SuperHeros!

Here are some picture references for my next set of paintings. The paintings will each be 16" x 20" on pre-stretched and framed canvases. Spiderman will be more stylistically similar to Batman and Superman and will be on a light blue background.

I’m doing this for my friends’ son, he’s almost 5 and they’re working on redecorating his room. I already have the canvases and should have enough paint, I’ve no job so have time to do it, and I’m especially more than happy to do anything I can for this particular set of friends because they are the ones that took me in when I had nowhere else to go.

Recent artworks...

I finished this painting today. I guess it could relate to the fragility of life, but really it's a pairing of my favorite flowers and a skull—things that I find interesting.

I also started working on this one... which sucks right now, but I'll work on it some more later. I used oil pastels for this one on a black acrylic background, the skull/tiger lilies painting was done with acrylics and a some details were done with oil pastels.

My Beliefs

I taught a class called “Critical Thinking” and one of the student assignments was to write a paper about their beliefs. I liked the idea so I wrote one of my own: 

My Credo  [as written on November 27, 2007]

I believe that I possess the ability to shape my own destiny; it isn’t a path already set in stone. I don’t hold any faith in fate because I realize that my daily choices and decisions are what affect my personal life voyage. I believe that I have to authority to choose to have a “good day”. I understand that waking up in an irritable mood and continuing to be cranky all day will not typically lead in a positive direction. Deciding to have an optimistic outlook and not letting trivial problems or negative people bring me down will improve the manner in which my daily existence progresses. Being armed with the knowledge that not everything is going to go my way also allows me to deal with letdowns more easily and enjoy life more fully when things are sailing smoothly.

I believe that knowledge is power. It’s something no one can take from you; you can give knowledge, others can borrow it, but it is still yours to keep! I trust that acquiring more information will increase my personal well-being and not to mention that it’s wonderful to find out that your various skills and knowledge set are actually beneficial! Knowing how to accomplish a variety of tasks will make me more marketable in the job world. I believe that it is important to give my best effort at my job, regardless if I’m being compensated for it. Though it may seem that my laborious blood, sweat, and tears go unnoticed at times, someone is usually paying attention and I definitely don’t want to be noticed for the wrong reasons!

I believe the true importance of being a good person is that it allows me to comfortably live with myself. I believe religion is an interesting concept and though I do not subscribe to any organized sect, I do believe in some higher power. I would like to believe that you get what you give in all aspects of life though I am fully aware that life in general isn’t fair. Sometimes life brings you down and circumstances may seem overwhelming but it provides you with an incredible amount of strength to deal with these and other situations in the long run. The unpleasant parts also allow you to appreciate when things are going well and people are giving you the respect and admiration that you deserve.

I am well aware that you don’t get to choose your family and they don’t get to choose you. I do believe that you should always be emotionally available for your family members, regardless. Knowing that someone will always be just a phone call away, even if they aren’t able to be there physically can help you feel less alone in the world. I know that I will be available for my family members, even if it seems as though they often have less time for me. I believe other people can become pseudo-family members; they may even develop into a more important and influential part of your life regardless if they are bound to you by blood.

I believe that it’s healthy to be able to forgive someone but never forget the past. I don’t believe in having regrets, I prefer the idea that less than perfect choices are learning experiences that should be appreciated for the knowledge gained and then never repeated. I accept that many people with whom I consider to be friends won’t be a permanent fixture in my life and I choose to enjoy friendships while they’re available and try not to mourn their loss too heavily when they disappear. I believe that everyone deserves a fair chance until they prove otherwise though it is equally important to be cautious with whom you give your trust to. Locking your heart and soul away from everyone will not allow you be enriched by anyone else’s ideas and love.

I believe in love. I believe in the butterflies you feel at the start of the relationship, the intense passion of falling in love with someone and being able to just gaze into their eyes to heal any recent injustice. I’m just as fond of the comfort of simple gestures such as holding hands or a quick kiss on the back of the neck when no one is looking. Even the acrid sting of love gone awry is a reminder of how intense this “love” thing really is. I also believe it’s key to say the “L-word” when you mean “LOVE” and to try not to dilute its true implication by using it frivolously.

I believe in being me. Whoever I am or whatever I become, it is because I have evolved in that direction. I am a different person in different situations often because I’m expected to play a part. I can not possibly be the same person I am around friends that I am at work and vice versa. I’m not naïve enough to believe that my appearance has no bearing on what others think of me yet the car that I drive and the clothes that I wear do not define me as a person. I accept that not everyone will like me. I am comfortable in my skin… most of the time.

