random thoughts

Thinking of trying out Field Notes for when I need a little notebook, but it feels like I would be betraying my Moleskines.

I held out as long as I could before ordering this film from The Impossible Project, but the time has come. Can't. Wait.

I also want to try Lomography's Diana F+ adapter for my Canon.

Wishing I had gotten that orange chenille bedspread at the Paris Street Market last weekend. Even if it did have gum on it. It went perfectly with my vintage pink and orange flowered pillowcases. Maybe it will still be there next time.

create pulchritudinem

Early this year, I got this tattoo on the inside of my left wrist. CREATE PULCHRITUDINEM. It means 'create beauty' in Latin.

One day when a friend and I were discussing possible tattoo designs she was thinking about, she said, "I feel like you needed that for yourself this year." I agree. Now, one can debate the merit or necessity of a tattoo, but that's not what I'm going for, so don't feel compelled to weigh in on that here.

It is a message, primarily to myself, and one that has kept me going thru the challenging times I alluded to in the previous post. Creating beauty is something that I feel compelled to do, and it takes many different forms...helping to curate worship stations, hosting people in my home, knitting, sewing, and photography, to name a few.

The last couple of years I lived in Birmingham, I was part of a small-group Bible study that, if you examined it from afar, seemed like the least likely group of women to fit together for such a purpose. Yet it was a rich experience. Over the course of time, we probably exchanged hundreds of dollars in the form of shoes, jewelry, books, and lunches, without much money ever changing hands.

We met during lunch on Fridays and usually did a book study of some sort. At one point, we went thru The Purpose-Driven Life. I know there are many, many people that love that book and gleaned much from it. I happen to not be one of those people. With one exception. The section on What Drives You?

As a pre-cursor to talking about that section, we all asked that question of others in our lives. I sent out an email to one of my brothers, some friends from forever and some from not so long ago, my mom's best friend, people young and old. All of the answers that I received boiled down to two things:

seeking truth and/or creativity

While I know that is true, and it is something I can easily articulate for myself, it still blows me away to know that people can see that. Occasionally, I still pull out that list and marvel that it boils down to those two things.

Create pulchritudinem. Looking forward to more in the days and weeks to come.

the list

Tripped across this in my email today. A list of goals/dreams I had put together a little over a year ago at the urging of a friend. Not really any closer to any of them than I was then, which makes me feel kinda lame, but I think they are all still on 'the list'.

- have a gallery show my photography

- leave the insurance world behind because my photography and writing have become so lucrative

- find Mr. Right

- have a family of my own (this one is starting to smolder a bit - not sure I want to be raising kids into my 60s)

- write a book of essays and have them published

- lose 40 pounds

- f*ck fear

- paint the bathroom

- work less

- write more

- waste less time

- road trip around the country

- dream bigger

- live more authentically

pentecost, bluegrass style

25 Random Things About Amy

1-my favorite color is orange.
2-i once hitched a ride from Atlanta to Birmingham with a trucker when my car broke down.
3-i love funky eyeglasses and silver jewelry.
4-i have lived in 3 states - TN, AL, CO.
5-i am a die-hard Tennessee Vols fan.
6-my all-time favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird.
7-i have a personal goal of reading 50 books this year.
8-i peed on stage during practice for the 1st Grade Christmas Play because I was scared to ask if I could go to the bathroom. I was terrified of the noise public toilets make upon flushing.
9- my Myers-Briggs type is INFJ.
10-faith as i know it is evolving from something legalistic and formulaic to something filled less with certainty and more with mystery.
11-i have an aversion to retractable blades, like box cutters. and an aversion to snow.
12-i love Scrabble and Scattegories. i even took Scrabble with me to Costa Rica last year and my brother and i played it outside in the gardens before bed at night.
13-i have completed a half marathon.
14-i never leave home without my iPod, cell phone, journal, a book, and usually a camera.
15-i love Moleskine journals.
16-i have no parents.
17-i am madly in love with my niece and nephew because they think i am so fun.
18-i miss living close enough to the beach to escape there for a quick weekend.
19-my iPod, my camera, and an oil painting of my dad when he was a kid are among my favorite possessions.
20-i dream of having a job i truly love.
21-i am addicted to caffeine.
22-sleeping in is one my favorite things.
23-sanitary, nodule, legalistic, pus, irregardless, copasetic, chunky, nougat, thong, i-beam, terminal, capable, and doctrine are among my least favorite words.
24-i like to make stuff.
25-i hope this is the year i get my passion back.

