North Carolina Museum of Art

Yesterday we paid a visit to the NC Museum of Art. I've never been to an art museum before so it was a lot of fun to go there. I got to see works by artists I studied this past semester. It was a beautiful place.

This piece was called "The Dentist." I thought it was funny since I'm a dental assistant.

There were quite a few different displays of art from other cultures. This menorah was very large and beautiful!These were traditional African articles of clothing

These glass vessels were part of one of the multicultural displays.Picasso

Giacometti

This piece was cool. It was a large picture of the Mona Lisa upside down and it was made of spools of thread. You had to look through the glass ball to see it right side up.

I thought this piece was funny.

The museum had a large collection of Rodin pieces. Among them were a small sculpture of one of his ideas for The Burghers of Calais. Most were housed inside the museum, but a few, including this one were displayed outside in the garden.

This metal tree reminded me of The Tin Man. I'd like one for my yard. :)

And that was it!

Just Plain Simple...

During our week here I had a chance to catch up with my friend Brianne. I hadn't seen her in several years so it was really neat to see her again. She brought some samples of pendants she's been making. They're made from metal and copper. Most of her work is custom made. I loved the simplicity of the materials and was impressed at the intricacy of some of her designs.


These business cards were designed by Brianne's older sister, Laura. Actually, the entire family is very talented artistically and musically. I very much enjoyed seeing them all again and finding out what they're up to.

One of Brianne's greatest passions is animals. She is very involved in animal rehabilitation. In fact, she brought some of her "patients" with her. She brought a baby robin and a nest of baby house finches that she is handfeeding. Once they're old enough they will be released back to the wild. She has an etsy shop called justplainsimple where she sells her creations. A percentage of her proceeds go to wildlife rehabilitation. I think it's very cool! She doesn't know I'm plugging her like this, so go check out her shop and see her handiwork. :)

Just a few shots from this week...

Some of these may or may not have been edited...I'll never tell. ;)

We went to the beach!!!

It was 96 degrees but the water was great! I got a few photos of my family and the scenery...it's been so long since I've been to the ocean. I went to Hampton beach back in 2005, but it was during May and a freak nor'easter blew through and it was SO cold! Labor day of 2001 was the last time I've been to the beach while the weather was nice.

We went to Carolina Beach.

I like one-point perspective...ha ha!

I love this picture of my Dad and Olive.

And I love this one of my Dad and my brother.

Me with my brother. It seems like whenever my dad or brother take pictures they always cut people's feet out...lol.

Ahh...the ocean...it was nice to see it again. I did not adequately prepare for the sun exposure though and am now looking a bit like a pink zebra...I'm very sunburnt!

On our way back home we stopped to see my dad's grandmother. She is 102 years old. She still lives alone. I hadn't seen her in about 10 years and she still looks so similar to how she did before. She's still spunky. As we left my dad was teasing her saying we needed to leave before one of her boyfriends showed up. She spanked him for saying that and then laughed.

Olive with her great-great-grandmother. She was very shy of her and was trying to get away in this picture.

The quality of this photo is very poor. I had to lighten it up a lot just so our faces could be seen. But I'm glad we got one with her. This is me with all my siblings and my niece.

It was an exhausting day! I felt like we were in the car for most of it! Yesterday was a bit more relaxing. We hung out at home and then went to Crabtree Mall in Raleigh and I visited my first H&M. We ended the day with a trip to the community pool in my parents neighborhood and aside from one lady and her granddaughter we had the entire place to ourselves. Pretty sweet! :)

Happy 4th of July!

Long may our Star Spangled banner wave...

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Happy Independence Day! And happy birthday America!

This 4th of July was great! It was spent in NC visiting my parents at their new place, having a cookout with friends I haven't seen in 7 or 8 years, swimming in the neighborhood pool, a wee bit of crafting, and a firework (yes...just one, lol). Matt, Jacqueline and I drove out to see fireworks but ended up missing them. We heard the neighbors apparently put on a fantastic show which we also missed. But when we drove home one of the neighbors across the street set off a mortar in the street and it was quite beautiful. :) I didn't get a picture of that one, but this is one we barely saw over the treetops on our drive home that night. I just love fireworks.

