Fear and Wonder

Stuck between fear and a sense of wonder

Life is lived within this spectrum. I live in this spectrum.
Between the fear of my cold apartment floor and the wonder of a bowl of cereal.
Between the fear of rejection and the wonder of a new love.
Between the fear of the polar vortex and the wonder of an arctic city.

Im bad at drawing

     As much as I value positivity lately this has been a great place for me to vent on stuff that I dislike/want to change. So let's continue with my thoughts on drawing.

      When I was a little kid I drew all the time. I really liked drawing trees . There are straight parts and curvy parts and textured leaves and bark. You can add animals and grass and roots. I just loved drawing trees. I had little interest in drawing faces and people because symmetry is hard and so is drawing representationally. I drew for my own joy with no intention in mind. As I got older I had less time to draw and my style evolved to suit  the time I had avaliable. I got into drawing patterns and really graphic work. I also became more aware of the commercial side of art.

     My mom is a graphic designer so I knew about that side of art. To my mothers dismay I also became more aware of tattoos and the "alternative" side of commercial art. However I was still not a fan of representational and realistic drawing it did not come easy for me and struggling with it took the fun out of it. 

     I remember when I applied to fashion/art schools a lot of places wanted fashion illustrations. I absolutely hated drawing them there were different rules for fashion illustration and I had to draw faces which were the worst. It would take me hours just to do the heads.

     Even when if was accepted and in the department I struggled. I could make the garments, easy. Drawing them was a different story.

     What I failed to realize was that fashion illustration is just that, illustration. I had always tried to make my drawings from photographs of my work combined with photos of models. This made for weird proportions and things that were always a little off.

     At this point I began to dislike drawing.

    I went from a place where there were a few kids who were good at drawing, my high school. To a place where a knowledge of drawing and art was a pre requisite, and some people had come from highs schools where art was considered far more important than math. Very much unlike my school, that had an engineering program. Anyway I was suddenly a goldfish  in an ocean of sharks who, to me seemed like they could all sell their  proverbial doodles for quite a pretty penny. It's one thing suck at one thing as much as the rest of your communitiy does, but it's another to feel like the only one.

     So I took an illustration class, it was really intimidating. Even beginning was filled with people who had an amazing gift and passion for illustration.i forced my self to keep drawing even though I didn't really like it. It's hard to be bad at something you want to be good at. It's harder to try to be better when it seems to come easy to everyone else.

 But I'm working on it. And maybe someday I'll be pretty good at it, and maybe then I'll enjoy it again.

A bit on Literature

 As a child I loved to read. Id stay up for hours reading. Books were always an adventure. I could forget about all my problems and things I needed to do and just dive into an adventure for a few hours.
It was so easy and it was exactly what I wanted.

But as I got older people started telling me what to read.

At first it was just a list that I had to pick a few books from. It wasn't my favorite thing abut at least some of my favorite authors had at least one title on the list I was supposed to read from. As I got older this list got smaller and smaller until it became assigned reading... ewww just ewww. The books, sorry I mean literature I had to read in high school was often mind numbingly boring, or just confusing. Like The Crucible for example...

First, its a play. So annoying to read, there's stage directions and dialogue is weird to read, its just much better as a performance. I don't hate reading plays I actually love Shakespeare especially his witty nonsensical comedies but thats another story. The Crucible is just a bunch of dumb girls lying to get attention, I know this sounds a lot like Mean Girls but it sucks a lot. Yeah, its supposed to be an allegory for McCarthyism but that means it should be read in a historical context, like a social science class, not Honors English. We spent months talking about symbolism, irony, allegory, tone instead of the thinly veiled subtext, literary representations of historical figures and its presence on banned books list, any thing banned is always better...

The Scarlett Letter also sucks. Its written in middle english, not quite Shakespere, not quite normal english, and it requires a dictionary every third paragraph. Also hanging someone for cheating is ridiculous punishment, you cant pick your parents so why all the hatin' on Pearl, and I'm sooo glad I'm not a character in this story there is no happy ending for anyone.

This cycle of icky forced reading was real real bad in high school. There were a few gems, like The Jungle which is morbidly awesome, and accurate to the time. Wuthering Heights, Bronte girls know how to do sad love stores right! The BBC movie version is also awesome, Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, kill it, I haven't seen the Laurence Oliver version. I have learned to hate Dickens, too much moping and not enough doing, also enough with the foreshadowing, you have killed any and all surprises. More modern literature can be good, but when you use the structure of your novel as a part of the overall meaning you exclude those not well versed in literature from enjoying your book (heres to you, House of Leaves) And the worst book ever, ahem, Ida by Gertrude Stein, its worse than See Spot Run.

