Passion

I’ve been challenged recently to let my spiritual outflowings seep into and connect with my creative outflowings. Idealistically this means taking what I’ve learned, what I’m feeling, what I’m experiencing with God and making a physical object, a beautiful work that serves as a reminder and a holder for all those emotions to be remembered during my time here on earth. Practically, this means making Jesus Art. Unfortunately the image that comes to mind is pretty sunsets, a sparkly cross, a white bearded shepherd with a fuzzy little lamb. However, this is not the outpouring of my heart, nor my creative juices, and nothing of this sort will be produced while I’m the one with the paint brush!

In my time here in art school, it’s been really important to me to stay connected to the studio side of things. I came to OU as a Studio major, after all. My first loves were the pencil and the paint brush, not the mouse and the laptop. During my stint as an engineer I feel like I lost a lot of the pure creativity and definitely the skill, and I’m constantly working to grow it back. As a VisComm major, there is an incredible stigma throughout the school that we’re snobby stuck-up non-artists who can’t draw, use Photoshop as a crutch, and think our design work is more important than any other class or art. I’ve made it my goal to make sure I stretch out into the studio classes and break the stigma. I love design, and I take pride in it, and certainly wouldn’t say my major was anything other than VisComm, but I want to help bridge the gap. I want to be a part of the art school community as a whole, contributing and growing and learning from all the other artists.

I only have six art electives left before I graduate. Maybe eight. That means I can try six to eight different things, or I can delve deep into two and a half different mediums. I’ve begun Serigraphy, and I’m having fun, but I don’t know if I want to continue. I’d love to take a drawing class and a sculpture class. Out of all of this, though, if my schedule permits, I’d love to really pursue painting. Before today, I wanted to do it because I know I like it and want to grow in it. After today, however, I’m invested in it a little more.

I attended an artist’s lecture for a potential new painting faculty today, and she was so inspiring, so wonderful, I will be sorely disappointed if she doesn’t come teach here. First of all, I think we’d be great friends. Our personalities are so similar, and she would just get excited about something and have a sparkle in her eye and use silly, unprofessional words and it was just so charming, I couldn’t help but like her. But what really struck me was her attitude towards her work. She creates with a tangible passion like I’ve never seen. Her paintings are her friends, her journals. She loves to use botany in her work and has a deep connection to it, almost a language that springs from it that she’s interwoven into her work. Everything she does has a meaning, a feeling, an intimacy.

Beyond her own feelings and emotions, she’s aware of what’s going on the world and takes it very seriously in her work. In the classroom there is always discussion of the news and what’s going on, and she said we as artists are privileged with our creativity as a means of communicating with a larger audience about things that are important. More than that, there was a sense that it was our duty, our job to use our creativity in this way. There was an awareness of meaning beyond personal, stretching to the class, the city, the nation, the world. Any work takes on a different meaning in each of those contexts.

I couldn’t help but see her passion and think of how great it would be if she loved Jesus. She said in her lecture that she didn’t know much about religion, so I feel safe assuming she’s not a Christian. But if her works are that full of meaning and passion already, with so much care for what’s around her and what she’s feeling, how much more so would she flourish under God’s purpose and plan? It’s like she’s almost there, despite knowing little. She has the perspective down, the selflessness down, and now she just needs the Creator, the Designer, the Artist.

Which brings me full circle. If that’s her level of passion without Jesus, how much more should I be passionate about what I’m doing? How much more should I search and dig and care about who God is and what’s going on in His world? And how much more time and effort and energy should I pour into my paintings, going beyond simply a journal entry and stretching into a prayer, a face-to-face conversation with the Holy God? The thought gives me goose-bumps. But more than that, it gives me passion, I cannot wait to create.

Tangled

During my semester review for VisComm (an aside: it went really, really well. Like, head-held-high-all-day well) they told me some things to be doing over the break, and one was looking at designers. Getting inspired. Well, I didn’t look at really great graphic design yet, but I did watch Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon, two things which have lit a creative spark in me.

It started before these movies, actually. I borrowed Bambi and Pocahontas from a friend about a month ago and they both absolutely floored me with their beauty and awesomeness. The entire color scheme for Pocahontas is amazing. I want to live in that America! And Bambi, my goodness it’s just adorable. Everything is that sugar sweet bubbly happy Disney cute, and I love it! The colors are gorgeous, and the music is probably my favorite. I wish huge choirs sang all the soundtracks now, too.

