Tag: art

Creativity Takes Courage

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The other weekend I was driving home from dropping my girls off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I had 4 hours to listen to various podcasts I had downloaded on my phone. As I was listening to a Rachel Hollis podcast one of the people she interviewed said the words “Creativity takes Courage”. I wish I could remember which person she was talking with so I could give credit where credit is due.

This quote resonated with me though. Whatever your medium- paint, writing, music- it takes courage to put yourself out there. Often times someone’s art comes attached with emotions. It takes courage to share those emotions with others. People connect over other’s creativity. It persuades one to think outside of the box, it prompts communication and can shift the world.

It may not always be easy to share your creativity, but how wonderful it is to know you impacted someone out there. Go ahead, take the leap!

Friday Favorites: Snail Mail Surprises

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I have a couple of friends that love snail mail as much as I do, giving and receiving. Occasionally we send each other a little something something. When I am out and about it is my favorite thing finding a treasure that makes me think of a family member or friend. It is not the easiest thing for me to get it to the post office, but it will get there *smile* my friend, Melissa, sent me these note cards from Tiny Prints with artist Stina Persson. The print is of a woman that has amazing earrings. Melissa and have a “thing” for Nickel and Suede earrings. It’s a connection we have, in addition to many others! Thanks to this wonderful gesture, I have found a new artist to love!

Janet.

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I got myself out for a walk/run tonight as it was absolutely gorgeous out. Just enough breeze, enough sun left and a quiet road all to myself. I had Janet (Jackson) on tonight. I was about ready to switch it up when Black Cat came on, you know, the music video where she is wearing a white button down shirt and black pants on stage? Who knew that classic combo could be so rock n roll? Oh yeah, there was the black bra too! Maybe not so classic? Or maybe so *wink* Rhythm Nation was one of the first cassette tapes I owned. In fact, when I listened to that song tonight I was expecting to here the “glitch” on the song that my cassette tape used to have because I listened to the song so often!

Here are my top 10 Favorites:

1. Black Cat, that guitar solo!

2. That’s The Way Love Goes

3. Escapade (hello, Minneapolis!)

4. If (I once requested the song on the radio station as an 11 year old, boy did the DJ have fun asking me if I knew what the song meant… *blushing, I only slightly had an idea* *dying laughing*

5. Rhythm Nation, what a great dance sequence. Talk about an iconic video.

6. Scream, not enough credit for this sister/brother duo. The words still speak to me today. Full of complete emotion. And her hair cut in the video, awesome and edgy.

7. Got Til It’s Gone with Q-Tip (remember when he played her boyfriend in Poetic Justice before she met Tupac?) He has such a unique voice. This album was underrated. There was such an underground and groovy sound to it. Possibly a favorite of mine.

8. Love Will Never Do Without You, the deepness of her voice was so surprising to me when I heard this the first time.

9. Again.

10. All Night, possibly my last favorite of hers to come out.

Welcome to my Home of Discouragement

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I have spent over a year designing my She-Shed in my head. I have spent the last few months drawing it on paper. See, I have to be in my creative zone to put my passion on paper which is not an easy thing to do while having a family life and working full time out of the home. I have to draw it to scale in pencil on “trash paper” and then trace it onto vellum with special pens. I was so excited to get the floor plan and elevations drawn up and was ready to add color.

I appreciate black and white, I really do, I even dream of living in a pretty much all white house some day, but I think my heart lives in color. It was an accomplishment to get to add color to my plans. It was nerve wracking though. It made it more permanent and it was a point of no return. It was the skill set that was not my strongest in college. I love art, but my styles lean more towards abstract. So rendering to make things look realistic took a lot of practice. Towards the end of year four of the interior design program, I finally solidified my rendering style. Well, since it has been years since I have rendered projects like this, lets say when I laid out my colored drawings, I was a bit sad. I was discouraged. They were not anything I was happy to share with you. They need work.

A craft takes practice, I am out of sorts. This happens and I am highly discouraged. That being said, I am taking what I have learned over the past few months and grabbing this project by the horns and I will get it “right”. I will get it to a point where I am happy to share this with you.