After many many years of being forced to read what some call, "classics," and "literature" while having to deeply analyze and deconstruct. My love of reading has extinguished itself to faint white coals. When I was younger I used to love book reports, and being pushed out of my fantasy/adventure novel comfort zone, but forced reading, bullshit analyzations, and irrelevant "literature" that only speaks to the trials of rich white males killed the book zealot in me long ago. Lately I've been trying to get back into reading, I tried to engulf my self in some literature. But now every time I read any fiction all I can think about is the archetypes, irony, imagery and themes rather than just getting sucked up into someones dream world. But I'm curious does anyone actually enjoy talking about literary devices used in novels? Or is it just something that professors do that sucks the joy out of books?

Today in Class...

 Done?

Works in progress...

Not my shoe, but it is my drawing.

Im back: Not that I ever left...

So I haven't posted anything on here in several months.

Its not that I haven't written anything, i've written plenty. But its not all happy fluffy stuff ready for the world.

I write a lot, on a bi weekly basis I spend time recording my thoughts and reflections. I write a lot about my childhood. I write about my family and my artwork. Sometimes I write about my relationships and world events. But mostly about my childhood, and I don't post it.

I keep it in the "vault" as a professor of mine would say...

Its not that I'm ashamed of my words, Its just that, how do you know when it is time to let things go. I was a happy kid I guess. I know there are millions of children who had much worse childhoods than me. And maybe thats why I don't post it. Maybe I feel like I'm whining. But I always tell people,

No matter what your feelings are they are valid

but then I have always had a hard time telling people how I feel. Logically, feelings are irrelevant I tell my self, especially when I have to make tough decisions. But my job has tuned me in to the real world fact that feelings are not irrelevant. Feelings start revolutions and they are able to unite people who have nothing else in common. Feelings make people travel thousands of miles to rebuild the homes of strangers, feelings are what push people to enter into life threatening careers. As essential as feelings are to the human condition, I'm still bad at them. I ruin things because I have such a hard time vocalizing them. Thats what a lot of my art is about to me. Its about pent up feelings and words that logic has shunned away.  Maybe thats why I don't share all of my writing. A part of me says that acknowledging those feelings will not force a positive outcome so logically its not worth the effort.

But if thats true why do I write them down. They are not the kinds of stories id ever read to any future children. They don't really express any universal truism that will shatter the current process of thought, if they were id share them. But they do express how I feel about times in my my life that were particularly painful and difficult for me. And whats the point in sharing that. I mean I'm not a comedy writer nobody reads this for laughs. But don't you just hate reading depressing things.

Sure Schindler's List was depressing, but at least there was an ultimate greater good served. Like Water For Chocolate is really sad too but all is well at the end. Maybe im just waiting for my happy ending, as much of a cliche as that is. Maybe I'm just waiting for a time in my life when I can look back and see how my experiences shaped me into the glowing example of human triumph and success. I might just be waiting for the day when I can talk about such experiences and not feel like I'm whining despite my privilege. Or I just don't think its worth the social recoil i'd get, humph whatever... we'll all just have to wait and see.

Religion and Food Part III

      I also found my self spending my evenings cooking more and more elaborate dishes. I went from watching Meet Joe Black and eating Mac n' Cheese, to watching the Dalai Lama speak on TED and cooking roast chicken with glazed sweet potatoes and fresh lemonade. I remember watching one of his talks and wishing one of my friends from home would call, and hearing him say "if we all just treated each other the way we want to be treated the world would be a much better place" or something to that effect.
     After hearing that I wondered why don't we apply that idea to more of our lives? Why do we only think of that when we some one who is homeless, or when we see benefit programs to support people in a disaster situation. Why don't we apply that when we are waiting for someone to call, why don't we apply that when we see a friend who you can tell wants to say something but can't. Why don't we empower our selves to call, why don't we tell our friends I can see you want to say something, whatever it is I care about you and always will. Why do we let cultural manners dictate how we conduct our feelings and how we function among others. We don't determine what station we are born into, why discriminate those who were born a different race, nationality, or ability. We don't like being discriminated against why discriminate others.

     I let that moment, the one where I was sitting in my tiny apartment window ledge huddled over a plate of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, to be my epiphany.

     I took it upon my self to let that simple phase be my guiding light:
   
Treat others how you want to be treated

     This simple phase can be applied to everything from helping those in need, to taking a shift for a coworker, to simple things that can make someones day; like buying the meal for the person behind you in the drive through, spending the day watching movies with a sick friend, calling some one you haven't heard from in months, accepting the fact that people make mistakes and letting things go, buying an unexpected gift for a friend or even a stranger.

     While the phrase is simple the idea can be difficult. Sometimes I can't believe the things that people do and I want to get so very very angry, but I remember how hard it is to take responsibility for your mistakes and I let go, if my anger and work towards a solution I can put my energy to better use.

     While this is an idea expressed in Buddhism its only one of the many views. However I am not a true Buddhist. Im not exactly ok with the whole reincarnation idea, I think there is something after death, but Im not sure if its heaven. But the levels to enlightenment thing Buddhists believe in is a little hard to believe in. I believe more in the teachings of the Dalai Lama than Buddhism. He has a really good talk about all paths to god which I am a believer in. I don't care what you believe in, whether it is science, or islam or paganism, or whatever, as long as you strive to do good without hurting others and allow others to believe in whatever they want its good with me.

