Photo Shoot

If you remember from my Saturn Return post, I'm in a period of breaking free from constraints and developing my true nature...letting go of what I think I should be and manifesting who I am. Part of that is crossing a big item off my bucket list: doing a dance photo shoot. I've wanted to do this since I was about 14 years old, ever since I saw the New York Ballet exercise book with beautiful images of dancers. Of course, I was not professional dancer material, but I still loved dancing and I wanted to capture it on film; freeze it in time.

Years passed and my body went through various phases. I gained and lost weight, muscle, flab, flexibility, and self-confidence repeatedly. There were times I studied dance, yoga, weight training, and nutrition...and there were times I did nothing. All along the way I was hoping to reach a point when everything would come together, when one day I would have the strength, flexibility, and physique of the dancers I admired...or something close to it.

Well, I don't. I'm approaching 30 years old and I haven't achieved the splits, I don't have well-defined muscles, and I can't do impressive leaps in the air or balancing positions. However, I did find a photographer I like and I have an inner drive to get this done, regardless of my abilities.

So I did it. I called the photographer and we had a very good conversation. We will meet next weekend to look at his gallery, discuss ideas, and break the ice so I can be comfortable. What I want to do will require me to be an inner Amy in front of a camera, which is kind of terrifying. But I want to do it and I'm excited for how it will turn out.

The photographer I'll be working with is Ed Flores. You can find his work here: https://www.instagram.com/edfloresphotography/

Amy's Year in Review 2014

I enjoy looking over my life at the beginning of the New Year. It makes the time I spent living worth my while, by recognizing all I've learned and how much I've changed. Below is my list of Things I've Learned, Accomplishments, and Desires for 2015. To be honest, I don't know if the things I've learned in 2014 were actually during 2014 or if they were some time before that, but I think they're important so they're listed.

Things I've Learned

1) No human feeling is unique: everyone can experience the same emotions (on varying levels), and it is possible to feel a strong emotion repeatedly. This includes love. This year, I had a tough time changing my mindset from the idea that love is unique and highly exclusive to that it is common and shared.  The truth is, we can love deeply more than once and we love many people throughout our lives. While I kind of knew this from my relationships with friends and family members, being in a close relationship with someone else made the lesson stark: I had to understand that I am a part of a person's life, not the part. That was a tough pill to swallow ("What?! You mean I'm not the only person you've ever cared about?") However, while I've learned that love itself is common, I've also learned that what comes from love is special: the family you create, the lessons you learn about yourself, and the places it takes you.

2) Talking is better than walking. I am a person who tends to cut things off and be done with them when they aren't working out. I've discovered that it's worth communicating your issues/feelings before walking out, especially if the other person wants to meet you half way.

3) Be able to justify your actions. It's a really great feeling when someone calls you out on a "mistake" and you're able to list solid, logical reasons why you did what you did.

4) You look better when you admit to a mistake than when you try to cover it up. Yes, people want something done in a timely fashion, but - at the core of the issue - they want it done right. Asking for help when you don't know is key.

5) You're given "dumb" passes in life (people forgive you when you do something stupid), but they're limited - try not to use them all up at once.

6) Learn how to fix what you mess up, because messing up is a given.

7) Sometimes you can't fix everything, though, and you have let time do the work. We all have people who won't forgive us, items that we've caught on fire and will never get back, and money (ours or someone else's) that we've tossed out the window...I think there's a specific "dumb pass" for that...Regardless, we just have to hope time will heal all emotional wreckage.

8) My body and physical ambitions have changed. In my early 20s, I thought I had figured out the "formula" to get my body the way I wanted it. Now, however, I'm no longer in that stage of post-adolescent-but-still-have-adolescent-body-functionings, and that formula doesn't work anymore. My body responds differently to food than it used to. I'm also less tolerant of being hungry and I don't have the same fascination with body mechanics anymore (aka I'm not ok with eating only a handful of food for a meal and gyms don't stimulate me like they used to). The resulting physical change has been difficult for me to deal with and I have a feeling life isn't going to be generous as I get older.  I'm not giving up, but I'm also learning acceptance...

9) "Finding myself" is over. Thank. Goodness. I no longer look at each opportunity like, "THIS IS WHO I AM AND WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING WITH MY LIFE!" I have a complicated web of interests, but none of them are attached to my identity. I regard the "finding self" stage as the mental puberty of early adulthood: I had to go through it to solidify my identity, but I'm glad it's over.

10) Movies can engage a person intellectually on a deeper level than I expected. They can make you reflect upon your own morals, goals, and thinking patterns. They make you question society. This deeper thinking thing was a pleasant surprise for me. I thought you could only get it - truly - from books.


Accomplishments

Obtained a full-time job with benefits that pays me almost enough to live on (parents still help a little).

Found an apartment that only I live in. Sweet Jesus, I didn't think I'd see the day.

Read several books and watched many tv shows and movies. Who's culturally engaged ??-->>> this one!

Maintained a healthy relationship for over a year (personal record! victory dance!).