looking ahead

with 2008 in the books, here’s what I’m shooting for in 2009, creatively:

reading. goal of 50 books. averages out to approximately one per week. ambitious? yes. achievable? i think so.

writing. I’m not going to set a goal of a specific number of days this year. i have some ideas about what I want to write about and will focus on that.

photography. increase my photoshop skills. take another class or two at working with artists. take pictures consistently. and do something with them. get a macro lens, duaflex camera, and build a contraption so I can take thru the viewfinder shots. work on the plastic jesus series.

learn the mac. 2008 saw me move from being a pc girl to being a mac girl. great move. still have a lot to learn about the mac and all i can do with it. i’m signing up for apple’s one-to-one program so i can get the most from it. how can you go wrong with the option for an hour’s worth of one-on-one instruction for $99 for a whole year?

more knitting, collaging, random hand-crafting and d-i-y projects.

looking behind

2008 was a challenging year in a lot of ways. lost my dad in march. spent the first part of the year growing into my new (at the time) job. people insisted on playing emmylou harris’ orphan girl at every live music venue I frequented. moved on from a church I had tried to make fit for me for quite a while to one where i am finding real community. had my faith stripped of a lot of certainty along the way. still being forced to reckon with uncertainty. had to get reading glasses.

looking back at my first blog entry of 2008, here’s what I hoped to accomplish:

Read 40 books. the year-end tally was 41.

Write 5 days a week, or 20 days a month. it is almost laughable how short i fell of this goal. i did far more talk about writing than i did writing.

learn photoshop. off to a good start on this one, but there is so much to learn. doesn’t feel daunting any more, though.

take a jillion pictures and learn how to organize them. fell just short of a jillion pictures. figuring out the best way for me to organize them is an ongoing project.

develop the plastic jesus series. the plastic jesus series did not grow very much in 2008. definitely an on-going work.

take some creative risks. took a photography class at working with artists. went to the glen workshop in santa fe. collaborated on some creative worship experiences at a couple of different places.

drop a few pounds. dropped a few. more to go.

get my money’s worth out of my gym membership. used it more than in 2007.

simplify. ongoing. life does feel less chaotic.

be a little more free. let go of some stuff that was not life-giving. so, yeah, a little more free.

Urban Skye Art & Design Shared Studio

What: Urban Skye Art & Design Shared Studio
When: Monday, October 27, 7 - 9 pm.
Where: 2830 S. Harrison St., Denver.
Details: Bring a project you are working on, or something that inspires you, or something that sounds like fun to do around other people. Show & tell, asking for help, bringing friends are all highly encouraged. More info to come on the Urban Skye website.

RGBP meet-up

In the midst of my post-conference craziness after Image Journal's Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, I'm also (finally) making the switch from a PC to a MacBook. Hence my delay in blogging about my week, and especially my fun meet-up with Zorra and The Scientist. After meeting briefly during intermission of an Over the Rhine concert the night before (via the aid of cell phones to find each other!) the three of us, along with my friend Jenny, enjoyed a lovely New Mexican lunch in downtown Santa Fe. Good food, great company, and for me, a great escape from the confines of St. John's College. Many thanks to The Scientist for being our photographer.

And for my dear lurkers - the conference overall was a mixed bag - some highs and some lows. Glad I experienced it, not sure I'll need to go back. It did spark the beginnings of some great conversations, and the new connections with a few people were the best take-aways. But aren't they always?

chimayo

denise, this one's for you!

What a small world we live in. Right before I headed out the door tonight to go to the Dry Bones Denver Photography show I checked email very quickly. My friend Denise had commented on my last post about how the church she goes to in Abilene is a huge supporter of Dry Bones and that she had played Bunko with Nikki (who is one of the staff leaders) last month.

Long story short, I sought her out at the fundraiser tonight and we made the connection, which was really cool.

The show was very well put together and hopefully raised several hundred dollars for the Dry Bones folks. It was set up as a silent auction and there were some wonderful works. I walked away with two nice urban photos of Denver.

