What Do I Wanna Be When I Grow Up?

It has come to the point, once again, where I hate my job. I no longer work at Park's. I no longer work for My Indoor Air Quality. I now work for Property Solutions; a job that once seemed full of promise and happiness has turned into a place that sucks out my self-esteem and kills my soul. I hate sitting in a cubicle like a robot receiving phone calls from angry people with problems I don't have authority to help them with. I hate the unflinchingly rigid attendance policy that is making me be here even though I'm super sick. I hate having my supervisor forget everything I talk to them about and at times, have them forget I was even at a meeting and then calling me to another one. I hate feeling like a number and a statistic, not a person. I hate getting my phone calls "graded" and failing them for stupid reasons. It's a phone call, not brain surgery. It doesn't matter! They take everything so seriously here when it comes to "protocol" and care more about following that than actually paying attention to what the situation actually calls for on a case to case basis. I am not meant for this kind of work. Every time I'm sitting here in my cubicle trying to convince myself not to storm out and yell "I QUIT!" I try and think about what kind of work would really make me happy. What things do I love doing so much that doing them would make me actually feel good about myself and feel worth the hard work I put in to it? I came up with two things.

1. I love art.
2. I love kids.

Solution: Minor in art education. 

I notice that the only times I am truly happy (besides when I'm with my husband) is when I am working on art, reading about art, looking at art, etc. and when I'm around little kids. I love kids. I can feel myself light up when I see a little child. I am drawn to them. I love talking to them and playing with them and trying to make them laugh. 

People always ask me what I want to do when I graduate and I never have an answer. I never knew what I wanted to do when I "grew up". Now I do. I want to teach art to little kids. I know that would bring me so much happiness. I know I would be good at it. I know that I would feel like I was doing something worthwhile and something that could maybe affect people for the good. I think I am going to add a minor in art education to my degree. It will add some more classes to my load before I graduate but I think it is what I am meant to do. The more I think about it the better I feel. It seems like a positive solution to the crappy situation I am in now. 

I know what I want to be when I grow up. Not many people can say that and I am getting warm fuzzies now that I can, with certainty, say that. I am determined. Wish me luck.

Something to Get Excited About

Today was my first day of school for Winter semester. I am only taking one class, it's a computer design class. Basically we are going to learn all the design software we are going to need to know to be graphic designers. I. Am. Stoked. Once I finally learn all the complicated software I can finally get a graphic design job and do something I actually care about and get all my ideas out where people can see them. I know this might surprise you but I'm not passionate about selling sporting goods online (which is what I'm currently doing). I also found out that we are going to get to do an art show in the HFAC gallery which I haven't done since my 2D class forever ago. I am very excited for that :) I like seeing my work up on the wall. Makes me feel accomplished somewhat. This semester is going to be a very good one :) 

Flatbacks and Paper Cases

I am still in Bookbinding and I am LOVING IT. Some people think it sounds lame, but that is only because they don't know how freakin fun it is. At least to me. And every single other person who has ever taken the class. Here are my latest projects:

Flatback Binding

This book has cloth on the spine and paper for the rest of the cover. This is the most common kind of book, and is also my favorite one to make so far. I will probably make a lot more with this style of binding. 

It has handmade paper stuck on endbands. 

Paper Case Binding

This book was the most expensive to make so far. The cover paper was almost $10 for one sheet that is about 24"x? something. It's called St. Armand paper and it's handmade, which is why it's so expensive. Plus the seashell pendants for the front, the leather, the beads, the special thread for the sewn on endband shown in the last picture, plus all the text paper on the inside. It also took the most time to make this book compared to all the other ones. 

The leather wraps from the back cover around the shells in kind of like an 8 pattern to keep the book shut. 

This is a sewn on endband. I'm not happy with the color of it but I bought the thread without having the paper in front of me so I didn't realize how badly it didn't match. Hand sewn endbands are not nearly as common as stuck on endbands and they add value to the book. 

All my books are completely handmade, other than the closures (leather, seashells, beads) used on the paper case book. I am in love with making books and will probably keep making them for a long time. I have started a shop on Etsy and will start selling books when I have made more. I am too attached to the ones I've made so far since they're the first ones I've made. I have a feeling it's going to be really hard for me to let go of books I make, but all artists have to come to terms with letting go of their creations at one point or another. 