Desires/Things to Accomplish for 2015

I'm used to being broke around Christmas and not doing much. This year, I wasn't broke but I did not plan well. I felt like a scrooge when unexpected gifts were left on my desk at work and in my mailbox at home. Next year, I want to be more active about preparing for the holidays (Christmas shopping will happen and cards will be made ahead of time) and appreciate the celebrating on a religious level. I also want an Advent calendar and Jesse tree. Seriously, what's more fun than opening a tiny box every day for a month, pulling out a gift/ornament, and reading an accompanying story? Lots of things, I know, but it's still pretty great.

I want an art project and art skills! I can already see many of you slapping your foreheads - you probably remember the artistic attempts of Summer 2013? Well, I'm back to it again. Right now, the only thing on my list is a kinetic typography video. I'm hoping to have two more projects this year (cards don't count).

Professionally? I'd like to start doing more with communications. I'm going to push to help with the department newsletter and website more. Truth be told, I envy the BioComm department upstairs. I'm sure their lives are filled with tedious work, but I would love some of their technical and creative skill sets.

I struggled with my religion in 2014. I was barely going to Mass once a week, and I developed some riffs with Catholicism. I went as far as looking into various Protestant churches around the city, because I wasn't feeling like I fit in as a Catholic anymore. However, after I went to one such service, I left feeling empty. I immediately missed the richness of the Catholic church, its rituals, and its structure. I like ritual and structure, and I was very appreciative of the next Mass I attended. However, who's to say this couldn't happen again? Therefore, this year I want to read about and engage more with my faith: to start, four books on Catholicism/Christianity.

Health...I'm just keeping on keeping on. Maybe exercise a little more.

I want a group of friends...like from a club I join or something. I don't know if that will happen this year because I can already see myself being very busy. However, I think friends would be a positive addition to my life.


All right, so that is that for 2015. Lots of good stuff happened in 2014, so let's hope that goodness keeps rolling! Do you have any goals for this year or anything you learned from last year that you want to share? If so, please leave a comment or send me a message. Best to you all for 2015!

Lines of Beauty

In June, I experimented with drawing a human face. I drew many details around the eyes, nose, mouth, jawline, forehead, ears, etc. The more I drew, though, the less real it looked. I stared at it for a while and then reached for my eraser. Maybe I'll take out this line, I thought. But I didn't take out just one. I erased many lines until there were only a few left. Somehow it looked much better, but I didn't understand why.

A few weeks later, my drawing teacher told the class about how the eye can only focus on one point and the rest of what you see blurs. When you take a picture, for instance, the camera usually captures every little detail and it looks flat and unreal. However, one thing that makes a photo look good is when it gives you a focal point and blurs the background, like the example below:

This is because it shows information the way the eye sees it. 

I thought about this when I looked at people versus their portraits. When I am with people, I see one detail at a time, one shadow at a time, and one line at a time. In real life, as my eye moves across their features, one aspect comes into focus while the other one blurs. The combination of line and blur makes people appear softer and more 3-dimensional. Unless a camera is under the manipulation of a skilled photographer, it will pick up every detail of a subject and flatten it onto a single plane. Features therefore appear harsh or caricatured because we see them all at once. It's uncomfortable because it is not how we absorb information naturally. 

When I look back at my drawing of a person, I understand why it works: the lines I erased became the blur and made it look more real. This idea of seeing only one focal point makes me think about how people perceive beauty every day and I wonder which lines we like to see and which ones we prefer to blur.

I Can't Draw on the Run

I have trouble drawing when I'm not sitting in my "drawing space." I like to sit at my desk, with my board and supplies "just so," and with low distraction for a few hours. How much time do I have to do this? Not a whole lot. My teacher encourages me to carry a sketchbook, and the books I read encourage me to carry a sketchbook. Yet I can't sketch on a bus or while I'm waiting somewhere. I am too distracted and unable to focus. I'm thinking about buying a book actually made for drawing (instead of using a lined notebook) with the thinking that maybe I can trick my brain into bringing my mental drawing space with me.

Success for the Talentless!

I have a theory that people who do not have a particular talent for a skill - but like it anyway - are more successful at it than those who do have a talent for it. This is because their lack of natural ability drives them to master it. Granted, there are geniuses out there who find their gift and perform amazing feats with it, maybe because they don't know what else they would do. I can say from experience that I've exercised skills for which I had talent, but I ended up leaving them for one reason or another (loss of interest/burn out).

Drawing, though, is something for which I have VERY LITTLE talent, and I find that exciting. I'm hoping my theory proves true for me... :-/

Volunteering...And Then the Heavens Opened Up

I signed up to volunteer at my art studio and when I looked around, I think I heard Seraphim. I tend to romanticize things, but I had a feeling I had found my second home. I was surrounded by art and its creators. I met Peggy The Wednesday Morning Volunteer and she oriented me to everything I'd be doing. Then she gabbed to me about the different classes and a book she was reading on Sargent's Madame X.

After my orientation, I explored the library. It was like a dream. It was a small room, but there were so many books on art. I could have gotten lost in there if hunger didn't help me find the exit sign. Before that happened, though, I searched for design. Alas, the closest I came was the photography and critical theory sections.

