Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcman/273415801/
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”-Thomas Merton
On May 9th, 2010, I became a college graduate. Three days later, my father passed away. The first, a day you spend the first half of your life preparing for; the last, a day for which you can never be prepared. Both, occasions that irrevocably change the course of your life.
The first week after my Dad’s death was like walking in a fog. Nothing seemed clear, nothing made sense, and nothing seemed worth the energy expended, especially putting one foot on the floor to get out of bed in the morning. Eventually, I realized I needed to find a way to distract myself, sitting around for hours dwelling on how much it hurt only drove me into a deeper depression. So, my sister and I planned to take a trip and keep ourselves busy and our minds occupied and off of the current situation.
A little over an hour away, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was the perfect escape; a quiet, picturesque college town with a main street lined with eclectic shops, beautiful Victorians, inviting cafes and cozy restaurants. But a fog hovered over the town like it had our week, blanketing our day in clouds, cold, and rain. No matter where we went that day, nothing seemed to take our minds off our current situation, and the weather definitely wasn’t helping.
Until we got to The Banana Factory, a building that looks like a warehouse with a large, electric banana from afar, but serves as an art gallery, school, and general hub for artists in Bethlehem. My sister had been taking an eight week jewelry making class there and had been asking me to come along with her to check out the unique establishment, knowing that I would love it immediately. I had thought that I would tag along and observe the class; I’m not a jewelry maker myself, I’ve just dabbled with it vicariously through my sister. But when I met the instructor, Rebecca Stoneback, a super-talented artist specializing in glass and metal work, she asked if I would like to saw some metal and create something.
For the first time in days, I felt like myself again. There’s something about being intensely focused on a project and working with your hands that clears your mind of everything else that was clouding it. The process of creating a design, sawing metal, and sanding it down to a smooth, polished finish was the most therapeutic thing I think I could have done for myself. As we left the class that night, we both agreed that it was the first time in days that our minds had been lifted of the gloom that oppressed them.
Which is why the above quote from Thomas Merton inspired this post; it perfectly illustrates my relationship with art, and is also from one of my father’s favorite authors.
While graduating college and losing a parent are just two things that can be considered growing pains in life, examples of the ever changing pace of life that forces us to adapt and learn from them, there are always going to be the constants in life too–like art has been for me.
One of the most difficult aspects of this process has been having to go through my father’s things, especially the memories attached to them, but one thing that reminded me of how long art has been in my life was a picture I drew for him when I was about ten or eleven and a rock I had painted when I was around eight, that he still kept along with many other things my sister and I had given him. I don’t think anything will ever fully take away the pain of losing my Dad, but it’s good to know there’s an outlet to turn to when it gets to be too much.
I haven’t picked up a paint brush in a few years, and I wouldn’t say I turned my back on art, but it’s one thing in life that has never turned it’s back on me, something that no matter when I go back to it, allows me to escape while bringing me back to where I am.
The following is an article I wrote for Marywood’s student paper, The Woodword. It’s a recap of the recent SCOLA benefit I attended, the Chocoholic Frolic.
Photo Source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sifu_renka/1122008185/
When I first heard of the opportunity to indulge in chocolate concoctions for two hours, uninhibited, and that it would also benefit charity, I didn’t care where it was, I was there.
The event, which has come to be known throughout the Scranton area as the “Chocoholic Frolic” has been held every year for the last five years by the nonprofit literacy group SCOLA.
SCOLA, or the Scranton Council of Literacy Advance, which is now referred to as the SCOLA Volunteers for Literacy has been around since 1979 educating adult learners with educational disabilities or those who are learning English as a second language(ESL). According to SCOLA, not only do their services help make people more employable, thus lowering the unemployment rates in the area, but by having a higher number of literate citizens leads to a “decrease in poverty, crime, and homelessness.”
Chocolate plus literacy advocacy equals a win-win, right? So I set about finding more information about the Chocoholic Frolic. The event took place on Sunday, February 21st, at the Scranton Cultural Center, and through a Facebook fan page, I found out where I could find tickets and prices. For thirty dollars, one could sample all the chocolate they wanted from 6 to 8 p.m. and patrons who had received invitations could purchase a ticket for fifty dollars and get first dibs on the sugary confections for one hour before everyone else got their hands on them. Considering the amount of people in attendance, that would have been twenty more dollars well spent.
I attended the event with my sister, who had attended the first Chocoholic Frolic held four years ago at the Radisson Lackawanna, which she highly recommended. Due to the unpredictable nature of the weather, we decided to buy tickets at the door the day of the event, hoping with the popularity of it, there would still be some left. Fortunately for us, there were.