Urban Skye Art & Design First Friday event

What: Urban Skye Art & Design First Friday event

When: Friday, March 7, 2008, 6pm

Where: Temple Events Center, 1595 Pearl St, Denver, CO 80203

Join Urban Skye Art & Design as we support the budding photographers of Dry Bones Denver in their first ever Photography Exhibition.

Dry Bones Denver is an outreach to homeless teens and young adults living in downtown Denver.
*
Afterwards, we’'ll check out The Shoppe @ 3103 East Colfax for some tasty treats. The Shoppe specializes in cupcakes and cereal! What's not to like about that?

hopeful happenings

Well, we're 1/24th of the way thru 2008, and I'm moving along half-way decently toward my creative intentions of the year.
- I've read 2.5 books so far. Will try to get them posted this weekend.
- I'm signed up for a PhotoShop crash course on Saturday.
- Have been somewhat sporadic on the writing. Seems like I may have overshot it by thinking I could write something of substance 5 days a week. 3 days seems like a better goal. (Actually, if I counted writing business plans for work, etc, I'd be at 5 or 6. But I'm not counting that stuff.)
- I'm off to a decent start of taking pictures, including a day at the Museum of Contemporary Art and some photos at an Off the Map community party.
Now to get my lazy ass to the gym...

urban skye shared studio

What: Urban Skye Art & Design Shared Studio
When: Tuesday, December 11,2007, 7 pm.
Where: 2830 S. Harrison St., Denver.
Details: Got some last minute Christmas projects you need to finish? Bring those along! Bring a project you are working on, or something that inspires you, or something that sounds like fun to do around other people. Show & tell, asking for help, bringing friends are all highly encouraged. More info on the Urban Skye website.

what's up

- just back from a belated birthday beach trip. yeah, i milked this one for all it was worth. squeezed two more birthday celebrations out of the big 4-0.
- got to catch up with my birmingham buddies.
- played a lot of boggle.
- ate a lot of firecracker shrimp (this involves the best remoulade sauce in the world).
- slept a lot.
- sat on the beach a lot.
- watched the sun set and the moon rise.
- had some great conversations.
- did a lot of nothing.
- read Bless Your Heart, Tramp. and random magazines. deep, deep reading, in case you can't tell.
- did read a bit of Breath for the Bones, by Luci Shaw, so all was not mindless.
- enjoying the new foo fighters album - echos, silence, patience & grace. isn't that a great title?
- found the perfect music for the treadmill - florida state's marching band doing the best of college football fight songs.
- drove up to the mountains today so i could catch the aspens in all of their fall glory.
- just spruced up my porch with a pumpkin/mum display to officially welcome fall.
- trying to plan my week now so that i can ease back into work and maybe even a daily routine that doesn't feel like chaos.
- have a huge need for great amounts of creative energy to come bursting forth in the next week or so.

congrats!

A big round of applause to my friend, Jess Deugan. Her design submission was one of three selected by Over the Rhine (one of my all-time favorite bands, who I happened to catch in Nashville last week) for their new t-shirts. Way to go, Jess!

word in art

Join us...
creative artists showcase
at the refuge
sunday august 26 2007 at 5:30pm

we are excited to host a fall creative art evening at the refuge, coming up sunday august 26th. this will be a chance for all creative artists from any medium--music, art, photorgraphy, writing, drama, comedy--across ages & abilities to share their work as a form of worship.

invite your friends & neighbors to join us for this amazing evening together with music, multimedia, drama, art, photography, poetry, great food & more!

the evening will include 3 broad categories--sights, stage & statements.
* sights - visual arts, painting, photography, sculpture & other visual mediums
* stage - music, dance, theater, comedy, film, spoken word & multimedia
* statements - poetry, short stories, prose, fiction, non-fiction

mac visions

i'm really wanting to make the switch from a PC/laptop to a MacBook. any of you out there with strong opinions on one over the other? make your case here.

new favorite

The Brick Testament

vacation planning

Compiling my booklist for my upcoming holiday:

What is the What, Dave Eggers
Easter Everywhere: A Memoir Darcy Steinke
Through a Screen Darkly, Jeffrey Overstreet
They Like Jesus But Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, Dan Kimball
Boomsday, Christopher Buckley
The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and Life, Laurie Beth Jones
Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene Peterson

Yes, this is optimistic. But I need choices, ya know?