Thursday, November 15, 2007

to do lists


we all make to do lists at some point or another. i make them ALL the time. it started in class, when i was bored and wanted to remind myself of a life outside of school, and now i keep them faithfully....grocery lists, work deadlines, presents, hobbies, etc. just whatever i need to remind myself to do, i make a list.

they say you can tell a lot about someone by their to do lists. well here's mine:

move chairs for Sunday
make copies of seminar outline
clean apartment
order wedding pictures
look for christmas ornaments
chili for small group next week
check for Dad
clean car

walmart:
blinker bulb
shaving cream

now for a list a little more long term.

things i want to do at some point in my life:

raise a family
fix up an old house
start or help run a business
teach
go back to Europe
have a vegetable garden
read the entire Bible
work at a bakery
get really good at painting
learn to play a string instrument
take a road trip across the country
live in NYC
teach an art class


that's all i can think of, although i'm sure there will be more as i go through life weeding through what things are important, and what aren't.

what's that one reoccuring thing on your life's to do list?

Thursday, November 08, 2007

an artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.


i've noticed most people on my "links" list have updated lately, so i felt guilty and here i am, typing.

i really don't have much to say that i haven't already said. as far as life's events and decisions go, we're still playing the waiting game.

so onto something that i can think and dream about no matter where we are or what we get paid for.


i need to get back into art.

i have this hidden passion or creativity that sometimes (ok, really most of the time) gets tucked away behind the everyday habits of just getting through life and has nowhere to go. i've always had this desire to create beautiful things and i usually funnel that passion through pencils or paintbrushes. even collages. i'm not really that great at it. i couldn't paint a woman standing in on a dock with the wind blowing her skirt around her ankles, even if i wanted to. maybe i haven't explored it enough to feel successful at it, so i tend to steer towards just plain design. i love simplicity and, therefore, usually end up creating a painting that doesn't even fill up the entire canvas, has only 2 major shapes in it, or just is a bunch of colors and lines.

even still, i end up content and feeling somewhat talented. like i have something that makes me, me. like i have a "thing". a talent. something that makes me special and admired. it's almost the way that i try and show who i am or even, who i'd like to be by creating something that shows people something about myself in a way i know they'll never be able to see any other way. i'm not great at it. maybe not even good at it. but i love it.

and i've lost it recently. i haven't picked up a magazine clipping, a charcoal pencil, or bottle of acrylic in so long. i think i'm too busy trying to find something else that could make me unique instead of just doing what i love to do. perhaps i was waiting for that stage in life where i was "settled" and could focus on things like art or hobbies that have nothing to do with the world around me and the life i am so wrapped up in.

well, if that's so, then i may as well never think of myself as an artist.



The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. -Emile Zola

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. -Oscar Wilde

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. -Thomas Merton
(I'm making Tim proud with this one)