It's Fresh (Fresh) Exciting... It's So Exciting to Me

As you can tell, I changed the name of this blog. I had to do it. And though I am a HUGE fan of black: black backgrounds, black berries, black-bottomed cupcakes, black licorice (ok, that's Go, not me), little black dresses and the song "Black Bird" for instance, it needed some lightening up.

My little May-May is quite the music-lover. She dances at the first beat of any song she hears (with Ruby, we had to coax her into dancing and it was always short lived) and is constantly singing. She begins each day with a song, some kind of sound that she makes over and over, in all kinds of different notes and tones. Today's is "Bum-bum-bum-bum", much to her sister's delight.


(picture taken by Ruby)

More pics (and comments) by Ruby

"It’s you reading stuff, sitting on a bench."


"You have hair and a shoulder."


"That’s May walking with some old bread."


"That’s Daddy. He has big eyes."


"That’s me, silly."


"That’s Daddy again, laying on the couch. I was showing him my dancing and he liked it."


"That's Daddy being tired on the couch."

Deep lunges and unitards

Something extraordinary happened: Brandon had Saturday off so we decided to do something fun. It did snow last night--we could have stayed home and played in the snow but since I've decided I'm allergic to it, we had to go somewhere a little warmer: Baltimore. The snow had already melted there. Above are my bundled up children, who for some reason look like crazy homeless people in these pictures.

Here are some highlights from our day:

-The Baltimore National Aquarium. I particularly enjoyed the Tropical Rainforest exhibit. It was warm in there. The gigantic furry bats hanging down from the ceiling of the Australia exhibit were a bit unsettling - they were as big as beagles. I walked through the exhibit with my hands guarding my naked and vulnerable neck. When I asked Ruby what her favorite thing was there, she said "The big gooby frog. It was CRAZY!" I think May liked everything the best. She squealed sang "Mmmmmm!" the whole time.

-Apparently there was a cheerleading competition going on in Baltimore today. Everywhere you looked, there were crowds of little girls with grotesque amounts of makeup on and ponytails with huuuuuge color coordinated bows that were so high up on their heads, the ponytails/bows practically started at their forehead. It was very disturbing.

-Crossing the street I was yelling to my husband (as most of you know he is not "Brandon", but "Go" to me, family and those who knew him as a boy) and had to hollar "GO!" over the noise of the wind and traffic. The people crossing the street with us turned to me after hearing my yell, then started running to the other side of the street. Pretty funny - they totally thought I was yelling at them and perhaps had some pyschic ability to predict invisible oncoming traffic.

-The man with a Salvador Dali mustache at the Whole Foods market. I love that place. I could live there. Not in the guy's mustache, but the Whole Foods. The mustache was wicked waxy.

-I finally got to take a picture of my favorite sculpture while driving back home. I can't describe how I feel about it; I'm rendered speechless when I gaze upon its magnificance.

Figure Drawing session

My wonderful, wonderful husband babysat the kids today (when he was post call and absolutely exhausted) while I got to go to a 3 hour figure drawing session and it was so so great. Here are some of my drawings from today.

Lady Marmalade

I have decided on a composition and finally found ways to jump the hurdles this little piece was giving me. I solved my violent violin bow problem – have his elbow more outstretched and not let the bow stick out. Another problem I was having is that their positioning wasn’t conveying togetherness at all, so I just stuck them together. I usually like some negative space between figures because I like negative space but I’m hoping the chair and the lanterns provide interesting negative space shapes. And I stuck him on a chair because I really need to get rid of this chair fascination and onto something else. Who knows what it will be. It’s also the same reason why I put little paper lanterns in the scene, too. They are something else I quite haven’t rid my mind of and I’d like to--they're getting old. The bouquet she’s holding, as much as I like the flowers falling off of it and the fun patterns it could yield, I just can’t let myself do it--a bouquet makes it too kitchy. Yitchy, kitchy, yah-yah-dah-dah.

