I updated my website, and I’m frickin’ proud of it: www.billferenc.com

Please pay special attention to the fav icon! I love it.

There’s a few more updates I need to make. Including some cool flash banners courtesy of Joel Gillman, and possibly an amazing secret that I am going to reveal later. Also, please check out www.sixfootfont.com. It’s a project that I’m really hoping to get off the ground and I want everyone to be a part of it. I’m still working out the details, but I have enough figured out that I’m going to get started on this soon (looking for sponsors, donations, etc.). Let me know if you’re interested.

I’ve got two things…

The first is this series of photos I found on reddit that is so goddamn cool that I want you all to see it. click on this.

The second thing is an iReport from our Los Angeles Bureau Chief, Bill! Rude.

I’ve been printing in Eric Recktenwald’s studio recently for an upcoming show at Intermedia Arts (I’ll save that for another post), and have become enraptured with this photographer’s work. Eric has a small print of a piece from Nina Berman’s series called “Marine Wedding” hanging in the studio. It is both the saddest and most fascinating new work I have seen in a long time.

And although you have all probably been inundated with war photography by the media by now, and may feel that there is a lot of this going on, and that it is in no way unique, I think you should take a look at this series. I felt that way too, but for some reason cannot help but feel absolutely moved by these when I have begun not to feel anything for war images anymore. Her new book will be coming out soon, and I think I will have to get it.

Go to Nina’s website here, and read a New York Times article about the image (and Nina’s work in general) here. And just in case, you can go to her gallery for more images here.

SO, here I am. Actually living in NYC, BLOGGING from NYC. First though, living here is way different from visiting. For starters, I actually have a key to a building where I can retreat to at a whim. So that’s pretty nice. Also, it’s less crazy. When Bill and I visited it was more or less non-stop-doing-stuff, or at least figuring out what to do.

I’ve been doing a lot of hanging out. Usually in cafes, sometimes in parks, sometimes in Central Parks… I’ve been reading Chance’s copy of Speaker for the Dead which is REALLY GOOD and I can’t put it down. It’s one of those stories that I don’t want to end. Luckily for me, I’m a pretty slow reader! I like to read, stop, think about what I read, re-read and so on. Usually this is a bad thing but, for good stories and cash-strapped-people, it’s awesome.

Bill will recognize this place! We stopped here for a late night meal and it was possibly our first “true New York restaurant” experience. Very small, packed with people, staff had thick accents and were hard to understand, AND good food. When Lindsey and I were walking around on my second or third day in I realize, “Hey, I know this area!” That was pretty cool.

I’m still working out the job situation and more importantly, the internet situation. (hah) Right now if I want internet on the laptop I have to sit on the far left side of the couch and hold the laptop up into the air until I can connect to an open network in the area, then sloooooowly move back on to the couch. Then repeat.

My iPhone is actually my main internet device now! Who’da thunk? The only problem is it’s hard to make a post with a little keyboard.

The first few days were quite emotional, but I’m much better now. Moving to a new region of the country is hard and weird! And this is the first time I’ve done it.

After spending 22 years in the Midwest, I will never forget it or the people who are there. I will definitely be back for visits and never think for a second that I’ll forget or resent where I came from.

I’m currently ideating a bunch of things, as I’ve previously stated. Well along with that, I’m using this experimentation time to make pieces for the art sale so I can at least feel like selling them is enough to justify spending as much time on them as I am. I just unearthed this giant box of color-aid that I totally forgot that I had. Its some pretty great stuff and I don’t get enough time to do the cut paper/collage thing even though I am admittedly bad at it. I came up with the following image, but I know it isn’t finished. I want to go back into it with pencil or something and maybe do something a little less abstract. But what?

I’d love any suggestions.

Emma and Katie, along with myself, are going to be in a small art opening at the St. Paul Tea Garden! You should go if you can. I wanted to make some new illustrations for the show, and it was truly a challenge- I had to make all three in less than a week! But I thoroughly enjoyed making this art. I had to struggle with each one to make it work, and in the end they turned out pretty nice. The show is up now! The opening is the 24th of October, and it’s up through mid-November.

I’m still doing the freelance thing. It’s going very well, I like it a lot. Hopefully I can start getting more illustration jobs soon.

That’s actually how it’s spelled. Or… I think that’s how they spell it in Tony Hawk. Sorry to double post, but it’s been a day, and also Emma posted, so at least it’s not two in a row. I had the day off today from my freelance job. And when you have a day off from a freelance job, it means you really don’t have a job at all, because there’s no more work for you! I’m sure they’ll call me back soon though. It kind of comes and goes in waves so I’m not too worried yet. I really needed the time to work on my portfolio, so I cleaned my studio area and worked on something besides my portfolio! I’m great at budgeting my time. I’ve been trying to work more in photoshop, adding different layers and masks. I wanted to make something GLOW.

I am in real life doing the trick, but unfortunately I do not have the ability to create an aura of magic. The wings and halo are also fake, but I think I may have fooled a few.

Yay! An illustration! It’s not done yet, but I like where it’s going. I’ve noticed that it’s really hard for me to develop an image if I don’t know what it’s about. I think in the future, and Emma has talked about this, I need to start giving myself “assignments” so I have a direction and a goal. Then I’ll know what I need to do to finish the image. In the case of the piece above, I don’t know where it should go so it doesn’t have an end at this point!

It’s pretty much my favorite buttface typeface right now. I had some spare time at work yesterday and I made the picture below (click for full size!). Everything it homemade, including the stars! Believe it or not, it’s difference clouds!

and it is flat faced Japanese kitties that have their own blog: