#12 - Collecting

I've only just started collecting teacups within the past year, but I'm looking forward to a big collection someday.  For the longest time I only drank tea out of a mug, mostly because that was all we had at my house.  Now almost always drink it out of one of my teacups.

The one in the front is the first one I got.  I found it at a thrift store for a quarter, but I loved how unique it looked.  Right now I see it as a hobby, but one day I would like a whole wall with every inch filled with teacups, like Andy Warhol's soup can art, and I want every one to be different. 

Lately, I've been drinking a lot of tea, and sometimes my roommate/friend and I will have 'Midnight Tea.'  It's pretty much what it sounds like: we drink tea in the middle of the night.  We also talk about our limited knowledge of tea etiquette and how hard it is to hold a teacup with your pinky out.  Cheesy, I know, but I like it.

Sugar cube?

So, Four Women Walk Into Sonny's...

I'm a poor college student, so I love free food.  Today, my aunt, my cousin, and their friend came through town on their way east and they took me to Sonny's.  We had the craziest server I have ever been served by.  The hostess jokingly warned us about him when we came in, but we just thought she was playing.  Oh, we were so wrong...
He messed with us the whole time, and I had to threaten to bring "the look" out.  You know, this one:

At one point, when my cousin asked for more lemons, he came by our table and pulled one out of his pocket to give to her before revealing that he had a whole dish of them.  When he heard about the look, he tried his best to make sure I had everything I needed, but I ended up having to give it to him.  He was quickly swayed by the look, but isn't everyone?

When I surreptitiously took all the napkins, he made a big deal about it.  When we got outside, my aunt said something to the effect of, "What, is buying napkins for Sonny's now?"

I have never ever laughed in two hours as much as I did tonight. 

#11 - Graffiti

First, let's review my experience with graffiti.

For anyone from my class reading this, this is the tobacco barn I mentioned.  For people, from Lake City, you know what I'm talking about.  For everyone else, well, look at it! It's the just the ugliest thing.  This is what I grew up knowing as graffiti, and this is the reason why I've always had a bad opinion of it.  This side of graffiti is what I don't like.  Then, I took this, literally less than a block from my apartment complex:

It's on the back side of a business, and it's just so ugly.  I can't even read it and I can't even begin to understand why someone put this here.  The most horrible graffiti I saw in Tallahassee, though, was a tag on a sculpture.  It's so rude to deface someone else's art with your own.  I was offended and it wasn't even mine!  The lecture on graffiti was one of the hardest for me, but I did see some things I liked, things that didn't harm the buildings they went up on.  That's the stuff I like.

Awkward Naked People

Victory is mine.

To understand why, you need to know that I came from a community college, where models in drawing classes were almost nonexistent, and frankly, they were clothed.  When I graduated, my drawing professor suggested that I should get all the "model" classes in as soon as possible, since she heard that they were cutting the funding for them.  So when I managed to snag the last seat in Figure Drawing I, I was excited.  Then I realized that the models were going to be nude.  I had come to a conflict.  I draw people, therefore I should take figure drawing.  However, I've always found naked people really awkward.  I was THE MOST nervous I have ever been about a class.

Now fast forward to the end of the semester.  Figure drawing? Favorite drawing class EVER.  I win.  In the beginning, though, it was pretty awkward, but I got over it pretty quickly.  I overcame my fear of awkward naked people!  Now, if only I can snag Figure Drawing II during drop/add...

(Portrait of a classmate in charcoal)

(Don't be offended by the unfinished naked charcoal man!  He did the craziest poses sometimes...)

#10 - Art and Life

I love drawing people.  I always have, even from the time I was in kindergarten.  So somewhere in the endless sketchbooks full of people, I started having this "thing" with faces.  The first thing I notice about a person is their face and their features.  Noses, eyes, lips, ears, the curve of the face, the chin.  This leads to the more interesting fact that I have a memory for faces.  I can see someone a handful of times (sometimes even just once), and if I see them again, I'll remember them, even if I don't know their name.  I was best friends with a girl in my dance class when I was four and then we didn't see each other for years. I recognized her years later in high school.  In that whole expanse of time, we hadn't seen each other once.  I've also seen people on the bus here at FSU and recognized them somewhere else on campus.  I'm just a face person, I guess.

