It's Friday, Pumpkin!

It's been a very, very long week indeed.  If you don't already, I highly suggest that you start reading a little something called Post Secret. It'll have way more energy at the moment to tell  you what Frank's all about. 

Here's to you Mim :)

Two Schools

I'm often conflicted at my new school.

On one hand, the Old School teaches me quality over quantity, chroma saturation, thin painting styles, and clear cut penchant for color mixing. 

On the other, the New School teaches quantity and size over quality, lots of paint- so much paint, gooey-goopey-thick "expressive paint", and a trial and error way of color mixing.

It's sort of hard to take what the first gave me; forced into me, and still allow some of the latter to filter in.  What do I give up from the first in order to accommodate for the second- do I have to give up in order to filter in?  Can i have it all?  I think only time will tell.

We All Want Change?

Ink Washes

I have graciously been offered the opportunity, as it stands, to go to NoLa and study for a bit down in the French Quarter.  Not only the FQ, per se, but others as well.  Studying in a different environment seems like such an amazing-fascinating and tantilizing future.  I want so badly to insinuate and integrate "if's" into this conversation- but I won't.  I won't tax something I want. 

I was thinking-- maybe Ink Washes to start with in preparation?  My teacher has offered to let me use the class following mine's model as my own so that I may practice.  Here's one I find interesting:

Prayers prayed and breaths held.  Let's see what the future holds :)

MoMo

Bon après-midi!

Since the first second I realized that I'm wasting the amazing opportunity that I have at The 700 House; all the space and freedom, I've been making it a point to look up something every day pertinent to the Art Field.

Yesterday, I found this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/arts/design/18momo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Momo&st=cse

This graffitti artist loaded up a mass of paint into a home-made hopper on the back of his bicycle and rode an 8 mile expanse of grid spelling out his tag name across the island of Manhattan.  It's amazing.  Near the end of the article it mentions what people thought that this hot-orange line was; worn down to oblivion in some places and still fresh after four years in some.  That, to me, is the actual testemant to the artist.

Something Witty.

This week started out as a train wreck.  I didn't have the painting below finished, my metals project started (or the silver bought, for that matter), -insert all the reading and catching up to do from missing last week- and was looking out on the remainder of the week with a healthy dose of cynicism covering my eyeballs.

Last weekend, on Friday, four of my girlfriends and myself had a sleepover here at the 700 House- we wasted time (I did homework), ate too much, and played at the rec center (mucho fun).  When we came home we started watching youtube videos and came across this jem:

I call it:  Positive Life Affirmation.

It's silly and a little bit crazy, but every time I want to start complaining, since Monday, I start in on a tyraid of stuff that's good/great/that I'm blessed with.  I've been making it a point-even when all I want to do is go to bed, that I read a chapter from the Bible.  I've been reading, and the more I do it, the more I'm finding that I-- hold your hats-- am looking forward to it.  What's are you thankful for in your life?  What would your PLA sound like?

It's coming along.

                          This is going to be much longer than a three hour road.. I can already tell.

Friends

I have a tenuous relationship with the telephone, at best.
This compulsive problem makes communication harder than it has to be and most often; left in the cold and forgotten faster than a pair of old mittens.

Sometimes; armed with no watch, telephone, glasses, shoes, or clue I wander off into the great unknown.  Sometimes, for weeks.  This last time, was probably the longest though.  Two full months.  During these months I lost touch with friends that lived less than ten miles away as well as friends that lived over seven hundred miles away.  It was a pretty lonely day when I emerged from my coma; suntoasted and smelly- but seemingly, friendlessly out of the loop.

This feeling of loneliness sticks with a person, it makes the next phone call that much sweeter-and the lack there-of that much more frustrating.  I've been thinking a lot lately about how bad of a friend I am not to people, but to God.  I say, "I love you, Jesus," just to step over my bible to get into bed.  I tell Him I want to spend time with him, only to settle down in front of the television to watch a show. 

Can we call ourselves friends of God when we don't spend time with Him?  You may ask, "How do I spend time with the Prince of Peace,"--after all, even with his back turned to the face of the Lord; Moses came down from the mount with a glowing visage.  (And friends, I gotta tell ya--I'm lacking in the "being as awesome as one of those Old Testament dudes," department).

