Consider the Ants

Something I struggle with daily is this question: Am I going to try my best today, or am I going to crumble in the face of thousands of other, more talented artists. And it's hard! Sometimes I get it stuck in my head that there are so many other people who are out there who have natural abilities, so what's the point of even trying to be skillful in my own craft. And there are other lies that I believe on any given day about how I am and why I shouldn't try. It's a constantly determined decision whether or not to put forth an effort.

Solomon points out in Proverbs 6:6-8 Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and be wise! Even though they have no prince, no governor, or ruler to make them work, ,they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.

Ants are wonderful examples of what hard work can accomplish- and I've been challenged with the hopes and dreams of having an impact on the world. I have to choose how to invest my time and I want to use the ability God has given me to have big dreams and continue trying to learn.

I want to achieve the dreams God has for me.

figure drawing class UNO

Ex Morte Vita

[poster by Stephen Crottsillo and Brandon Oxendesign]

'Ex Morte Vita' idea discussion- faptastic style

School is beginning to pick up speed. We had a few breaks, what with the surprise snow day and Martin Luther King day.. All of the synopsis's (synnopsi?) have been passed out and we're finally jumping into homework, studio workshops and projects.

I've got 4 studio classes (which isn't exactly recommended in the art department) but I did it 2nd sem. freshman year, so I think I'll be able to handle it again.. especially because I want this so much and I want to learn this stuff and really hammer it down.

Some things that are going on-
We had a Pixar Movie Marathon Extravaganza at Dan and Brenda's house a little bit before classes started- oh my gosh that was so much fun! We started with Wally B from the Short Films DVD and went in consecutive order through all the movies and shorts. Most everybody fell asleep around 2 or 3am.. I think I remember getting REALLY sleepy around 4ish (at the beginning of Cars).

[This is the Mike Wazowski cake I made for the Pixar Marathon]





[Note the movies are lined up consecutively on the TV mantle. Obviously, we were not very far into the marathon.]

---

I applied to work this summer at Walt Disney World through Summer Project... I haven't heard anything yet, but it should be soon..

I'm also going to apply for a very awesome other thing- an internship in CA... I feel like saying it is bad luck or something... I know, it's silly.. but I don't want to get too excited about it because it's completely up in the air right now.

This afternoon was my first session with my new personal trainer!!! Here's the logic: while I'm at Winthrop, I want to take advantage of everything being here has to offer. My tuition is paying for a personal trainer at the West Center, thus my action in signing up. I only have one more thing to say about that: OWWWWW!

Grace got accepted to go on the Barbados Summer Project! HOW COOL IS THAT??!?!

I had a (kind of last minute but really neat) idea for the 'death to life' exhibition coming up with the Friday Arts Project... Prayer works, go figure!

--- Last but not least, I ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT WAIT UNTIL IAM CONFERENCE IN FEB!!!!!!
-New York City, friends, art, (Mako!), and God..... what could be better than that!??!



and to top it off- here are some snow day photos

[the view from my window]

last semester in rutl?

second day of class at wu...


taking Drawing 3, Figure Study, Drawing 2 (Audit), Small Format Photo, Theatre Costume Shop, History of Graphic Design and Illustration, and Social Dance.



I'm already a little bit overwhelmed

but it's a good feeling

we're all trying to find

a place in the hope of future and whatever make us feel like we're truly living.




Thanks, PepperAnn and Grace.. You helped me see points I hadn't thought about before and I really appreciate your perspectives and encouragement. No, really- if I weren't so tired from cake-baking I would probably be all teary eyed. Thank you times a jillion.

I was in bed a few minutes ago thinking about what yall said to me and I decided that If I didn't write down what I was thinking immediately, that I might forget and be back where I started. So this is me recording and remembering and processing.

When I was in elementary school, I think I would have to say my 2 passions were babies and piano music. I loved holding babies, dressing babies, feeding babies, especially baby dolls because they didn't puke. Last summer, SY Rogers mentioned in his talk about how girls like to play with dolls because its our nature to take care of things. God made women to be nurturing. Through the piano- I felt like I was living... I don't care what song they put in front of me, if I didn't know it, I wanted to play it over and over and over again until I could close my eyes and play- because when I didn't have to worry about the technical aspects of the music, I could play it memorized. I could play it by heart.

And when I knew my music by heart, (ok, kids. this is going to sound silly and it might make your arm hairs stand up) I could play it by heart. I would just sit at the piano and close my eyes and move back and forth like my teacher would when she played something that she felt was meaningful.

When my first cat died, I remember being so overcome by death and the reality of it. (I think I was 7) I sat at the piano for at least 2 hours I'm guessing, and played the piano. No sheet music, no nothing. It sounded very crappy. - but because I was thinking about my cat and how much I was going to miss her, I just pushed the keys and tears ran down my big ol fat cheeks.

Then, one of my parents, I forgot who, came in the dining room and told me that if I didn't have anything to play, then I should stop banging on the piano.

Not that that was my big life changing traumatic event, but I made sure I didn't do anything by heart out in the open where somebody could tell me I was being ridiculous.


