook alert about something i don't care about. I think the moments that we normally overlook but DONT -- are the best. i caught myself turning off lights that weren't working all week.

I'm really trying to understand photography. I really do care about it, or I guess I'm starting to. I got an A on an exam about Contemporary Photography?


went a week without seeing any artwork, and i get on artsy and find this bullshit. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING. okay i got the whole Gerhard Richter thing but why are people copying him now. Painting is doomed, sorry. I'm locking myself in a closet and calling the rest of my life Hurricane Sandy because painting is dead bye

also gotta make some sculptures outta wood and im scared of the miter saw ;-((((((((((((((((

please god let my fingers get through this week

hope next weeks BETTA

 a lot of things happened this week.

• visited Keith Mayerson at his studio/apartment in Chelsea. 
• went to see Wendy White's show for the second time and she talked to us about her new (i mean NEW) work. 
• went to the Jeff Bailey Galley to see Jackie Gendel and listen to her speak, this was my second time hearing her speak and I was seeing a lot of the same work only finished. 
• Had a studio visit with Cameron Martin and saw these beautiful paintings. 

Also I guess after having a small seminar on the ideas and readings about Wendy White and Gerhard Richter's show I am starting to understand why these things that are made by computers are sticking by so loyally to painting. I feel like this is all a little too hip for me to understand but I do like the idea of physically using these things as paintings. The physical experience of going up to something, examining it, sitting back and trying to figure out the material is really important. 

I also read an interview that I wish I had read four years ago-- Brooklyn Rail with Matthew Day Jackson. His attitude about art in general is really brilliant. He's super open and honest, also he's starting to rely heavily on assistants  doing work for him. I'm still trying to decide whether I'm okay with that or not.  

These are a few of the paintings I saw 

Cameron Martin. Breach Stage, 2012, 40×30, inches, acrylic on canvas

Wendy White. El Rocko Lounge. 2012

Acrylic on canvas, digital print on vinyl over metal frame

Keith Mayerson, "Louise Bourgeois at her Salon," 2008. Oil on Canvas 

I'm feeling a little confused because there's not one thing describing painting right now. A lot of things are being produced digitally and things that are not made digitally are made by hand with a deliberate aid from a digital program. I'm just really confused about what is painting and what is not painting. Are these things being called painting when they shouldn't be? Painting is starting to be more than painting or less than painting? Still thinking//////////////////////////

conceptual abstraction at the hunter college show

this show held at the gallery at hunter college was the last stop on my trip to the city this weekend. my shoes were killing my feet but i made it to this show that was only two avenues from port authority basically out of curiosity. it was really nice to have this remind me about painting, and the reasons why I love painting. I love seeing work that makes me feel at home, something familiar and refreshing. I saw paintings by Mary Heilman, David Reed, Jonathan Lasker, Tom Nozkowski, Stephen Westfall, Peter Halley, John Zinsser, Phillip Taaffe, Rich Kalina. I love re-bonding with these paintings that I love, that made me want to paint in the first place. Also I have never seen Jonathan Lasker's work in person and it was so much more amazing than in books and on the internet.

Also another memorable show in the opposite way was Gerhard Richter's "strips" which pissed me the fuck off, which I assume is what he wants the typical painter to feel. The paintings have of course no sense of touch because they are printed and then glass is put over them. Looking at the overwhelmingly large set of colored thin stripes can easily vibrate enough to irritate your eyes and yet for some reason you cannot look away. These paintings are made for rich people to buy which is all apart of the underlying meaning. This is what painting may come to, which is frightening. I really loved the sculpture in the show, in the same way that the paintings are technical and mechanical so is this sculpture and it also showcases the paintings in different worlds.

I need to understand, but for now I can just say that I share a love hate relationship with these paintings as does the rest of the world who has seen these. 

Gracious PIC of myself~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's October 3rd

I can read, so I read some things lately I've read an interview with Jeff Wall who is a photographer who took two years to produce one single image, "The Flooded Grave". Most of his photography has a sense of documentation and spontaneity, as if he is catching a beautiful moment or a strange moment and illuminating it to be a cinematic image. In reality he is putting an obsessive amount of work into stitching multiple sites and photos together to create a spontaneous looking site. This photo can be divided into three sections, the cemetery can be divided in two, while the hole in the ground dug from a grave is multiple shots that were taken in his studio with marine life specialists who helped create the perfect image. I love photography, but sometimes its hard to understand the technical means of creating the photograph. I love the way that this seems easy, but its not. The labor goes unnoticed without prior knowledge of the piece. It looks effortless. I thought this piece was worth sharing, it relates to my current struggle which is my cake painting. It is going by so slowly and I am not working on anything else right now, and if I continue to not work on anything else I'm going to lose my mind and only care about the cake. So I'm giving the cake a break so I can go back to my normal paintings. Poor Jeff Wall must have lost his mind thinking about the same thing everyday. 

He speaks really nicely about the process of making it, he seems really excited about making it rather than talking about the ideas behind it. He has these wonderful ideas about the versatility of a single image and how many realities it can contain.  A small snippet from the interview :

Jan Tumlir: Thomas Crow described your use of digital technology as opening up the "occult potential" of, I suppose, representation. How do you understand that word, "occult," in regard to what you're doing here?

Jeff Wall: I think it has to do with the fact that, before photography, the coexistence of separate domains in pictures was taken for granted. Paintings showed angels or demons interacting with humans, for example, as a routine matter, because it is routine within the nature of the medium. Painting and drawing make no demand as to the ontological consistency of the things being depicted; they don't have any means to do so, and that's one of the main reasons they've been so significant in the history of the imagination. Photography seemed to be something quite different, at the beginning; it seemed to prove that there was only one world, not many-one visible world, anyway. But I think that is only a suggestion made by photography, not a conclusion. And the suggestion can be taken in so many different ways. I think photography, by nature, does have artistically legitimate routes of access into the aesthetic of "multiple worlds," of "imaginary ontologies." 