      So once a week when some people take time out to to to church, or temple or pray with their families, I sit in my apartment cook something delicious and I feed my soul as well as my body. I sit, enjoy the food I am lucky to have, and dedicate an hour or so to fill my soul with positivity. It might be a TED talk or a sermon streaming from the Dalai Lama, an empowering documentary, a youtube clip, whatever. Its not always religious, but it always presents a new perspective or idea.

     So once I fed my soul as a result of feeding my body, but I have come to a place where I feeding my body has just become part of the ritual of feeding my soul.

Religion and Food Part II

     When I first left home for college I was so excited. Within hours I had best friends and I was totally ready for the freedom of it all and leaving Cali behind for a new adventure. My freshman year was great. I had good friends, great professors, easy classes, and no responsibilities.

     But the one thing I knew I wanted at the end of it all was to be an RA. I had a great RA he was really aware of the students on his floor and took time to get to know us as people. I wanted to be able to open up and be real with people the way he was with us. So I applied, and I didn't get it.

     I was crushed. But I knew the worst thing a person can tell you is No. But, no is just a yes if you are patient. So I looked at my options and I applied to be a summer RA. I got the job but that meant staying the whole summer in Chicago and no seeing any of my friends or family.

     The summer was really hard on me I had fun but I ached for the people I loved and hadn't seen. I felt lost without them. Most of my new college friends left and my friends from home were home so it was just me. There were other summer RA's and we bonded and became friends but there was still ample time for me to sit and wallow in my loneliness.

     I became very depressed. When I am sad and depressed there are only two things that make me happy, good food and good movies. So naturally I watched hundreds of hours of Netflix. I some how stumbled upon this fabulous documentary about the Dalai Lama. It was fascinating. It told the story of his life how he was plucked from childhood to be a living god, and how he used his powers to speak to the world on equality, and morals.
   
     He taught the ideas of Buddhism and how the main world religions have very similar ethical codes, but are taught in different ways. This was a revelation for me.

     My main issue with Christianity was all the ideas veiled in stories, and how it claimed to be the reason for meaning in the world. After more research on the Dalai Lama I learned more about Buddhism the pillars, and the stories. I am not a fan of all of these ethical stories, every religion has them, but id rather the message be straight up, why hide the fact that people should treat each other with fairness and love, why do we need to hide that?

Religion and Food Part I

     When I was a little kid I used to drive for 45 minutes on Sunday with my mom to go to church.
My sister my mom and I would be dressed and out the door so we could drive downtown and sit in the pews with my grandparents for hours and hear these old people tell stories in sing songey voices then eat these weird little pieces of bread.
     We weren't Catholic as people often assumed if ever mentioned these never ending services, we were Episcopalian, which Johathan Rhys Meyers has explained to me through The Tudors is very similar but very different. Same beliefs and all, but women can be priests, it doesn't matter who you love aka being gay is ok, no nuns or monks, divorce is more acceptable, and various other changes.
     As a child I didn't really listen to all the speeches, I preferred to color. Sunday School wasn't really my thing either. I mostly went for the company, because I liked buying fancy clothes to wear to church, and the food.
     Almost always after church we would go to lunch with my grandpa and my grandma. I really liked going out to eat and I liked being with my grandpa and grandma, so as a kid I mostly went to church for the food.
     As I got older I didn't have time to spend 7 hours every week at church and lunch, or chunch if you want to call it that. And I began to be bored with coloring and sometimes I found my self actually listening to the old people in the front talking. I agreed with some of it, I really liked when we all shook hands and said, "Peace be with you" and in reply heard, "And also with you" but there were parts I didn't get. Like why we needed elaborate stories about cutting babies in half to learn compromise. And stories of miracles and fabulous feats to teach ethics, and whether or not we are supposed to take these stories as fact. Why did ideas of compassion, compromise, friendship, and empathy need to be veiled with strange tales for them to matter to people.

     As I got older I became disillusioned with the christian faith, I did not believe in the spirit in the sky, and there was no where to go when you died. I did not see any thing other than just ending.

     But it became hard to believe in nothing.

