Opportunity

I have recently been asked to do the cover art for a former professor's book. This is a fantastic opportunity as in it could lead to a contract. His idea is very specific and will be difficult, but utterly thrilling to accomplish. If five years ago someone had told me a would be a painter, I would have laughed at them. Yet, from that fateful moment I swirled that Titanium White with that Alizarin Crimson and paint thinner permeated my hair, something clicked.

A White Christmas

I remember a time like this, years ago, sitting on the back porch watching the snow fall in silence. A time before the hustle of adulthood set in, before the years of college, the bills, the jobs, the general demands of civilized society. Back in a time when the greatest expectation was a finished chore and the sharing of a toy. There’s something magic in the falling of snow. Something that allows deep breaths of renewal and general cleansing of the spirit. There are few things as powerful, majestic, and God given as the mighty roar of the ocean, but the silence of the falling snow, the world covered in white and purity, is a close competitor.

24

I recently turned 24. It shocks me to think in less than a year I will be a quarter of a century. And in all this birthday confusion, ponderings have bubbled to the surface. What am I doing? Why am I here? Why am I so damn scared to leave yet petrified to stay? Ya know, all those quarter-life crisis questions that haunt you in the middle of the night and force your exhausted self to count jumping mermaids which slowly start to lose solid form like "The Persistence of Memory" as sleep covers you causing bizarre and startling dreams.

I worry and wait and sit, confounded by what I think I want to do and what I am actually doing.

I long for something I'm not quite sure of yet.

I want to break away from society.

I want to run.

I want to see mermaids playing on the shore and follow their laughter into the future.

Sevierville

Already I feel as if my soul is being sucked out. This place does that to a person. I feel as if I’ve been placed in purgatory with every piece of my car I unload and job application I fill out. It is so much more than hate I have for this place—it’s fear. As I listen to a neighbor’s morning alarm go off (at 10AM, I may add), I realize that I’ve been up for a few hours and done nothing. That’s what my life will be like if I stay in this place. I keep telling myself that this is just another summer break, that I’m biding my time till August, but the truth is that it’s not. College is done. I won’t return to Lee in the fall. While I plan to move to Atlanta and live with Dana, I’m afraid of what this place does to a person. I saw my brother yesterday, and it appears as if he’s given up. He told me that he’s realized that it doesn’t matter where you are because it’s all the same. I don’t want that to happen to me. He used to want to get out of here. I don’t want that to happen to me. I can’t let that happen to me. If it does, my art is lost—the loss of that would be too much. All these telephone wires and cars and apartments—they offend my sense of purpose. Such destruction and death we have wrought for the sake of money. Such an evil thing. A piece of paper or cloth and people murder for it. It is ridiculous the emphasis put on possessions. Watching a mother finch teach her baby finches to hunt for food, I realize how much of joke humans are. So much potential destroyed by greed. Tis disheartening.

Never going to graduate

Frustration mounts as the end nears. Oh, wait, it doesn't near. It keeps on and on. 

This stupid cross cultural is driving me crazy. It looks as if I won't be able to graduate till December now. And I still have to find a cross cultural. Someone shoot me now, please. I promise I won't sue.

Enough melancholy. Art time.

"Water Nymph"
This was an assignment where we had to take part of a painting and recreate it. This is from Franz Marc's "Waterfall" piece.

"A Girl and Her Book"

This piece was commissioned. It is untitled.

"Van Gogh Meets Ocoee"

"Love in the Time of Hollywood"

"A Lovely Cup of Tea"

Bouncy Ball

Last week was my last spring break ever. It was delightful and full of mirth and enjoyment, but I came to realize just how scared I am with graduating and moving on in the world. What if I never get to live with my fairy friend again? What if my marvelous college friends fall into the abyss of lost communication? I always shudder at change. I remember going through this exact ball of emotion when graduating high school. In fact, I chose the college that I did because my best friend was going here. Life is a giant bouncy ball. One that's out of control. You're bouncing on the wall, desk, floor--hitting everything. Then you finally stop.