A List of Creativity

I have been feeling the need for some newness and creativity. You know how it gets when you just want to express yourself or do something but your cramped by space, time, and money?

So I've compiled a list to help get one out of a creative/activity slump:

• Take a good picture (it may take a few tries. That's the point.)
• Find new music you like
• Find a new blog to follow
• Paint something (a card, a painting, a chair, etc.)
• Try a new hairdo
• Do some crazy makeup
• Write a haiku
• Bake something (delicious)
• Do yoga
• Rearrange your furniture
• Watch an artsy movie
• Tie a scarf or belt around your person in some new manner
• Sew something (a button onto something, your initials, etc.)
• Cut some paper (into shapes or make a pop-up card)

So there you go, if you're ever in need for a creative pick-me-up, I hope this helps.

Have a good day!

Some More Pretty Pictures

So today, class, we are exploring some American painters. I hope you enjoy (I certainly did).

Inness "Home of the Heron"

Don't you just feel it? That brooding expectation?

Cassatt "Breakfast in Bed"

Isn't this just beautiful and wonderfully understated?

I love her profile, and for some reason her right arm. It's very elegant, but that right arms adds a great deal of reality to the piece.

Apparently she was quite the scandal, with numerous affairs and possible abortions (very daring for the time period). You know women of the age would sometimes put arsenic on their skin to make it translucent (so you could see the blue veins underneath. How strange!)

Whistler, "Blackboard"

I love her dress, the texture and such.

The British Language

Here are some fun British phrases I hope you'll enjoy:

Lollipop man: The crossing guard in front of schools.

Jam tomorrow: a common expression meaning that if you do something today you'll be rewarded tomorrow.

nouse: common sense; intelligence

scupper: to defeat (originally it was used in the Hornblower sense, as in to sink an enemy ship)

chuffed: delighted, pleased ("chuffed to bits")

Sod off!: Go away!

moose: unpleasant, boring; ugly person

Family White Elephant

Every after Christmas and before New Year's we have a family adult Christmas party that includes the passing of white elephant gifts. This year this is what my brother brought:

In case you can't tell that is a drum cymbal with a self-help relationships video, a glow stick, and hand warmers taped onto it. It was voted as one of the worst gifts present. The other gift that tied for worst was my cousin's sack lunch that he took out of his car and wrapped up with the host's wrapping paper.

This party is usually very fun, as my family can get quite creative with what they bring. There were also some Cialis pill boxes (empty, but containing money), a plethora of dollar-store man-candy calendars, a jar full of homemade puppets' heads, and I think my personal favorite was a live lobster wrapped up in a macey's clothing box. Ah, family.

About the Snake

Since there have been some inquiries I thought I'd explain about the python that appears in that photo.

Well my talented brother wanted to take family portraits as Christmas gifts for the parentals (which totally worked. My mom would have cried if we let her). So we went down the street to an empty lot and took pictures in front of an old maroon Chevy. The owner of the Chevy came out of the neighboring house and asked us if we needed the car moved or repositioned. We said we were fine, and it was all good. He returned 1+1/2 minutes later with a 15 foot python. And that's the explanation I have.

We took some pictures because how could we not? Apparently its the oldest python there is at 42 years old. A little while later the owner brought out a second python and we took some more pictures cuz life is just that awesome with two 15 foot, 40+ year-old pythons.

One life goal checked off the list.

Thank you friendly neighborhood snake-man.

Just the neighborhood python out for a stroll.

So my yearly portrait included a Burmese Python.

Did yours?

Some Pretty Pictures

So here are some paintings I've come across during my sojourn in the academic world. And I like them, for various reasons.

This one depicts Ajax (the Lesser) abducting Cassandra from her sanctuary of Athena (for which Athena punished Ajax by blasting him with a lighting bolt. Lesson: Don't mess).

This is a painting of the Romantics depicting the suicide of Chatterton. It is terribly sad (especially since he was only 17) But the painting is a great work of art I think. The play of blue and red, the symbolic rising sun and the open window. I saw it at the Tate, which was awesome.

This is a somewhat happier painting. It shows the sculptor Pygmalion as his glorious work of art comes to life as Galataea. I love how you can see her transformation as it is taking place. Cool stuff.