Questions that lead to Questions Part I

     So ive been doing this project for a class where I write down all of the questions that come to my mind. Im only a few days in but I already see trends.
     Most of my questions are about every day stuff, what to wear, what to eat, do I really need to bring that to class. But a lot of the rest are reflective questions. That have popped up going through old friends Facebook accounts or categorizing the 6000 photos I recently uploaded. Questions like:
        What happened to us?
        Why haven't we talked in years?
        Where are you now?
         I wonder if you remember the time when we:
                         fell asleep in class on each others shoulders,
                         wore matching denim tuxedos,
                         had a food fight in the kitchen,
                         played dress up with your moms clothes,
                         spent all of our free time building forts and wooden cars,
                         showed me the hand saw you keep under your bed for "emergencies",
                         would sing at the top of our lungs over the radio,
                         went skinny dipping in the pacific in the middle of the day at a public beach,
                         had a piggyback contest on the hills of San Francisco,
                         had our first kiss during media class,
                         painted a mural for class,
                         would race down the hill to the swing set after lunch,
                         thought that this stump was the coolest thing,
                         played with the wooden swords I made us,
                         tried to make our own legos with hot glue,
                         made tons of "money" on Business Day,
                         woke up in your bathtub with tons of people in your house that neither of us knew,
                         got locked in the bathroom together and the janitor had to take the hinges off the door,
                         spent an entire class period using Photo Booth on my computer rather than class,
                         taught "spoons" to the class and played for the entire rest of the day
                         learned what our teachers middle name was,
                         tried to get our favorite substitute to sign our year books,
                         bought a fancy saw to make projects from a book,
                         almost got lost less than a mile a way from my house,
                         walked from my house to yours just because,
                         rode our bikes to Grandpa's house without telling anyone,
                         went on self esteem walks,
                         did crazy makeup and photo shoots,
                         made bad decisions on a field trip to a mormon college.
                         shotguned energy drinks with our teacher,
                         were eating apples and were warned about finding half a worm in it,
                         went wandering around Sac State looking for a party,
                         danced around the music room instead of homework or studying,
                     
                This list is going to get a lot longer, but Ive realized why my work is so nostalgic and spiritual. Because each one of these moments has stuck in me as a moment of love. A moment to be cherished, because it will never be the same. No matter how things turn out in the end if we're lucky we will still have our memories we will still be able to think back on a time where our biggest worry was if thrifty would have my favorite flavor and when the new episode of Star Trek Enterprise was on. We often don't realize the impact simple everyday moment have on us, some of my best work comes from memories of simple things, like ice cream. And even some of the things others think that I would want to forget, Ive come to realize good or bad they happened and as far as I know you can't change the past so why let them consume you why feel guilty why feel regret. Things happen people change but in the moment they seem like good ideas so hold on to that keep the love once felt, the joy in your heart, the tingly feeling on your skin, the wonder that filled your eyes, keep the mist in your hair, and the beauty in the fog. Keep the memories.

The Ends and Beginnings

When I was about three years old I saw a t.v. show that would change my life forever. I was watching a marathon of Mr. Rodgers with my Grandpa. When suddenly the smiley old man with a fondness for puppets and zip up sweaters was replaced by a man with sandy blonde hair and tiny santa-like glasses. It was Rick Steve’s Europe and he was visiting Paris. I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap with my eyes glued to the screen.

He went to Notre Dame, scaled the steps of Montmarte, walked the Champs-Élysées, went on Le Grande Roue, all of the things you are supposed to do in Paris and few more. But of all the things in Paris it was the Louvre that enchanted me. Its history as a royal palace, its strange pyramid in the courtyard, but most of all Winged Victory. How could something with out a face or arms be so beautiful and so elegantly capture movement. I think my child self resolved that it must have been an unfortunate angel who fell in the path of Medusa and was turned to stone, in my mind there was no way something like that could have been made by a human. In any case this city captured me in such a way that at a very young age I knew that I would go to Paris someday. It was not a mater of if but to me I saw it as something that was going to happen, someday I knew I would be walking the banks of the Seine with Notre Dame on the horizon. Even at the young age of three I would tell people that I was going to Paris, it was just a matter of  time.

It was afternoons like that one spent at my grandparents house watching PBS shows, building blanket forts, making dolls out of socks with my grandma, or racing my sister to the lone swing that hung from the largest Pecan tree this side off the Pecos river. That I miss the most from my childhood. I spent so much time with my grandparents by the time I was in kindergarden I had picked up a little bit of their Texas accent.

I remember one day during the dreaded reading group time, which I hated because I already knew how to read, this ornery little kid called me out for saying y’all in front of the whole class. It was incidents like this that made me dislike the people at my school, I enjoyed learning, I just was not so hot on all the kids there, I continued to visit my Papa and Grandma every day and I further retreated into their love. The children in my class thought it was silly that I was going on trip “someday” they were very set on making me feel that I was very odd. At that age I didn’t know anything else that I might want as a grown up, I just knew that someday I would go to Paris.

After school and during vacations and summer I stayed with my grandparents while both my parents worked.  My sister and I would do puzzles with my grandparents, help them in their acre with raking and cleaning up after their fruit trees an garden. In the mornings when my mom would drop us off I would help my grandpa. I would go into his room and help him button his shirt, put shaving cream on his face, help him shave and get his dentures for him from their glass.  Then we would sit down for breakfast. By that time my grandma and my sister would have ate already and would be in the yard working, but Papa and I would always spend our mornings together.

