Gallery Happenings

The past few weeks I've been busily getting ready for my gallery opening at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center. I'm having eleven of my cyanotype pieces displayed in the gallery (ten of which are for sale!).

Though the pieces were all matted and framed, I had to buy glass to put into the frames in order for them to be put up in the gallery. The glass was a major pain! The frames aren't exactly square and each side is a different length which made it really hard to get perfectly fitting glass. There are little gaps between the glass and the frames but they don't look bad. Several pieces of the glass also had corners chipped. I got to the end of putting the glass in and had few pieces that wouldn't go into the frames they were for. I did a little dance between a couple of the frames and managed to get couple to work. I then went back to ACE and bought three more sheets... one was an extra. Of course when I got home, the two larger pieces of glass still didn't work in the frame I needed it to go in and then when I picked up the one smaller piece I broke a huge chunk at the corner off. I was super upset and fed up with the whole ordeal but managed to trade out some frames and got everything to work alright.

For the whole glass thing, I made five or six trips to ACE Hardware and three trips to Lowe's. I bought a total of about 16 pieces of glass and four boxes of different things to try to keep the glass in! I'm so glad that it's all done now!!! And I'm super excited that my pieces are actually up!

Last night was kind of a "soft" gallery opening. The Schweinfurth had a fundraiser event and invited me to come since my gallery was up for it. I met a bunch of new people and got to talk to several people about my work and got some really nice compliments (of course they could've just been being polite but I'd like to think there was truth to what they were saying.) I was so nervous but it was good practice for the real opening in a week :) I also had a couple people ask me about prices so I'm hoping something pans out from that too!

A Thankful Thursday

I was thinking the other day about how lucky/blessed I am to have such awesome people in my life. Some of these people are very supportive of my artistic abilities and encourage me to get my work out there. Some of these people are really good at making me smile. Some are great at listening and showing they care. Let me explain a little of this to you.

I have the opportunity to have some of my work viewed by a gallery in Auburn to possibly have my work shown there. The people I know with the connections there are so excited for me and keep encouraging me to get in there and get my work out there for people to see.

You know how there's always a person or two that when you see their name pop-up on your phone your heart kinda sinks? Well, I have those too. But I also have a person or two that makes me smile when their name pops-up. People I either haven't talked to in a while and can't wait to catch up with or someone I talk to everyday but I enjoy talking to every time.

I have some of the best friends in the world! They're always there when I need someone to listen to me and when I'm happy or excited too. I don't know what I'd do without my friends... and family too. I'm so blessed

Since its Tuesday...

I was going to blog about something else but since it is Tuesday and Thanksgiving is this Thursday I suppose I'll do a Ten Things I'm Thankful for Tuesday. So here it goes...

1. My families, all two or three of them

2. A job... even if it isn't full time or what I'd like to be getting paid

3. The people who love and care for me

4. That I stuck with it and finished my college education

5. I don't have to start paying my loan back for another month

6. My car so I can go to Vermont tomorrow morning

7. A day spent shopping with Kim last week - what a relaxing/fun day :)

8. Health (I know that sounds cliche but it's true... not just for me but for my family too)

9. The ability to look back on things and see how far I've come or how different life might've been if something did or didn't happen the way that it did.

10. An espresso maker at home... it makes for happier mornings

10 Things Tuesday

Ten Things I want to do:

1. Travel overseas

2. Find a job I like and am qualified for

3. Start working out (running?)

4. Find my jewelery box with all my favorite earrings in it (its been lost since June or July...sadness)

5. Go to Chicago just to experience the city

6. Go to Toronto to visit friends

7. Have the guts to say "no"

8. Make/get a UV box and a cyanotype kit

9. Go to Florida

10. Let it go even though I don't understand

Ten Things Tuesday

I saw this idea on someone's blog and thought it was cool. She makes a list of ten things every Tuesday. The list has a different theme every week. For my first time doing this my list is:

10 Things I'm Looking Forward To:

1. Getting my camp check
2. Going to California next month
3. Playing with the girls and the baby goats tomorrow
4. Having a fuller well
5. Allergy season being over
6. Supper tonight (yay for Spring Garden take out)
7. The state fair
8. Clean sheets
9. Getting an email
10. Putting some stuff up on Etsy

Short Term Post College Goals

Here is a list of goals that I would like to work towards/accomplish fairly soon

1. Get at least a good part time job
2. Read (at least) one new book a month
3. Make a UV box
4. Get my shop on Etsy going with photos and jewlery
5. Make 5 sets of earrings a week (or every other week) to sell on Etsy
6. Start making Cyanotypes again
7. Clean my room and keep it organized
8. Have my own daily devotional time
9. Drop some pounds/get healthier
10. Be more accepting of change
11. Get my Vintage Impressions images scanned
12. Get Vintage Impressions into a gallery show (???)

Future Nuptual Ponderings

There's been all sorts of wedding chatter this summer... friends getting married or planning weddings, bloggers blogging about weddings, people making all sorts of pins on pinterest about wedding stuff, and I'm an assistant photographer for a few weddings this fall.

Naturally, being a girl, I've started thinking about what I'd want if/when I'm ever to get married. I've been told on more then one occasion to elope and then just have a big party/reception afterwards. While this sounds intriguing, I kinda want a small wedding out in a field somewhere. A small wedding is more then likely out of the question with how big of a family I have. So, this is what I think I'd want:

I'd want to elope... maybe tell parents/siblings. I'd still want a photographer there and a pretty dress to wear. Sometime after I'd like the party with everyone. I'd still want to have it in a field/pasture somewhere... maybe with an awesome looking barn to take some sweet pictures at. I like the idea of having a bunch of the DIY decorations... like the mason jars with wild flowers and black & white poppies for center pieces. A big white tent with white Christmas lights around it would be cool. I love the old, simple look/feel... the old wood, mason jars, wild flowers, burlap, chalkboard signs, and maybe a fun photo booth thing with big wooden picture frames.

But who knows... it could all change before I actually even meet someone and consider marriage!

Camp

Camp was an insane 6 weeks! I was lucky to have campers only 3 of the possible 4 weeks of campers (I didn't have any during Camp Confidence).

Week 1: Staff week was alright. I got moved into my cabin (number 4) along with my two assistant counselors. I was asked by the photographer if she could use my camera because she only had a point and shoot and "the camp camera is old" and she didn't like it or want to use it. I wasn't comfortable with her using mine because if something happened to it I'd have to pay for it. She ended up going through my stuff to find the camera because they wanted to use it for staff pictures! Not cool! The rest of the week was spent in meetings, making ceramics, setting up the craft room, and figuring out crafts.

Week 2: We had 6 little girls in our cabin for Cub Camp. All but one of them had never been to camp before. They all got along really well and I didn't have many issues with them. They did like to get on my bed a lot which made it really dirty/sandy really fast! We had a huge storm on Tuesday night (my night off so I wasn't in the cabin). Lightening struck between two sets of the cabins and made some lights flicker, blew the brakers, and made our smoke detector go off for a bit. Luckily, the girls weren't too effected by the huge pop sound and bright flash. Nobody was hurt and the girls went right back to sleep.
My assistants weren't the greatest though. One never helped during the day and rarely helped at night or in the mornings. Both of them decided they had better stuff to do during chore time, meals, and often during worships too. It was also nice that the one day I was going to be able to get my hour off the assistant who sat around all day decided that that should be her time to take off so I had to rotate activities with the girls instead of getting a break/some sleep. The assistants also disappeared for extended periods of time at night. Often times not coming back until midnight or later.

Week 3: This was my week off from counseling. It was still a kinda rough week though because we had lots of people with disabilities and I didn't always have enough help in the craft room. I managed though and I think most of the people had a pretty good time in crafts (thankfully).

Week 4: Family camp was absolutely crazy! It was really hot or storming most of the week. This meant crafts was crazy busy since it was the only activity inside and air conditioned. One day we had so many people in there all afternoon that we ran out of seats and room at the table! We had people sitting on our 5-gallon pails and standing. Of course families are there for vacation and most of them didn't care whether they took care of the things they used or not. Thankfully some families made their kids clean up their own messes and didn't let them leave til things were picked up.

