the spirit.

Time is going by too quickly if you ask me. I tried desperately to go to sleep early tonight since I've been feeling under the weather for about... oh 3 weeks (COUGH!) and a thousand thoughts were going through my mind, mostly all related to fun dental things. Did I sort through all of my papers for my rotation tomorrow? did I finish all of my journal entries? do I have all of my things in the car that I need for tomorrow? should I have stayed up later to study? will I remember everything from oral path today? can I make it through another week of clinic with another 5 quizzes next week plus tutoring others? and so on... and so on... and so on... 

I have been so wrapped up lately in everything surrounding school and attempting to excel in the field, that I've completely neglected my life. I've neglected friends. (Sorry friends, I promise to be fun again.) I've neglected my fun little art blog. And I've neglected writing. (HA. I should clarify, I've neglected writing about art, I've written TONS of papers, some of which were friggin' unnecessary to write.) Needless to say, I kinda lost the spirit. My spirit. That made me sad.

So instead of going to bed depressed, I decided to get up and write a little damnit. And craft a little, damnit! Because why not? As much as I love school right now, I need to distance myself both mentally and physically. So I'm going to aim to make one night a week my craft night.

Tonight's project? 
Modifying a glitter painting I did a while back with a cast of my teeth from Perio Lab.  OK. I said I would try to distance myself. I'M TRYING, OK?! Back off mang. It's a work in progress. I'm not sure where it's going, but it's better than going nowhere.
















In the meantime, enjoy this note from my dad to the tooth fairy from when I was a kid. I'm not sure which tooth was my lucky tooth. We may never know.

anxiety painting

I've been quite the fan of splatter paintings lately. You might recall my last two, abcdef FAIL. and Time to Eat??. The first part requires me to squeeze copious amounts of acrylic paint onto a 5x5 canvas. Controlled messiness is fun! After that, it's all about what I find in my mind to apply to the surface.

I started a new one this past week.. reds, creams and yellows. I accidentally blew a load of glitter over it. But I ended up liking it, thank God. There's no undoing glitter. Once it's there, IT'S THERE. It looked to harmonious, so I added silver. I remembered that I had my mom's old medical dictionary from when she did nursing... so I pulled it out and started perusing through different afflictions, disorders, viruses and diseases. Good times, indeed. Who knew that SO MUCH could go wrong within your own body?

I'm not sure what order I found things in, but I discovered various medical drawings of the body and explanations for anxiety disorders. I started combining them together on the surface, adding my own paintings and ink drawings to blend them all together. I'm still not finished, but here's the progress so far.

100.

Blogs are interesting things. It allows you (and by you I mean me. And you too, I guess) to go back and peruse the thoughts recorded in digital time, while contemplating how it relates to you in the future. And by the future, I mean now. I can already tell, this post is going to be complicated, so I'm getting another cup of coffee.

My goal of this blog was to "find the special little things in life that inspire me to create and contemplate, whist maintaining my "responsibilities" (like work, relationships, exercise, showering... )". It metastasized into something much different, very quickly: It became a chronicle of projects, detailing processes and outcomes instead of the feelings and inspiration behind it.

So after 100 posts, how do I feel? If I had to choose one word, it'd be confused. While the blog didn't exactly stick to the original plan, I kind of like the way it chronicles projects a little more. Do I wish I included more daily inspirations? Yes, and I'll try to work on that more in the future. Although sometimes when it comes to a project, it's create for the sake of creating.

There are so many things that I like to do, but it seems impossible to "choose a path" like some people have suggested. Is it going to be wine bags all the way? Will I try my hand at fine art and exhibiting more? Or am I more poised to be a home do-it-yourselfer? I don't think I'll ever have one solid path, to be honest. Maybe my natural path is an ebb-n-flow like the ocean tide instead of a straight one way road.

Here's to 100 posts, and a good journey so far. Self discovery is tough shit, but it really helps to put my thoughts down. And it doesn't hurt to add MS Paint, if you ask me. :D

40 posts Q&A

For my 40th post, I decided to answer some questions people have been asking me lately about my blog.  And by people, I mean myself. 

Q: When do you find the time to write your blog posts?
A: You'll notice that most (if not all) of my posts are between the hours of 8am-4pm, Monday through Friday.  There's no coincidence that I post when I'm at work, due to the lack of actual work that I have to do.

Q: Why don't you allow comments on your blog posts?
A: Ah, I was wondering if I was going to ask myself that.  Technically I started this blog to keep me inspired, and to track my progress... not only on projects, but in life.  It's nice to be able to analyze my feelings and moods, and connect them to how productive I am.  If I allowed comments on the blog, I would end up shifting my focus to what people think of what I'm doing, instead of what I think. 

Q: What has been your favorite project to work on so far?
A: That's a great question.  Probably because I asked it to myself.  So far all of my sewing projects have a lot of fun... I love the purses because of the wide variety of colors that I get to use.  My least favorite is the stained glass.  It's not that I don't love stained glass, it's just that the project didn't live up to my expectations.

Q: If you could have dinner with one famous artist, who would it be and why?
A:  If I had to choose just one, it would be Kiki Smith.  Her works are amazing.  AMAZING.  I wish I could describe how awesome they are... on second thought, visit her interactive site at the MoMA.  See?  Amazing. If I could choose a bunch of artists to hang out with, I'd curl up on my couch in the winter with endless amounts of chili and hot chocolate and watch every single season of Art21.

Q: Do you miss sculpture?
A: Absolutely.  My time and space constraints don't allow me to work on big works of art at the moment.  Plus, I tend to become reclusive when I'm working on sculptures: All of my time and energy go into the piece, and not into socializing... or taking care of myself.  But some day, my sketches will come to life again, and massive figurative works will be born.  For now, I'm happy with sewing and crafting.  And having friends.

Q: Glass half-empty or half-full?
A:  I always forget which one I am.  It's the one where I'm real positive and optimistic.  Hold on, lemme Google that... Wikipedia says I'm half-full.  I try to make the best out of every situation.  You can't always dwell on the things that go wrong, or you might miss everything else that's going right.  That's not to say that I don't have my moments.  Everyone does.  But you've got to keep everything in perspective or you'll loose sight of the big picture.

Q: Why are you pretending that someone else is asking you these questions?
A: Because, I don't want people to think I'm nuts.