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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.

Baby it's cold outside

So cold that it's too cold to roll up my right pant leg when riding my bike (you know, where the gears tend to grab at your ankles).  Anyway, I usually try to wear some kind of skinny jean or very straight jean, but who has enough of those for as many days as I ride my bike?  I've got lots of bellbottoms, though.  And, not only are those hard to roll up, but they are so billowy and a bike rider's worst enemy.  Bottom line: Don't wear bellbottoms while riding your bike.  Or else: Your pants won't be bellbottoms for very much longer...

Pretty Colors

This is what's right outside my window:

For Mommy (Fall Break and Update on life)

So, while life has not actually started to slow down, I have gotten some big presentations out of the way.  I spent fall break in Cary, NC this year to show my stuff at a day-long final interview for TFA (Yes, that's me in a suit of sorts to make a good impression).  It felt nice to look all sleek and put-together.  My roommate, Stephanie, is a business major and always knows how to dress up professionally.  I'd say I felt a lot like her. 

Because I spent most of my short fall break preparing for the interview, I spent the rest of it catching up on neglected homework while attempting hibernation.  Some highlights were Indian food, shopping w/David, making dark chocolate chip pancakes from scratch in the late afternoon, taking Gizmo to the dog park, and going to see Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (I cried).

The break in general, though, was filled with lots of cute animals.  That's Gizmo above wondering what-in-the-world I'm doing, flashing at him like some paparazzi.  I'm basically obsessed with getting him to like me, even when I'm not holding food in my hands.

And here's a very recent picture of Irina (who came to David's home with me).  She's still alive and kicking (not to mention biting).  In just a couple of months I will have had her for one year!  It's exciting, but also a little depressing because I think her breed is only supposed to live for about 16 months (and she hasn't grown that much since I got her).  She, too, was curious about the camera.

And this is a picture taken from my powerpoint presentation (yesterday).  I had to give my "Presentation of Progress" for honors.  I went first and despite my nerves everyone said I did an outstanding job.  It was actually a really nice opportunity to get 15 minutes to tell an audience (some, complete strangers) about a project that I've almost been working a year on now.  The other presenters in my group were wonderful too.  I was lucky to be in a fun, creative, enthusiastic group.  There were eight concurrent presentation sessions spread across two floors and grouped by like-majors so that all of the 37 honors students could present within two hours.  My group had an art major (me), an art history major (my talented and genius friend, Nichole), a Music Technology major (rock n roll Andrew),  a Theatrical Design and Production major (cute and confident Sarah Linn) and a Music Theatre major (Topher, who was wearing his signature vest).

Nichole is doing a presentation comparing perceptions between flat, abstracted paintings and their realistic, 3-d (using perspective) counterparts (Flat Can Be Deep: A Perspective on the Valuation and Common Perceptions of Two-Dimensional Artworks).  Andrew is busy writing, directing and composing music for a Rock Opera with a story line comparable to Westside Story (Beautiful Disease: A Rock Tragedy).  Sarah Linn is stage managing the spring musical (State Management for Musical Theatre: An Artistic Presentation of Elon University's 2009 Fall Musical, "Kiss Me, Kate").  I loved learning a lot about what goes on behind the scenes and I will never look at her in the same way now, knowing all the hard work that she is doing.  Lastly, Topher is writing the script and lyrics for an original musical (Finding "i.d.": Developing an Original Musical within the Workshop Process).  I'm really excited to see Topher's musical in the spring because last spring I went with some friends to see a preview and the writing was hilarious as well as the music fantastic and inspiring.  In a sentence, his musical revolves around a young woman with dissociative identity disorder whose father has just died.

Speaking of fathers, my dad is coming on Tuesday.  I can't wait because he's going to take me to a bike store to get a rack which I can use to tie a milk crate to.  Kind of like this:

Love,

Monica

P.S. David and I might venture out to the football game.  That might change, though, as it's Homecoming weekend and crowded like mad.  Our back-up plan is to see the lemurs at Duke.

Doggy Days?

Yesterday morning, during the first official day of my last fall break at Elon, I spent hours in bed dreading all the work I had to do.  During the upcoming week, I have THE BIGGEST INTERVIEW OF MY LIFE, three big presentations scheduled, lots of painting homework and general busy work (it's almost as if my day-to-homework ratio is increased during vacations, which is the complete opposite of the whole point of the break).

Anyway, I finally got up and played Bananagrams and went back to bed.  After another couple of hours, I got up for real and finally plowed through some homework.  It felt really good to be making a significant dent in the academic to-do list and I got to a great stopping point.  That's when David and I went to the mall to go shopping for my interview clothes (I got a real cute suit and skirt combo and some affordable pointy shoes).  We also got dip n dots and went looking around in the lego store until getting kicked out by an over-enthusiastic employee (suspected overbearing floor manager).  The saleswoman's exact words were, "Welcome to Lego!  You're, um, gonna have to leave."  We just frowned and she said, "But you could look through the glass outside of the store until you're done eating your ice cream."  Who welcomes a customer right before kicking them out?  And, silly, dip n dots isn't ice cream...it's ice cream of the future. 

Upon returning home, more homework was worked on but eventually faded away into a night of so-so SNL (though the Beauty and the Beast parody was great) and dunks of pita into a bottomless bowl of hummus!

Today, David kindly drove me to work at the nursery in the morning.  It was very early and I spent the time catching and releasing various types of poisonous spiders while holding babies, changing diapers and preventing the toddlers from squeezing said babies (or diapers) too tightly.  Afterward, David and I took his confused Boston Terrier pup to the dog park.  Luckily there were two other dogs there (one was a really energetic puppy) and he got some time to socialize, canine style (not doggie style, perverts).  

Anyway, all the contact with dogs had me thinking especially about my dog.  I think of him every day, but today I thought of him a lot.