I have a tendancy to like my initial rough sketches better than the final product. I haven’t found a way to yet to get my finished piece look as fresh as they do in their beginning stages. I’m hoping to do that with this one but I feel like this composition doesn’t even have that raw edge that I’m talking about because I’ve sketched it so many times. I’d also like to try a different style on this one, too. I really really like this one artist but I cannot think of his name right now, anyway, he’s very primitive and minimalistic and I’d like my stuff to be more like that.

Anyway, I’ll have something more interesting to post next time – something cute about my kids.

Newest piece

I love my art room - it's a three-season room built onto what used to be the upstairs patio. But we're currently in the fourth season, so my old farmhouse oil painting is going to have to wait. I don't like bringing my easel into the kitchen and oh...ok fine--I've grown tired of it and need to work on something else before I go back and finish it. Yah, that's how I roll. But I WILL finish it. And I will post it when I do.

But anyway, I've been rolling this idea for an illustration around in my head for awhile now and I've sketched and sketched but cannot come up with a good composition (where to place figures, what angle and perspective the background is going, what direction the guestures are pointing and how they relate to each other - all things that dictate how someone viewing a piece of artwork moves their eye about the piece - it's all very dilebrate.) My inspiration comes from a story told by a man that I am currently doing the film editing on for his filmed autobiography. His great-great Grandfather was 19 and living in England, joined the LDS church, decided to come to America and cross the plains with the Willy Handcart Company to live in UT. His girlfriend also joined and wanted to come to America, so their parents said "Well, you might as well get married." So these kids got married, got on the boat together and started out on their adventure. The only thing he brought with him was his violin and the only thing she brought was her wedding dress, which she wore crossing the ocean. When I heard this story, an image of them dancing on a ship instantly came to mind - he: playing his violin and she: dancing in her wedding dress. Two crazy kids in love out on the open sea, gearing up to face the unknown. I related to this young woman - young, happy and naive, with tons of scary things ahead, things she didn't even know were out there waiting for her to experice, go through and learn from. So anyway, the story really touched me, as did the image but I haven't been able to come up with anything yet - the direction of his violin bow always looks like it's going to stab her and I don't want it pointing the other way or it just shoots your eye right off the page. I'll let you know when I come up with something and I'll post my initial sketches if you're interested in the process. If not, well, don't read it.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Get a Complete Kick Out of My Husband

10. He had longer hair than I did on our wedding day.
9. He uses old man phrases like "That's hogwash!"
8. He keeps his things in their original packaging.
7. He has made himself the exact same breakfast everyday for the past 5 years.
6. He will NOT watch a movie twice.
5. He has superhuman concentration and focus when he reads and when he's not reading, he's observing every single thing about everything and everyone around him. He misses nothing.
4. He washes the windshield while the gas is pumping, no matter how frigidly cold it is outside.
3. His favorite pair of gloves have no fingers.
2. As a child, he hid all of his baby teeth in a little bag behind a framed painting that hung in his room. He finally unearthed them while we were visiting there this summer.
1. I thought he was going to propose to me all over again when I brought THESE home from the grocery store for him:

One girl show

I believe my daughter has found her calling in life. Her composition is edgy and asymetrical, her subject matter chillingly domestic and her use of both vivid and pastel hues complement her techniques of movement and over-exposing, which brands her work as ethereal, innovative and inspirational. Raw and fresh - typical of children's artwork, these photos have the capability of breathing young life into old souls.

ART

I am an artist. I've had trouble with saying that sentence my whole life but I've finally decided that that's what I am and I shouldn't down play it. I have always said "I was an art major in college" and just brush it off like it's not part of my life anymore but it is. I'd like it to become even more a part of my life and I think I would be more likely to do things if I knew people would see them; I'd start being accountable for my artwork, so this blog will now be featuring my work in hopes that it will motivate me to start up again. I've taken a break for the past couple of months and have started doing more "crafty" things but it's time to get back to "real" artwork and I'm hoping by putting myself out there that it will motivate me - the more I do it, the better I will get and I'd really like to get better. So here are somethings I've done/been working on during the past year: paintings, drawings, sketches, etc.

So here is a painting I started about a month ago. Obviously, it's not done yet. I have also included the photo that I'm painting it from. It's 24"X36". I will post pictures of this painting for any of you interested in the process. If you're not interested, well then, don't look at it. Simple as that.



