Painting Lolita

Today went very well.  The three graduate students from Chapel Hill came today and played their part as jurors for the student exhibition.  They were some of the coolest people I've met in a while: Friendly, Talented, Beautiful, Enthusiastic, Artistic, and Lively.  I'm very glad that they responded to my email months ago (I didn't know the talent I had happened upon then).  They took their roles as jurors very seriously and meticulously and thoughtfully selected the art to appear in the show.  At the end they had eliminated more than half of the submissions and selected 1st, 2nd, 3rd place as well as three honorable mentions (I know who won what!).  First place is $50.00!  Now you wish you would have entered...

In other news, I'm a really bad painter, but I think this is coming along in its own special way:

this is larger than life, by the way

Don't you think it looks like my mom?  Anyone?

And, yes, there is a reason she is yellow.  We're working with different color schemes right now.  I'll post the finished product in a few weeks.

Love,

Monica

P.S. Two days!

Leaf Pile

The kids that I babysit every Thursday are wonderful.  They are 3, 5 and 10 and the four of us can get into a lot of trouble.  Today, they really wanted to play outside.  They are fortunate enough to live in a beautiful farm house on a lovely property with many, many trees.  This means that their yard and drive way and roof are all covered in leaves.  I casually suggested to them this evening that we build a leaf pile, thinking that it would burn off some of their energy.  The rest is history, however.  They built a great big leaf pile, one that was probably bigger than any one I ever built growing up.  For a couple of hours we took turns jumping into the pile, re-building it and burying each person under the leaves (we even buried Lulu, the pug-beagle mix, while she would sit still).  I think it is safe to say that we all had to take time to retrieve one or two leaves out of our shirts or even our pants after the fun.  

They were so cute and driven while building the pile that I wanted to take a picture of it.  Unfortunately I only had my cell phone and it was very dark at the time (if you look closely you can see the contour of the leaf pile, but it does a great job of disappearing into the leaves in the background).   

Self-Torture

Well, last night I had a big long dream all about how my hair grew sooo fast that it was past my chin.  Everyone, including myself, was really freaked out at how fast my hair was growing.  It was like it was ALIVE!

I woke up this morning and when I looked in the mirror I remembered my dream.  Then I remembered how I thought it was real and became sad.

Since then I've checked some emails and sent many out.  I don't know what I was thinking, though, because a "series of events" has caused me to take on another long session of babysitting in addition to the babysitting I'm already doing (I'm poor and I feel guilty when I say no to mothers that aren't mine).  This means that I am now working Thursday (today, ugh), Friday, Saturday and Sunday right up until I have to meet with the jurors for the art show.

What's worse is that the same "series of events" has disrupted my attendance to the matinee showing of Kiss Me, Kate on Sunday.  I basically live my life here at Elon from one musical to the next and have not missed one (NOT ONE!) since I was a freshman.  I also hate missing any musical or play that my dear friend, Topher, is in.  There is nothing more enjoyable or relaxing to me than meshing myself into an audience to watch a bunch of beautiful people sing in beautiful costumes on a stage.  Maybe I can get someone to video tape it with their cell phone.  

Anyway, enough complaining inter-web-style.  I'm going to think about taking a shower.

Love,

Moncia (the most frequent typo I experience)

P.S.  This is what I watch when I'm feeling down:

Franklin-stein Street

This past weekend, David, Stephanie and I went to Chapel Hill to visit Elisabeth (from camp!).  We did lots of walking back and forth between cars (because of strict parking rules), hung out at her characteristically-high-ceilinged dorm room, played bananagrams and had dinner at a conveyer belt sushi place all before changing into our costumes.  Elisabeth was a Jedi Knight (probably a young obi one), Stephanie was a sultry devil and David was one of those endangered, yet plump bumblebees.  As his girlfriend, I played his flower counterpart by wearing a flower-printed dress and stapling flowers that I cut out of an old Georgia O'Keeffe calendar to a green cardigan.  All of this was topped off with a flower smack dab in the middle of my head:  

Then we walked Franklin Street...

What I DID NOT know was that Franklin Street is basically a giant party in the road.  Plus lots of drunken girls in small animal costumes and boys wearing anything from pizza boxes to Elvis garb.  

I'm exaggerating, of course, but maybe only a little.  Here are some of the highlights from the night:

Fun for all the ages!

Everyone wants in on the picture!

I am proud to say that I got the cone reference.

These are my friends!

This guy was cool.  He asked me where I was from because he said it was what he asked when people said to him, "Can I take your picture?"

I saw the balloon kid at the very beginning but he got away before I could take a picture.  Luckily, I was OBSESSED with finding him and snapped a shot of him on his way out.

Believe it or not, he was not the only peacock on Franklin Street that night.  And I thought it a pretty original costume.

This guy had a dance-off with himself.

Swim team? or Triathletes stuck in the swimming portion of a triathlon?

Octo-mom!  And Franklin Street isn't just for college kids anymore...

"Oh my gawd!  A Big reference?  It isn't every day that you get a Big reference!!" --really drunk guy who saw the Tom Hanks classic 

First costume I saw that night, and the reason I love group costumes

Oh, and this is what I meant by pizza box earlier.

After all of this craziness and more, we went back to Elisabeth's friend's apartment and watched creative people build halloween cakes for $10,000 in prize money.  We would have gone home after that, but with the extra hour from daylight savings, we decided to watch Corpse's Bride, a movie witch (haha) Stephanie had yet to see and ended up sleeping through.

Now, life is moving very quickly.  I'm busy working, of course, on my thesis and am trying to keep myself out of trouble (and by that, I mean keeping myself from adopting furry little animals).  My dad came to visit yesterday, installing a nice little blinker for night-driving safety along with much-needed new brake pads.  I've got babysitting this Friday for six hours and will be helping out with some kiln firings on Saturday with the other claydogs.  I've also got to greet the jurors that I selected for the Juried Student Exhibition this Sunday .  With all of that on my plate, I can say for certain that I am looking forward to a relaxing matinee showing of Kiss Me, Kate at Elon on Sunday.

Love,

Monica

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Lady and the Tramp

DCC Community Art Show

For my Professional Practices in Art class we are required to regularly submit art to exhibitions to get exposure, circulate ourselves into the art community but, mainly, to get experience doing things that artists people do.  So, I submitted some pictures of pieces around to random exhibits that I saw online thinking that no one would really get back to me (because of this, I didn't pay too much attention to location).  However, there is this art show called Convergence: An Exhibition on Community that liked one of my pieces.  The only problem is the show is in Denver, Colorado.  HAHA  The funniest part is that I'm thrilled and am going to pay shipping and handling to get it there!  Here's a little blurb about the show:

The DCC Community Art Show is seeking applications for its annual art show/wine tasting event, November 14 being hosted at 1101 S Washington St. in Denver, CO. We are currently looking for artists who are looking to gain more exposure for their work or are new to showing and/or selling their art. This year's show has an emphasis on the greater community and what that means to its artists. 

I'm thinking I might try to sell in order to make up for shipping and handling, though.