My Papa kept needing more and more help from me in the mornings, eventually I wasn’t enough help for him. I knew that he had cancer, but at the age of seven I just thought It was something that all old people got. First my dad and I had to make all theses ramps for him and his walker which was decorated with every sticker I could get my hands on. Then It was a shower chair and a wheel chair. Next was a hospital bed, then meals in bed, oxygen and a nurse. One day my dad came to pick me up from school early, I thought it was for my sisters Open House but he took me to my Grandparents house where my sister and my Aunt Sherry and my Grandma were and they told me he was gone. I remember going into his room but all I remember seeing are his skinny long feet touching the foot of his bed, his closet open reveling the classic Members Only jacket he always wore, and the owl wind chime that hung from a corner of his room. I remember feeling really sad and crying for hour

When my grandma passed away my junior year of high school, the woman who took care of me as a little kid, the woman who taught me to sew the woman who kept my papa’s memories alive by telling his stories through her tears, and so many other things.  Ironically my grandmas passing allowed me to complete the one thing I had always known, that I needed to go to Paris. She left me enough money to fund me to go on a class exchange program to France for a month.

   Its funny how things end up how our beginning tie our end, how falling in love with an idea in an orange chair can land you swimming in the Mediterranean sea with the taste of salt tingling your skin and the sun illuminating your oldest dream. I was so so sad when she passed,  I still am, but at least now there is a hope that  somehow they will find each other in the heaven they so deeply believed in.

Portfolio Photos

So lately theres been some talk of how Instagram photos can be used by Facebook for profit...

I am not a member of the smart phone bionic sector of our population with a phones that take photos, run programs, or do anything other than call or occasionally text.

I dont even have Instagram...

But I do use Facebook... and despite the fact that I actually read the disclosure statements that most of the population clicks through. I am not a lawyer or a translator of legal jargon but I have a healthy skepticism of the word free...and of people to credit you and not steal your ideas for profit.

So rather than post my photos on facebook, I will now post them here. I understand that this is still the internet and people can still steal my photos here, but at least its on my own web page, and if your nice you will read the Creative Commons license at the bottom and respect it. If you want to use my photos Im glad you like them ask first please and as an artist I understand the need to manipulate and translate the world as you see fit, so be free and enjoy my perspective of my world, I hope you see the beauty as I do.

Dear World, Its me...What should I do with my life?

So I have no idea what do with my life.
     I have made and stuck to ten and five year plans since I was seven...I realize its a bit weird for a seven year old to have a ten year plan, but when you know you know,
and when you dont know...YOU DONT KNOW!

What I'm trying to say for the first time since second grade I have no idea.

     Im not saying Im following the life goals of a seven year old, the goals have always had room for adjustment and allowed for changing tides, but its the first time in my life I have not had a solid plan for a major decision.

So what do I do? Stick to the path im on:

Continue in the Fashion department next semester despite that some days it makes me cry, I often feel really dumb in that class, I don't sleep for three days a week because of it. The stress makes me, well stressed, I never have time to be social, or to really hang out with my residents. I may have to choose next year between my job and the department, which would mean more loans. I can't take the only non first year course my favorite professor teaches. I can't take any of my first choice studio electives. I basically sell my life to be in the fashion department, but it leads to being in a real fashion show at the end of the year. My secret life goal since I was a kid, being a fashion designer. The opportunity to graduate among an elite group of designers, considering if I drop the course I have to reapply to the department and start all over again, from year one, meaning more loans, more time, more stress. But sometimes the department makes me feel vapid and as though I am not using my time to positively impact society as I have always hoped I would...

Or get freaky with it and completely change my life plan:

If I change to designed objects, I will have more time to live outside of the studio. Probably less stressed, have more time to do art for fun, not be locked in to giving up 6 credits per semester to do the fashion program. I can take shoe making next semester which means I get to work with leather! But I will probably get to take this class later. I have to start out in a new program with intro a year and a half into my college career, In something that will most likely involve a bit of Math and well lets not talk about my relationship with that jerk. But maybe this could be more profitable in the long run. Are there more jobs in object design than in fashion? I also have might have more time to focus on my personal practice do some installations and some photos, and the third partner in the menage a trois of my college career, fiber art. But I might really suck at designed objects, and everyone in my class will probably be freshman computer geniuses. In designed objects you are not as locked in, I can still take fashion electives without being in the core classes so I could take fiber too... But what if I hate it and want to go back, id have to reapply... gah... what to do, what to do?

All the classes ive signed up so far, once I decide I'll drop the other classes.

Sleep, or lack there of...

Sleep, all I want in the world is sleep.
In High School when I told people I was going to Art school, they were often confused and said things like:
 You're so smart why aren't you going to real school?
Oh, you are going to have so much fun!
So what do you draw?