Tangled was good on so many levels. I love the character – she’s headstrong and naive, bubbly and silly, honest and passionate. She is an artist! The story was hilarious, with so many parts where I couldn’t help but laugh out loud with joy. The songs were really great, too. And of course, it was breathtaking. I loved the purple and yellow throughout the movie, in her dress and hair and her murals on the walls. The lighting was incredible too – everything was so warm and saturated! And they played with saturation in places for mood, too, which was crafty. The sketches in the credits were adorable, as was the art as a whole for the movie. How to Train Your Dragon was adorable, too! My favorite character and art inspiration came from Toothless, the true cutie of the film. He made me want to draw, which is always a great reaction. That’s been the fun thing with all of these movies – they make me want to draw! I hope this break is filled with drawing. Let me rephrase: I will make sure this break is filled with drawing!

Visual Communications

I have not been as absent as it may appear – I have written twice since July 22, but they were both private until about five minutes ago, when I made one of the two public. The second is really just for me, sorry. Other than those two posts, I haven’t written anything in part because I thought I didn’t have anything to write, and in part because it’s been a whirlwind of a semester. But this afternoon I realized I don’t hardly have anything to do for tomorrow or the next day, so I explored a blog (The Rigney’s) and it made me miss writing! At which point I realized that I have almost completed my first semester of my brand-new-major and haven’t told the world how I really feel about it. Enter this post, where I let you all know how I really feel about VisComm.

I am absolutely in love with VisComm. I can’t begin to explain how God has blessed me with my major, although it would be a good exercise for me to try. VisComm’s structure is unique, to say the least: there are twenty in my class, and we are required to take two VisComm classes each semester, for which there is only one time slot available. Additionally, they are studio classes, which means you get three hours of credit for six hours of class a week. In class time alone, the twenty of us are together twelve hours a week, in fairly close quarters, working our tails off. That does not include any other art classes we happen to take, or the time we spend outside class working on our projects. In any given week, I would estimate I spend at least twenty hours at the art building, most if not all of that time spent with my VisComm friends.

If you know me at all, you know I’m an extrovert. This time last year, I was a shadow of myself, sitting in my room Sunday afternoons cranking out Statics or Thermo or Calc or Physics homework all by myself, listening to chill (read: emo) music and becoming super depressed. Sundays were my least favorite day of the whole week. Classes weren’t much better, though: in a class of 50 engineers, there aren’t many extroverts, and even if there are, there’s no reason to get to know each other in an hour long lecture. I had three engineering friends after a semester of engineering courses -  no wonder I left! When I was making the switch, I said it was because I knew I didn’t want to do engineering – I didn’t love it. I thought it was mostly because I didn’t love the subject matter, and that was definitely a large part of my decision. Now, a year later though, I realize how much I would have hated the class and work environment. Sure, I would have eventually gotten to know the 20-30 other Aerospace Engineers and we could have become friends, but I would have graduated to sit at a desk and crunch numbers all day long with little to no human interaction. The thought of that makes me shiver.

Thank God I changed my major! Not only that, but thank God I got into the program this year! I really do believe it has nothing to do with my talent, and all to do with His purpose. I have no idea where I stand talent-wise among my peers, and I don’t really care. I do know that I love each and every one of my classmates and can’t imagine being stuck with any other bunch. We’ve talked as a group about how much we all love each other and wondered if it will last, and I can’t help but think it will. I for one am determined to see our class love each other the whole way through.

The one where I realize I’m more like my sister than I thought

I’ve always been a little frustrated (but that’s too strong a word) that my sister had two personalities – the Nervous Sister personality, and the Real Sister personality. When she’s around people she doesn’t know very well, she’s pretty quiet, reserved, not really outgoing. But when she’s around her best friends, or me, or family in general, she’s goofy and bubbly and we make each other laugh with our silliness all the time! I’ve just always wished she could share that bubbly goofiness with everyone, and couldn’t really understand what was holding her back.

Well, the majority of the last seven weeks has been spent without people my own age. Instead, I’ve spent almost all my time with my aunt and her family, which was what I was planning to do and why I’m here at all. But, they’re not like me, really, at all, at least as far as personalities go. My uncle is pretty dry and incredibly sarcastic, so naturally most of the family has followed suit. I’ve spent a generous amount of time trying to build up my ‘thick skin’, learning to not ask stupid questions, and maybe even get a sarcastic quip in here or there.

