bucket list progress

awhile ago i posted some bucket list items here and here.

well....a few of those things have been checked off my list.  hard to believe, but it's true.


1.  get married in the Salt Lake City temple

August 25, 2006.  i married my best friend.

2.  become a mother

my sweet princess...the second time i became a mother.  

18 weeks in utero...2009.
i have the two most amazing children i could ask for.

3.  confront and forgive my abuser

4.  dye my hair black

october 2010.  i kind of miss it.  it made me feel exotic.  

5.  play Frank Lloyd Wright's piano 

may 2004.  i played "polonaise in G minor" by chopin.

6.  own red high heels

bought my first pair this month...february 2013.  i LOVE them.

7.  have my own gallery show.  even if it means building my own gallery in my backyard out of refrigerator boxes and inviting the neighbors.

8.  visit europe...paris, london, venice, florence, prague, rome.  at least.

9.  see a rothko, pollock, and klimt in person.

the first time i saw a rothko painting, on my birthday...december 30, 2012.  

i cried, it was so beautiful and i couldn't believe i was finally seeing one.

the first pollock i saw...happened to be the same day i saw an original rothko!  

it was amazing.

10.  feel beautiful.

11.  be able to sit for five minutes and feel nothing but peace...no worry, anxiety, depression.  just peace.

12.  watch my children grow up to be happy people.

13.  finish an associate's degree.  finish a bachelor's degree, maybe a graduate degree.  in art.  

graduated with an associate's of science with honors, may 2012 

14.  feel like a real artist...not an amateur pretending to be a real artist.

15.  have a room in my house that i can hang art prints all over, so when i'm depressed, i can walk into that room and be surrounded by joy.

16.  find out the secret to being happy.

17.  go to the smithsonian, moma, louvre, musee d'orsay and any other art museum i can get myself to.

18.  see a broadway play on broadway.

19.  fly.....

20.  watch a sunset that takes my breath away from beginning to end.

21.  write a book.

22.  learn to play clair de lune.  if not perfectly, then at least accurately.

23.  take more piano lessons.  get better at playing.  find time to practice.

24.  learn to make those around me happy.  with no reservations.

25.  speak another language passably.

26.  purchase an original work of art that i love.  buy a couch to match the art.  inform couch salesman that it is ridiculous to buy art to match a couch.  it should be done the other way around.

27.  paint something i am truly happy with, that i can look at without second guessing or critiquing.

this one is pretty close....january 2013.

28.  own a four-poster canopy bed.

29.  dress up in a regency ball gown.

30.  be a good person, wife, mother, daughter and friend.

31.  sleep under the stars on a clear night; learn to identify a few constellations.

32.  finish my kids' scrapbooks

33.  play roller derby

34.  mail something in to post secret

35.  put blue highlights in my hair

36.  own as many animals as i can--including a giant fishtank

37.  have another baby.  before i'm 30.

38.  inspire someone to do something great.

39.  figure out what i really believe about life and religion, without worrying about what anyone else thinks.  (this one is a work in progress.)

40.  hire a maid to clean my house top to bottom while i sit on the couch and read a magazine and drink an ice cold coke.  pretend i'm a millionaire.

41.  find new friends and be comfortable in our new home--we are moving cross-country in two months.  acclimate to a totally different region and culture of the US, and support my hubby in graduate school the way he needs and deserves. (this one is also a work in progress.)

tag tag tag i'm it

k so i'm doing this tag that april put on her blog. she tagged anyone who wanted to do it. so i decided i might as well.

1. i don't like spoons. if i could eat soup with a fork, i would. something about the shape of them in my mouth...i don't know. i even eat ice cream with a fork.

2. i can't whistle. i never have been able to. please, don't offer to teach me, don't exclaim your shock and suprise at my lack of whistling ability, and don't tell me that i really can do it if i do it your way. i'm pretty sure every time someone finds out i can't whistle they try to teach me how.

3. i cry in art museums. the sheer beauty of everything around me is overhwelming. sometimes it's just getting teary-eyed--and sometimes i really, actually, burst into tears. pathetic, i know, but (as i have mentioned many many times, haha) art speaks to me in a way that nothing else does.

4. in high school, my very first "accident" was me hitting my friend's car. i'd had my license for like two minutes, backed out of a parking spot but didn't go far enough. and hit her car. (remember that, kmo?) i was really embarrassed...

5. one of my goals growing up was to be a famous fashion designer and move to paris. i even took french in high school for that purpose alone. that goal changed when i was about 18 and realized that i wanted a family more than i wanted to be a designer living in france.