By the way, I’m an artist, not a writer. I feel passionately about many subjects but often trip over my words so don't judge me too harshly. I kept this writing exercise though because it interests me how thoughts and feelings evolve over time.

Cupcake!

I am currently without a job. This allows me time to do things like drawing or painting, which I love!! 

I’m planning on using this cupcake pic (from www.welovesnacks.com) as a reference for a new painting. I’m thinking of doing a series of food-related paintings. I’m very food oriented, always hungry. I’d probably weigh about 300 lbs if I gave into all of my cravings so maybe painting food will help. Either that or it will make me even more hungry and I’ll end up rounder. I may not even stick with this idea anyway, I have lots of “grand” ideas that never quite reach fruition (like going jogging). Time will tell.

I also worked on another painting today, it’s of a skull and tiger lilies that I started weeks ago. I’ll post a pic when I'm done with it. 

I'm cool with comments too, if anyone bothers to read this. If not, writing is therapeutic for me anyway :)

There's no place like home...?

“Home”. For the first half of my life, I could've told you where that was: 38205 Allen Rd S...

I'm sure that it's not a big secret but I've always felt like somewhat of an outsider. From what I've heard, a LOT of people feel this way as well, but hey, this is all about me right now!! I tend to be clumsy in my interactions with others and didn't really have any strong connections to anyone from my hometown. I wasn't friendless, but tended towards being a bit of a loner. I was so excited when my parents decided to sell our house and move us to a neighborhood in new, bigger town and we moved towards the end of my 9th grade year. What a nightmare! The move didn't make me less shy, more sociable, or suddenly possess cool clothes and a stylish haircut. At the old place, I had been going to a high school; where we moved, 9th grade was in a junior high where you were treated like a kid again. I didn't end up meeting very many people so when high school started, I'm sure many people figured I was from a different jr high. Outcast again!! And did I mention cliques? Did I mention over-protective parents?

After high school was finally, mercifully over, I decided to go to the state college that was farthest as possible from my parents’ house. I had some friends that were going there too but location was a big factor. I had to pick an in-state school (more affordable) and I didn't know what I wanted to do anyway. I got a small music scholarship but knew that my heart wasn't in it anymore and wouldn't last long in that program. The first couple weeks of college were pretty miserable. My “friends” weren't being friendly and lived in a different dorm. Then at some point, I decided that I didn’t need to be so damn shy. And I discovered the wonders of “liquid courage”. I had some great times in college, met a variety of people, didn't wisely use my time with book-knowledge but gained a lot of people skills and experiences that my parents had protected me from up until that point. I lived with a girl from California for the first half of my freshman year in the dorm, a room opened up and I think my roommate was tired of hearing me and my boyfriend making out in the middle of the night so she moved out after the first semester. The next couple years were spent with various roommates in some off campus apartments, a house with a hot-tub and 5 other roommates (that was the best!!), a duplex, back to the apartments, and then college was over. Without having landed a job with my newly acquired fine arts degree or having the faintest idea what I was going to do with it, I moved back home with my parents. That lasted two months. I missed the guy I was dating back in the college town and called my boss to see if I could get my bartending job back.

I lived with my boyfriend and his roommate for a year before my bartending job disappeared and the bf decided that we should move where he grew up and follow a business venture at a college. A small detail: he grew up on the opposite side of the states, 2000 miles away. Sure!! Why the hell not? I had never been there and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We moved in with his mother and grandma for a couple of months and then were supposed to move a couple hours away to get involved with the aforementioned business venture. He backed out and we were stuck  in his hometown. We did get our own apartment, I can't remember for sure but I don’t think it lasted a year before I had enough and moved out. I know that people change over time but this was pretty drastic. He had somehow morphed into someone totally different, not the guy I had known for 5 years prior to dating and then lived with before making the cross country trek. I don’t jive well with “jealous” and “possessive” and can’t stay with someone who doesn’t believe in me. I wasn't making much money at the time, but one of my friends and her husband were so gracious as to take me in like the pathetic, stray dog that I am. I lived in two different houses with them until they moved closer to their original home to be near their sets of parental units after the birth of their child. I moved into my own apartment after they left and lived there for almost 3 years... until the latest move.

