A New Reason to Improve

As of Thursday morning, I have an entirely new reason to do the things I do, to be come a better person- Thursday morning, after ten long months of trying, I found out that I am finally pregnant! It is just barely sort of starting to sink in that I am going to be somebody's mother. I feel prepared and inadequate all at once. Anyway, in order to prevent this blog from becoming a "Johnny threw up today" kind of blog, I will stay brief and just say that I am excited beyond what words can express. So in the spirit of my announcement, the artist I will feature today is Anne Geddes ;) (No analysis needed).

Bosch and Scale

The next artist I'd like to feature is a fascinating sixteenth-century Dutch painter named Hieronymus Bosch. There are so many reasons why I love Bosch's work. Let's take a look at the painting that is cosidered his masterpiece: The Garden of Earthly Delights



I apologize for the somewhat poor quality of the picture, its the best I could find online. This is oil paint on wood. There is an INCREDIBLE amount of detail in this painting that you just can't see in small scale. I encourage all of you to go to the library and look up a book with a larger image of this painting- its amazing. Here are some close-ups of the right side panel:









Now- why do I like these jumbled, slightly disturbing paintings so much? Firstly, consider the period in history in which they were painted. The Garden of Earthly Delights was completed in 1510! Martin Luther wouldn't post his Ninety-Five Theses for another seven years! This was a time in which portaits and religious paintings were the norm. To my (very limited) knowledge, although they contained religious content, nothing like these paintings had ever been done before. Look at the surreal creatures and objects in the close-ups. Its plain to see that later surrealist artists like Salvador Dali were heavily influenced by Bosch's work which was so entirely ahead of its time.

So how did Bosch create such a surreal, even nightmarish mood? It wasn't just his use of strange creatures- look at how he messes with the scale of everyday objects. All of the human figures are propotional to one another, but the flute, the bagpipes, and the animal skull, for example, are all gigantic in proportion to the humans. It gives the viewer an feeling of vague uneasiness which the theme of the painting only enhances.

Scale is an interesting tool that artists use to inspire certain feelings in the viewer. Consider the Sistine Chapel, for example. A viewer's breath is simply taken away by the massive scale of the work. Then after the feeling of overwhelming awe subsides, the viewer can look at the individual frescoes. As you're out and about looking at various advertisements, buildings, landscape designs, etc., consider how the creator used scale to convey his point. In advertisements, a product is often portrayed as being much larger than it actually is. Like this ad, for example:




If the bottle were actually this big, it would take an NFL player to lift it. But the proportionally large scale of the bottle draws your attention to it.

On a somewhat unrelated note: Donovan McNabb, I hope you enjoy the death of your career with the Washington Redskins.

Art Lesson

Going back to school in a creative field has made me realize just how important the creative process is in my life. Being in an art class again has made me feel like a big part of me that was asleep for a long time is alive and engaged again. Since art is once again a big part of my life, I'd like to start featuring an artist each week (or, let's be honest here, as often as I get to it). For the most part I will not be featuring artists like DaVinci and Van Gogh whose work everyone is fairly familiar with- I want to talk about some lesser-known artists. Not obscure, necessarily, but not uber-famous either. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to the work of a Collage artist named Dick Allowatt. (I'm starting with him because I'm currently doing a project based on his work.) Dick started his art career as a Graphic Designer but now works in collage and assemblage. I like his work because not only is the composition great, but his work is also quite thought-provoking. Take this collage for example:




This collage is called "Golden Girl". It is an interesting take on our obsession with beauty and body image. Note the asymmetrical balance of the angels and the fabric and the unity brought to the whole piece by the repetition of the blue shade in the angels' tunics, the girl's swimming suit and the saints' outfits and by the gold in the background, the arches, and the girl's hair. This is a really well put together piece. Let's look at another one:




This piece, entitled "Miss Fortune" is a really neat mixed-media collage. I love the combination of the renaissance-style painting with the Bookie's log. A lot of collage is purely aesthetic, but Dick Allowatt really says something with each piece. The project I am currently composing is based on "Golden Girl" and I will post a picture of my piece when it is complete.


Here is more of Dick Allowatt's work:


So there's your art lesson for the day. Or week. Or however long it takes me to post again.