What I'm getting at, is this: What do I want to do by heart and what makes me feel alive? I've had so many answers to that in the past 19 years- which isn't really a lot, but it's all I know so it feels that way...
- When I wanted to be a pediatrician, (because I wanted to take care of all the babies in the world) I remember working in the church nursery every Sunday and Wednesday. As I got older, I started "getting ready for college"- I heard that medical school was hard so I wanted to already be ahead of everyone else. When I was 14, I tried to memorize all of the bones in the body in one summer and I got dang close.
At the same time as all of this, I also wanted to be on Broadway and dance every day. When you dance, you get to move your whole body- when you feel the music, it's so much better... and nobody can tell you to stop. I danced for 12 years at The Dance Shoppe and got into the Senior Competition class in middle school and about a year after I got my first pointe shoes, I decided dance wasn't for me. I didn't feel it anymore. (Getting accepted into the Young Americans was quite tempting though, and sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I went to CA my freshman year instead of Winthrop)


Maybe what I've been worrying about is the thought of my passion for life dying out... life meaning what makes you feel alive. Maybe the day that I woke up and decided to draw was the first day that I allowed drawing to make me feel alive. Sometimes certain poems and songs make me feel alive.. Chris Rice's songs did that for me when I was little, and now when I play them on the piano, I feel like something's circulating in me other than blood. As if the thing that made me was allowing me to take a great big gulp of himself and hold it in for a little bit, and try to keep it moving in me for as long as I could without letting go.

Making images do that for me now and I'm continually searching for whatever will bring me that connection with the Life. Drawings, photographs, some movies- it seems like over the years that feeling has become more of a combination between visual and audial, rather than audial alone.

.....And my worries about making a wrong decision? I think I'll always have them, but Grace and PepperAnn are right: If I keep going after what makes me feel alive... what I have passion for... what I want to do by heart.. then I think I'll alway be happy.....



good news: on the first hour of the first day of this year, was the first time.. in a long time.. that I let being Alive (and being forgiven) have all of me.. and when I opened my eyes, my hands weren't beside me or in my pockets and That's what I truly want to go after...

doubting is easy

its 3am

i'm scared of not being able to learn and i'm scared of making a really huge mistake and i'm scared that i may have already made it. the kind that there's no turning back from. because for a year now, i've had it set on my mind but how do i know it's not just a faze i'm in the middle of? how in the world is it possible to just wake up one morning and have a "passion" for something and decide that thats what i want go after 100% And say, going along with that, that i didn't learn fast enough.. that even if i were to eat sleep and breathe this stuff, that when i'm out of here, it doesn't even matter because i'm still behind. it would be a complete and utter lie to say that i want to do this for stability.

Illustration Friday- 100%

life is about everything love-ly about being alive

As soon as this movie comes out on DVD, it is going to be a must-see at the WU Society of Illustrators.

along with The Animation Show, Ratatouille, Amelie, and a bunch of other really great and hope-full movies.

blahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Right now I feel like a big muddle of emotions and it sucks. It really does. If someone, perhaps Grace, were to ask me to name one emotion, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

I think part of it has to do with this house. Every time I come here, it happens. I’m surprised at how instant it happens, too. This house traps me into a box of un-motivation.

I have so many things I want to do and get done. Back at school, my creative juices are like the insides of gushers. All you have to do is say one thing and a big juicy idea pops into my head and I can’t wait to bust into it and have my friend’s heads turn into watermelons. -I've made a few things, but not much. I’ve been drawing here and there and I’ve been working on some old photographs that I forgot about. I knitted a scarf last night. I figured out how to work the On Demand button on our clicker and have been having a marathon of Cartoon Network’s new show called Chowder. Me gusta.

I've also been writing down ideas for stuff that I want to do. I need to make some businessy card things.. I would feel more professional and.. real. I also have discovered the wonders of 3D illustration. Neat!

I had no idea creativity depends so much on location. You wouldn’t believe what it’s been like since Encounter. Talk about a rollercoaster. It was as if the minute I rolled into NA, my little bubble was popped. A speeding ticket might be a good assumption of what makes me feel that way.

Here is the schedule of my home life:

7:00 am- lying in bed awake (my body wakes me up at 7) and wanting to get out of bed because I don’t need anymore sleep, but knowing there is nothing to so, so I stay there and deliberate how cold I am and wishing my family didn’t ban me from the heater

9:00 am- alone

10:00 am- alone

12:00 pm- alone, grab a sandwich (maybe?)

1:00 pm- alone

2:00 pm- alone

3:00 pm- alone

4:00 pm- alone

5:00 pm- alone but with my mom and brother home. Still alone though

6:00 pm- dad’s home-ish probably outside

7:00 pm- all of the tv’s in the house are on. Everyone watches their own … and is alone

8:00 pm- we’ve started to make fires in the fireplace more often. Makes for good bonding time

9:00 pm- on the computer, facebook mostly and blogs

10:00 pm- ……….. you get the idea

For the past 2 days I’ve been trying something new. Not because I think it will give me different results, but because being at home in the daytime is so miserable. 2 nights in a row, I have been staying up until 7 in the morning, watch my family get ready for school and work, watch them eat breakfast and leave. And then I go to sleep until about 4 or 5 and wait for them to get home. I know, it sounds like I’m turning into a pathetic little puppy dog, and it’s not because as soon as they get home I need them to pat me on the head, but I just want something happening around me. When I’m here by myself, everything is motionless.. and that scares me.

I probably sound needy.

Illustration Friday- Soar

new years dance party