Lacking as I do (and always seeking constructive criticism, ideas, and recommendations), this is what I've come up with:

>>We are supposed to be praying continually.  Someone splashes water on you on your way to school? Pray for them.  See a homeless man? Pray for him.  See a woman with a giant baby in her belly? Pray that the baby comes to know God, experiences mercy, etc.  There should always be something that we're praying for; talk to God.
>>We are supposed to fellowship.  Human beings weren't meant to be alone.  We weren't made to separate and live as islands.  "No man is an island."  Youth group, Small Group Study, Bible Study- even listening to an appropriate radio station.
>>READ YOUR BIBLE!  Some people may say that you don't have to go to church and/or read your bible to know God.  But the Bible is the literally the bound edition of Christ.
>>Find a Church, the fellowship thereof, allows us to realize that there are other people out there doing what we do, whom we can ask questions -eat with, play with, learn with.  Though it may not be your first choice (or even your denomination) there are even electronic churches that record their sermons and put them out for mass consumption.  Though it may not be a preferred mechanism; it's still a mechanism-if you get one tiny thing out of a pastors sermon; they've done their job.
>>There is a place and time for tradition.  God is everywhere.  Blink; he's the air between your eyelashes.  You don't have to be in a prayer closet to talk to God.  You don't have to be begging and asking for something to say, "Hey Jesus, I'm thinking of you."  This is what he longs for; to be the bread and life of our day- and for us to think on him throughout the day.  If he didn't want us to speak to him and perform the actions of loving him; he would have created automatons-- it sure would have saved him a lot of heartache.

Glory to God

   Today, I had a dentists appointment.  It was to check out some work that was causing me such immaculate pain that just breathing in air-conditioned air was agony.  My little sister and I prayed together while she was in the hospital that the visit would be:

1. Fast
2. Free
3. Painless
4. Assuring

  I feel great relief and blessings when I say: Hallelujah! :)

Passage Matthew 18:20
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
   After this visit, my Mom and I took our time and browsed through thrift stores and consignment shops on our way home from Flora.  When we got home, I decided that I would let her take me out to dinner before I came back to Carbondale; we brought The Grandmother (TG).  On our way home from the eatery we looked up to the clouds, and just as an offhanded comment TG says, "The clouds are the dust from God's feet, you know.."  No, Gram, I didn't know.
   I thought to myself on the way home, "Lord, if the insignificant specks of dust from upon your feet--the dirt and particles that we humans take time and effort to remove--can be this miraculous and beautiful... who will I be? Not a single one of the pieces that I ever create can even compare.  My life's work isn't worth the dust on your feet."

Passage Nahum 1:3:
The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
   Take the time today to thank God for your talents; those seen and unseen.  Use them for the furthering of His kingdom and to accurately depict to those around you what a true Christian should look like.

♪ It's been a long time, Such a long time ♪

I started this weekend out on a tyraid. 
I'm not fun anymore; I'm not whining, just stating simple facts.
As Pat and I sat and spoke he tried to reassure me that although I'm not lazy enough to be a bum or hip enough to be a cool socialite; I am in my own way- fun.  He tried to revive the spark I seem to have lost somewhere along the all night art-fests and endless days of not knowing where to park.  Enter, an online game.  Pat tells me I just need to find something that isn't going to be instantly gratifying; to sign up and enlist him as my tutor.  An hour later and I still don't get the site; comprable to learning algebra for the first time.
Between prayer and Pat's tutorial, I can feel something coming back (hope! =]).

On the other hand, the rest of the weekend passed by so incredibly quickly that it was all I could do to grab it by the tail as it raced by the windows. 

Worth 1,000.

        Today was a total wipe out.  Praying tomorrow is friendlier.

Curious?

This summer, I stayed home a lot, I fell off the face of the planet, I hung out with my best friend, and I enjoyed the company of my family. I went for weeks without spending money, or talking to other people. I didn't shower, I forgot to brush my teeth, and I swam in the cool water under the sunshine. I didn't get to do everything that I wanted to do- but God revealed so much more to me; how can I complain?

The way I lived this summer prompted an idea in my little head: create. I didn't finish a painting, I didn't write any stories, I didn't color, I didn't draw a single thing (at least not to completion). However, I harbored the vastness of what I was taking in and experiencing. Sometimes painful, but always new. I hope to use The Lost Summer (the title of a supposed sketch diary, ehemmm...) as a way to stay connected with those feelings, maybe share a little of what I went through, and give myself a reason to slow down.
---------
I've been thinking about this song since I heard it in Hot Topic while waiting for my sister to finish up her shopping: NeverShoutNever- Sacrilegious.  I don't quite know what to think about it yet.  There are parts that I whole heartedly agree with, and parts that I just don't think make any sense.  Thought I'd throw it up here for consumption. 

Later days