6. i love to putter around thrift stores, antique shops, vintage clothing stores, yard sales, and swap meets. you never know what you'll find!

7. i love toffee. my mouth is watering just thinking about it...ooooh....yum. toffee is the best thing EVER.

okay so now i tag....anyone who, like me, has writer's block, and nothing to do. :)

color as an emotion

i like to consider myself a creative person. unfortunately that creativity comes in spurts. some days i have a hundred ideas floating around in my head, so many that i couldn't possibly write them all down. let alone fulfill them. the next day i have absolutely nothing--and i've forgotten those hundred ideas from the day before.

my creative blocks gave me a lot of trouble in high school. i had some teachers that were none-too-happy by the fact that half of the time i either doodled, wrote notes, did other homework, or slept in class. with the exception of my ap art teacher. he was totally cool with it, because he knew the next week i'd think up, create, and finish 12 new pieces. more than the rest of the class combined.

this teacher was one of my favorites. he was a little odd, as most art teachers (ahem, artists...just look at me) are. his art was odd, too. very interesting--but odd. with a lot of his work, after he would finish, he'd take it out to the desert and shoot at it. therefore most of his large canvas paintings were full of bullet holes. aesthetically interesting, for sure--i always wondered if he tried to put the bullet in a certain place or if it was all random. i probably should have asked, but never did.

mr. w. was also convinced i could see auras. as in a colored cloud surrounding a person. i can't. i tell you, i can't. i fully believe that people have auras, and that it is possible (but very rare) to see them. i do not see them. no matter how much i denied it, he didn't believe me. i used auras a lot in my artwork. he thought i denied it because i was embarrassed or didn't want people to think i was weird or make fun of me. so the entire year, he talked about how i could see auras. (i can't!)

it is an interesting concept, though. that was really the first time i had experimented with auras in my artwork. the reason is this: color is emotion. emotion is color. in my head, they are the same thing. i see the color blue and it means one thing, a slightly darker shade, a totally different thing. i can see why he would think that i saw auras. i used color surrounding a figure in my art as a means of conveying emotion.

this is part of the reason why art speaks to my soul. i am visual. i express myself better visually than i do verbally. i learn better visually. i "hear" things better visually. if someone were to make me a card, write me a letter, draw me a picture, even get me flowers--all physical objects--that i can see visually, it conveys something stronger to me than just telling me something. that doesn't mean that words mean nothing, not at all. i need the words, too. it's just that the meaning is stronger to me, somehow.

color surrounds us. in everything we see. and every color, every combination of colors, is symbolic. much of the time it is not meant to be. and to a lot of people, it is what it is--a color. to me, every combination of colors, the amount of a single color, the way they are arranged and displayed, all speaks of a different emotion. this is a lot of the reason why i love mark rothko. his art is simple, often with only two or three colors, but it speaks VOLUMES to me. each painting of his is an experience. each painting is an emotion, a series of emotions. i love that.

i wish everyone could see color, see art, the ultimate representation of color, the way i do. it fills me up to the brim. i stand and look at a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, and my entire soul is filled with emotion. and i can't verbalize it very well. i had the opportunity to see an actual van gogh, an actual picasso, a few months ago. and i cried. (that occurs frequently in art museums. well, frequently outside of them, but who's keeping track?) i was so overcome with emotion i could not contain it. the colors were so vivid, the brushstrokes so defined, so perfect, the painting as a whole amazing.

one of the things that bothers me the most is when someone buys a painting to match their couch. or their carpet. or that color of paint on the wall. we should NEVER buy a painting just to fill wall space. just to match the house decor. we should start with the painting. we should go looking for something that will speak to us. that makes us feel something. that contains a piece of our souls. so every time we look at it, we are reminded of the way we were immersed in the painting, the way we became a part of it, the first time we saw it. then buy your couch. then pick out your carpet. then paint your wall. everything else should center around that piece of art. that is my opinion. and if i had the financial means of doing so, you better believe i would.

as it is, my living room is centered around a piece of art that does that. that fills me with emotion. that makes me cry tears of joy, of pride, of humility. we picked our paint to match it. it is a piece of art that has been used for good and evil, that has a history, that will for many years continue to inspire and incite emotion in millions. that piece of art? a representation of the american flag. we actually have a few of them.

color is an amazing thing. it is a beautiful thing. sometimes an ugly thing. but it is always inspiring. and it is always emotional.