(This fabulous picture of me was achieved by shaking the camera while taking the picture.  I am in no way a photographer, but I thought it turned out pretty cool.)

#9 - Identity

Where I grew up is river country.  Looking back can see that now my first experience with the Suwannee River was a huge deal, even thought it wasn't at the time, and even thought I don't remember it.  I feel like the river has always been there in my life.  It's a part of who I am.

(Me, my sister, and our Dog Ranger in the Suwannee,  taken by my mom)

There isn't one single defining event that I can remember, but being exposed to the outdoors and the river so much in my childhood has given me a love for anything woodsy, wet, and organic.  In high school my family bought three kayaks and we started communing with the river that way.  No motors and loud noises, just the swish of the paddle in the water, the plunk of turtles hurtling into the water, and the call of a hawk in the sky.

 (On the Santa Fe River, taken by my mom)

Ultimately, my nature exposure has led to my love of the national parks and the fabulously bearded John Muir.  These things are and ingrained part of my life.

I pretty much have tannin running through my veins.

(John Muir, from Wikipedia)

(My Suwannee River, taken by me)

(Bryce Canyon National Park, taken by me)

#8 - 3x3 Collages

I had to get very creative for this post, because I don't really have "collage supplies" running around my apartment.  This first one I made from my old community college ID and an expired credit card:

Our lives are recorded, nearly everything we do.  We have digital profiles with all of our information.  We've been out into a system.   When does it become overkill?

 This one above I made after scouting around everywhere for bar codes.  As I was making this one I kept thinking about the mark in the book of Revelation.  One day we all will have to make a decision: in the world, or of the world?

Last, I collected leaves from the parking lot and did some ripping and gluing.  Leaves are overlooked and disliked, but they are a beautiful creation, right down to every cell.  Trees go through seasons in their lives, just like people do.  They are renewed in springtime, just like Jesus renews me.

Appalachian

I was born in Florida, and I grew up here too, but from the time I was a little girl I always felt like North Carolina was my second home.  During the summer my family would drive up there to visit my Grandpa and stay in his cabin in the mountains.  When it was time to leave, I didn't want to go.  You know how it is when you visit family.  You have to go, but it gets easier the further you get from their house.  But I had to leave more than just people and a house.  I had to leave the whole place.  For hours I would have to stare at the mountains going by and know that I was leaving them.

 (Trail in Mount Mitchell State Park.  I took this myself)

When I woke up this morning and went outside it was overcast and nippy, kind of like a foggy evening in the Appalachians.  It made my heart hurt.  There is something about mountains that I love, but I can't quite place it.  Maybe it's the seemingly unending wilderness that you can't find in other places.  What I love about the mountains in North Carolina is the smell.  Yep, the smell.  Earthy and damp.  It's how Heaven smells, I'm sure.  I have a friend who once told me that she loved the way a dentist's office smelled, and that's how she knew she wanted to be a dentist.  Well, I love the way North Carolina smells, and that's why I want to spend my every waking moment there.

(I also took this picture, but I'm not telling you where in NC it is...it's a secret.)

Living in the city while I'm at college is rough.  I've never been a city girl to begin with.  But I comfort myself with the hope of the Appalachians in my future.  I just know God is going to get me there.

# 7 - Perceptual Cramp

I have always been a doodler.  My notebooks from all the way back to elementary school have pages in between school work filled with drawings.  I draw on all my notes, usually in the margins.  When I started college and I actually had to have plans and sketches and everything mapped out before I could start on something, I found solace in my doodling.  When my mind would go south after getting a new assignment, I would doodle things out.  Sometimes I skipped the sketchbook and notes, took a dry erase marker, and doodled all over my bedroom mirror.  Doodling helps me clear my head and focus.  It gets all that what-am-I-going-to-do-for-this-assignment-freak-out craziness out of my head and I can calm down.

Random Ukulele Madness

I gave my ukulele a makeover a couple weeks ago. I guess this would be a personal slide?

#6 - Fiber Arts

   No, I didn't make this.  I found it on Etsy.com.  I was so drawn to it because it looked so much like a painting, but it's actually felted.  Felting is a process where fibers are added to a fabric using felting needles.  It's been around for a very long time, most likely having it's origins in Asia (from what I've read).  It was originally not something we would call art, but here it has become fine art.  It's so similar to a painting that just glancing at it you might think it actually was one.  It looks like an alien landscape, with huge green clouds.  This piece isn't small either, it's 25x48 inches.  The artist is Irina Kozlovskaya.

