A Nation of Evil Men: Elizabeth Bathory

The show, A Nation of Evil Men, curated by Sam Heimer and hosted by Shawn Hileman of Masthead Print Studio, includes depictions of infamous evil people throughout history. The show opens on Saturday, February 5 at 6pm at 340 Brown Street, Philadelphia.

History Lesson, please!

Elizabeth Bathory was born in Transylvania in 1560, married to Count Ferenc Nadasdy at the age of 15, had four children between the age of 25 and 35, and widowed at age 51. She was known as a beautiful, intelligent, and well-educated woman in Transylvania, but also obsessed with remaining that way. She believed that the blood of young women was the secret of eternal youth. For four years until her death in 1614, she abducted, tortured, murdered young women in the area for the purposes of bathing in their blood. There are implications that the story of Dracula is strongly influenced by Elizabeth Bathory's obsession with blood.

She is gruesome tale and has now inspired this piece, hundreds of years later:

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Sketchbook Development

I've been recently developing a sketchbook for my most recent class project, sketches of Philadelphia. This class demands a lot of drawing from observation and the usage of color - Most of these things, I do not practice on a regular basis. I've enjoyed my experiences so far: I've gone to the zoo, gotten a lot of the urban landscape of Philadelphia, the library, and most recently the Wagner Museum by Temple University's campus.

I'm hoping to start a trend of visiting a new place every week for this class. Anthony Pedro has accompanied me on some outings, who has an incredibly keen eye and an effortless drawing style. 

Some sketches from the past few weeks:

Penland Summer 2011 Catalogue Cover

Guess who's on the cover of the Penland catalogue?

Yep. That's me!


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Sketchbook Project Submission

This year, I am participating in the Sketchbook Project. This is a sketchbook that invites participants from all over the globe to fill a moleskine sketchbook with sketches, drawings, collages, and everything under the sun according (loosely) to one of the many themes that they offer. I chose the theme of "Jackets, Blankets, and Sheets" and chose to draw, from one cover to the other, patterns upon patterns.

This is a preview of the sketchbook: (will post the page by page scans soon!)

Many of the pages were blockprinted with an image of a jacket or an image of a bed to be filled. I used prismacolor markers to draw most of these patterns and chose to keep it playful and sketch-like.

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A Nation of Evil Men Show Opening

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From Sam Heimer's blog:

Saturday, February 5 · 6:00pm - 10:00pm
Masthead Print Studio

340 Brown St.

Philadelphia, PA

Masthead, ASOP and the Philly Cartoonist Society presents an expose of the faces of evil that make history grimly entertaining. A collection of the debased, comically villainous, perverted, violent, controversial,and grotesque figures that were truly stranger than fiction. These faces and persona have been the fodder for a million books, movies, history channel specials, and bad jokes; A Nation of Evil Men will bring them all together for your viewing pleasure.

Hosted by Shawn Hileman

Curated by Sam Heimer

Participants Include:

Jeffro Kilpatrick

Paul Romano

Kirsten Harper

Sam Heimer

Justin Gray

Jay Bevenour

Christian Patchell

James Heimer

Mike Wohlberg

Jennifer Gin

Matt Cavanaugh

Tom Augustino

Amy Houser

Paul Palcko

Mark Price

Anthony Pedro

Kevin Mercer

George Tan

Eamon Dougherty

Justin Miller

JP Flexner

Christine Larsen

Tim Durning

Brian Meitz

Max Gordon

Shawn Hileman

And more...

Adbuction Print

My digital camera is no longer with us. It does not want to turn on. It does not want to charge the battery. It does not want to read any SD cards. Its stubbornness has got the best of it. Hopefully, I'll be able to scrounge up some change and save up for a new one in the coming months. I'm open to recommendations on cameras.

The lack of a camera has motivated me to start scanning my projects, which I have been putting off for a long time.

This print was for the Hallowed Halloween show at Proximity Gallery that my friend, Sam Heimer, put together beautifully. It was a really fun project to complete and I had the opportunity to work on it for months in preparation.

"The Abduction" by Jen Gin.
screenprint, block print, ink on paper



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Kickin' New Coat

This past winter, I made myself a new coat. It was time to retire the puffy thing and move on to something that looks more grown up. I found a pattern from one of my Japanese pattern books, "Sweet Dress Recipe" for a new coat.

This is the new coat that I've made for myself. Sadly to say, my camera was on its last legs at the time. It did not open any of the pictures, yet I could see the thumbnail preview. The camera now no longer turns on. Womp womp...

The coat turned out great. It fits me perfectly and it helped me shake out all of the gray and black in my closet.

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