Finally today, though, I realized that I, like my sister, have been Nervous Me almost this entire time. And it helped me realize that maybe she’s not nervous, but she’s more like a chameleon. Once she realizes someone is as goofy as she is, she realizes it’s okay to be goofy. When Emily, a college-aged girl that’s really great friends with my family here, came over today and brought some friends, it didn’t take long for me to realize she was loud and bubbly and goofy and has an incredibly wonderful, infectious laugh. And that was all it took – it was like someone had breathed life into me! I was cracking jokes, laughing like crazy, a part of conversation. I wasn’t just listening anymore, I was supplying information, telling stories, listening to stories, being my true self!

It was refreshing, to say the least. I was a little disappointed when they left; the house was back to changing channels on the TV between commercials and bickering and taking naps and playing on the computer and sarcasm and me, observing quietly.

The frustrating part is that it’s not that everyone else changed while Emily was here. Everyone was basically the same – still sarcastic, dry, just slightly more amused since Emily was there being her normal loud self. What held me back? Have I been a shadow of myself the whole time I’ve been here? Charlie keeps saying he doesn’t like me…granted, he’s five, but what if I’d had a little more confidence, been a little more willing to stick my foot out and tell a story, be a little loud, a little goofy? Would Charlie like me more? How much does that matter? How much would my time here, the relationships I have or haven’t built, be different if I had somehow unleashed my normal, extroverted self? Have I somehow sent a message in my quietness?

Maybe I’m over-analyzing here, and it’s definitely late and I should go to sleep. But as my time in Ohio comes to a close, I’m starting to look back on what I’ve accomplished and wondering how much good I’ve done. My point in coming here was to spend time with my cousins, and I’ve done that, but what about building relationships? How much have I done that, and how much, based on the parts of me that they’ve seen, do they want relationships with me?

Ultimately, my identity is with Christ. It’s not based on how cool I am, or how much my cousins do or don’t like me. All that really matters is that I know that I’m a child of God, who created me, and likes me whether I’m Nervous Me or Normal Me or anything in between. And maybe that’s just going to have to be enough for now, and I’ll have to learn to rest in that.

More on Sunsets

As we were playing baseball in the backyard, the sun was setting and the sky was once again gorgeous (at one point, it looked like a wing! it was really cool). I took a picture with my iPhone about five minutes before the one on the left and went back to playing baseball. Five minutes later, I looked over to see the sky as pictured and had to take another one – it had gotten richer, more saturated, and just a whole lot prettier! As we played, it got a little prettier every couple minutes until, about ten minutes after this was taken, it was gone almost instantaneously.  It was an interesting concept, one I hadn’t thought of before: the sunset gets prettier and prettier until it hits its ‘maximum prettiness’, and then it rapidly declines to normal clouds/darkness. I realized that’s the same with fruit, too, but on a longer time-frame. The sunset, like fruit, hits maximum ripeness and then quickly afterward spoils!

Then I wondered if people do that, and figured we probably don’t BUT it’d make a cool birthday card for an old person. You know, “Happy 77th Birthday, enjoy your ripe days.” Or something. I don’t know, it was more philosophical and awesome in my head…but it’s definitely something to think about. God created this really neat timeline for fruit and sunsets…what else did he use it on? Does it mean anything?

Picc Lines and Pretty Clouds

This doesn’t really have a point, no huge exciting adventurous story to tell, but I figured I could update you on a few shorter stories.

Today Marc got his picc line out! He’s had it for six weeks, meaning he’s had it the entire time I’ve been here (and some before that). For the uneducated in picc lines slash Marc’s deal, he had a staph infection in his spine and, though released from the hospital, had to have antibiotics pumped into his body 24/7 for six weeks via a picc line, which was a little tube that went from his upper arm to the corner of his heart. This area had to be kept clean at all times, which meant no water, no sweat, and basically no fun. On vacation at the beach, he basically could just sit inside and maybe walk a little outside. It has also meant he can’t play baseball or basketball, which he’s basically hard-wired to do. But! Now, today, the line was removed so he can be his normal active self again! I’m thinking it’ll be kinda like having a whole new Marc around. A more active, generally happier Marc. We’ll see what that means, but I’m excited!