Time for a Change

Another day, another dollar. It sounds so simple, but employment is such a big part of modern life. For the last two years I have worked at a job that was good for a while, terrible for a while, and then ended up being great. My coworkers are nice, my boss is the best boss I've ever had, and the hours are completely ideal- but I have hit a dead end. A few weeks ago I was promised a promotion, and then a change in company policy made said promotion impossible. In fact, this change made it highly unlikely that I will ever be able to advance. My boss laments the fact that I will not be able to do this other job he had intended for me, but this bolt from the blue came from high above his head. So although there are a lot of things that I really like about my job, it is time for a change. I am putting the feelers out there for a new job. Although some people would be fine with a never-changing job, I am not one of those people. I need to be able to grow and improve. So I will take my time and find just the right job that will probably be pretty similar to the one I have now, but with advancement opportunities. I have been at my current job long enough so that it won't look like I can't hold onto a job, and I will be leaving on great terms with lots of good recommendations. So I feel that the time is right for a change in employment, hopefully at a place where I can stay until I have my degree, 45 years from now.

Anna Returns

After a shamefully long hiatus (attributable to an increase in my professional workload, starting school, and a rather nasty bout of food poisoning,) I'm back!

To be completely honest, one of the reasons I haven't written anything in the last few weeks is that I haven't had much to say. I have all of these good ideas, but implementing them one after the other sort of defeats the purpose since I can't really establish a habit for any of them. Since I can't really start anything new right now, I thought a simple status report might suffice:

Good Idea#1: Freezer Cooking- We still actually have several of these meals in the freezer. We will be eating one of them tonight, as a matter of fact.

Good Idea #2: Debt-Busting- After about 3K in unexpected expenses this spring (Damn you, Murphy, damn you.) we haven't made much headway. Our "budget" has pretty much consisted of getting the bills paid and feeling pretty good about it.

Good Idea #3: Non-Negotiable Priorities- Haaaah! Ummm yeah. These are still all-too-negotiable. It comes down to 2 factors, the foremost of which is that I don't have a lot of time. The second factor is that when I do have the time to exercise or read scripture, I just don't want to. Now that it is staying light out so late (isn't it lovely?) I think I am going to start walking my dogs after dinner. Goodness knows they would like it. As for scripture study, I just don't know. I'm right in the thick of the Mosaic Law right now and....ZZZZzZzzzzzz.....*snork!* What was I saying? Oh right...Old Testament. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there but MAN do you have to work to find it. I guess church as a whole is not yeilding much satisfaction right now. I think most of us churchgoers go through phases like this where church just loses meaning for a while. I guess I'm in a bit of a spiritual funk. I'm sure it will pass.

Good Idea #4: Going Back to School- This is going swimmingly. I love being back in the classroom and doing something I absolutely love. I finally feel like I am headed in the right direction, academically speaking. I really can't wait until I'm designing professionally. *sigh* It will be bliss.

Good Idea #5: Eating Healthy- This has been going fairly well except for the aforementioned food poisoning. I am currently trying for the nth time in my life to give up soda. I loves me some Coca Cola. I haven't had a coke since last Thursday which has to be some kind of record. I did drink a lot of sprite over the weekend, but since it was the only thing I could keep down for about 48 hours, I didn't feel too bad about it. The Hubs is down to the last notch on his belt and is going to have to buy a new one soon. Why can't weight loss be that easy for women? Garrrr. One good thing that seems to have come from my recent illness is that I now have somewhat of an aversion to fast food (from whence the food poisoning came). Certainly less fast food in my diet will be a great thing.

And thus are the good ideas.

I would also like to add that I crocheted 2 (count 'em- TWO) dish cloths this weekend. Next stop, dish towels. OOOooooo.....

Good Idea #5: Healthy Eating

In a recent development, The Hubs has become terrified of diabetes. He is strong and fit and healthy as a horse, but all of a sudden he wants to take steps to ensure that he doesn't become diabetic and have to have his feet amputated. A worthy goal, undoubtedly. However, I'm not sure why the sudden worry. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he is turning 25 in June (yay car insurance discounts!).

Anyway, we are cutting way back on the sugar (I have always had a very insistant sweet tooth) and upping our intake of fruits and veggies. I am also trying to eat more whole grains and use less processed food in my cooking. On that note, I am proud to announce that last week, I made my own butter. It is fabulous. It is creamy and delicious and contains only two ingredients: cream and salt. No monohydroxyunsaturated anything in my butter.