Books, Books, Nothing But Books

I love bookbinding. Some people think it's lame, but I love it. I recently learned how to make books using the Coptic Binding. We only had to make one book for the assignment but I made two :) The first one took me a while but the second one only took me about 6 or 7 hours total, from scratch. I am proud of myself lol. Here are some pics:

Here's the front of both of them. The first one I made is on the left, the second one is on the right.

This is the side view

This is the back

This is the front inside cover

This is the back inside cover

The next kind of book we are learning how to make is called the Flat Back binding, which is how most books are made. I can't wait :)

You Get What You Pay For......Or Do You?

I am in disbelief right now. As I am trying to force myself for the third day in a row to study for the Contemporary Art midterm I have tomorrow, I am stuck focusing on one thing: my Contemporary Art teacher is a moron. 

I don't say this to be mean. I am stating it as a fact. My teacher is a first year teacher at BYU. She's never taught before, but she teaches three different subjects. She's young, and the more I'm around her I realize she has no idea what the hell she's talking about (excuse my french). Here are some examples:

1. She said Machu Picchu is in Mexico. False. It's in Peru. 
2. She referred to "Gumbi" as "gumbo". False again. Gumbi is a stretchy man and gumbo is a Southern stew or soup.
3. She was teaching us about one of Rene Magritte's paintings that says "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" underneath an image of a pipe and told us it translated to "This is not a penis." 

HUGE FALSE. It translates to "This is not a pipe", which plays off Magritte's idea of no matter how realistic a painting looks, it is not actually the object it is depicting. It looks like a pipe, but it isn't an actual pipe. I don't know how she got to teach at BYU without knowing this BASIC concept from one of the most famous artists there were during the 20th century.  He did a whole series of images based on this idea of "Ceci n'est pas.....". She's a moron. 

If she has gotten all of these things wrong in the 3 times we've had class, I can't imagine what else she has taught us that has been wrong that I haven't caught. What makes me even more mad is that I was signed up for this class for last semester with a teacher I had already had before and really liked, but the time it was conflicted with the class you have to go to before you go on a study abroad. I was gonna do that study abroad in the spring but then ended up not having enough money so I ended up having dropped it for no reason. Then this semester there was only one teacher available for this class so I signed up for it. And now I'm mad at myself, even though I had no way of knowing that my teacher would be such a moron. She is completely unorganized, scatterbrained, rude, and full of herself. She is making me hate learning about art, when normally art history classes are some of my favorite classes. I can't believe I'm paying to learn from her when all she's doing is teaching us false information. I guess this is why I'm so worried about my midterm tomorrow. I could get all the facts right but she might not know they're right so I could get a bad grade haha. But seriously. I'm having such a hard time focusing and studying cause she has given us no real direction of what to study and what is expected of us. I hate this. 

It's Surreal That I'm Starting to Love Surrealism

Pinterest is awesome. I have found some really cool artists on there. Yesterday, there were a couple of amazing photographers I found. Their style is really cool. One of them is Martin Stranka, and the other is Lissy Elle. They both do surreal photography. I am really NOT into surreal paintings, but for some reason I really like these photos. I guess I like it for the same reason I like Tim Burton. It's different.

Martin Stranka

Lissy Elle

If Only I Were a Child Prodigy

Today, the crazy old lady I work with showed me a video of a child prodigy artist named Akiane. She is AMAZING. She started painting when she was only six, and she is completely self taught. Her paintings are all spiritual, which is interesting since her mother was an atheist. She started painting pictures of heaven and Jesus and told her mom that they were from visions and that Jesus IS real. She had never been taught anything about religion or heaven since her mother was an atheist, so it's interesting that these images would come to her. She has full, hour long time-lapsed videos of her creating her paintings from start to finish. It's amazing. She really is an inspiration. Plus, she sells her original paintings for $5,000-$3,000,000 so that helps. I would HIGHLY recommend going to her website  by clicking HERE and looking through her gallery. It shows her paintings by the age she was when she made them and it is incredible. Here are some of my favorites:

This is a painting of Jesus entitled Prince of Peace. It takes my breath away. A little boy who came back from a coma looked through many pictures of Jesus and said none of them looked like him. When he saw this painting, he immediately recognized him as Jesus and said this is what he looks like. I heard that from the crazy lady so who knows if it's true or not, but it's a good story. 

