Rococo Cocoa

I'm such a dork that I design my cakes in Adobe Illustrator before I make them. My roomates and I are having a crazy par-tay to ring in the new year, so I decided to make a delicious cake riddled with design.

I really wanted to make a CMYKake (thats the pun, see?) but I don't have the appropriate food coloring. And I really want to make that special. MMM, Printer based cakes.

Cake tommorow! (If it looks good) Have a happy new year everyone!

(click for a closer look)

This girl I know did a painting of me in high school. It's pretty awesome, huh?
Once I remember her name (It was Sarah something) I'll link to her website, if it exists.

PS: Merry Christmas Eve All!

So I have approximately 13 gifts to give. And this year, for some god forsaken reason, I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, and that I was going to make everything. I have presents to make for (and I'm thinking out loud here):

1. My mother
2. My father,
3. My sister
4. My brother
5. My
   
6. four
   
7. (count 'em
   
8. four) roommates
9. My friends Carly
10. Lizzy
11. and Laura...

...as well as handmade cards for them and 4 more people. That brings our grand total of things to 26 items. Did I mention I have a cold? Did I also mention I haven't finished anything? Its going to be like college all over again. Yum.

PS. This means at least 11 posts next week with the results. Stay tuned!

I was looking at FFFFound today and this amazingly nice picture asked me a question:


It's a question I ask myself all the time. I'm hoping I can answer that with something that isn't so bad at some point. I can say that I have done art that still is currently technically in the White House. I can say that my designs are in the Pentagon (they really, are, isn't that cool as hell?) all I have left to design for is the Capitol Building and I have all the buildings where important people are.

But still, people don't know my name. I yearn for Joe Lamour brand recognition. And in the coming months, I hope to work towards that goal. "How the fuck do you plan to do that?" Well, I'll tell you, and stop cursing, it's unbecoming of a lady. I'm relaunching my website, and you'll see my website design sketches, artwork for coming shows, and lots of other cool shiiite. Yeah, I just used the term shiiite. I'm not apologizing.

About a month ago I participated in Visual AIDS's Postcards from the Edge.

"Famous in the art world as the most exciting and affordable way to build a collection of work by internationally renowned artists, as well as young and emerging artists, all works are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. The works are signed on the back and exhibited so the artists signatures are a secret till after the purchase.

Visual AIDS strives to increase public awareness of AIDS through the visual arts, creating programs of exhibitions, events and publications, and working in partnership with artists, galleries, museums and AIDS organizations.

By mobilizing the visual arts communities, Visual AIDS raises money to provide direct services to artists living with HIV/AIDS."

Postcards by Kiki Smith, Yoko Ono, (and me! as well as my beautiful and talented friend Carin Johnson) were in the show at James Cohan Gallery in NYC.

I'm only showing you now, because it was a secret previously, on the off off off off hand chance someone saw this before it was (hopefully) purchased. I like it. I love the dimensionality of a drawing in a diorama format. Its a good thing.

My apologies, guys, as I haven't posted anything "in a minute" which means in a long time now... or so the kids say. My coworker found this picture in our gallery show photos folder....
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The guy in the bottom left freaks me the hell out.

Any ideas as to who the hell these people are?

Or so he thought...

Deliciousness defined is this soup from WFLH with red peppers, onion, tomato juice and a hint of cayenne pepper and- strange as it sounds- maple syrup. I didn't really taste it in this recipe, so you might want to up it depending on how strange you like. It's really quite delectable. I halved the recipe- that provided ebnough for dinner and for lunch today. Also. of course, I changed a couple of things from the original recipe to my liking... I always must :)

Ingredients
2 red bell peppers - de-seeded and coarsely chopped
1 red onion - finely chopped
2 tablespoons black truffle oil
1 tablespoon paprika powder
250 ml tomato juice
1 cup of sauteed sausage (I used chicken sausage for this, but use whatever you'd like)
1 teaspoon maple syrup (or 2, if you're feeling adventurous)
Dash of cayenne pepper
Salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
sour cream
parsley, as garnish

Directions
Heat the truffle oil in a saucepan. Sauté the pepper and onions for 2-3 minutes, then sprinkle with paprika powder. Allow to cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Pour in the tomato juice and maple syrup. Add the dash of cayenne pepper, salt and pepper and simmer covered for 20 minutes.

With a puree machine puree the soup finely. If you find it too thick add some more tomato juice. Add cup of chopped sausage, sauteed in another tablespoon of oil.

Serve on pre-warmed soup plates with a splodge of sour cream and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese or parsley.

