So yeah

It's been a ridiculously long time since I last posted, but life has been pretty freaking crazy. Taking a sculpture class this semester. Holy crap, I suck at sculpture. I have officially proven that I am not terribly good at three-dimensional art. Though I do kinda like my plaster project. It's water. It's cool. I will post pictures later, cause it's pretty freakin' awesome.
I rule at English. No kidding, I'm totally terrific!! Yay me. However, my latest essay is having some difficulties. Writing about lowbrow art (Ed Roth, R. Crumb, Fritz the Cat, cool stuff like that) but having some serious problems with finding info. Anybody wanna direct me to some really good sites about it? Cause this essay is going to rule, if I can find info, and I'm looking forward to whole paragraphs about pornographic cartoons. For a grade. Yeah, that's just supertacular.
Classes are otherwise boring, so I've been watching too much TV. Pushing Daisies makes me want pie. Someone must bake me pie. Pie, pie, me-oh-my, I love pie. Also, cute twin Neddy brothers. Adorable swooning fan-girl-ness is imminent. Sara claimed them, but I'm going to make her share, it isn't my fault I watched it a day late. ::pout::
WE MUST SAVE PUSHING DAISIES FROM CANCELLATION!!! That was my caps-lock quota for the day.
Oh, and McArmy on Grey's Anatomy is freaky. That guy gives me the creeps. Christina needs better taste in men.

Wanderlust

With school out and Andrew working so much, I find myself bored and lonely. I'm reading a lot, mostly the fantasy genre (Christopher Moore makes me happy) but trying to get around to the classics. Existentialist literature and beat poetry intrigue me, if only I had the money to buy books books books. I especially want Clockwork Orange. Wishing I felt inspired to write more, but sadly I have nothing to write about presently so my poetry just seems to be lacking anything. I have no good brushes, so I cannot paint.
Sometimes I feel a little trapped, I want to travel. To go to Italy, Japan, France, Spain. Or even just Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Las Angeles. I want to visit the museums and see the houses of the artists and wish I were a part of a real art scene. Like Crumb, Warhol, or even Pollock. I'm growing restless.

Been awhile

I know, I've just been really busy, what with school and two crazy kids. Anyway, I just wanted to upload the finished sketch of my son. Technically, it's an all new drawing, since I started over, but I got new drawing pencils and HAD to try them out.
Anyway, here it is.

Scholarship

If anybody who happens to read this could take a moment and vote for my drawing (the link below) I would be very grateful. If my drawing gets enough votes I could win a scholarship.

Show Us Your Art 3 Brickfish

Really Pascal?

Did you think I was gonna buy that tripe? I mean, the sheer selfishness of it, deluding yourself into something you don't really believe for the sake of an eternal salvation that has only a slight possibility of actually existing. It seems almost lunatic, to force yourself to go along with an idea you find completely unreasonable on the off-chance it might actually be true. If that's a good idea, should we also all wear aluminum hats on the mere chance that the aliens really can take over our minds without them. By Pascal's reasoning, this would be a terrific idea. The aluminum hats don't hurt anyone (besides making you look really silly), and if the aliens really will take over you'd be screwed without one, right. Why take that chance?
Even accepting that going against all reason and common sense to believe in God is a great thing, which God do we choose? Pascal says the Christians have the right idea, but who's to say Allah or Buddha or even Zeus isn't the better choice. I haven't yet heard a decent argument for Christianity over the other billions of religions.
And besides, as Blackburn says, who's to say God really does reward belief in himself? I have a little trouble accepting that a completely perfect God would be vain enough to require that people go against their own common sense (which He apparently gave them) and attend mass once a week. Or spiteful enough to send them to Hell if they don't. Aren't vanity and spite considered flaws, even in religion? And God is supposed to be perfect and flawless right? So, then, why would he exhibit purely human traits.
I think a perfect God would be more likely to send people who were decent, tried to do the right thing, and followed their gut instinct to heaven, than people who lied about their faith in the hopes of getting rewarded. Doesn't seem like a very noble or good thing to me, even if you eventually delude yourself into true blind faith.

Swinburne?