All in all it was a very nice day. I am thankful that my parents are settled into their new home and are in a good area. I think they are excited to be here. I'm thankful that I live in this country, regardless of its problems.
I'm enjoying my vacation here in NC! We went to the beach today which is where I took the picture of the American flag kite. I'll write more about our visit here later. In the meantime, I hope everyone else had wonderful celebrations! I'm signing out for the evening! Too much sun has me exhausted! :)

this is how much I love ceramics...

Not sure if I ever posted this or not, but my friend took it when I saw my stuff that came out of the kiln. I was so happy because it looked tons better than the first kiln did, but my bubble was properly burst the next day when I saw the genius NCECA guests show their skills. It was good though. I have so much to learn...I am so looking forward to getting my hands back into clay and squishing around in it and making stuff. I love learning about ceramics. It's so enjoyable. :)I miss crafting and working with clay...I miss the studio terribly and I between being sick, a long weekend trip back to school and getting ready for this move I must say that I've been very bad about doing any crafting at all. I think this move is making me anxious and I find that when I'm anxious (unless my project is an assignment with a deadline) I can't seem to make myself focus on a project. So much time is wasted...such a shame. Once I'm settled in though I hope to be able to work on little things here and there.

Does anyone else find themselves caught in a crafting rut when they have a lot on their mind?

We're going places...

"Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick."
JRR Tolkien~ The Hobbit

Whatever...

Finally brothers:








I love this idea and am going to do it again. Only better next time. Unfortunately I think this series falls under the "you lose some" category. But I think it has potential.

I did this as a way to deal with my frustration with certain teachers who seemed to think that art dealt with mainly lewd, crude ideas. I had a very bad week that week and Philippians 4:8 really spoke to me during that time. It's funny because I remember reading that verse at the beginning of that rough week and then it came back up during a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting. So that weekend I started these guys.

Even though they're really rough around the edges I am going to push this idea farther and keep working with it.

I love handmade!

My roommate painted this picture of a Newfoundland for me as a birthday gift last year. I love it! I love the colors and am in awe that she was able to actually paint dog hair. Painting seems like such a mystery to me. How she was able to paint things as intricate as the hair and whiskers is beyond me. I think she did a beautiful job.
We don't have our newfies anymore. This picture is a nice reminder of those sweet doggies. And a sweet reminder that I have uber-talented friends! I love getting a handmade gift. It's so special. :)

PS: I'm sure she'd take custom orders if you want a lovely painting. ;)

Journaling

So since I started blogging I've pretty much given up writing in books. Sad isn't it? I found my old journal from when I was 16 (talk about sad...hee hee...I think I mostly wrote about what was bothering me) and read through it. I love the convenience of the internet. Blogging is such a fun and easy way to document photos and ideas and memories and emails and facebook are such a quick and easy way to communicate. But I miss writing letters. I love getting mail and rarely do anymore (I don't consider bills to be real mail). Anyhow, this book combines my long-lost love of snail mail and hand journaling. I've begun to glue all my letters and some pictures into a journal instead of keeping them in a box. They're much more accessible and portable. This book can be thrown in a suitcase. You can't really do that with a shoebox full of letters. Plus this is a prettier way to keep all your letters available and tidy.
This would be much easier with a spiral bound book. This is leather bound so it doesn't close all the way. Luckily it has an elastic strap to help keep it closed. Next time I do this I'll use a spiral bound book but for now this works fine. Plus it gives it an older look which some find appealing.
I don't just keep letters in here. I also keep pictures, poems, song lyrics, Bible verses and memorabilia. This is a picture I took at the park and a poem by Robert Frost. Below are two bumper stickers. One is a Pro-Life sticker and the other is one I got while in Austin. I know...they're supposed to be on a car, not in a book. I use my parent's car so I don't feel free to put stickers all over it.

These are notes from friends...

This is a Christmas card my roommate sent me. She designed it herself. I'm going to blog about something else she made for me in a different post!