View From the Backyard

Yesterday was the first day that it actually stormed! There have been a couple other times these past few weeks that there were predicted thunderstorms, which I had anxiously awaited, but they were busts. Finally Sunday, to my complete surprise, we had a huge storm with tons of rain! A few hours after the storm, my aunt called and told me to grab my camera and go outside, quick! There was a huge line of one solid cloud that stretched as far as I could see from North to South. It looked like a huge wave was rolling through the sky – that was how fast it was moving. That was really exciting, so I took some pictures, oohed and aahed, and went back inside. Probably a half hour later I looked out the window to the North-ish and saw a faint pink on the clouds. I grabbed my camera and went out the back and lo and behold, to the Southwest the sunset was absolutely breathtaking.

View From the Backyard

The photos I got are probably some of my favorites I’ve ever taken. This was also a real lesson in photography, too; not because it took a lot of skill to take these pictures, but because I couldn’t take hardly any credit for them at all. The beauty of the shots lies in the beauty of the sky, which was expertly crafted by God in Heaven. My feeble attempt to capture it on digital memory (sad I can’t say film) can’t even do it any justice – the pictures may be pretty, but it’s nothing compared to being there! It was a real humbling experience for me, which is always good. Everyone can use a heaping dose of ego check every now and then.

Weird Dream

This has nothing to do with Ohio, except that I was sleeping in Ohio when it happened.

I had a dream that Zooey Deschanel was walking around OU’s campus. In fact, I was playing basketball out in the Walker Adams Mall with her, except I kept calling her the wrong name. I think I called her Catie, and it drove her crazy. Well, somehow I managed to get to hang out with her, a time which I filled with asking her questions that she begrudgingly answered. It was like she was somehow stuck with me. At one point she asked if I even had any friends (which, in my dream, I gave a major shout-out to all you RAs in Couch and how wonderful you are. Just so you know.) Also, just as I was about to ask her about being married to Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie, her phone rang, and she got in a minor fight with whoever was on the phone, and started crying when they hung up. My dream-self assumed this was Ben and they were obviously not happy together so I didn’t ask yet another question. I’m also pretty sure the screen saver on her TV was her wedding photos, which my non-dream-self is very curious to see but can’t find anywhere. There was also a run in with some people that I was somehow protecting her against? Like a group of people that were mean, maybe? And somehow I was more tolerable to her than those people? You know, that’s how dreams go.

Just thought you might like to know what my subconscious is coming up with lately.

Vacation

After my first week here in Ohio, we drove to Myrtle Beach to meet my family for a week on the beach. It was over-all pretty great, but also a very different vacation experience for me. I’d spent a week in Ohio already, clinging to my family in public places full of strangers that were their friends, getting introduced to everyone as “my niece” or “my cousin”. After a week, I was pretty attatched, mostly because my identity to anyone in Ohio was directly tied to this family.

Eating at a super-common Fried Chicken chain in North and South Carolina called "Bojangle's"

So when we got to Myrtle Beach and had things like the Knop refrigerator and the Russell refrigerator, and the Knops doing some things and the Russells doing other things, it was a little confusing and required some transition. So, of course, by the end of the week, I was fully transitioned back to being a Knop, and then I leave and go back to Ohio all over again. That didn’t require hardly any transition, though, so it was all really okay. It was just very interesting!

As far as activities and general fun in Myrtle Beach, there was lots to do! We went Putt Putt, which was my first time ever, and I had so much fun! I’d had a conversation long ago with my friend Laura about how Putt Putt is basically the perfect date, and I couldn’t agree because I’d never been. Well, within just a few minutes I agreed, it was the perfect date! And not even just a date – it’s just SO FUN! I liked it a whole lot. It was actually hilarious, because we were looking everywhere for an indoor Putt Putt because it was going to rain. Well, I found one on my handy dandy iPhone, and it was in North Myrtle Beach. We weren’t sure how far away that was, but decided to drive up there anyway. Well, turns out it’s about 20 miles North from our hotel. Oops. We drove all the way up there and it was totally worth it! I even bought a shirt (which I’m actually wearing right now) to commemorate the experience. I would post a picture, but my dear sister Reba has not uploaded them yet. Stinker.