Until then, I will leave you with the only rendered drawing I am happy to share. The front entrance. Welcome to my creative space. My place where I will creatively take projects of discouragement to a better light. After all, that is what an interior designer does. We take problems and blank canvases and turn them into works of art.

Creek Week

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**a little background on this post. I drafted a version of it about a month ago. I refrained from posting it as it felt “dumb”. I almost posted it again when it happened to be James Van Der Beek’s birthday, but didn’t in fear of it being “stupid”. Earlier this week I saw this magazine was coming out, ok, maybe not such a dumb Guilty Pleasure after all. This week I tried to track down the magazine at 4 different stores with no luck-sold out at each. I guess it’s not so dumb. *smile*

Look who just had a reunion, Dawson’s Creek! The cast got together for this Entertainment Weekly magazine article. The show was a total guilty pleasure of mine- maybe still is. I did not watch it when it first came out, in fact, I didn’t really begin watching it until college. It only had a season or two left when it found me. Yes, IT found me! Thank you, TBS, for showing re-runs. I was so deeply in love with this show, it’s characters and the music. Oh my gosh, the music!! I would go online and follow each episode and see what new music I could find. I bought a few of the seasons on DVD so that I could officially get caught up. I kid you not, these DVD’s got me through my final semesters of interior design at NDSU. I am not a fan of pulling all nighters, and with all of the time I put into my projects, it never failed, I still had to pull a couple of all nighters to get all of the details just right. Dawson, Pacey, Joey and Jennifer were there with me.

I have followed many of them on Instagram. Katie Holmes has an incredible love for art, James Van Der Beek has a totally killer family life. His wife is beautiful and his kids are A-dorable! Busy Philips is inspiring and funny. Once in awhile you will see her post photos with Michelle Williams.

Finding this Guilty Pleasure introduced me to killer music I had not heard of, brought me dreams of moving to Wilmington, NC where the show was filmed (I have yet to even travel there, but my heart still pulls me there) and taught me about some talented actors and actresses (Michelle Williams- amazing!)

Look up Dawson’s Creek if you need a great show to binge watch. For now, I will leave you with these lyrics from Paula Cole, “I don’t want to wait for my life to be over”, *smile*, an amazing song of the 90’s!

Should vs. Must

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Should. Must. Two powerful words. Two words that I didn’t know housed so much power, until one day at therapy. The next session I came in and my therapist had this book set out to lend me. I took The Crossroads of Should and Must home, within five pages, I knew I must own it, not just should. I had to finish reading a couple of other books first before I could begin reading this artistic, thought provoking and joyous book. Now, I need to go back and re-read it again with my journal and pen close by. There are assignments that I can’t wait to complete and some that scare me. It’s always intimidating to be honest with oneself, especially when you know there is some important conversations you need to have with yourself. I sense more blog posts will follow in reference to this piece of artful literature. Well done Elle Luna!

Friday Favorites: Frida Kahlo

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I have loved this artist since I learned of her in college. I think what started my fascination with her was the 2002 movie with Salma Hayek titled Frida. I owned the movie and soundtrack first. She was quite a different person; probably considered extreme in her day and age. She was unique, strong willed, a fighter, full of emotion and darn stubborn! I appreciate her qualities; she lived through a lot of pain, both physical and emotional, yet emerged an icon.

In college we had to select an artist and design a kitchen for them. Of course, I picked Frida. I wish I could re-do the project now that I know more about design and more about her. Perhaps that is my next design project after I finish my She-Shed. The colors I would add. Ohhh, I can see it already! I digress.

I have since purchased a portrait by Jennifer Vallez that sits on my desk, a coffee table book Frida Kahlo at Home, and two pieces from Wee Rascals– the “Fierce like Frida” tank and a print that is in the girls’ room that says “feet, why do I need you, when I have wings to fly?” Recently a Barbie was released, I don’t know what I would do with her, except have her borrowed by my girls. *smile*

The girls are in love with her too as she has a “cameo” in Coco. I think this is my favorite part of the movie, my giddiness may have influenced their love quite quickly. Since seeing the movie Emery found a kids’ book with her in it at the library. The girls won’t put it down and now want to buy it as well.