First off I don't draw. I wish i could, but I am horrible at it and it does not bring me any enjoyment. Secondly, who said art school is not "real" school? I go to an accredited university which is consistently in the top five for most influential schools nationally.
Fun, oh how I miss fun.
Every day I have between 10 and 3 hours of classes, then between 6 and 20 hours of homework that is due the next day. Not including homework that is due the day after that or long term projects, due the next day.
So things like sleep, fun, and general "me" time are put in the back burner until the most glorious days of the week, Saturday and Sunday. I sleep so much on friday night it is sometimes not worth it to change out of my pajamas because by the time I wake up on Saturday its already evening. So I sleep as much as I can on Friday and Saturday night because sunday is the start of the week all over again. I work on projects, If it wasn't for my sewing machine I would be running to the sewing lab every few hours to work on something (thanks mom and dad). I try to talk to my parents and the rest of the outside world, sometimes I forget that the universe doesn't end at Lake Michigan. If there's time i'll cook if not I allow my self to leave my room and go to the dining hall for dinner. As awful as this sounds I don't mind it that much. I like being busy it keeps me out of trouble sometimes ill take 5 to have a cup of tea and reflect on how amazing it is that I get so much done. Once thats over its time to get back to work.
Work
Work
Work
Work
Work
Sometimes all I do is work. I don't sleep that much, eat food that isn't pre prepared for me, or even leave my room. I just sit at my desk sewing, typing, and designing until I end up with a fabulous garment, concept board, or essay. And then I sleep and some times like today I fall asleep for 20 hours and it is fabulous. So friends, family, people of the outside world, if you don't hear form me for a while, I'm working, and if i'm not working i'm bathing in the glory of sleep. Every now and then I have a few minutes between sunrise and school where I write a letter so you all at least someone knows I haven't died yet. But in all reality all I want is:
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep
Sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Hollywoodland

     I watch so much TV.
Not even good TV, just TV for TVs sake. Just to watch something and get lost in another world and forget about things. Lately I've been watching a lot of "emotional dramas with a strong female lead" that's netflix for ya, they uber genreize everything you watch. They always end up being about women who go through a dramatic change, and almost always end up falling in love with someone who snaps them out of it. And there's almost always at least a good chunk of the movie is set in California. Why do people think its the place to fall in love?
     I don't know why I'm even asking this question. I know why, its something in the air there something every one who has ever spent a good deal of time there has felt but couldn't quite explain. Something in the way it always smells like flowers even in January, something about the way the sunshine there radiates deep into your soul, where the sun everywhere else just warms your skin. Every thing just seems richer there, more intense. I understand now why so many people want to move there, and why so many people do.
     California is the land of people from somewhere else. Many people who live there have moved from another state or even another country, its not like Ohio, the people who live there are there because they want to be not because they have no way out. I guess that's why people want to watch movies about it, so they can escape there if its just for ninety minutes.
If you cant tell I think I'm getting a little homesick.

RA Training

So I got asked at the beginning of the month if I would be interested in being an RA.
     And me being the positive, community builder  that I am said yes.
So instead of writing, making art, or enjoying whats left of my summer I have been in meetings, team builders, making bulletin boards, door decks, and wasting two hours of my life on alcohol awareness. sometime it sucks.
    And sometimes, we sit in the lounge watching weird movies, skate videos, braiding each others hair, and just hang out and its times like these that make me think this might just all be worth it maybe :)

Fear II

If you didn't read my last post I recommend you start with Fear.

     So I am terrified of roller coasters, they are my biggest fear, but I don't believe in letting any one or any thing have a hold on me so I have slowly tried to conquer my fear. Last May before I graduated, my college prep class took a trip to Six Flags Magic Kingdom back in California. I was there to do one thing, lose my roller coaster virginity.
     I was terrified, as we were walking up the line with my class my heart was beating so strongly and so fast I could see my shirt flutter in time with it. I really, really, really, did not want to sit in that seat, but I didn't want to let fear make decisions for me. I refuse to let fear keep me from (almost) any experience, especially ones that so many people find enjoyable. So I did it any way.
     I sat in the seat, pulled the seat belt and safety measures taught, and let Medusa take me for a ride. It was terrifying, never being on any roller coaster before and then going on Medusa, but I thought if I am not going big I might have well stayed home. My eyes were shut for most of it and my language would have made a sailor blush, but I survived, I did it!
     It was terrifying and heart pounding, I wouldn't say that I love coasters now, but it was something  had to do for my self. I could not have done it without my friends.
     Most of my class went with me, they waited in line so that we could get on one train and supported me through something the child me was terrified of. I am happiest for that, to have friends support me through my greatest fear, because that's when you need friends the most. Weather you are battling spiders, facing illness, or just riding a roller coaster we all need our friends when were scared. Good friends the, kind that will wait for two hours with you to do something that makes you say things to them that urban dictionary has censored out, are not just good friends, they are the family that we get to pick.

Raging Bull In Six Flags Chicago

     I am so glad that I have found so many people who are willing to do things like that with me, especially when I left home for college. I am proud to say I have friends who take me to things that make me make faces like this. 

