La Vida Loca

Well, it has been far too long since I last posted, so you'll have to forgive the length, but in my defense, life has been literally insane. Especially last semester. It was just one giant ball of stress. Oddly enough the root of the problem turned out to be my capstone painting class. There was a lot of pressure, mostly self-inflicted, to have it all together. I went through a lot of introspection and self-doubt in just trying to figure out who I am as an artist and what I want to make. I felt a lot of pressure to say something epic, have some deep and important concept, and in the end everything felt forced and contrived. I left the class feeling a little lost and inadequate. Poor Geoff can attest to the stress tears shed over this stupid class.
So this emotionally stressful class on top of my other 15 credits resulted in a very tired, stretched out Paige, with pretty much none of her wedding planned. So then during exams week Geoff gets a job (yay!!) only it's in South Dakota (why so far?!). So after only a week of us actually living in the same state for the first time, he is halfway across the country being the sweet and wonderful provider he is. Then I have about a weekend off, and school starts again with nine credits worth of summer classes so I can graduate before the wedding.
But this is where things look up (aside from the missing my fiancé thing, but I'll talk about that later), because my summer classes turned out to be easy and manageable and completely stress free. Woot Woot! It almost feels like cheating to get these few credits easy peasy in the course of a month. My ceramics class is hands-on which translates to fun and relaxing. Spanish 101 is a cake walk seeing as how it's super similar to portuguese, and for my last class I'm doing and Independent study which has been the best of all.
I have this sweet set-up in my professor's studio to do my thing. So almost every day, after attending my scheduled classes I've been spending a few hours painting. Painting with no expectations, pressure, stress, etc. It has been a dream. And oddly enough I feel like the simple little paintings I've been cranking out are far stronger and more interesting than anything I was doing for Capstone, while still fitting into in the most natural way, the concepts and ideas that I was mulling over.
But I'll leave a more detailed explanation for another post when I have photos to accompany. Sorry.
But in other news my wedding is getting so close. We're down to about twenty days, and I am getting SO EXCITED. Not just to be married, but to be able to live in the same state, city, house as my man. Our relationship from start to finish was long distance. How does that ever happen? It had to of been meant to be.
Well, just so there is some sort of visual interest to this post, here is the engagement photo Geoff and I sent out with our invites. Everyone who complements me on the invites always says how happy we look. And well, that's because we are happy. Twitterpation is the bomb.

Quick Peek

So I just wanted to take a moment to give a sneak peek at what I've been working on. More than a week ago, I was skyping with Geoff and I noticed the lighting was super interesting.  So I took some screenshots and made these super fast little paintings from them. 

The plan is to then use these little paintings as source material for some collages, but I liked the originals so I decided to take a picture before I destroy them. So please excuse the poor photography skills, my highest goal in mind with these was a non-blurry image. And I promise to post images of what happens with these bad boys, with a full explanation of the concept, etc. 

I just thought it'd be nice to post something, anything, before I get completely out of the habit and have to post a years worth of stuff. 

P.S. They were meant to be pretty crude, so don't judge me on any complete exclusion of detail. I got pretty lazy since I knew I'd collage them.
P.P.S. The top image is my favorite.

Valentine's Day

This year is a good year. I've never had a significant other on Valentine's Day before now, and it's never bothered me, but I won't lie, Valentine's Day is so much more fun with someone to celebrate with. So I dedicate this blog post and these delightfully nerdy valentines to my sweet lover.

P.S. Happy Birthday to my most wonderful mother. You're the best.

Recent work

I'm getting married!

So with that I'd like to share some wisdom from my good friend C.S. Lewis.

And so here we are, the next American Gothic. 

Blessed Directions

So I've been meaning to get back into the blogging swing of things, especially since it's been kind of an adventure since I've been home from my mission, But of course, like any adventure it's been busy.
But this post will probably be more focused on what's been happening in school.

I will admit I was nervous about starting school again. With the timing of things I ended up missing four semesters or two years of school while serving and I was worried about picking up where I left off. But coming back has turned into one of the biggest (among plenty huge ones) blessings in the six months I've been home. It was an adjustment, and I will admit that the first week or so was hard feeling out of my comfort zone, but once I was into it again it's been gravy ever since. Still lots of hard work, but fulfilling and as much of a no-brainer as this is, educational.

Serving a mission was the best thing I could have ever done for my academic career. Taking some time to focus on others and gain experiences served so well to help me to focus and learn better who I am and who I want to be.

Anyway, so in my studio classes I feel like I've made great strides to discovering better who I am as an artist and what I'm interested in. I've been blessed with some fantastic teachers who, in different ways have taught me abstraction, which is something I've been interested in, yet intimidated by for years. So enough yammering, here are some photos of a few projects I've been working on.

This piece occupied a large amount of time, and I'm not even sure it comes across in the photos how truly enormous it is. Oddly enough it wasn't originally intended to be quite so large, but as the project wore on it just grew and grew. 

So this is a paper based collage based on an idea I had combining a quilting technique my mother uses. I started with three large collage drawings then cut the drawings into strips, glued the strips onto a new large paper to make a new drawing, then cut again. I cut and pasted the strips together several different times to create the pattern and texture of the drawing. And I find myself really attracted to the chaos that erupted with the subtle reminder of the structure my methods of construction created. 

And like what most of what I've done both pre and post mission, textile and quilts have been a common theme. I almost never enter a piece with a concrete end goal, image, or concept in mind. It just doesn't work that way for me. I have to start drawing or painting or just making and through process I'm able to discover or encounter the concept. So for this piece and others I love how something that in a quiet way served to shape me and my childhood has emerged multiple times in my work. 

Since I can remember there has always been fabric and textiles in my home. My mother is a quilter and an artist in said medium, and I think in a lot of ways that love for creating things has shaped me.  So it felt like a natural extension to find those same kind of inspirations and influences in what I do. 

So for the sake of cutting short this already super long post I thought I'd just share one last little collage drawing I did following the super large one. I'm basically just in love with the medium and I am excited to explore more with it.  I have been blessed immensely with a renewed sense of direction.