Sun Struck

So, this isn't based on any bible stories. I just felt like whipping it up at first because I thought the glare off of the pavement would be fun to paint. After a bit, I got a little caught up in playing around with sunspots and the dizziness you experience after being out in the sun too long. The prerequisites to this involved a lot of me staring into lightbulbs and then into space, slightly cross-eyed, with furrowed brows in effort to study the coloured residue burned into my retinas.

Until next time, dream that you were practicing to surf in a room of magic unrolling red ribbons that you could jump on and ride. I do.

sex trade involvement?

I've traced my fear of sky diving simply to my frustration with window blinds. I love the idea of skydiving, but I imagine that when it's time to pull the chord, it will be much too similar to the string you have to pull to close window blinds. They never work on the first pull and they always require a certain angle. Shit!
I'm pretty sure most skydiving doesn't involve any string pulling until the landing, so maybe I'd be ok.
In other news, I've been asked to do a mural at a massage parlour. Yes...THAT kind of massage parlour. At first I didn't like the idea of it, but what an interesting opportunity. I'd get to see what it's actually like in one of those places, maybe talk to some of the workers, and I could definitely put a redemptive, or ironic twist on my painting as long as I do it subtle enough. Think, Jennie...think.
Anyway, until next time, dream that you are an ancient wild tall grass warrior inhabiting high altitudes in which knights can't fight you because they're so out of breath, i do.

bawlin'

Last night I had a dream that I was wearing a wedding dress under an astronaut's space suit (pretty uncomfortable) and then I stole someone's motorbike and participated in the motorcycle charity toy run, until someone told me to go home, because I wasn't signed up.
Interpretations anyone?
This thanksgiving was great...I went bowling, canoing, quading, eating, visiting, ping-ponging, laughing, schuffleboarding....I have great relatives.
All those hours spent with my tyrannical ping-pong club brother really paid off this weekend...almost worth it.
Until next time, run out of silly shrugs and shame-dances every time you throw badly at the bowling alley, I do.

colour vs. creepiness?

So here is a pretty poor quality image of the painting I was trying to discuss in my last blog.

So, there you be!

My next painting plan has to do with Jacob and his father-in-law. It'll probably be a little more subtle, but we'll discuss that later.

Until next time, paint pretty mellowdramatic things, I do.

UnAbel

Last night I had a dream that I had a fancy flying broomstick. It was so temperamental as it would go soooo fast and high that I almost fell to my death. Other times, it just wouldn't work at all, sometimes it would even stop working mid-flight and I'd fall. Despite the danger, I couldn't stop myself from getting back on it. More and more often, it wouldn't even get me off the ground. People stopped believing it had ever worked at all.
Someone even said, "Maybe you were just high."
This made me very sad. Then I said goodbye to this old man, who I had met on a broomstick adventure. I waved goodbye to the only person who knew that the broomstick worked, as he walked off into the sunset.
Goodbye Hank.
Anyway, I think in someway that dream was connected to a painting I just started to work on. I was initially so excited about the idea, and worked for a while. Suddenly my affections for it flopped, but then I figured out a new angle for it, and got re-inspired. But now I worry that the emotional meaning is only meaningful to myself and that I'm being self-contained rather than expressive.
In any case, I'm going to continue with it since it's been a while since I've been excited about a painting for painting's sake.

You see, I've been trying to have a little spiritual discipline, and that includes an attempt to read my bible everyday. Though I am usually a "go with the flow" type, there is something great to be said for setting some time aside to honour God, and ask him to "flow" with me again, and again. When I do this, everything is better.
Anyway, back to the Bible thing, naturally I started at Genesis. I didn't really want to start with it, but am glad I did because some of the wording and imagery is so powerful when you think on it. It also gives you a real connection to being part of something, in faith and blood, so old and familiar. It's so humbling. Boy.
Anyway, my painting has been inspired by this verse in the story of Cain and Abel...

The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Genesis 4:10-12

I was pretty drawn into the active roll that the ground and the blood had in this verse, and how connected creation is to God. In Micah 6 it tells us to "plead our case to the mountains". To humble ourselves before God's creation, is honouring to God.

Yes...aaaand we've turned preachy.

To sum up, my painting somewhat depicts a small Abel, laying dead on a ground which has been disturbed and hurt by his by his blood. The earth is emoted by hidden, contorted faces that have been mixed together to create different faces. The faces in the earth started off as an accident, but I was so taken by their obvious appearance, that I pushed them a little further.

I'll post a photo when it's done. Maybe I'll be able to talk about it more clearly then too.

Until next time, work at a biker bar. I do.

don't worry! it was funny! haha...heh.

Ok, so blogging is silly and self-indulgent and it's made fun of all the time on marriedtothesea.com, buuuut here we go again.
I mostly just want to tell you about this dream I had last night.
I had done something really bad, though I'm not sure what, and was locked in a shed with about 15 girls who were determined to kill me. I accepted my fate, but I said that if they really had to kill me , they'd have to do it quick and clean.
"I mean, let's not be barbarians, here." I said.
So one girl picked up a gun, and shot me in the side of my head. Strangely, it didn't kill me...which scared them, and kind of ticked me off. Another girl came at me with a broken bottle, which seemed like a really bad idea to me, what with the shards of glass and what not. That one just hit my neck and went into my shoulder. I had had enough.
So I said, "Shit! Just give me that knife!"
At which point a snatched a dagger from one of them and stabbed myself in the heart.
I still didn't die.
Nobody dared touch me after that. In fact, they started calling me insane because I guess it's tough to stab yourself...mentally.
So I just left the shed, and sat alone in a coffee shop with bullet holes and stab wounds all over the place. The end.
I actually think I do know what it means, or at least what it's related to, but probably won't get into it at the moment.
Until next time, savor the smell and action of shrink-wrapping. I do.

Blog Hoe! (umm...as in land hoe..)

Wow. Have I ever abandoned this. I'm sorry, you cute little polka-dotted page. This second year of art school is flying by really fast and I ....ugh. I don't feel like writing about that. My eyes feel like they're bleeding because I've been ...oh it doesn't matter.
In other news. I just did an installation piece about those toilet dreams....you know the kind where you have to pee really bad but the only available toilet is one in plain view of the public? or your peers? You should tell me if you've had one...thou desolate reader.
ok...um until next time, cry when you get a foot cramp. I do.