After living on the wrong coast for over 7 years, I was sure that my current boyfriend—we’ll call him “Mr. Wonderful”—and I would move away to a new town, on the correct coast, and live happily ever after. Well, we moved away, same coast but now in the South. I like our apartment, its brand new and has a dishwasher and washing machine included (a big improvement from the last place I lived!!), the cats are happy, Mr. Wonderful seems satisfied with his new job (the paycheck is the best part, I'm sure), and I... exist. I can't find a job to save my soul. I’m guessing that I could land a job at the local Mickey D's or whatever but I’m trying to land something that will help my career in the long run. I taught graphic design at a trade college for over 5 years but apparently, that doesn't make me qualified to actually do anything in the creative arena. Actually, the economy is really bad and nobody wants to pay for anything. So my days are often spent painting, drawing, watching TV, and/or in front of my lovely Mac. I spend time looking for jobs until I get distracted and end up looking at pictures of Googled things like “owl tattoos” and “Devon Rex cats” (some of my actual searched items today!). Hopefully I come across something soon; besides financial benefits and giving my life somewhat of a purpose, a job would give me a way to meet new friends. I have been pretty isolated here and though I love spending time with my boyfriend, I’m sure we could both use a break from each other now and then and socialize with other people... and not just on Myspace, Facebook, and text messaging.

So—to wrap up—I guess that home is where the heart is or some other trite thing. At the ripe age of 31, I'm not unhappy or disappointed like I’ve been in the past, I just need to settle in more I guess. I’m with the person that makes me smile the most, who has seen me at my best and worst and still tells me he loves me on a daily basis and means it every time. And in his arms, I am home.

I felt like writing...

Well, I've had way too much time alone lately and when my mind is idle it starts to wander. Lately, I've been taking trips down memory lane. My memory isn't really much of a steel trap or anything, it's more of a mushy, swirling vortex of thought-snippets. Mostly, I've been recalling the numerous, incredibly stupid things I've done in my life. Really dumb. If you don't want to be bored out of your skull, you may want to be on your merry way now. 

I guess we could start with my Raggedy Anne and Andy lamp that was in the room I shared with my sister when I was very young. Apparently, I was fascinated with the light bulb and the fact that you could just push the little black plastic lever and *click* it was on and *click* the light went out. One evening, I decided that it would be interesting to find out what would happen if I unscrewed the light-bulb and light up a penny instead. So, I carefully removed the light-bulb, put the penny in where the light-bulb should have been and held it there because it wasn't a perfect fit. A quick flip of the switch and you can guess what happened. A little shock-aroo for yours truly. 

I should give a little back story here: I grew up in the middle of nowhere. My dad worked, a LOT, but didn't bring home much money. He had bought a shack on 11 acres a bit before I was born and had been building a house in it's place. My dad isn't an architect. He's very handy, creative, and intelligent however, and after 15 years and a little help here and there, we had a beautiful home. Ok, backing up again... my mother stayed at home with the kids: me, my older half-brother who left to live with his father when I was 9, and my sister who's over 3 years my junior. For some of those years, my Great-Grandma Ruby lived on our property in a trailer, she's my mother's father's mother. She had a candy dish and often gave us ice cream cones when my sister and I visited her. Rainbow Sherbet was the usual flavor and she always had a hard candy that I know as "Sourballs" in the candy dish. We had a variety of pets over the years: Sheba and Shamus, a mother-son doggie Australian Sheperd/mutt duo; Nicky, another mutt who was obsessed with barking and digging, we eventually gave her to one of my uncles, Champagne, a fat, mean cat that Grandma Ruby started feeding so he'd come live with her; Maximillion, a fat orange cat that we got when my sister was about 4, he was a really nice, laid-back cat, we'd put him in doll clothes and pose him for pictures and he never seemed to mind; Julee, a grumpy, grey barn cat that I got for free from an ad in the local newspaper; a gorgeous, silky, chocolate brown cat named "M" and her 4 kittens who were discovered in my dad's shop, he took a liking to M (and named her) but said we had to get rid of her kittens when they were ready, we gave them away at a swap meet and I don't think that M forgave us and disappeared shortly after, she was nice to people but hated the other animals anyway; at different times we had Hooshka and then Kooshka, Alaskan Malamutes, the first one my mom found at the grocery store on Christmas eve, my mom would never pick up and take home a stray animal either, by the way, anyhow the dog was smart and a sweetheart but maybe overly-friendly, he got loose one day and went to play with our neighbor's pet ram, yes, a pet RAM, and got butted through their fence, the replacement dog wasn't as smart and was quite lazy but still a nice dog, he was purebred and though my dad bought him for my mom I ended up taking care of him with feeding and grooming and such. At some point, we got a used above-ground pool that my dad rigged in order for it to be in-ground (at least partially in-ground, anyway), by using his back hoe and digging a huge hole, filling the bottom with sand, etc. He also built a nice deck attached to the pool. We had bicycles, hula hoops, roller skates, jump ropes, pogo balls, etc to play with. I enjoyed building "obstacle courses" with these materials and was quite bossy to my sister about how things should go.