(thanks WFLH!)
________

Blogging really feeds into my desire to cook, and cooking pretty food feeds my desire to take pictures, and I'm just really happy that I have this blog. I hope you're happy about it too :)

It's Christmas Party time at my job... where we get our clients into a pub, get them drunk, then try and get them to sign wild contracts that get us all their money. Not really, but it sure would be a lot more fun than the awkward cocktail conversations I have with clients I usually only speak with about copy and pantone colors.

Anyway, here's one of the options I provided. I think its very Starbucks-y. I included the artboard cause I thought the way it interacts with the red square is pretty nifty.

Coming tommorrow! Roomate Thanksgiving pictures!

was this.
(from Agency Tart)

I think I may be getting pretty good at this food photgraph thing. This is my roomate Dawn's Delicious dutch apple cake with a scoop of my rosewater mint ice cream. The flavors together were... well... interesting. But at least they look pretty together!

Was someone's wish to see Basic Instinct in person?

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Here's a preview of what my company's Christmas "Holiday" Party invite is going to look like... lots of cinnamon, lots of irishness, lots of coffee. Well, there will be coffee at least. In other news, I want a 8 MP SLR like this one my job is letting me borrow. It's some amazingness is what it is.

Lately I've been getting into cooking a lot more. I find that it's a great stress reliever for whatever is going on at home or at work (of which, right now, there's an abundance.) I made a bunch of different delicious things that I'll post later for blog blitz #4.


So I made my first batch of homemade ice-cream a couple of days ago. Yes, I know, I'm amazing. (Why am I single?) I decided to go gourmet and make rosewater mint ice-cream. Before you ask, yes it was good. Rosewater Ice cream is an Iranian treat. For this, my third post in the blog blitz, I'm going to post a recipe (along with my food photos- PS, Adobe Lightroom is STILL awesome.)

Rose Water Ice Cream

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons rosewater
1/2 tablespoon peppermint extract
1 cup whole milk
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
4 large egg yolks Directions:
Recipe from Recipezaar.

Freerice.com is giving out... well... free rice. Take a test, donate some dinner. :)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Clearly this is only for my benefit, the guy who still needs a map to find his doctor's office.)

So I totally didn't know it was National Blog Posting month. Blogs I read kept saying NaBloPoMo and I just thought it was some crazy new abbreviation the kids are using. So to allieviate the fact that I'm 4 posts behind, I will make sure I blog 4 times today. Every day! Quite daunting. I'm imagining blogging when I'm hung over. Or still drunk. My favorite IM from people who are drunk by the way is "im drunl". It's like aww you almost got it... slipped on the k there. Go to bed and stop IMing people when you should be making out with a stranger.

(Blog Blitz #1!)

PS: It's Wednesday- so as for this first week of posts I have these done:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Clearly this is only for my benefit, the guy who still needs a map to remember where his doctor's office is.)

*Every now and then I have more to say than a couple words and a cute picture, so I have deemed these momentary lapses in the paradigm to be Thoughts on Life.

Well, this orginally was going to be a picture of Dog Bounty Hunter looking really stupid (which is fabulously easy to find as he is a steaming hot mess) and a link to an open letter to him, stating that he doesn't deserve words because he is not relevant.

But I think I have something to say. The truth is that he is relevant. He doesn't deserve words, and that's right: He's someone that will never change- I mean look at his hair. But- he is relevant, because he signals the latest milestone in a trend of media racism that should be examined more closely. I know someone that used to edit the show in NY, and apparently acts this way all the time. Those clips just end up on the cutting room floor. Someone who has some control of the show has to have known that he throws out slurs like a tennis ball machine. Still, his show airs. I have two levels of bigotry to experience (being black and gay), and when someones mean to me I always wonder if its one or the other or both. People say it's not surprising that he's racist, but just because he has a mullet, it never was patently obvious to me. Good editing, I guess.

It would be really naive of me to think that because this man is racist he would have his show taken away. It's naive of us to have him fired because now we know he's a racist. Shouldn't someone have blown the whistle sooner? I mean, his own son, who's on the show as well, did it.
And it was probably more because it was his girlfriend who was insulted, which is understandable, but where were the cameramen? The lighting people? The sound department (I know they must of heard it.) Are there no black people at A&E? Do you need to be black or black-adjacent to care about racism?

From the actions of Tucker, apparently so. I'll leave this interminable post with a conversation between my sister Loree, and I:

Loree: Linda said when she went bar hopping on halloween she saw someone dressed like Hitler swastika and all
Me: Holy shit.
Loree: Yeah.
Me: Halloween costumes usually are a reflection of ones inner desires.
Me: So someone should of pushed him into the street. Maybe someone dressed as Roosevelt...
Loree: Yeah he obviously had issues. Who knows if he made it home in one piece
Loree: Linda said he left the bar after one drink
Me: He saw too many Jews there, probably
Loree: Honestly... I mean its like someone wearing a KKK uniform
Joe: COULD YOU IMAGINE
Joe: Wow
Loree: That was a good analogy
Loree: Well its the equivalent to the jewish people
Loree: You just never know who smiles in your face, but is racist deep down
Joe: Like when i say hi to certain people or smile they totally ignore me
Loree: Makes one wonder

Svedka Vodka Presents: Your Future You... not included is the possibility of your impending cirrhosis.


