thinking

Here's a beautiful picture to start it off, I don't know who took it but they did a good job.
I find myself at a crossroads in life, leaving school, moving, starting my chosen profession, there's a lot going on. It's sometimes hard not to feel overwhelmed and frightened of the new and unknown. I know that I'm capable and that I can handle what comes my way, mostly I'm excited about this new phase in life, but sometimes it's quite daunting. I don't like the thought of no longer meeting weekly with my mentor for advise, fascinating knowledge and a wealth of experience. I don't feel like I've learned all that I need to, I don't know that I'm ready; however I do know a lot, I can do this, and should I need to talk with my mentor, I'm not moving far from school and he'll still be there. It will be alright, I can do this, I will not succumb to those well meaning individuals who ask if I've thought about teaching because the starving artist rep seems so prevalent. I will not teach school and I will prove them wrong...there determination and stubbornness to replace doubt.

picture

because my blog's been rather devoid of pictures lately, and because it's been snowy and rainy, I'd like to remind everyone that it could be worse...



... you could be in Alaska

at last

okay for those who have been waiting to see my show, it's finally going to be posted...only not here, on facebook. Let me know if that's a problem and we'll work something out

Strange but true

I've kindof missed blogging...

In other news, I love and hate technology. My apartment's internet has been out for a week now and it's not been enjoyable. I'm kindof an internet junkie. I've found that I can get along quite well without it, but in my current station in life, I'd really rather not. Also I might have somehow killed my camera last night. I was trying to upload pictures and it suddenly and without warning died on me. Hopefully recharging the batteries will solve it's problems.

I have been slightly obsessed with geometry and patterns of late as that's what the pieces I'm working on are all about. I found this website and I thought that it was really awesome. I love being able to find out how people make patterns. I've also come to find that the longer you look at them and focus on them (over lengthy time, not a few hours) the easier they become.

I'm really excited to move back home after graduation. I'm excited to bug my brothers, paint all the day long, cook awesome food and have access to a really awesome library system that has tons of the movies I haven't been able to get my hands on while I've been at school.

I learned how to gild last week and I'm uber excited about it. I think I want to attempt more gilding when I go home and don't have to worry about things like homework... who does that anyway... oh yeah, on the lines of gilding, tomorrow I also get to learn real egg tempera, not the stuff in tubes but the stuff with real eggs required! I'm super excited, and I think you'd have to be an art nerd to understand why...you might not really even get it then.

I plan on going to FLORENCE!!!!! next summer, to study at the academy of art there for two months and I really, really, really am excited to go. Florence is awesome, not to mention the fact that it's in ITALY. Wow, so cool. And I'll be improving my drawing, seeing works of art that I've sat through countless art history lectures about! Viva Italia!

Of my friends gets back from her mission at the end of the month and I'm so excited to see her again, it seems like ages since I've seen her, not just a year and a half.

I have a very deep love of pizza which makes my roommates both amazed and laugh at me. I truly deeply love pizza, I think I could eat it for a long time without getting sick of it, however, this being said the weekend where I ended up having pizza for four meals in a row was a tad bit much. I would have pizza for dinner tonight if I could. As it is I may have to settle for a grilled cheese sandwich.

This is a fairly long and random post, without pictures (sorry, camera disaster). It is also time that I should be getting ready to go to Italian so ciao.

fa bel tempo

It was, well still is, a beautiful day and I decided to take my camera along with me.





you are welcome to bemoan snow all you want but I will never say it nay, it's far too beautiful. Enjoy.

My show is up, the artist's reception is over and went pretty well. My stress has gone down immensely. Now it's time to look foreword and start all over again. Now it's time to specify exactly what I'll be doing until and after I graduate. I've decided against going through the whole show of graduation. I didn't enjoy it the last time and so why spend money to do it again when I can just get my diploma mailed to me? Anyway that's my philosophy on it.
In class on Thursday we had a fascinating discussion about Albrecht Durer's piece "Melencholia I". Durer is absolutely amazing! While da Vinci usually holds the top spot in my favorite artists, whenever I study Durer, he comes very close to taking the top spot. You simply can't imagine all the things that go into a work by Durer, all the symbolism and geometry and pure planning. Durer didn't do things randomly or by accident or to "express himself" If you are not familiar with Durer, his work, or Melencholia I, I highly recommend that you change that. This might be a good place to start. You'd be amazed at all the cool stuff you could learn from Durer and the symbolism in his works. I don't know why people praise abstract expressionism when there is so much better out there, when there is something real out there. Find the real. Seek after truth.

relief

The marathon is over. I put up my final show tomorrow. All my pieces are finished and framed. I only need to take my pieces over to where they'll be displayed so I don't have to drag them and everything else I'll need tomorrow. A huge load has been lifted.
I scheduled this show way back in September, I figured I'd be done with everything by December...ha ha ha. I have been a procrastinator for far to long for that. I did work on art, but I also was doing a full schedule of classes, 20 hours of work a week and homework. Art sadly gets pushed to the back burner all too easily. I did get one piece mostly done last semester, and to be fair I made about three versions of a piece to try and get it to work right...which latter became four and five versions...anyway, bottom line I'd thought out most of my pieces, but I hadn't actually put brush to paper on them.
This semester I'm only taking three classes and that's helped a lot. Another thing that helped was finally getting to use some studio space, that truly boosted my productivity. Hours that were usually wasted on campus in between classes were suddenly very convenient times to go to the studio. Anyway while my working time was up immensely, it's still been quite a mad dash to get things finished. I've been doing a lot of pieces water color which has limited how quickly I can work, I can't put another layer of paint down while the paper's still wet from the last layer... this is why it's a very good idea to work on multiple pieces at once, so you have something to work on while you're waiting for things to dry.
Anyway, around midnight last night I finished my last piece. Prayer is a wonderful thing, as are blessings. Tiny miracles happen all the time once you start realizing them. I've been very blessed.
For those out of state, I'll probably post pictures of my show here eventually. Stay tuned.