This poem, entitled Prince of Peace, was written to go along with this painting of Jesus. 

Perhaps I wanted to catch it
perhaps not

But one morning
an eagle dropped a diamond

And right then
with my faulty brush
full of my own hair
I wanted to paint

I wanted to paint the wings-
Too late - they flew away
I wanted to paint a flower
Too late - it withered

That night the rain
was running after me
Each drop of rain
showed God's face
His face was everywhere
On homes and on me

I wrung out the love
to make the red

I wrung out the stumps
to make the brown

I wrung out the trust
to make the pink

I wrung out my own eyes
to make the blue

I wrung out the seaweed
to make the green

I wrung out the nightly pain
to make the black

I wrung out my grandmother's hair
to make the gray

I wrung out my visions
to make the violet

I wrung out the truth
to make the white

Today I want to paint God's face
IT'S NOT TOO LATE !

This photo doesn't do the painting justice but it's the best one I could find. This is called Forbidden Fruit. The description Akiane gives for this painting was beautiful. Read it below. 

...One morning I woke up earlier than usual, and right away I decided to paint, but I could not find any canvas in my studio. My family was still asleep, so quietly, still in my pajamas, I searched my art closets and found one small canvas that I'd worked on a few years ago, but later gessoed it in black.

After my prayer I began painting a young woman's portrait. next to a branch of fruit. Suddenly I felt God say, blend all the races, because this is Eve, the mother of all mankind.

Right then and there, I understood the meaning:
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is full of forbidden fruit: red for the knowledge of evil, the green for the knowledge of good. It was created to be tempting, fragrant and easy to be picked. Although the fruit resembles the grapes, it was not.

At first, Eve thinks that she will gain wisdom by biting into the fruit of knowledge, but unexpectedly she finds the deception as the red blood of suffering drips from the green fruit. The knowledge of good and evil is simply too much to understand and experience for a human, and now Eve is looking up to God for forgiveness and help...

This is her self-portrait called Co-Creation

This is a portrait of Mary and baby Jesus.

I painted Mary in a silky blue robe surrounded by a background palette of cerulean, cobalt and Persian blue. This is how I interpreted the vision of baby Jesus and his beautiful young mother. The robe connects both of them as if there were one.

Mary is the symbol of love, warmth, affection, tenderness and devotion. Her story is the story of love and faith.

Mary with her tender love embraced Jesus at birth, embraced him on the Cross and embraced him on his resurrection. That is why the lower hand in a shadow is her witnessing the crucifixion, and the upper hand in light is her witnessing both the birth and the resurrection.

The quality of pictures on her website are a lot better than the ones I downloaded off Google Images so I would recommend going to her website to look at them. She has more portraits, landscapes, poems, etc. and they aren't all obviously religious. GO CHECK IT OUT. You won't regret it. 

This Henna Smells Weird

Once upon a time, I turned 21. That day was cursed and a super huge let down. Nothing went right. I had planned to go on a hot air balloon ride early in the morning, and the company called and cancelled due to crappy weather. I was going to go see the Spiral Jetty FINALLY....but then realized it was clear out in Brigham City and I didn't have time or motivation to go that far. Blah blah blah, you get the gist. It wasn't at all what I had planned. 


THEN


My sister Brittany came to the rescue. Today was the super adventure that should have been my 21st birthday. I guess it was still in the same week, so it counts :) 


FIRST: We went to the farmer's market in Salt Lake. Super toasty hot. Lots of girls in dresses and bootie shorts who decided to boycott shaving their legs. And also lots of really cool booths. Props to all the little hippies, farmers, and entrepreneurs out there with their homemade stuff. It was weird too cause my illustration teacher from BYU, Greg Newbold, made all the posters for the farmer's market and would talk about it all the time and I saw them everywhere. 

SECOND: We went to City Creek mall and ate at Bocata, which I love. Their bread is de-freakin-licious. We people watched and it was super entertaining. Also, we walked through Tiffany's and felt like people were going to throw us out at any moment because we couldn't afford to even look at all the  diamonds. Next time we will just wear big floppy hats and eat breakfast outside of it. 