I would much rather live in the present.

PS: Where's the backstory on the nuclear holocaust we apparently went through? I just thought I was going to look old.

With one click of the mouse (literally):

Before:After:That is all.

PS. Those are pink lemonade cupcakes. A little bit like cocaine cupcakes, if you ask me (soooo addictive).

We did some work for the Pentagon over the weekend (fuck yeah!) and my boss bought me a gift. It's this snow globe that plays the National Anthem. Wonderfully kitsch. As you can see, I'm making use of my newly constructed light tent.


As you can also see by these pink lemondade cupcake pictures I took last night, I need Daylight light bulbs, these are quite yellow. No matter! They didn't taste yellow! More (less yellow, I hope) pictures tommorow.

Loree: im serious
Loree: then the monsoon of the banshees happened when i got home
Loree: i almost lost my umbrella
Loree: ella
Loree: ella
Loree: a
Loree: a
Loree: a

*this is going to be like a couple years ago when everyone replied "so take off all your clothes" whenever someone mentioned it was hot in here, isn't it?

I'm thinking of entering this contest on Not Eating Out in New York. It's a contest to make the ugliest (yet still tasty) recipe in the "blogosphere" (god, I hate that word)

This is the dish that inspired the contest. Like, ew.

I'm thinking of entering this thing I eat for lunch sometimes, and I think I'll name it, as my roomate calls it, "squish on a circle."

Perhaps I can make everything the same color?

More to come.

C Jizzle: I'm insulted

C Jizzle: there are more mens bike socks than womens

Sent at 3:43 PM on Monday
Me: Really

Me: Well, there are more womens fashion choices than there are mens

C Jizzle: mens fashion is boring

C Jizzle: you always wear pants

C Jizzle: id hate to be a menswear designer

C Jizzle:no offense

Sent at 3:45 PM on Monday
Me: lol [I actually laughed out loud... I don't pussy foot]

i wouldnt always wear pants if i wasnt going to be killed

Sent at 3:47 PM on Monday

C Jizzle: what would u wear?
Me: Probably kilts and things, if I wasn't stuck into the Renaissance Fair kind of boy category

C Jizzle: i dunno...sometimes men are too skinny...and sometimes too big

C Jizzle: and they are like giant boring squares in suits

C Jizzle: male models....ugh

C Jizzle:who wants to look at shrivelled stick boys modeling boring square suits?

C Jizzle: its like watching pencils roll down small hills

Me: hahahahhaha [maybe I didn't laugh that much]

Me: what?

C Jizzle: they are ugly

C Jizzle: they are twigs

C Jizzle: with girl hair

C Jizzle: no woman wants a man twig with hair better or as good as theirs

Régine Chassagne (of the sweet, smooth and delicious band Arcade Fire) is Haitian! How exciting is that! Well for me it is, both of my parents are from Haiti. Of course, this means nothing outside its patriotic exterior because I don't know French, and I don't know Creole. But! Who cares! It's super cool man!

This interactive video by arcade fire is also pretty friggin' sweet. Check it out.

I have a bag full of artsy things for this weekend: bookbinding materials, one black chuckle and some vinyl for t-shirt making... Many a post to follow!

*This is vinyl that I cut on our machine, arranged in the way I would want it on a t-shirt. Wee!

The other day I visited my mother and father, who live on Memory Lane- well its not actually called memory lane, but for me it is. Whenever I go there, I do a couple of things: I make sure to I fill up on as many mom-made Haitian goodies as possible (otherwise I'd have to visit way more often....... too catty?) Anyway, she gladly cooks anything I want, as long as it's oily and fattening.

Like I'd ask for anything else.

This time, she made boullion soup, but at other times, I've gotten family sized portions of poule corniques et pois (cornish hen and peas) to Sauteed beef in brown rice to fried plantain (which doesn't sound fancy but its tasty!) She probably wouldnt mind it if I ended up looking like Biggie Smalls' heavier brother. But I resist (as much as I can.)