Fear

     They say all we have to fear is fear itself.
     But thats a lie, there's clowns, and needles, and heights, and one of my personal biggies, roller coasters. Lots of people like them, heck people pay lots of money to go on them when they are usually just 60 seconds of sheer terror. I have always found them horrifying, even as a small child I didn't even like the little roller coaster on out local FairyTale Town.
     For me though it was never the actual height or the speed of them, it was feeling I got when I went on them.
     Some people are adrenaline junkies, they crave that rush, the pressure in your chest as adrenaline floods your blood stream, and the euphoric lightness of being as your limbs become tingly as the euphoria melts away, that feeling; that some say is the closest they've ever felt to god, I've always hated it. It creeps me out, I feel as though I am having a heart attack, or dying or some other even more horrid inconceivable thing is happening. To me that feeling is the worst thing in the world.

Alone

     I like being alone. I like the peace and the quiet and the ability to think about whatever tickles my fancy with out hearing some one else's voice buzzing in my ear.     That being said its not like I'm one of those sad loner people who has no human friends and 13 cats. I just don't mind the calmness of being alone. I like not having to be considerate about other peoples opinions and feelings, I am a bit of a control freak, and not hearing about peoples relationship issues is always a plus. Trust me listening to someone squawk on for 30 min plus about weather or not he or she likes you and how every insignificant move they make could be symbolic of their true feelings, I have a solution to this problem and its called asking them.
     This is why I like sitting in Starbucks for hours reading a book, or wandering around AIC with my headphones on looking at Picasso, Liechtenstein, and Rauschenberg. Its not because I want all the boys to "holla" at me or because I'm a sad girl who wants to eat her feelings, I just like the peace and quiet, and the stress lifted off my shoulders as soon as leave Jones Hall.
     I am an RA for the summer at my college which would be tons-o-fun, but during the summer my building isn't full of college students, its full of high school students. So things can be a bit stressful and highschooley...
     I deal with kids who are constantly worried about their reputation, appearance, and the opposite sex. So lets just say life here is never boring even if we wanted it that way. This plus living in a city makes being alone like the search for the fountain of youth, the northwest passage, the lost ark. Searching for silence, and solitude in Chicago can make you feel a little like Indiana Jones. So lets just say I've had to re write the definition for such words. 
     On my time off I like to just be. Its never silent, even with noise canceling headphones, and I am rarely truly alone, but if I spend too much time here I get a serious case of cabin fever.
     Its not that I don't have friends. Its just the ones that I miss the most, the ones that truly matter, aren't here, and I don't feel like replacing my fleet of porsche's with pintos.

Escape

     I like walks. I like the wind in my hair, the feeling of the ground under my thin flip flops, the noise they make as I wander, the feeling of the outdoors, and the freedom to go any where.
     When my family moved to our current home in Sacramento we were excited to be closer to the bike trail. "We will go every weekend now its so close," we said. "We can even bike to the lake," we said.
But the thinking of going biking all the time is very different from actually doing it. We constantly ran into excuses. "My bike has no air in it." we said. "It's too hot" we said. "We're too busy," we said. "I don't even have a bike," I said.

     As much as we originally said we would go biking, it just never happened. Then on my 16th Birthday my friend came over, we wanted something to do, but we didn't have a car, and Sacramento isn't exactly known for its public transportation. So we resolved to for a walk to curb our restlessness.    
     As we reached the bike trail, the sounds of the city faded away. Long gone were the sounds of cars whizzing by on the pavement. Lost were the sounds of kids and their dogs. We left the scent of freshly cut grass and boiling asphalt behind. We had barely walked half a mile and the only trace of humans was the bike path and the neat yellow line running down its belly.
      Along the trail we saw wild flowers bursting through the grassy meadows, dear grazing and pausing to see who was passing through their emerald lands. We heard the calls and chirps of finches, crows and magpies, working a symphony with the ra-ta-ta-tap of woodpeckers and the constant wushing of the river.
     As we reached the river we were greeted by the uneven and smooth stones under our feet, the cold tickle of the water under our toes, the smell of fresh earth in our nostrils, and the sight of this beautiful oasis tucked into the outskirts of suburbia.
     Since then my family and I have made the short trek to the river many times. During the summer its our weekend ritual to walk down to see the sunset, and feel the cool breeze as we escape from the heat of Sacramento.
     This summer is different. I decided to spend it in Chicago to continue my studies, and I am working for SAIC as a Summer Resident Educator. (its like being an RA, but for the high school students who are studying here for the summer) So i've been missing the escape the river had always brought me.

     Chicago is a much bigger city than Sac and also boasts its own river, but it is surrounded by concrete and even had its flow reversed in the 1900's because it was polluting Lake Michigan. I crave the escape the calming summer sunsets the river brought, the escape from noise and people. In Chicago its hard to get away from city life. The beach is fake, its sand imported, it lacks a tide, and the people who visit it take no regard for others so its littered with every thing from wrappers, to broken liquor bottles and even clothes. Its noisy with seagull calls, car honks, and police sirens. The shores of the beaches provide no escape for me.