I get stuck on things sometimes and they don't get out of my system until I do something with it. For a long time it was oranges. Then it was circles inside of circles. Right now it's chairs.


Here is a bunch of drawings/sketches from my sketch book.

Home decor makeover

I was trying to think of something clever to say about all this but I've failed, so here's our new couch and our new pot racks - our pots were hanging from nails before due to our limited cupboard space, so we're excited. Also, note the new paint color, which looks different in this photo than in real life but you get the idea. This color can now be found throughout our house. Goodbye light green kitchen and light tourquoise entry/stairway/hallway. You were good to us for a six months but it was time for a change to a warmer color. PA might be cold, but our walls are now glowy and warm.

Our budding photographer

Here are a couple of pictures that Ruby took with her new digital camera that she got for Christmas. (Thanks Papa Tommy for standing in line for hours to get it for her.) I'm pretty sure these were all taken at a friend's little beach house we hung out in Newport while we were down in CA over Christmas.

Christmas

There are three people in this photograph. Only one is wearing pants and thank your lucky stars that it is me.

Freaks and Geeks. After this picture was taken, I left the Benihana dining/cooking area and took May to the bathroom to change her diaper. Guess who followed me out? Kobe Bryant. Did I know he was behind me at the time? No. Did I feel super cool anyway after my brother told me when I got back to the table? Yes.

Princess May-Bone.

The loveliness that is my brother, John Thomas. He's single, ladies...

May May and Daddy.

Papa Tommy.

Rubes and Uncle Joe.

Comments!

Sorry guys - for some reason the commenting feature my blog was all messed up and there were like 20 unposted comments out there just floating around. But they are there now. Not like you're going to look back through every single one of my posts to read all the missing-but-now-found comments...who has that kind of time? Certainly not "Mrs. Here I Come" right down there. She's too busy polishing the silver.
But seriously, some of those comments were dang funny, ya'll.

My constant conundrum

I collect illustrated books. My grandma is great about supplying me with the old ones. When we were moving into our house, I was putting my books onto our shelves and out fell this loose leaf page from on old Dick and Jane book. I found it so hilarious and a bit haunting that I stuck it on the fridge and there it has hung ever since. I don't know why it struck me like it did but the words "Here I come" instantly had two different meanings for me. First, (read this with a tone of hope and excitement:) "Here I come (exclamation point)" - like, "Wow - isn't she amazing? If only I could be like that!" and then second, (read this with a tone of dread:) "Here I come" like "Whoa, watch out or you'll become just like her. That would stink." Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with being a "house wife" or "stay-at-home-Mom" (I am one) - it includes the two most important things in my life - being a wife and being a mother. It's just those labels have stigmas and that's not all I want to be - some dolled up chick who mops her floors all day while she shoos the kids out to play and rushes to put on lipstick before her husband walks in the door. I want to also learn things and do things and create things. But I also aspire to having a spic-and-span organized home and happy, well adjusted children and I find myself being caught between all those things and trying to balance not becoming lopsided either way.
So anyway, some days I look at this on my fridge with hope and some days I look at it with dread. I just hope that some day I can find a happy medium between the two.

Wintertime in CA

This is where we have spent the last couple of days while back in CA. Oh, and for anyone who wants to know, this is what heaven looks like.

