Happy New Year

I was doing so well for awhile!! Blogs every few days, fun topics, occasional witty ramblings (maybe not so much...). Then life gets busy, I lose motivation, and forget. Oh well. That was 2010. Time for 2011.

So my two resolutions for this year are 1) Be healthier and 2) Make art. I think they are really most of what I need to focus on.

I've been trying really hard to get more sleep and eat better. Exercise will come into play soon, really. I want to try yoga and/or pilates, and once the weather starts to warm up I will start running. Most (definitely not all) of my meals have been healthier and I've tried really reallyreally hard to cut back on crappy, compulsive snacking. I hope to convince my mom to do a little more buying of local foods too. I'm starting to get skeeved out by those gross mass-meat producing companies. Just think of that term... its gross.

The sleep thing is the most difficult because I find my brain super stimulated at night and my thoughts race as I try to go to bed. In the past 8 days of the new year I think I have come up with at least 3 big ideas that I would love to accomplish but mostly likely won't. We'll see though. At least I have plans if grad school in the Fall falls through.

And in comes my second resolution: make art. This is so super serious but so open and airy that I love it. I need to experiment more and produce more, but most importantly I need to just DO IT. I have commissions and projects going that will make it difficult to focus on my own personal work, but I have to. I know I won't grow if I don't.

In the same resolution I started (SUPER LATE) my applications for grad school. I'm actually sooo late that there are so far only 2 schools that I have a chance at getting applications in before the deadlines pass. Slacking seriously bit me in the ass this time. However, one of the schools is PAFA which is by far my number 1 choice. Fingers crossed!

In addition to commissions and grad school, in a few short months is ITALY! It is booked, I am really truly going. And my ONLY agenda there? Paint, draw, cook and travel. My day and weekend trips will probably be slightly limited just to make for maximum painting time. I don't know when I'll get the next chance to have literally 6 weeks of 24/7 available art making time. I NEED to take full advantage of it and I cannot wait. A huge thank you to Trader Joe's for letting me do it, too :)

So to my couple of little readers out there, I hope you bother me about my resolutions :) I need a little push of confidence every now and then. I apologize in advance if I'm not around as much because I will hopefully be doing lots of painting and drawing.

Love.

My Apologies...

OK, so I am sorry for the rant. That was a little melodramatic on my part.

But for real for real, I am very frustrated lately. I felt like I had this wild epiphany a week ago to work abstractly and I felt like a genius and totally wild and enlightened. Then I went to bed, woke up, and realized how stupid it all looked. Now I am back to painting fruit and gourds. Not that I don't love painting food, I really do. I actually make a living doing that very thing at Trader Joe's and thoroughly enjoy it. I just feel like I haven't grown much as an artist lately/since I graduated. I have all these wild dreams and aspirations and I feel like I am going to have a hard time accomplish them painting large paintings of fruit and gourds.

I feel like I need a week free of agenda for me to accomplish things. Like cleaning my mess of a room, making art, applying to grad schools, planning italy, and being awesome. I haven't done any of those things in so long. I'm sitting here in a mess of a room, totally frustrated and terrified to tackle this monster (it's actually not that bad... I cleaned a lot of it the other day, the rest is just what hasn't found a place yet... and so far there's no hope of finding one...)

I also want to start singing. However, I am totally shy, bashful, and embarrassed to do so, so this will probably never go further than me singing loudly in my car. The only people who will probably witness my singing will be strangers in cars stopped at red lights near me or driving on the highway next to me. This is good news for people who know me since they probably will never hear me sing, but unfortunate for the unlucky drivers around me. My apologies to the Philadelphia area.

So... an idea occurred to me as I was typing. Hey Self, stop typing... find a free spot of floor in your room (dramatization, I promise).... stand there... and start to clean. Yes! Brilliant! THEN!... get your sketchbook out of its new "place" and ... DRAW! Amazing! How did I ever think of this?! Self, you are brilliant and awesome.

By the way, for the 2.3 people who might skim through this, if you have reached this point you are not crazy. I am just seriously sleep deprived, moody, depressed over the Phillies loss and the end of baseball season (in my eyes), hungry, chilly, and seriously tired. Thanks for being a pal and reading, I hope it at least provided a few minutes of amusement. Gah.

Lazy

I am soooo lazy.

I drive myself crazy with the LACK of everything that I do.

I HAVE to paint more. I'm soo behind and haven't produced anything in forever. Where do my days go!? Maybe I'll have more time since I won't be watching the Phillies for another 6 months...

Sad face.

Name Change

So, as you can see, I've renamed my blog. I realized that lately it has regrettably become less focused on art I'm making, and more about day-to-day happenings and goals. So that's what this will become. Adventures in anything from cooking, painting, and work to planning trips, applying to grad schools, attending historical baseball games, and slowly making my studio better and better.

Grad school applications are getting started. Yay! Italy planning is still... being planned, haha. And today I plan on cooking AND painting. Good little Saturday :)

So, to go along with this new theme, I have some pics of some delicious Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins I made Thursday night. The recipe make about 24 small muffins, 12 of which I brought to work and 12 I left at home. There are now about 7 at home, and I plan to drastically reduce that number in the next day or 2, with help or without.

Here are some tasty pics :)

Before baking...