As I mentioned, my brother left home when I was 9. I don't really remember much about him except that he was tall, thin, and didn't like me much. I recall "indian rug-burns" on my arms, a lot of yelling between him and my parents, not being allowed in his room, pine cone fights, falling off the back of the motorcycle he was steering, him being upset that I could climb our rope swing like a little monkey and he couldn't make it all the way up. We had this toy van that you would normally operate yourself by sitting on it and pushing with your feet. One day, he started pushing me while I was steering around the house, eventually we got to the kitchen with the slick tile floors, he pushed, I steered, I slid straight into the edge of the kitchen table with my forehead. I still have a scar where I received 6 stitches from that incident. I remember that he would go in his room and listen to what my mom considered to be "devil music". I think it was the Scorpions or Def Leppard or something equally hardcore (haha) though he may have been dabbling with some Ozzy at that time as well. This is hearsay but from what I gather, he got into the wrong crowd at school and was smoking cigarettes and stole some money from Grandma Ruby so he was shipped off to Portland to live with his dad and step-mom. I guess things went better for him there. After he was gone, I got his bedroom so my sister and I didn't have to share a room and our bunk-beds anymore. My mom even let me pick out wallpaper. Keep in mind that I was 9... I picked out teddy bears holding primary colored balloons on a shiny white background. I didn't realize at the time that she wouldn't let me take the wallpaper down until we were getting ready to move and I was 15 years old. I also got to have carpet- baby blue berber from the remnant store, a big move up from the linoleum that was in the shared room!

 

As previously mentioned, I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't good at making friends. I didn't have cool clothes, I had a string of horrendously bad haircuts, I finally got braces that eventually helped my teeth but had a huge mouthful of metal for quite some time, my mother didn't allow me to do any sports and I wasn't overly athletic anyway, and she didn't encourage me to have friends over or drive me to friends' houses so I spent most of my time hanging out with my sister, when she could stand me, or being alone. Summer breaks were often excruciating for me. I read a lot of books, played outside when I was able, played the piano, and did chores. I had to invent my own fun. We got most of our clothes from thrift stores, which wouldn't bother me now but was terribly embarrassing at the time. One of our only nearby relatives, my great aunt, El, would often come with us for these thrift shopping trips. El was such a dear person to me. She always called me her friend and was genuinely delighted by my presence in general, which was a rarity for me. I recall her body being shaped strangely, she was short, probably 4'11" or so, and very round but she had thin, spindly legs. She was also short on cash, her and my uncle lived on whatever social security was giving them and wasn't allowed to spend anything extra. When we got birthday cards from her, she'd include a stick of gum and like a 5 dollar bill in it. We weren't allowed to mention the money so we'd have to write back a thank you letter for the stick of gum only. She had a cookie jar that was shaped like a baby brown bear licking it's lips. The cookies were usually the ones that are chocolate flavored on one side and vanilla on the other with icing in between and a hole that went through the middle. She often dyed her hair in various shades of honey-blonde to light brown. One time though, her hair ended up being purple. Guess who clued her in. Me. She actually thanked me for it because she couldn't tell and figured if I hadn't said anything, everyone would've been laughing behind her back. She wrote me letters here and there when I went off to college and eventually moved to the east coast, I was awful at replying. I still have the last birthday card she sent somewhere and it still chokes me up. She died a couple years back, I found out via a voicemail left by my mom. Who does that?! "Hi honey. Sad news. Aunt El died. Call me!" Ugh.

Yikes, I've spent a couple hours writing this and should be cleaning the kitchen and stuff so I'll try to write more later. I hope that I'll keep up with this, though its doubtful. I know how I am :)