If you could go back five years & tell yourself something...

What would those five things be? A twitter friend of mine asked this on her blog and this is what I commented;

“01. Grow some balls kid! Kiss the girl! (or at least let her know you like her)

02. Don’t get woo’ed by the fancy fine arts department of your school! Keep to your guns and go into graphic design or illustration

03. Minor in Art Therapy, I know you want to focus on your art, but this will help you in the 2nd semester of senior year when you realize you want to go to grad school for this!

04. Keep up with the vegetarian eating, you’re losing tons of weight and the family is actually supporting your diet. Keep it up. (i have severely slacked in this department lately)

05. Push yourself to the limit with networking, jobbing and interning, the socialization can happen in class and at night, make those connections, don’t focus solely on friendships.”

I always say I don't have regrets, because quite frankly I don't like to think of making the "wrong" decision because having not gone into sculpture, and ultimately printmaking (i switched majors my Jr. year) I wouldn't have met and formed awesome relationships with the people I did. I mean they say hindsight is 20/20 so its easy to see where decisions could have been made different and the ultimate outcome would have left me in, not necessarily better, but a different place. Who knows for a fact but I'd like to think that I made the right decisions in the moment.

If you could have gone back and told the five years ago "you" five things, what would they be? Either comment here or write your own post about them! ( and send me a link to your post). I'd love to hear them!

Larger than life?

So they always say that childhood memories of places and things are often skewed in or mind.  We usually remember the items or places much bigger than that actually were.  I can understand that.  We were smaller. Physically.

What confuses me is how skewed something can get when we go from looking at it in person to looking at it on the screen. 

I've been recently looking at art blogs (regret saying this) anyway, I was looking at some old classmates blogs and of course they have links to other peoples blogs, as they should, so I follow a few links ,adn I noticed that upon viewing these paintings, prints and collages, a lot of them seemed to either, in my head, be much bigger or much smaller than they actually were.  Sure the image on the screen was only 3" x 5", I knew this, but in my head I either made them much smaller or much larger.  Never imagining them even remotely close to the right size.  Why?  I wish I knew the psychological reasoning why something seems to be much bigger or much smaller than they actually are?  Just a randome thought.

I am ill equipped.

I am ill equipped to do all the grand things that my heart desires on my own. When will I stop trying to rely on myself and rely on the one who has done greater things that my wildest imagination can imagine?


I have the desire now I need to drop the fear.

**image by Todd Powelson

Phila.

-Random meetings of people on the street which leads to an hour long talk on the sidewalk.
-Homeless people bathing in the fastfood bathrooms
-Food Cart lines
-crazy homeless people playing music.
-horse and carriages walking next to cars driving
-the art and theatre scene
-the grungy hipster kid who, is obviously not, sitting on the sidewalk holding a sign that reads "I need money so I can stop eating cardboard."
-seeing the nice rite aid worker man handle a dude stealing something in Rite Aid, no more than 2 minutes after he nicely pointed me to the travel toothbrushes.

Even though I have only been gone for a little more than a week. It seems like so much longer. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. What if my heart has never left in the first place?

Frustrations...

As artists we're called to create, show and make culture. As Christians we're called to show Gods love, redemption and hope for the world. How does one do that without sticking to fluffy imagery? Think Thomas Kinkade, soothing lighting, pretty calming colors, nothing controversial, nothing that could offend. That's one of the struggles I'm going through right now. How do I continue with the path my art is going on while trying to be some sort of witness (whatever that might look like through the guise of art) to viewers of my art. Sure the easy answer is pray about it, which I do but at the same time God uses our logic and thoughts to answer our prayers... so where does that leave me? My only option is to have faith that the gifts the lord has graciously given to me are being used to give this glory right back to him.
After all is said and done I just have to have faith that what I am doing as both a Christian and an artist, and overall, is worthy and glorifying to God.

Cant I just skip ahead a page or two

     Its funny how things can go so right for so long and then over night, nothing changes, but it just seems so wrong. I don't know what it is or what spurred this but my comfort has recently been shaken. I don't feel comfortable anymore. It might be a good thing, it might be just what I needed. One day I woke up and kinda felt that a lot what felt so right, friend ships, where I am living, who I am living with and where I'm going to school and the fact that I am IN school everything just kinda... turned upside down.
     For the longest time I was so sure that I wanted to live in the city and live the city life and just be here for ever. I have learned to love Philadelphia like that dysfunctional family member who you really like but they annoy the heck out of you. But recently, I've been in at a bit of a cross roads. I recently took a trip out to the suburbs of the city to a relatives house and I was sitting outside, on the porch with a beer in my hand surrounded by trees and greenery, I didn't hear cars, no screaming, no sirens, nothing but the sounds of the trees moving and the birds singing, and the people who I was with. It was so nice. I love the greenery, I love the fresh air, I love... not hearing the prostitutes on my corner cat calling at cars that go by. But at the same time when I'm gone from the city for more than a long weekend, I start to miss those sounds and cant wait to get back to the city. I really feel the urge to be here in the city and do... something. God definitely has me here for a reason... what that reason is, I have no clue. I just have to trust God's plan. His plan has been good for me so far so why am I doubting now? I don't know.
     It seems at this stage of my life God is not working fast enough for me, I think I have Philadelphia to thank for that. I recently had it told to me that I have no patience. Boy did that rub me the wrong way. We (myself and a group of non Philadelphia dwellers) were out and about, had no where to be, no hurry, but me being the Philadelphian I am had to get no where FAST. As we were walking, moseying is more like it, i would all of a sudden notice that I was like 5 steps ahead of them and they were back there stopped and talking. So I would stop, turn around with a sigh and go back. This happened a few times and finally I just asked if we could get there already, we could get there and THEN talk or we could walk and talk. Thats when I she looked at me and said, whats your rush? Slow down. "We've got no where to be except here." Thats when it hit me, its true I am learning to be a true Philadelphian, hurry u and wait, or hurry up and go no where. I have a hard time just being. I've always got to be doing something, if im not doing something im trying to figure out a place where I have to go.
     This has recently hit me again. The school semester is over and I have nothing to do... and I really don't like it at all. I am restless. I have to be doing something. I can't not do anything. I need to learn to listen to psalm 37:7 & 34 "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways" "Wait for the LORD, and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; " The key word being wait.
     I can't help but feeling like the kid who while reading, gets bored towards the middle of the chapter and just wants to skip ahead to the beginning of the next chapter. I think I am so ready for the next chapter, but obviously God disagrees, or I would be there already.