#5 - Self-Portrait

  After the last collage, I'm still in a collage mood.  This is a self portrait, and it's one of the scariest things I've made.  I didn't intend it that way, though.  I wanted to do something totally different, so I took a picture of a charcoal self-portrait I did a few years ago and went crazy.  I cut out and added back in what makes me.  I also added script into the hair, but it's kind of hidden.

#2 - Two-Handed Drawing

   So I had to draw something using both of my hands at the same time.  I decided to draw my ukulele, because I just love my ukulele.  I left out the strings because it would have been frightening.  I hated doing this, because I'm terrible at drawing with my left hand.  It didn't take very long, but I found it to be very obnoxious.  I feel like my left hand is only good for helping the right one, not doing things by itself.  I mean, look at the left side...it looks like I was drawing it on the bus.  This really stretched me, and it felt so awkward.  I won't be doing it again. Ever.



(This was supposed to be post 2, hence the numbering in the title.  Sorry for the out of order thing.)

#1 - Notion of Home

   In the drawing lecture, there was a particular artist who seemed to subvert the idea of home, and frankly, I didn't like that.  I very much enjoy anything that has to do with my home, especially considering this is my first time living away from it.  So this (above) is my idea of home.  This is where I grew up and my family.  These are the places and people I enjoy.  These things make me feel like I can be myself.  This is home.




(By the way, this was supposed to be the first post, but I got out of order.  That's why I numbered it as 1.)

#4 - Found Materials

This past week our lecture was on sculpture, particularly sculpture that uses unconventional materials.  For many of the artists the materials they used were an integral part in what they were trying to convey.

I felt kind of disconnected this week, being a primarily two-dimensional artist.  I'm also still in the stage of discovering who I am as an artist.  So this week I took a bunch of things and experimented.  I ended up taking a ramen box and wrapping it with tissue paper, then painting on it in acrylic using a feather I found the other day and the month old heel of bread I found in my fridge.  I call it Flight.

These materials feel overlooked, like they would end up in a pile of garbage in some back alley dumpster.  At the same time they can create another image sometimes overlooked: the view from your airplane window of perhaps birds flying over the water.






Artist Blog - Found Materials

#3 - Self-Exploration

   I love traveling.  I could do it all the time.  So naturally, I feel like the places I go influence my life and make me a different person.  They are a big part of what makes me who I am.  This leads me to my first project for my online class.  The instructions for this post were three lines long, so I was really at a loss when it came time.  I like lots of directions, so three lines isn't much.  So I took things literally and this is what I got:

   The idea was mapping your life.  According to the instructions, "[The artist] had her participants create their own map of their lives, histories, and how the different paths overlap. I want you to explore this idea in your artists' blog."  I thought about how I would do it for a while, then I took the words map and overlap and ran.
   Unless you're like my friend and you totally figured out what I did the second you looked at it, you're wondering what traveling has to do with this post.  I basically took the outlines of the states and countries I've visited, marked with cities and important sites I've been to, and created my life's version of Pangea.  I'm going to need a bigger piece of paper for future travel.  Seriously.





Artist Blog - Self Exploration

Hmmmmmmm...

     I'm going to start off by revealing that my blog title isn't some deep philosophical reference.  It's the nicknames my roommate/best friend and I have given our neighbors.  Behind us are the Tappers.  For some reason they enjoy tapping on my best friend's wall any time they want, and we can't figure out why.  Above us are the Stompers.  We think they run everywhere they go.  Below us are the Beaters.  They like turning up the base and shaking the building, and it feels like they play the same songs over and over again.  When I put all three together, it sounded really awesome...and then there's the fact that I had been trying to come up with a blog name all morning.
     You see, I have to write a blog for my online class.  Normally I don't like taking online courses, but it was the only way I could take the class, which also happens to be a requirement for my major.  I'm only doing this because I have to, but who knows, maybe I'll end up liking it.

PS: It's going to be artsy, but I may interject random posts about ukuleles, farm animals, and crazy college kids.