Definitely worth a read if you get a chance. 

this week i am feeling so completely uninspired.
 i love this painting called The Lining by Matt Connors because it is totally relating to the grids I am making in my cake painting but in a completely different way. I feel all types of pressure to get that done but it seems like it is taking for-ev-er, it just makes me question what I am doing.

The Lining, Matt Connors 

I made a few sculptures this week: 

They were made with plaster, I am happy with them the second time around. 

I'm just feeling blah in general, I think it's because no one else is working so it's hard to have motivation when your peers are kind of slow at working and every time I go into the studio its empty. well hopefully next week will be more exciting?

the kake and rebekah

this week has had its up and its downs, i have finally moved into my studio.

the unavoidable :

i have started this cake painting and im kind of scared of it because i barely started it and i have put in around 7-8 hours already and it looks like i have not done anything, but at the same time it reminds me of something beautiful. this painting is more of like a practice for me to start to understand the meaning of slow. for so long i was making paintings that were taking a long time because of the many layers and abandonment of each layer -- i guess it was slow for my own satisfacton. now i want to make something that is going to be a slow process because of the viewers appreciation of slow. things are changing quite a bit in my studio, im going to try to be a little more disciplined by spending more time on specific imagery rather than eluding to imagery that i make up in my mind. this is the start to my cake painting, although it looks like i've done nothing.

the bad : also i made a failed attempt at sculpture this week which was pretty embarrassing not to mention exhausting. i may be able to salvage it during the weekend. my instructor hannah was busy today and still took the time out to help me and make me feel less like a failure when i approached her during my crisis.

the best part of this week:

being matched up with my mentor, Rebekah Callaghan who is a second year MFA student here at Mason Gross and she and I are going to be meeting up throughout the school year to talk about work and I guess anything that happens during the time from now until thesis. Rebekah's paintings are really nice, and she seems to make a lot of work.we both value materials in a similar way. She uses tempera and oil paint in her paintings which is awesome. They are radical and I can't wait to learn more about them, so i can talk about them in a smarter way than I am now.  I think we are going to be an awesome match and we both are willing to put forth time in order to get the most out of the experience. ( in all seriousness). Also it is going to be nice to have someone to validate my thoughts and fears as an artist.

Rebekah Callaghan  Edouard?  "11 x 14" tempera on paper

interview with painter Dana Majana a fourth year student undergoing THESIS  :

what type of artist do you consider yourself?
definitely a painter, a sculptor trapped in a painters mindset. i am totally obsessed with materials, and using the materials to create a setting that is significant to my personal life.


sculpture ?
yeah, sculpture because every piece that i make has a material aspect to it, its a build up of space. I had one ground breaking piece for me that made me feel like I had actually made something worthwhile, something jaw dropping.  i spent around 3 hours making a huge apparatus out of chicken wire and then a good amount of time making over 200 pieces of handmade unbleached abaca paper and then used some home insulation foam and spray paint to make this massive piece that made me feel like I did something special. I would say this was the first time I had really dabbled into making one of my paintings a sculpture. That was the last real piece I made, maybe I'm just still excited.

how would you describe your process as a painter?
each painting is a slow work in progress, each painting is a result of impulse. i can keep a painting around for months before i figure out exactly what it needs, it will never look the same. nothing is planned which is exciting and annoying. making aesthetic decisions is important and i can't find the time to make them, sometimes i'm fine with that.

do you stick to one color pallet?

"BabyLips" Oil on Canvas Spring 2012 

definitely not, i do  love pastel colors and especially pink but i normally have a connection to the colors i choose for each painting and why i chose them. a recent painting is of the lip glosses made by Maybelline "BabyLips" and the reason I bought all 8 lip glosses is because of the colors attracting me to them. I could not pass them up, so I made a painting about them. Colors are important, they help you to remember a time, I know they help me remember a time and place and its a sensory thing for me. When I look at this painting I won't forget crouching down to the last shelf of the beauty aisle and picking these babies up. It was important and significant.

do you limit yourself to a certain aesthetic? 

not necessarily, I used to make small paintings around 5X5 or 8X8, only in square shapes but I vow to never limit myself in that way ever again.

can you name one painting that changed your life ? 

P. by Charlene Von Heyl

P. by Charlene Von Heyl at first i thought the shock from seeing it would linger away and I would find something I loved even more, but nothing comes close. It just has this amazing presence that makes me love the idea of painting in general. This weird form that is made of familiar things like acrylic paint and crayons can make you laugh and make you feel. All it is is a surface thats brought to life and given a personality by the viewer. I love it, it reminds me of a creature that is bigger than me, but doesn't scare me. 

something that has stumped you recently?

I was out at my best friends 21st birthday party, she's not much of a drinker and her mom had made her this birthday cake in one of those throwaway aluminum tins. It had pink icing and sprinkles and 21 holes for 21 years living and I can't stop thinking about how weird and strange this cake was. Its things like those that make me want to paint and interpret them, I just think that I haven't been specific enough in the past and this cake told me. Now I have to paint this cake?  Strange right ? I guess I have been telling myself not to share so much information but its time now to do this, and to not be afraid. I think I've been too vague. I wanna tell people about what bothers me. I wanna show them these bizarre things. 

what's the most interesting thing about you?
i'm not really interesting I'm just very consumed by people, but want not to portray them. i have a big italian family and the way they are coping of the loss of my grandmother is really hard. Its been years but I have been picking up on these certain changes and adjustments ever since 2007.