I was about to leave when I saw a book on illustrators' sketchbooks. I flipped through it and came across work by Melanie Ford Wilson and and Kurt Hollomon. Again, I know I romanticize but when I looked at them, I had a similar feeling as the one I had toward the FastCompany magazine...I couldn't take my eyes off of them. However, with the magazine, I experienced awe and desire. This time, it was awe, desire, and probability...I had the feeling I could produce something like this. Except it would be Amy-fied, of course. Illustration felt natural and organic to me. I'd never thought of myself as an illustrator until that moment.

It's still early in the game, though. There's also a good chance I may do both design and illustration like many artists do. One notable thing came out of this experience: I was faced with some complex emotions (from other life things) when I arrived home and - instead of writing for once - I decided to draw. So begins my pictoral journal...

Below are the images that inspired me today. I can't figure out how to rotate some of them so I apologize for the upcoming crooks in your neck.

Some of you are super tech-savvy and probably figured this out already, but if you click on the images, they will appear larger! This is exciting!

Graphic Design

For the past few weeks, I've been thirsty for graphic design. I traveled to different libraries all over town - public libraries and community college libraries - checking out books on the subject. I've been reading about everything I could get my hands on. It started with FastCompany Magazine. A coworker brought it in, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. Then I stole it (is it really stealing if said coworker left it sitting in the staff room as though it had been forgotten?).

Anyway, I read it and stared at it. I took in as much visual information as I could hold. I did this for a couple days and then headed out to the libraries. I combed through books on art, architecture, technology, and media. I checked out anything that had to do with graphic design. I was enamored with typology and color, learning about visual hierarchy and white space, and studying what made design work.

This is what led me to take an art class in all honesty. They say that drawing is the foundation of all art and it makes sense - it's pretty hard to design if you can't draw. Ever since, I've been researching schools that have design programs and figuring out the best path to take. The best path comes in the form of another undergrad degree.

But I don't care. I'll go to college again. This is something I want to learn.

We Hate The Stick

We have to use this shish-kabab skewer to measure the proportions of objects we draw. As the two other women at my table and I tried to replicate on our papers three different oddly-shaped, painted bottles, we realized that we didn't like the stick. You have to mark and count and estimate and involve math. We'd rather just draw what we see with our eye - even if the neck ends up twice as long as the body in our renderings. Paul told us to embrace the frustration, because it means our work will improve. In terms of my artistic aspirations, I guess my desire to break the stick into tiny piece shows progress?

Me and My Portfolio

I bought a professional portfolio to haul around my drawings in the elements and it came with a sense of confidence I didn't anticipate. All of sudden, I felt like a real artist...for no good reason. On one hand, I felt like I was becoming one those Amys I always wanted to be. Artists are some of the coolest people, in my opinion, and I admire their visual thinking - where I see words, they see pen strokes. On the other hand, I felt like a poser - albeit a badass artistic poser! My portfolio was empty - I had only just bought it - but I was ok to ride the facade for one night.

From The Drawing Room

I'm taking a drawing class this summer and I'm very excited about it. I took art in college and high school and while I was ok at it, it wasn't an area where I excelled. Once again, though, I have the need to express with my hands so I'm giving it another try.

My teacher, Paul, spent half of his education and career in the biological science field and is now a full-time working artist and teacher. If he emphasized anything in this first class, it was the misuse of the word, "talent." "People look at someone else's work that they think is better than theirs and say, 'Oh, they must have more talent than I have,'" he said. "That isn't true - they've just drawn more. If you look up "art" in your wishy-washy Webster's dictionary, you'll notice at the end of the definition it says 'see skill.' Art is a skill, not a talent, and anyone can learn it." He shared a story about how he took a semester of "fun" classes in college, and one of them was drawing. While he was taking drawing, his teacher told him that he should consider doing something else. "I don't know if the old goat is still alive - that was forty years ago - but I'll hold my work up to his any day. He was working under the assumption you had to have 'talent' to be a good artist. ...I learned nothing in his class." 

Here's one of Paul's paintings that I really like: http://paulmohr.net/painting_album/pages/paint_april.html

As the students went around the room to introduce themselves, I learned that many of them were painters who wanted to get the foundations of drawing that they missed along the way. One did quilting and other crafts. Another actually had a degree in art, but lost her connection to it when "life took her in other directions." We had an extroverted teacher in our midst, too, who wanted to know everyone's name and introduce us all to each other. It was funny. All the students were women and everyone except me was over forty. If there was one thing we had in common, though, it was that we all wanted to see. Some used the phrase "gain perspective." 

Paul then told us a story about one of his students whose mother was a professional painter. The student inherited one of her mom's paintings and hung it in her room. She loved looking at it every day - it was the first thing she saw when she woke up and the last thing she saw before she went to sleep. She said that after she took Paul's class, she finally understood how her mother made it and how she made it so beautiful. That insight is what we all wanted. 

I did do some drawing that first day, but it was awful. The class ends in July and I'll post my work then...after it has improved and doesn't embarrass me so much.