Anyway, another of our adventures was going to Bojangle’s, a fried chicken joint that was basically on every corner in North and South Carolina. That was awesome, but not as awesome as Chicken Express. It was a little too cajun for my tastes. We also laid on the beach a lot. I succeeded in getting a ridiculous sunburn on the second day at the beach, so I was pretty much stuck inside for a lot of the time. That was a terrible sunburn…I was just really stupid. Definitely deserved that one.

I am now a week behind. I’ll make another post about the week after vacation later.

“The First Long Day” and/or “A Failed Adventure”

Disclaimer – it’s not quite so terrible as those titles make it sound.

Long day.

What made today different from all the other days so far was that my aunt was gone for a considerably large portion of the day. (IE: until 12:30PM, then 2:30-5:45, then 6:00-basically now) This morning was great, I actually unpacked all my clothes FINALLY! No one was here, so it was pretty quiet and I watched SYTYCD from last night. Then the kids got home from VBS and the madness began. Well, it probably really began once Amy left around 2:30. But anyway, first I was working on some accounting stuff and the numbers were just not working. At all. And then the kids started to miss their mom, so they got antsy and fidgity and a little sensitive with each other, which just didn’t make for a really great work environment, but you know, it comes with the territory.

So the light at the end of the tunnel of working today was InterVarsity! I had figured that Ohio State had an IV chapter (turns out they have NINE) and, after a little digging, found out that they meet during the summers! The website said it started at 7:30, so I planned to go on a pretty big adventure into the city all by myself and find IV at OSU and waltz in and meet everyone and let them welcome me into their culture and they would think I was funny and I would have friends my age while I’m here and it would be great. So! I gleefully left the madness that was the house today at 6:45PM. Made it all the way to OSU, made it through parking madness (well, that just means I parked somewhere I wasn’t supposed to, but figured with a Texas plate they’d never get me) and found the building the website gave me!

Except, turns out, the building I thought it was in was a hotel. So the lovely lady at the desk helped me find the right place! With some instructions and Laura B. on the phone, I headed out onto this strange, unfamiliar (but beautiful!) campus to find this building and the IV people. Well, I finally find the building that contains room EA 170 and alas, the doors are locked. A quick survey of all the rest of the doors proves that in fact, all the doors are locked. My creeping suspicion that there wasn’t actually IV in the summer was confirmed: the website where I got this information was pretty lacking in details, and the calander said they were meeting every Thursday and had Core Team every Sunday. The idea that they had just automated the calander to be every Thursday and Sunday had definitely crossed my mind, but I had figured it would be worth the trek out there anyway. Well, standing in an unfamiliar place, phone about to die, rather sweaty from running around with a potential parking ticket looming, I wasn’t quite so excited to be there anymore.

Tasty Drink, Bad Boba.

I did have a back-up plan, though! Yesterday when Amy and I drove through that area (or maybe Tuesday…) I had seen a Bubble Tea cafe and made a note to go today, whether it was before or after IV. Well, I turned it into Intead Of IV, but that was okay with me! The place was a little janky looking, but I thought maybe that would be more legit…it wasn’t. I mean, the slushy I got tasted great, but I can get a slushy any time. What I really wanted was some boba, and their boba was definitely sub-par.

However, amidst all that mess, I’m really not in a bad mood. None of it was so bad that it ruined my day, or anything close, really. I’m just tired, and ready for Myrtle Beach. The day actually ended well, with everyone gathered around the TV to watch the SYTYCD results show! (I will not say who was let go, in case you missed it.)

Charlie and Lindsay Watching So You Think You Can Dance

Mini-Adventure

I got to test my mad direction skillz this morning (and yesterday, but we’ll just focus on today). I got up at ten and needed to run some errands, so I threw on some clothes and went out in search of a drug store and a Best Buy. The drug store was easy enough, and on the way to Best Buy, which Amy had explained wasn’t too far away (or hard to get to) last night. But! Without using my iPhone, I managed to find the Best Buy all by myself, armed with Amy’s directions!

Additionally, my laptop is now gone to Geek Squad Land for repair/diagnostic testing. My CD drive works intermittently, but of course it worked fine when I brought it in. They are going to look at it anyway, because there could still be something wrong with it. Hopefully there IS something wrong, because that would be the fourth thing wrong so I would get a new computer! Fingers crossed everyone.