     The only place that brings me peace is a gated park just north of Navy Pier, Olive Park.
 -Its named for a Chicago native Milton L. Olive III, who served in the Army during Vietnam. He gave his life for his fellow soldiers when he threw himself over an enemy grenade he was posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart.-

      Its such a peaceful place, the tree lined main path reminds me of the bike trail back home. The cool breeze from the lake washes over you and takes the sticky humidity of the city away. Deeper in the park is a fountain long drained of its water, providing a gathering place for water after summer showers. Its here that reminds me most of home. I sit on the edge of the fountain with my toes in a puddle, leaning backwards to lay my body on the dewey grass that surrounds it. If I close my eyes and put on my headphones, I can forget everything on my mind. I can ignore the noise of the city. I can escape the smell of warm sewage and sweaty tourists. I can leave the taste of dirty air behind. I can forget all my worries, and my homesickness for my river path. I can forget how much I miss my parents, and my dog. I can forget all things I have to do, to remember whats important, and for a moment I am back home sitting on the edge of my river with my toes in the water my body on the grass, and my head in the clouds.

"No"

    The best piece of advice my father ever told me wasn't  really advice at all. It wasn't "never wear white after labor day", "or always look people in the eye", it was more of a philosophy.
      "The worst thing someone can say to you is no,"
    It became one of those pieces of fatherly advice that became cliched. When he begin to speak those words and my sister and I would butt in and finish the line before he could. We had heard it so many times that by the time we were in high school we just wished he would stop giving advice at all. But when it came time for college applications my junior year of high school all I wanted from him was advice.
    I had decided when I was very young that I was determined to have a job that I loved. Not just a job that I could survive and paid well, I wanted a job that made me excited to get up in the morning and sad to leave at night, no matter what the salary was. The only thing  I had found at the age of 16 that made me feel this was was creating art. Art being art, I knew money was something I was going to have to sacrifice for the joys of being an artist. So when searching for colleges I always cross referenced ceramics and fashion, my two real loves at the age of 16. This led me to the discovery of Art colleges, institutions where everyone was after the same thing I was, the dream of being paid to do what you loved. As much as I loved this idea of going away to study with those who also loved creating, expressing, and showcasing their thoughts and experiences through art, I was terrified of telling my parents I wanted to go to art school.
    My parents had saved money for my sister and I to go to college since before we were born. In every christmas bonus and birthday check they selflessly put away money not so their dreams of taking a Parisian vacation or an Alaskan cruise could come true, but so our dreams of becoming A helicopter pilot and the President, (my sister and my future careers according to out uncle) could be a reality. However this "dream career" my parents presented to us came with the idea that we would surpass our parents, make lots of money, and make them proud. At the age of 16 I slowly began to dread talking with my parents. Every dinner conversation, car ride and neighbor hood walk, I feared they would ask, "So, have you decided what you want to do about college?" I feared this question more than failing a math test, more than taking the drivers test, more than I feared the SAT's. Because in my mind telling my beloved parents who had sacrificed so much for me to be better than them that I wanted to go to art school was like me telling them, "I know you want me to go to school get a good job make lots of money and be happy and not struggle in life, well instead of that I am going to make stuff and try to sell it, be famous and maybe homeless in the process." I saw art school as a pipe dream, something that everyone has in their back pocket that they know will never be, like sleeping with a playboy bunny, or solo sailing across the globe.
    Then one day after my father picked me up from swim practice and we began talking about how I wanted to ask one of my teachers for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship I was applying for. However I knew my teacher was a very busy man and had a general "No" answer for these types of things. My father being my father, he started off with his usual rant, and like an epiphany had struck me I actually listed to him and his obnoxious advice for the first time in years.
     "Well, the worst thing he can tell you is no."
And it hit me, truer words were never spoken, it was true my teacher could only tell me no, he couldn't deny me the scholarship, or fail me for asking such a ridiculous question and so I realized that the worst thing my parents could say was no, they couldn't crush my love of art or take away my creativity, they could only tell me that no, they wouldn't pay for art school. This was the first time in years I had actually listened, I mean really listened and saw the sense in his words, to a five or ten year old this phrase was just the sputterings of a weird old guy, at that age the worst thing some one can say is , "We're not getting ice cream" or "You are not going to that party." But at 16 I finally made sense of his madness.
     I finally had the courage to tell my parents that I didn't want to enter college "undecided" or reply to their queries with the standard "I'll get a degree in business" I could finally tell them "I don't want to get a degree in business, or go to a UC or even go to a regular college I want to go to art school, " and know that the worst thing they cold say to me was no.
     So that night after Jeopardy, and reruns of Star Trek I told my parents that I had decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I nervously told them and my mom being my mom said,
"You know we will love and support you in what ever you decide to do in life."