I have lots more to put in this book. I think it would be a great idea for a gift for someone in college, a friend or family member who is moving away, or a loved one in the military. Have people write letters and then glue the envelopes with the cards or letters inside and pictures of everyone who loves them into a book and give it away. It's nice to see pictures and read handwritten notes (I love people's handwriting...it makes things so personal) from people. It can help with homesickness. I am planning to bring my book to China with me to look through when I miss home.

Watching an Olive

This past weekend I watched my niece, Olive, while her mom and dad (my sister and brother-in-law) went out on a date. We had lots of fun eating her parents out of house and home while they were gone (don't tell me I'm allowed to raid the fridge...lol...just kidding). We did actually share some homemade blackberry cobbler (when did my sister turn into Martha Stewart? That girl can cook!) and homemade whole wheat oatmeal bread. We played with toys. We listened to the Dean Martin station on Pandora (I love the way he sings Sway). We sang songs and snuggled. And we played with water in the bathtub. Olive just LOVES playing with water. Seriously, put her in the tub with a couple of containers of water and some spoons and she has a ball.

She also loves cell phones. She accidentally dialed 911 with one of her parent's phones. She is such a little genius. I let her play with my phone while I was eating my dinner and she loved it. She got mad when I took it away.

This is where I took the phone away.

I'm pretty sure she is signing and saying "please" here. My sister is teaching her sign language and she can say "please," "more," "all gone," and "ice cream." She is walking around now and saying more words. She calls the cows next door to us dogs and when they moo she will moo back at them. She likes to pretend she's a puppy. She plays patty cake. She is snuggly and blows kisses.
I can't imagine how we ever got along without her.

And you lose some...quite a lot actually.

As you can see not all projects turn out according to plan...

Most don't. To be honest I don't really have a definite plan for many of my pieces. I just experiment and see what happens.

salt-fired...not good...I'm very sloppy.

sloppy again...gotta work on that...

This went into the wrong kiln. It went into salt instead of reduction. And it's sloppy. But I think the idea of it is cool. It was inspired by Banksy. I am going to try this again sometime. In the meantime I think I'll go destroy these. lol. Actually, Adam (my brother) has decided that he's claiming all my ugly mugs (which I collectively refer to as my "ugly muglings.") and keeping them. So I think he claimed the middle one.

Tea Pot

Here is one of the finished "Alice in Wonderland" teapots. I didn't turn this one in for my critique. I ended up making 3. I gave one away already and my sister has the actual set that I turned in. I am going to photograph it sometime soon. Anyway...this set was just a teapot, creamer and a sugar. Where is the creamer pitcher? Well...it was loaded next to a sculpture in the kiln and during the firing that sculpture fell over and fused to my creamer pitcher. So this is all that is left. I like the color. It is a tenmoku over celadon, but our celadon was messed up so it's not typical of regular celadons (so I'm told...I'm so new at this I really don't know what it's supposed to look like.). It was a very fun set. Each piece was wheel thrown. The lids were wheel thrown and so was the spout. Only the handle was hand built. I fired the lid separately from the teapot and it warped a little bit so now it doesn't fit inside properly. I'm going to have to take away some of the rim to make room for it. I like them better than the very first teapot I made, but I am excited to continue experimenting with teapots. I'm hoping when I get to China to try throwing with porcelain. I can't wait to be good at what I do. It's nice to see improvements, but I'm nowhere near where I want to be. It's good though. It's always a challenge and that is part of what keeps me coming back. I love it.

I miss it SO much! As wonderful as it is to see my family I miss working with my hands on the wheel and at hand-building. I don't have access to a wheel at home. This summer is already going by so quickly though. I've been home for 4 weeks and 1 day now. I'm going back to school to visit my friend this coming weekend. I can't wait! I'm also going to get some paperwork taken care of for China, but I'll get to stay for three nights and maybe visit a Bible study or church service while I'm there. It will be fun to go see the folks who are still in town.

From this...

to this...

(excuse very poor picture quality)

One of the most time consuming and frustrating projects I've ever done. It got a bit messed up during my trip home so I need to retouch it in a few places. I'm glad I finished it. My teacher said the skin looked scaly. :P I'm hoping to get it retouched and take a better photograph of it since I need it for my portfolio in school eventually.