If you'd like to try making your own butter, take heavy cream and put it into a large bowl. I started with a gallon of cream and ended up with what looks like about 5 lbs of butter. You can use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or if you are like me and do not have the counterspace for a stand mixer, (*sulks bitterly*) you can use a hand mixer with the whisk attachment. Just beat it! First it will form thick strands off of the whisk, then soft peaks, then stiff peaks, then something a little firmer and then all of a sudden the cream siezes and buttermilk floods out, leaving butter behind. Now, since you didn't start out with cultured cream, the buttermilk isn't cultured which means its basically like unhomogonized 1% milk. It is delicious over cereal. Anyway, once your butter gets to that point, drain out the buttermilk and knead the butter in a bowl of cold water. Once the water becomes cloudy, dump it out and fill it again with fresh water. Repeat until the water stays clear. It is important to wash all of the buttermilk out because if you don't, the butter will spoil much more quickly. Incidentally, I am in the market for a French Butter Crock. If anyone knows where I can buy one locally, please enlighten me in the comments.

I am really excited about our foray into healthy eating. I have tried to make this change on my own before, but without the support of a spouse, it is infinitely more difficult. The Hubs, for most of our marriage, has worked at fairly labor-intensive jobs, during which a dinner of Chicken Ceasar Salad was completely insufficient. Now he is behind a desk a lot of the time and his caloric needs are much closer to my own so that, in order for me to eat healthy, I don't have to cook 2 dinners. Yay desk.

On a less healthy note, we ate a freezer dinner last night that made all of the other freezer dinners we muscled through completely worth it: Bacon Wrapped Chicken.


It was divine. Not something you'd want to make often because there isn't much that's healthy about it, but wow. It was good. It would be a great dish to take to a party because its easy (albeit time-consuming) to make but looks and tastes tre gourmet. I served it with fresh broccoli to up the healthiness factor and what a meal.

Hopefully the healthy changes to my diet and the regular (I can't yet say daily...) walking will make for a more energetic me that can keep up with full-time employment, part-time scholarship, and all-the-time wife-ing. Go me.

Good Idea #4: Going back to School

Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad I'm not a fool...

And to earn a degree that will let me do something I actually enjoy doing and make money doing it. That's right folks, I'm going back to school for a degree in Graphic Design. I started college as an art major, but since I didn't really know much about what I wanted to do, everyone convinced me that I'd be a starving artist or a secretary with a useless degree. So I switched my major, sort of foundered around for a while, and ultimately dropped out because of some personal and family issues. Now that I've been a working adult for several years (as a secretary with NO degree,) I have figured out how I can use my artistic abilities to earn a living. I am SO excited to be going back to school. I wouldn't change the choices I made- I still believe that they were the right ones. Still, it was really tough watching all of my friends graduate and feeling like I'd never get there. I am tying up all of the loose ends concerning enrollment, registration, and the like, and I will be starting my first class(Fundamentals of Design- YAY!!!!) 2 weeks from this Friday.

Education has always been really important to me and my lack of a college degree has always left me feeling, well, lacking. This is a self-improvement that I have wanted to make for quite some time and it feels so good to finally be getting there.

I'z goin too bei smarterr nau...

Since I have been out of town for the past few days, I have no food review for today. Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of the freezer dinners. They just aren't the same as fresh food. Yes, it was quite enchanting the first week, not having to cook, but the quality of the food was just blah and after an entire month of it, I don't think I can do it again. I am, however, going to try a different method of making things ahead. I am going to go back to planning 2 weeks of meals at a time, shopping every other Friday, and just doing everything I can do ahead of time as soon as I get home from the grocery. Chopping, browning, etc. That way I will still have a plan, still save time on work nights, and still have fresh food that isn't a drudgery to eat. We will finish up the freezer meals we haven't eaten yet (except maybe the Chili...I may just throw that out when Alex isn't looking) and next payday I'll buy groceries like a normal person.

So overall, I'd say OAMC has its merits, but it isn't for me. I enjoy cooking (and eating) too much. When I know I am capable of "Wow!", "meh..." just isn't good enough. Also, I plan to start using coupons a lot more in the coming months, and that isn't easy to do when you only shop once a month. That takes a kind of planning that is well beyond my abilities.

And so, Good Idea#1 dies a quiet death after it fell on the "error" side of the trial and error process. So long OAMC, I will remember the good times.