Does anyone else think Richard Swinburne's philosophies on the problem of evil are a little... um... sketchy? He says that the existence of evil doesn't disallow the existence of god for most of the normal reasons (free-will and all that much debated b.s.) but he mentions that suffering at the hands of another is a good thing, because it means you are of use to the universe. Excuse me, but what? I don't think that my painful and torturous death (or anyone else's) at the hands of a sadistic monster can be considered a good thing, even if it is allowing human beings a choice between good and evil. And I will never be comforted by the thought that "at least I didn't die in vain." He's wanting me to be happy that some jackass gets to decide to kill me? Seriously, I'm a pretty selfless person (I think) but this is ridiculous. And besides, who's to say people want to be useful anyway. Apparently, Swinburne does.
He mentions that a study of unemployed showed that most people who are out of work claimed they most disliked feeling useless in society (as opposed to the lack of money). I say that's crap. I've known a lot of people who lost their jobs, and they didn't feel 'useless to society'. They just felt pissed off that they'd been fired, or maybe sad that they couldn't provide for their families. Society doesn't factor into it.
Am I the only one who thinks this line of reasoning sounds a little communistic? (Is that a word?) As does his statement that dieing for your country is a wonderful thing, even if you were conscripted and fighting for a cause you don't believe in. I wouldn't want to die for the 'War on Terrorism', even if it was 'for the good of my country. It sounds like the position of a privileged white male who's never seen any real hardship to me.
And what about this crap about having 'the right to cause your child to suffer for his own good'? By this reasoning, couldn't you make the claim that child-abuse is a good thing? The parent could say it's his right and it's for the child's own good and Swinburne would apparently agree with that. I'm sure you could take this reasoning even further and do a whole lot of really awful shit that was justified by "free-will" and "the greater good". I think Dostoevsky had it right, I don't think the ends justify the means. The cost is too high.

Anyway, on a more artistic note, what's with all the commercials lately trying to be 'artsy'? That black-and-white Papa John's commercial with bits of color thrown in that looks like a low-budget Spielberg film? It irks me (that's right, I used the word irk, what're you gonna do about it?). And what do castles have to do with pizza anyway? Blah, it's not even particularly creative. That style of cinematography is getting a wee bit overused. Black-and-white for the sake of looking 'high-end' and 'artistic' is used way too much lately.

Self-Song

'Tell me
about yourself', he said,
as though I could possibly explain
who and what and when
and how I am
in any terms that HE would understand.
Should I tell him I'm an artist,
a writer, a painter, a poet
full of images pulled
from out the darkest recesses
of my mind
of his mind.
Shall I explain to him
my troubled past
those sweet invisible scars
which trace the lines of my veins
deep beneath the surface
where only I can see them
in the night
behind my eyes
where the days that have past before
and will come again
fly by in hideous circles
plaguing me with their evil intentions.
The days and the daze,
ever haunting me with the truth
of what I was
of what I am
of what I've done
to myself
and to so many others.
How can I tell him,
how can I explain the pills
and the songs
and the nights with no sleep
but plenty of rest
lying in my lover's arms
talking of existence
and the chance to mean something,
anything,
to someone.
He will never know
my desperation,
desperation to be loved
and needed
and seen as more than just
the stereotypical
artistic chick with a dorky side
full of angst and secret passions,
for I am so much more,
more than just myself
or him, or you, even.
I am a conglomeration,
a mixture of all
those who have come before
and will come after,
a puzzle built up
of a myriad small parts,
each day, each choice,
each failure or success,
and he will never know,
HE will never know,
he will never KNOW.
'Tell me about yourself.'
'I'm no one special.'

Philosophizing

So I had my first college class today. Philosophy 100. I'm already really enjoying it, the professor is fairly young and really sweet and very laid-back. The subject matter is challenging, but fascinating.
Right now we're reading about the ontological argument for the existence of God, which was put forth by St Anselm in the 11th century and later argued by various other philosophers, my favorite of which is Rowe. Anselm says that the existence of God is proven by his (or her) very definition. He defines God as "that than which no greater can be thought of", which is to say that God is a perfect being, that he is the most perfect thing possible. Anselm states that when you hear this phrase, "that than which no greater can be thought of", you understand it, and since you understand it it therefore exists in your mind. Since existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind alone, God by definition must exist. If he existed in the mind alone, then something greater (a thing existing in reality) would be possible. Since God is by definition the greatest possible thing, he must exist in reality. His definition proves his existence.
I don't know that I agree with this theorem. To begin with, I don't think that God is a perfect being, greater than anything else (if there even is a God, which I don't concede). But even if I accept Anselm's premise on faith alone, I can't accept that hearing the phrase "that than which no greater can be thought" automatically causes me to understand it. I understand the words, and the abstract idea, but that doesn't give me true understanding of God. God is supposedly perfect and infinite, and that puts him/her/it beyond human comprehension. It's like describing red to a person who has been blind all his life. He understands the word, and that apples and stoplights are red, and you can even tell him the color looks 'angry' or 'hungry' or 'bloody'. But this will do the blind man no good, he will still have no concept of red, because he has nothing to base his idea on. He has no knowledge of color. Thus do humans have no comprehension of a perfect being. We understand the concept, but not the truth. So how can God be said to exist in our minds?
But let's go one step further and agree that God is perfect and that he exists in our minds. The existence of a perfect God is a possible thing in reality, and he cannot, by his definition, be a non-existent thing. Anselm (as Rowe said) puts existence into the definition of God, he lists existence as a property of God by saying that existence is greater than non-existence and that god is the greatest thing. Therefore, his entire argument is flawed, because the premise that God is possible grants too much.
It's a tough argument because we can't say with any certainty that a perfect being is or is not possible in reality, and Anselm makes a good argument, but I just don't buy it. I have a harder time disagreeing with the Cosmological argument, but I'll go into that tomorrow.