Sit Com induced Nostalgia

Many people say that watching TV is an unsocial activity. Not true. I had a flashback tonight while after a marathon baseboard vacuuming session I collapsed on the couch and turned on the tube. There was Will Smith, not in a Pursuit of Happiness trailer but in all of his bright orange tank topped glory on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and immediately, I missed my brothers. We’ve watched many hours of TV together. My favorites were the ones we’d watch before church started (we weren’t one of those No-TV-on-Sundays Mormons) like Out of This World, Clarissa Explains it All, Salute Your Shorts, David the Gnome, Pete and Pete and Freaks and Geeks. Actually, I think some of those were aired on Saturday. Anyway, it made me start thinking of all the TV shows I’ve gotten into over the years and who I watched those shows with and I’d just like to say TV Buddies, I salute you. My husband, who somehow wrangles me into watching the Ultimate Fighting Champion marathon several times a year, you always get me hooked and right there cheering along our roid-enhanced favorite. And my Mom, who watched Wings and Quantum Leap reruns with me on summer afternoons while she folded laundry and during the commercials we’d run downstairs and make our lunch. To our Med School buds in Iowa, you made Alias and Lost all the more better with endless theories that were never right but always entertaining and the hours of gabbing afterwards topped the TV show. To my sister-in-law Sarah, you made me rediscover Scrubs and thanks to you we now have hour upon hour of Scrubs reruns DV-R’d. My brother-in-law Dan, even though we bashed every single thing those dumb kids said and complained how retarded the show was, we never changed the channel even during commercials when Laguna Beach the Real O.C. was on. My Dad, who watches more teeny bopper TV shows than an actual teeny bopper, thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of the Gilmore Girls. And back to my brothers who howled through the UK version of The Office, memorized lines of the Wayans Brothers and delved into the prepubescent drama of Bug Juice with me, even though we don’t have much in common anymore we have our childhoods and the hours we spent watching cheesy sit-coms and there’s no two people I would have rather watched them all with.

Tales from the Laundromat

Arg! Last night our dryer broke. Curses! I had slacked on doing laundry and had about 7 loads to do. So all day long today, I washed load after load, then piled wet laundry into 4 different laundry baskets to take to the laundromat to do the drying all in one pop. Totally dreading going, I rounded up some things to take for the girls to do (well, just Ruby - all May wants to do lately is walk, walk, walk and reach out to strange men to hold her), and just an idea for all you other Mamas out there, I concocted a great toy - I glued a paint stirrer/stick thing to the back of a paper plate and then bought some balloons from the dollar store next door (imagine that - a dollar store next door to a laundromat) and Ruby ran around hitting the balloon all over the place and was COMPLETELY occupied for an hour - which probably has never happened in her life, so if you ever need to make a quick toy, remember that one. Anyway, so Ruby's running all over the place like a wild woman and May, like always, is making friends with everyone and of course takes a particular liking to the x-con running the money exchange in the back. An hour passes pretty quickly and it's time to get my clothes out of my dryers. As I am unloading clothes from a huge dryer that I put two loads in together, to my horror I discover that there was an orange crayon in Ruby's pocket or something because every piece of clothing has big orange smears all over them. Ugh. So on top of a broken dryer, a tight budget, and two wild kids to take to the laundromat until we get a new dryer, my family will now be sporting orange. Be sure to look for the smears in our Christmas picture, if I ever get around to taking a picture, etc. We might just have to take it at the laundromat, seeing as that's where we're going to be spending a good amount of our time.

"Sometimes when I get nervous..."

Back in June/July when we first moved to PA, we had to live in a rental house for almost 2 months. Everything we owned was still in storage save for our mattresses, some clothes, a couple of couch cushions, a couple of pots and pans, the TV (that couldn't get any reception for the first half of our stay there) and our computer, which also for the first month there, we didn't have the internet until I found a wireless signal from one of our neighbors and piggybacked onto theirs. Anyway, during that first month, it was pretty hard - we didn't know a soul, Brandon was working 110 hour weeks, it super far away from everything (like an hour) and everytime we got in the car, we'd end up lost. Ruby had just been diagnosed and I was still trying to figure out everything and having to do it alone, it was super hot and humid and the house didn't have AC - - it was just a really frustrating month to say the least. Anywho, the day that I started pirating my neighbors wireless signal was certainly a day of rejoicing and it was that day that I discovered this video on YouTube. I couldn't stop laughing. So now, 4 months later when I am in a much better mindset, I watched it and it was still pretty funny. Not like, laugh out loud, snort Diet Root Beer out your nose funny, but it's worth watching and then watching again while you show someone else the video. This vid brought me back to my Mary Katherine Gallagher days. Who gave me my MKG magnet by the way? Was it E? Was it Merz? Was it one of my brothers? Holla if it was you, dawg!