Filed under: Learning to Love You More | Tags: LTLYM, picnic, play dough, sculpture, steve
This one was pretty fun. Assignment #21 was to sculpt a bust of this dude named Steve. Here’s his story:
Let's party.
Recently while working on a project in Hartford, CT I took a taxi and met Steve the taxi driver. I was headed to Real Art Ways the art center where I’m doing the project. Steve asked me where I was going and then concluded that I must be an artist. He told me that I should sculpt a bust of him. He gave me a picture of himself and told me he wanted it done that day, and then we would “party” that night. I said that I might have trouble getting it done so quickly, and then asked him how he would feel about various other people doing the bust instead of me. He said that would be fine.
The next time I went back to Hartford about a month later I took a train from NYC and missed my stop in Hartford. I got off at the next stop in a little town outside of Hartford. It was late at night and there was no one at the station. I called a local taxi company and they told me it would be about an hour before someone could pick me up. I sat down and read a book and waited. Eventually a cab pulled up and the driver got out to help me with my bags. It was Steve. He immediately recognized me and asked me about the project. I was amazed. It wasn’t even his taxi company that I had called. He drove me to the place I was staying at in Hartford and along the way he told me about being a single parent. He told me that his philosophy on child rearing is to only love the child, never discipline them. He said his children were all perfect. I thought that was really nice.
My Handsome Man and I decided that we were up to the challenge… and sculpted Steve with awesome neon play dough after picnicking in the park. This was a couple weeks ago, when it was still pretty cold… We started to freeze shortly after sunset, so we hurried indoors. Somewhere along the way his moustache got lost, so we had to build a new one by stealing dough from the back of his head. Then, we partied.
we also forgot his shoulders in the car.
Here he is! Steve the taxi driver, at last.
[RACHEL]
This is a big head at the corvette museum. Pretty much sums up my trip. Random.
Well, I never thought I’d have reason to be spending time in this part of the country, but here I am in Kentucky. I kind of like it. I got to see a real river (the Ohio). I got to go to Indiana. I got to go for a drive through the hills and down to the Corvette museum (really awesome). I saw a wild turkey. Kentucky is a beautiful place. Louisville has a quiet sort of charm to it. The hills are covered in trees, and everything is turning green and starting to bud and come alive. It’s nice to be in a place where spring comes on so beautifully. The city is different than others I’d seen. Suburban sprawl is minimum. It is clean. It is quiet. People drive slowly. This place has got the quiet life down.
Why? It’s random… but here goes: The International Technology Education Association was holding its annual convention, and BYU likes to take its Technology & Engineering Education students along to compete in various nerdy contests and learn about the challenges and new developments in Tech Ed. Nerd Fest. You bet I loved it! It was a good experience, although exhausting. I competed in the quiz bowl, which was a Jeopardy-like game with all manner of technology related questions. I also competed in a Transportation competition. There were only a few rules outlined. You must use a rubber band. You must make a small plastic horse travel 5 feet. We made a chariot out of legos that took second… it was sweet.
I came out of the experience with another airport to add to my list of public places where I’ve slept on the floor- the Detroit airport. I also gained some great friends by spending so much time with the students in my major. This one takes the cake- I ate my first Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger when I was in Bowling Green. Yes. It’s true.
[RACHEL]
But not Christopher. Sorry…
This is Wilco.
They sing awesome songs. I’d heard and read the name for a while before I actually looked them up, a couple of years ago. Their music ranges from late-afternoon drive listening to eating a cold sandwich on a hot day, lounging on the back porch tunes. Upbeat but not overly. Relaxing but not inducing lethargy. I don’t have enough music like that… and thank goodness for Wilco, they’ve got me taking a break from sonic coma.
I love most of their songs (‘Heavy Metal Drummer’ is a fun one, ‘At Least That’s What You Said’ has some sweet guitar, ‘On and On and On’ has a great dreamy sound), but there’s one in particular from their latest album, Sky Blue Sky, that gets heavy play on my iTunes. Walken. This has to be the cutest song in the world. It’s just a happy song about an awesome person.
What’s my favorite line? “Honey, I think you’re just right, you’re just right!”
[RACHEL]
Awesome.
Last night my Handsome Man and I decided to do a LTLYM assignment, since it had been about a month since our last one. We chose to do #46, Draw Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. First, we started off by reading the short story. I felt a little uneasy as we started reading, because I couldn’t stand the narrator’s perspective. He was kind of a punk. It got better, though, and through Carver’s writing, I witnessed the change from close-mindedness and pride to understanding and humility, through the main character as he struggled to relate to his blind house guest. The last (and only) time I spoke with a blind person I was in the sixth grade, and I was scared. I was hesitant and I didn’t really know what to say. I guess we all can be punks when we don’t have understanding. But, it got better as I went on. Soon, I wasn’t nervous, and it didn’t matter to me that she couldn’t see.
One step at a time, the narrator was able to first, be in the same room as, then next, watch TV with, and then finally speak to the blind man. As the conversation moved on, it became more meaningful. At the very end, he helped the blind man to understand what a cathedral was like, by drawing one together.
As the directions prompted, we then drew cathedrals together… One at a time, we covered each others’ eyes and described what the cathedral was like, using the narrator’s description as our guide. Then, blind, we drew. As you might have guessed, they truly are masterpieces. This was a fun activity.
-
- Mine
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- His
So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy.
“Swell,” he said. “Terrific. You’re doing fine,” he said. “Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.”
I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of the fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded.
[RACHEL]
Filed under: School, design, life... | Tags: creativity, napping, photography, sewing, spring
I think one of the most entertaining things about the springtime here at school is the amount of people sprawled on the grass like corpses. They, of course, are enjoying the sunshine… but I can’t help to notice that the way some people lie in the grass is less sleep-like and more like the way you see dead bodies on the ground in TV shows. I wonder if they know that they look like that. Maybe they’re so comfortable and relaxed that they just don’t care. I have a cousin who is completely intrigued by this and will sneak up next to these happily passed out individuals and have her friend take pictures of the madness… bonus points if the sleeper is making an embarrassing face. So, if you’re tempted to take a nap in the sunshine and cozy grass, you might want to think again…
I am so excited for all the plants to turn green again, for the blossoms on the trees to open up! Spring is awesome, the season itself, and the beauty it entails almost… just almost… makes up for the fact that there isn’t a spring break here at school.
There’s a couple of things I’ve been dying to do lately. First, a photography explosion. I miss the sound of the shutter click, thinking about composition and framing and lighting and angles… it’s a fun way to think. I don’t know how else to call it but an explosion… I could take a thousand pictures without even trying. I have resisted buying a new camera for a few months now, and will hold off for a lot longer… but I can dream of DSLRs, right? The second thing I have been just really wanting to do is sew. I have some awesome fabric that I found at my grandma’s house over Christmas break and it’s been sitting there, waiting to be made into something awesome, and I’ve been waiting for inspiration to hit me.
Milton Glaser (the “I heart NY” guy… and one of my design heroes) said this on creativity: “[it is] where the imaginative and the functional fuse and finally become indistinguishable.” This blows my mind! As someone so focused on aesthetics, it’s a slap in the face to remember FUNCTION. Function. Function. Function. I’ve always said that function was very secondary to aesthetics… the reason why my bridge project in physics was beautiful, but couldn’t even support 10lbs. These principles must go hand in hand. Not easy. A challenge I am thrilled to step up to. Aesthetics? Get over it… but not completely, right? It’s a 100%-100% deal.
[RACHEL]