The mess... this actually is just the mess collected in my sink. The real mess was all over the counters :)

Tasty tasty muffins

Yummm!

Little Adventures, Here and There

So life lately has been... busy? Eventful? Hectic? Unfortunately none of those words are quite right for what I'm thinking, even though at the same time all three of them are totally right.

About a week ago I spent 5 hours waiting in line to audition/be reviewed for Bravo's TV show Work of Art. It was insane. I met some cool people, saw some REALLY weird people (awesomee!) and had an extremely awkward review where I basically rambled for 5 minutes while my reviewed smiled, nodded, and said "mm-hmm" a lot. Better luck next year, Self.

Italy is still in the plans, especially since I didn't quite make the cut for Bravo. I found a place I like and now it's just a matter of figuring out the length of time to stay and getting approval from work. Fingers crossed for both (apartment and work-approval)!! The place is small but nice, with a stove AND oven (yes!!!), 2-3 sleeping spaces and it's in Italy. Perfetto.

Life at TJs has been winding down... while at the same time getting crazy. Lisa is back (HUGE YAY!) which is obviously awesome. It's great to have her back in the art room, and also great to have her back because she is seriously awesome at this job. Makes like a bajillion times easier/more fun. But then again, the holidays are coming so that means the crowds are too. Oh goodie...

Have you ever been so torn between your head and your heart that it is physically exhausting? I'm there too lately. In a number of places in life I think. Art, relationships, life goals... how do you pick? I've always been one to follow my heart, but God knows that hasn't always worked out. And while following my head sometimes works, it's always the safer bet and always feel like I'm cheating myself out of something. Best idea yet? Stop thinking :) See what happens and do your best to enjoy the ride :) Oh, and don't cheat myself out of anything. Try everything once. I love the quote that goes something like "If you never try, you've already failed." Did I make that up? Not sure... If I did though, then go me :)

So my last blog entry was about choosing a new title... I think I might like the title of this entry actually! Let me know yes or no... but I think I might go with it!

Love.

To Do

I was going to title this "Goals"... but that seemed too indefinite. "To Do" makes it sound more like a list I have to accomplish, which is my serious intention here. I've come up with a short but serious list of "to do"s that I intend on completing (will complete) within a year from today.

(in no particular order)

-Paint.

-Gallery shows

-Italy

-Grad school (PAFA please, but I just want to go to school again)

Of course there are many things between (cook more, crochet, see friends, work, buy less, waste less, eat better, exercise, etc). But these are my tops. One is definite, another is MORE than likely, and the other 2 depend on how hard I work.

Yay :)

16 Innings and MELT

So the past 48 hours have been... interesting.

I started yesterday off painting peppers. So much fun! The pepper I worked on yesterday was on a 24"x36" canvas. It is this super odd shaped pepper I bought at work, that kind of looks like it was made of wax and then left in the sun a little too long. AMAZING. I love oddly shaped produce. So I worked on that for a while.

Then... the Phillies game.

The game was relatively slow most of the night. We were down 2-1 against the Astros in the bottom of the 9th, until Rollins hit a homer and tied the game. I was so pumped for this at first! And then the 10th inning came... and went. And the 11th. And 12th and 13th. By the time it got around to the 13th there had been hardly anymore hits, and we had used up the majority of our bullpen. Bad news. So I turned to Steph and asked if she wanted to leave after the 13th and she said ok... but we didn't. For whatever reason, we stayed. The Astros go up and then down, no runs. The bottom of the 14th comes around and Howard comes up to bat. THIS is where things get interesting/exciting/mind-blowingly crazy (I'll tell it in terms of my view that night, I didn't get all of the details until the next day). Early in the count he checks his swing and the home plate official defers to the 3rd base official who says he swung and calls it a strike. Everyone boos, obviously. He gets another strike, and on another pitch he checks his swing. I'm going to be honest here... it is hard to judge a checked swing from the 3rd deck in right field... but I REALLY thought he didn't go and neither did anyone else-- EXCEPT the 3rd base ump. Strike 3, Howard is out... and then thrown out of the game!! Aside from the screaming and booing fans, the next thing I see is HOWARD CHARGING THE UMP!!! I literally thought there would be blood, I thought that ump (Barry, by the way) was literally going to get his ass kicked and Howard was going to be suspended. This who debacle caused a disturbance that lasted another 5 minutes and resulted in Charlie, of course, also getting ejected. Pandamonium. I have never heard the Asshole Chant so loud. After this mayhem, we had no first basemen and we down to one reliever. So, Raul moved to first, and OSWALT WENT TO LEFT! It was amazing. Everyone chanted his named. He smiled and it was great. Herndon pitched 2 great innings, but we ended up losing anyway. Still a great game. A great, fun, exciting, 16 inning, 5 1/2 hour game.

I got home around 1:15, fell asleep sometime after 2 and woke up at 3:45 AM for work at 5. Torture.

After I came home and attempted a nap, I delivered my 2 paintings to the gallery!! It is official, I am now being shown in a gallery! Yay!! I can't wait til Friday, it is going to be a blast. The show is called MELT and it is being held at the James Oliver Gallery in Philly. Everyone come out!!

I am exhausted. I think I'm halfway to zombie status, and honestly I'm not even completely sure of what I've written here. Fun idea... I won't reread any of it, and I'll just be amused tomorrow when I see it.

Ci vediamo!