Week 5: Oh the joys of Teen Camp. I had a great assistant except for the fact she worked in the horse barn which meant she couldn't eat meals with us, wasn't at morning worships, and couldn't help with chores. Luckily, much of that stuff didn't matter too much since it was teen camp. The biggest issue I had that week was one of the girls came to camp with "old nits" in her hair and had to see the nurse for a "precautionary" lice treatment. I was not okay with it and was paranoid ALL week. Of course it was the one girl in the cabin that had to walk right next to me and hang over my bed. She literally would walk so close to me that she'd run me off the pathway!
We cleaned the cabin like crazy Sunday after they left. We bleached the beds and swept the floor like 5 times. I also washed all my bedding  before the next group came. I thought week six wouldn't be so bad now... but how wrong I was.

Week 6: Junior camp was the worst week of camp ever! I hadn't seen any of my girls moving in cause I was so busy moving in other girls. I went back up to the store towards the end of registration and was told by the girls director that one of the girls had to spend the night in the nurses cabin for a hair treatment. Stressed and tired (also extremely paranoid again and terrified of getting lice), I put my head down on the table and said "why me?!" The response I got from the girl's director was "don't even complain right now". I was so disheartened I almost burst into tears when she said that to me. They treated the one girl but not her sister with whom she shared bedding and a suitcase as well as spent the night in the same bed.
The week went from bad to worse when my assistant counselor was scheduled for the cafe every single day. I therefore had NO assistant at all the entire week. I was exhausted even with an hour off each day. A couple girls were really slow going anywhere. One of them was 15 minutes late to morning line-call one morning and 10 to another. I think she made it to MAYBE one or two line-calls all week (we had about 4 a day) and they were not morning line-calls.
My girls were lazy and never wanted to do chores. They bickered and fought a lot. It got so bad I had a couple girls in tears. One night one burst out of the cabin in tears because she was missing her sister. Friday night one was off by herself crying because some of the girls said she was ugly.
Some of the girls wouldn't show up to line-call because they went to change or something. I would have no idea where they were so would have to leave the girls that were there on the field and run up to the cabin and bathrooms to try and find the other girls. It was awful!
One girl decided she didn't want to eat for the last 3 or 4 meals. Which wasn't good cause she'd passed out at lunch time! I tried everything I could think of to get her to eat but she wouldn't. I got the girls director and she ended up sitting with her long after the rest of us left until she finished eating.
I'd never been happier for a week to end!

I don't think I'll be returning to camp next year. Partly because of the horrible experiences this year but partly because I've graduated college (I finally got my diploma in the mail!) and need to find a real job with decent pay. I will miss some of the people though

School's Out For the Summer, School's Out for Ever

Graduation day has come and gone and with it another chapter has closed. People keep asking if it feels good to be done. I have to say that yes, it does feel good to be done. Its nice not to have to worry about where the $1,200 to make a down payment on my school bill will come from, it's nice not to be stressed about homework and major projects, and it's nice to be able to do fun things without feeling guilty about it.

So while all of the stress of school has ended, a whole new world of stress is about to crash down on me. I will soon be in need of an income to cover my BILLS... not just a month school bill but actual "grown up" bills! I'll have to figure out my business plan, how many jobs I want to do in a week, and how far I'm willing to travel to make the money.

The future is scary. However, I can now look back on the past six years and see all the hurdles I've had to jump over in order to graduate with my BFA. If I survived that, I can survive the next six and accomplish whatever goals I set...

Happy Face

Putting on a "happy face" and pretending like everything is okay doesn't mean it is.

They say smiling even if you don't feel like it improves your mood... sometimes I have a hard time believing that.

I will wear a brightly colored shirt to match the brightly shining sun that's showing his happy face today. I'll try putting on a smile... and I'll go through my day, as best as I can, pretending like all is right in my world even though parts of me feel like crumbling inside.