I Can Rest When I'm Dead

I have come to my last two weeks before my show. I guess you could say I'm freaking out. My anxiety has taken over my entire life. I thought I had insomnia before, but now I don't sleep... EVER.



When I lay down in my bed and close my eyes, my mind goes to all the things that need to be done. i sit up gasping as if i had been drowning. I feel like I'm drowning.

Let me tell you how my average Tuesday goes. It starts Monday afternoon when I wake up. I work on art while listening to a book on tape/podcast/show/movie/music until it's time to go to FHE. After that I come home, eat, make some goodies work on more art until it's time to go to my 8am class. After class I work on digital art until I go to devotional with Becky. We get lunch and I fall asleep in her office. I seriously don't stop until I physically can't go any longer.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Maybe i like it. I did this last fall semester too. i had other reasons then, but looking back, pushing myself that hard, it took a toll, but i love that time of my life. i learned so much in those four months and i accomplished a lot. I like being busy, but then i need a break. i need time to renew. perhaps that is the way my body likes to work. rather than a 24 hour cycle of being awake and asleep i have a 6 month cycle.

As a side note, I went as an old lady this year for Halloween...

Have you ever been there?

I met with some professors last week to talk about my final show, and how it was coming and what was working, or not working - and basically how to make it better. The main thing that needed improvement was the Tiny Lisa pictures.

in order to get a lot of people I took several photos at a game night, this was good for diversity in people but bad for diversity in background. I decided to continue taking pictures of more people, but also, to replace many of the other backgrounds.








These are some of my favorites so far. I want my art to be lighthearted, and these make me laugh, so I think they're successful.

The Importance of Having Friends

Friends really are important. I recently read an article, Stayin’ alive: That’s what friends are for that discussed a BYU study proving that having healthy social relationships "improve our odds of survival by 50 percent." The article reported that the lack of friends and infrequent social interaction has the same negative impact to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. It said that not having friends is more harmful than not exercising and twice as harmful as obesity.

I feel like I've experienced the harmful effects of this. When I lose a friendship or have a relationship end, my physical (and emotional) health drops dramatically. I become more susceptible to illness and disease than I am when I'm in a healthy relationship -- be it romantic or platonic.

Here's an animation I made last year. It's not that I didn't have any friends, I was just overwhelmed with school, work, and didn't have/make time for people. It's short and kind of silly. I originally did it in the bottom corner of my notebook.

rub-a-dub-dub

I laid the sheets of paper out to get an idea of how it would look and got really excited!



my fingertips are raw, i have rubbed my painting so much. it's really painful. i decided after the first day, having lost half the skin on my poor little fingers, that i needed to find something else to rub the paper off. i got a bunch of cheep toothbrushes and they are working beautifully! my arm is sore though. it's amazing how labor intensive this process is...



I'm getting really frustrated with the way this is turning out. I was hoping that I had figured out the best ways to transfer, but i am quickly learning that is not the case. i think i should have done things differently. I should have taped the papers together and then cut out the figures. last time i transfer something this large i taped all the papers together, but working with a sheet that big caused problems. this time i left the papers separate, but now the seems are really prominent.



i've gone back over parts with paint, which hides it a little. i am considering starting over, or better yet, printing on large paper (3'x4'), and then wrapping that on the panels. the more i work on this the more i think that's what i'll end up doing. usually the more work i put into something the more i want to use it, and maybe that's why i want to use my digital creation - i wont lose any of the perfectly situated composition if i don't transfer it.

i painted my face, i'm not done with it yet, and decided i can't stop there. i'm going to paint the rest of myself, and see how i like that. i am not going to repaint every single person, but if i just repaint a few then it would imply something that's not meant.



detail

Process

So I've been working a lot on the large painting I'm going to have at my final show. I am composing it digitally, then I will gesso transfer it onto the two 3'x4' panels. Then I can paint it. I'm basically enlarging the painting that inspired my whole show.

Here's the process:
I took a couple pics of a carnival I went to with some friends a year ago and pieced them together.



I had to widen it to make the dimensions proportional to the two panels. I added depth to the sky, by lightening it with a few sunset pictures.





Then came the crowd. I worked and reworked the crowd until I got it right. First it was too congested, the composition was heavy and didn't feel natural. I finally got it to look the way a real crowd would maintaining a good composition.



I'm really happy with the way it turned out! There's space for the eye to rest. There are subtle lines to draw the eye through and back around. And the final touch was the welcoming Lisa in the front. I want this to look like I'm both beckoning you to join the fun, and welcoming you to my celebration. I had to construct this arm from the other.



I think I was successful.

Building Up Friends for Heaven

There is a quote by Lucy Mack Smith that has influenced me greatly, in my life and consequently in my art. It says, "We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction that we may all sit down in heaven together." When I think of this, it makes perfect sense. To be surrounded by the people you came to love in life.



One of the biggest things that has informed this body of work has been the seemingly bad things that have happened to me. The friends I have lost. The new situations I found myself in. Friends are important to me. When I let someone in to my life I let them into my heart and develop a relationship I can't imagine not having the rest of my life. Unfortunately, friendships end. People leave. Move on. Go in other directions. Betray you. Sometimes you can't help it. It hurts. The pain I have felt and the strength that comes from it is why I believe we will be friends in Heaven. Someone asked me why I would want to be friends with someone who had broken a friendship. The only answer I knew was because of forgiveness.

There is a scripture that goes along with this rather well. Doctrine and Covenants 130:2, "And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy."

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

I’ve been really sick this week. Like, ridiculously sick. I’ve had the flu. But one funny thing happened that oddly reminded me of a video by Bas Jan Ader called I’m Too Sad to Tell You. After an exhausting day I was washing my hands in the bathroom and I looked up at an unfamiliar face in the mirror. What I saw was horrific! My hair was frizzed and disheveled. My face was red and puffy. I just looked terrible. And in the state of mind I was in I had a mental breakdown, much like the one Howl had in Howl's Moving Castle. I started sobbing. Crying out three words over and over again. “I’m so ugly!” Becky came in to see what was wrong. She couldn’t help but laugh at me. She told me I wasn’t ugly, that I was just sick. But every time my swollen eyes opened I saw that face. A deeper shade of red every time I saw it. I couldn’t stop crying until Becky pulled me away from the mirror.