THIRD: We went to Randy's Records and bought some vinyls. Other than the nasty trashy guys who apparently have never heard of deodorant, it was a pretty cool place. I got a Lynyrd Skynyrd record and the Footloose Soundtrack record lol. Britt gave me her old vinyl player so now I can finally start my collection :)

FOURTH: We went to Now and Again, which is a really cute antique store owned by a cute gay (<----I think) man in a cowboy hat. I bought miniature statues of Myron's Discobolos and the Venus de Milo. They had some really cute dressers that I wanted too but I decided to pass for now. 

FIFTH: We went to Night Flight comic book store by the Salt Lake Library. I bought a bunch of comics and am planning on framing them and hanging them on my wall. They should look pretty legit so I'm excited. 

SIXTH: We went to Ikea and Britt bought some stuff. I don't have a home to decorate so I didn't buy anything. However, I wore my new converse that I got for my birthday, which are high tops, and didn't have tall enough socks for them. Let me just say that all that walking around while those shoes rubbed my ankles started to hurt after a while. SO...Britt pushed me on an Ikea cart and everyone stared, and I didn't care one bit. They were all secretly thinking that they wanted to be pushed on Ikea cart. Who wouldn't want to do that? It's the bomb shiz. 

SEVENTH: We went to Walmart and I bought tall socks. And a Superman shirt. 


EIGHTH: I got home and did henna tattoos with Leann. I got this Henna set from Barnes and Noble cause it was on clearance....yeah.....it was on clearance for a reason. All the other times I have gotten henna it was from Good Earth. Lesson learned. Always get your henna at good earth. I left the henna paste on my arm for 4 hours, took it off and it is SUPER light. It's supposed to darken in a day or two so I hope it does. Also it smells really weird. 

(I've been trying to get the picture of my henna off my phone but it's not working so I'll try to add it later.)

NINTH: Psycho was free on demand so I finally watched it for the first time after hearing it referenced all the time and seeing a billion parodies of it. It was actually a pretty good movie and I liked the cinematography. It was done pretty artsy so yay Hitchcock :)

So that was my super adventure for today. Hopefully there are many more to come. 

A Glimpse of the Past

Guess what. I love black and white photography. Obviously I like color photography as well, but I love old black and white photos. Old photos are like time machines that allow us to see what life was like back then, which I am fascinated by. Removing color turns the attention to the lighting, shapes,and composition which are sometimes overlooked when there are colors involved. Here are some of my favorite photographs in one of my photo books called The Photographers Eye by John Szarkowski. These photos are examples of why I am so passionate about photography. 

JACQUES HENRI LARTIGUE: Beach at Villerville, 1908

(My favorite part about this is the boat on the left)

WILLIAM SMITH: View across Chain Bridge, Washington, D.C., c. 1863. The Library of Congress

CLARENCE JOHN LAUGHLIN: The Fierce-Eyed Building, 1938

HARRY CALLAHAN: Detroit, 1943

MATTHEW B. BRADY or staff: Conspirator Payne, 1865. The Library of Congress

BILL BRANDT: No. 43 from Perspective of Nudes, 1957

MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO: Eating Place, c. 1940

GARRY WINOGRAND: Untitled, 1963

"There is a terrible truthfulness about photography. The ordinary academician gets hold of a pretty model, paints her as well as he can, calls her Juliet, and puts a nice verse from Shakespeare underneath, and the picture is admired beyond measure. The photographer finds the same pretty girl, he dresses her up and photographs her, and calls her Juliet, but somehow it is no good--it is still Miss Wilkins, the model. It is too true to be Juliet."

                                                            -George Bernard Shaw

MAX BURCHARTZ: Eye of Lotte, 1930. Otto Steinert, Essen, Germany

RICHARD AVEDON: Ezra Pound, 1958. Made for Harper's Bazaar

ROBERT FRANK: Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955, from The Americans

CHARLES NEGRE: Henry Le Secq at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1851. Calotype. 

ELLIOT ERWITT: Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, 1962

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON: Children Playing in Ruins, Seville, Spain, 1933

JACQUES HENRI LARTIGUE: Glider Constructed by Maurice Lartigue, Chateau Rouzat, 1909

EDWARD STEICHEN: Sunday Papers: West 86th Street, New York, c. 1922