Driving me Crazy

So I passed my driver's test (amazing, I know) and suddenly I am the go-to girl for all kinds of errands. I wouldn't mind so much, but I can't stand the other driver's in this freaking city. I mean, really, how hard is it to figure out what lane you want to be in?
In other news, I broke out some watercolors today. This was an unbelievable amount of fun. I tried to echo the style of Monet. This was a complete and utter failure, but then, my watercolor skills are sadly lacking. I always have issues getting the finer details because the paint runs. Oils are definitely more my forte. I may give acrylics a shot soon though. Might be fun.
I'm going to take my sketch pad to the park tomorrow and do some quick sketches of the people walking around, trying to get more movement in my drawings and make it look less staged. I also want to try drawing the trees and play with the texture and shadows in the leaves.
I did a drawing of my son from a photo. At first I didn't really like it, but now it's growing on me. I think I might finish it. Tell me what you think.
The photo:

My sketch:

Not perfect, I know, but I rather like it.

Figuratively Sketching

Blogger marked me as spam! How rude!
Anyway, now that that's all straightened out, I've been doing a lot of sketching over the past couple of days. I'm mostly working on figure sketches, practicing on poses and proportions (talk about alliteration). They've mostly come out pretty well, a few issues with the arms and hands mostly, and I find silhouettes to be particularly difficult, since I use the shading as a basis for proportions. But my shading isn't so great lately, possibly because I have no working printer, but I'm having issues with the finer nuances of dark and light. Maybe I should take some objects from around my house and work on drawing them. Figurines, light bulbs, that kind of thing. It would be a good way to practice texture too.
Oh, I wrote a song. It's not a particularly good song, but it is one, complete with rhythm and rhyming phrases. I'm kind of proud of it, it even has a bridge. I may try writing another one, or some more technical poetry.
I also got some charcoal pencils to play with. Mechanical pencil is great, but I think I can get more depth with the charcoal. On a more personal note, I got my car (finally) and I go to take my driver's test tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about it, but it would be really nice to get my license so I'm trying not to psych myself out too much.
By the way, if anyone wants to view my sketches, you can go to my deviantart site

Instrumentals

This week I have officially decided to expand my artistic style. Instead of concentrating exclusively on portraiture, I am now working on an instrumental series. Not purely still-lifes, I intend to do images of people playing various instruments, ranging from the clarinet to the xylophone and everything in between. I'm having some issues with texture though, making wood look woody and metal look metallic. I wish I had a book of photographs, instead of being forced to find examples on the internet, since my printer isn't working. Trying to draw while staring at a computer screen is rough, and it's a little harder to get the tiny details.
I wonder if there are any good exercises for expanding your technique? I'm certain they'll go into that in my studio courses at UK, but I won't start those until next fall, and I'd like to begin practice now. Must remember to look some up on the good ol' web.
It occurs to me that I've never actually taken an art class, so I'm not exactly certain what to expect from studio courses. It's kind of funny, that I'm totally self taught. Maybe classes will help with my charcoal, as I've found I'm not very good at it. At least it will give me a place where I can paint, since it's really hard to do so with two young kids running around the house.
On the poetic side of things, I've been studying the works of Billy Collins, trying to get away from my habit of writing only angsty romantic drivel. I'm hoping to find some inspiration in his works, which have a broad subject matter and a better use of imagery than my own, but still echo my own personal style of open form, non-rhyming poetry. Although perhaps it would be better if I attempted some form? I usually find it a bit daunting, but practicing true stanzas and rhyming couplets might help my poetry sound... well, poetic.
On a personal note, I'm really kind of freaked out about school starting in less than two weeks. A 23 year old freshman with a husband and two children is a bit of a stretch from your average college student. I'm really hoping that I find some way to connect with the other students in my classes, since I will be four or five years older than most of them. I want to make friends, but I'm naturally pretty shy, and I'm not sure what we'll talk about beside homework. I mean, I'm in such a different place in my life than they are. I don't want to be seen as the old chick and looked at oddly like the few older people in my courses were the first time I attended college. I guess I an still pass for an 18 year old, right?
Well, no point in dwelling on it, I guess. Life is a river, I will just go with the flow.