The other thing I do is go to my old bedroom (or, the memory closet, if you will) to see if theres any crap I can take out of there to add to the mountains of crap I have in my apartment. I was looking through a box and I found this sketchbook from highschool:



It looks like I did all this art around junior year of HS. Not too shabby. I seemed to be really into crosshatching. In this book, however, was a really detailed drawing of Trent from Daria. Which, I mean, was correct in it's movie like foreshadowing. Also in this sketchbook: really awful, and I mean REALLY AWFUL poetry. You'll never see it if I have anything to say about it.

PS. REALLY AWFUL.

(click on image for bigger view)

Mollygood, an entertainment blog 40x better than Perez on its worst day, has a regular contest where you write a haiku about something in entertainment that is happening at the time. This weeks was about Britney Spears losing custody of her kids:

Never google Brit-
Babymama Va-Jay-Jay
to and fro. K, kids?

Here's the original blog entry.
Here's the first one I won.

Let's make it three! WOO!

and than i realize how much i HATE growing it back

so i dont cut my hair.

I didn't design this beautiful brochure, but I did design the logo on the front of it! Look, My logo and the Smithsonian logo are BFFs. Owwwww!

For more information at the show, visit the Smithsonian Latino Center's Show website. There's music in the intro, so mute it if you're at work. My sister nearly had a coronary when she opened it up. :)

Update: Apparently the picture was removed for some wierd legal purpose ... so I cropped out logos that I didnt create. The logo right there I did create and therefore it IS my property. Huff huff huff.

Cool picture of me installing at WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution:

Fabulous!

WACK! is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts through December 16, 2007. Located at 1250 New York Ave, NW, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. General admission is $10.

RSGo is sending me a cookie! Gadzooks! In other news I love her Blog's logo.

Image from RSGo.blogspot.com.

Dresses that transform! EEE!

From Wikipedia:
Hussein Chalayan (born 1970) is a British/Turkish Cypriot fashion designer. Along with his own line, he also recently designed for TSE knitwear. His personality is calmer than his fellow British designers, yet his shows can be thought provoking and intense. His designs, which can be based on experiments and even abstractions of existing items such as meteorological charts, are often minimal and elegant.

Update: it gets NSFW at about 2:00. (I.E. Whoops! my hat ate my dress!)

I did a little painting the other day that I forgot to post:


The negative space is the part that is actually painted, and I cut a stencil on my trusty vinyl cutter. What shows through is the wood grain- detail coming soon... maybe :)

So I've come up with a new design challenge for myself.

I really love chuckles, like really love Chuckles- the texture, the size, the sugar coating; what's not to love? They're so much better than gummy bears, mike and ikes, and theyre right up there with swedish fish (unt yah!) in my heart. Anyhow, as much as I love Chuckles, I hate black licorice as much I would hate seeing Perez Hilton and Stephen Cojacaru making out. So! instead of throwing that Farleys and Sathers mistake away, I give it to my good pal, coworker and roomate Jessie, cause for some reason she loves them as much as I would love seeing Daniel Craig and Anderson Cooper making out. So! I give it to her.


But not only would I simply give it to her- how boring would that be?!


I usually present that 1" x 1.75" beauty up the way it deserves to be presented.

I used a pattern for the wrapping paper from a old drawing of Spanish Licorice.

The ribbon is made from vinyl I cut on a vinyl machine.

And there you go. I rather like this exercize.

I promise to do this at least once a week, if not more, every time I buy Chuckles, or... someone sends me some :)

I did three Illustrations for the Liberator this time around.


A full page (1) and a spot (2) for an article on Faith and Religion, and prayer.
This one was for a review on a documentary about Haiti. It involved a story about a Haitian man's house burning to the ground one evening. I wanted to insinuate the fire burning in the distance without representing it in the illustration. I fear it looks a little SpaceQuest9 though. You be the judge.

Check out the Liberator Magazine.
All illustrations © Joseph Lamour 2007

This guy's Illustrations are amazing. Amazing! Tim O' Brien. Check out his website.

SO... I designed the graphics for WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Women's Museum. It was a lot of fun to be part of such a large show. And the opening was some kind of magnificent. The lobby was lit with romance lighting, There were h'ors d'oerves a plenty and people in nice clothes (I always dig seeing my coworkers dress up all pretty since we have no dress code at work. It's usually jeans and t-shirt city.) Oh, and an open bar. That makes us all happy.

The art in the show was amazing and extensive, covering the more known feminist artists, and providing black women artists as well for context, as most black artists around there were concentrated on the civil rights movement.

Afterward, my coworkers, roomates and a couple of other friends went to Capitol City Brewery. Here are some highlights of that evening:

Each person had to add to the drawing for these first two and...


...this was an exquisite corpse. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed. Fun, no? Especially since most of us were soused... :-D

WACK! is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts through December 16, 2007. Located at 1250 New York Ave, NW, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. General admission is $10.