Outside in the main hall, several gift baskets were available to be raffled off, and with every ticket, attendees received a complimentary drink and could enter to win a door prize.
As we mulled around the main entrance hall waiting to go in, a few patrons made their way around the ballroom, leisurely sampling treats from the various vendors in attendance. You could feel the anticipation in the air as attendees swarmed around the entrance to the ballroom, waiting for their chance to dive in to a chocolate paradise. When the clock struck 6 p.m., everyone made a bee line for the vendor they most wanted to sample. Upon first sight, I was bombarded with chocolate fondue fountains, cakes, truffles, cookies, brownies, fudge, pretty much anything that can be made entirely of chocolate. I didn’t know where to start first.
As we made our way around the room, carrying teacup saucer-sized plates (probably to avoid the inevitable gluttony of larger plates) there were some familiar faces and vendors in the room. Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, Manning’s Ice Cream, and Patsel’s are just a few local favorites, but I was most surprised to see Jen Yemola, a Hazleton native and contestant from season three of Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen”. Yemola’s table was offering samples of cake from her bakery business, Jentastic Sweets, and displaying two gorgeous wedding cakes she had brought for the event. “It’s my first year at the Chocoholic Frolic,” Yemola had said as she explained to us the flavors and fillings of the cake she brought. My sister gushed to her about how much her husband loved Yemola’s work on “Hell’s Kitchen” and Yemola seemed genuinely humbled by the praise.
Next, we moved onto Chocolate Creations of Peckville, which was one of my favorite vendors, that was offering mousse filled chocolate shot glasses and air-brushed truffles that looked too pretty to eat.
Above the ballroom, on the balcony, was a cash bar and tables set up for attendants to sit and take a break from the chocolate overload. After about 35 minutes and two mini plates of chocolates, I was ready to go, I couldn’t stand another bite. If you plan to attend a future Chocoholic Frolic, my best advice is to take a lap around the room and survey which vendors you like best before partaking in any sweets. If you’d also like to find out how to volunteer with SCOLA, no experience is needed and free training is provided, visit www.scolaliteracy.org.
I find it somewhat ironic that I was tagged by my former art teacher, Liz Revit, and the tenth photo I found in my files was this crab painting I did for some friends a few years back. If you aren’t familiar with “tagging” someone on a blog, here are the rules(taken directly from Liz’s blog post):
1. Open your first photo folder.
2. Scroll to the tenth photo.
3. Post the photo and the story behind it.
4. Tag five or more people.
It’s as easy as that. To give some more background on my tagger, Liz, she’s a very talented artist from the NEPA area, a renaissance woman you might say, who has created pieces using various types of media including paintings, sculptures, and jewelry– as well as her illustrations which have been transformed into greeting cards, flags, napkins, and more. Her creations have been featured in local as well as national publications and you can find them online at places like Etsy, Zazzle, and Amazon. If you enjoy beading or jewelry design, Liz offers jewelry workshops at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, PA.
Getting back to the story behind the painting, two friends of mine were moving into their first apartment together and needed items to decorate their new place. Since they had decided on a beach theme for the bathroom, they asked me to paint something along the lines of that, which inspired Crabby! That was a few years ago, and they’re married now, but I believe Crabby remains a permanent fixture on the shelf above their commode.
Looking at this painting again made me realize how remiss I’ve become when it comes to my painting. As important as art was to me growing up, I feel I have neglected it over the years, maybe because I knew it would always be there waiting for me if I chose to return to it. Over the summer, I tried to use my free time to play catch up on my unfinished projects, and although I didn’t complete any new paintings, I did try my hand at paper mache sculpture, which turned out to be pretty fun and versatile.
Every time I visit websites like Etsy and Instructables, I get the itch to start crafting again, so my goal for the next few months is to set aside some “crafting time”, that I can use to de-stress and feel like I’m still feeding my creative side. 
So, to do my part in continuing the tagging process, the folks I’ve chosen to tag are:
Yes, I broke tradition and only tagged four people. Which has only made me realize that I REALLY need to follow more local bloggers! Shame on me…
photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1019125
Remember a time when all of your friends and family weren’t accessible 24/7? Well, folks like Google, Twitter, and Facebook have sought to change that, and the history of communication has never been the same since. But, while Twitter and Facebook are considered pioneers in the category of online communities (aka Social Media), Google seems to be riding their coat tails with the release of its latest project, Buzz.
What Buzz seeks to accomplish is combining the desirable aspects of both Twitter and Facebook, which is mainly status updates, right from the convenience of your gmail account. The first questions that came to mind for me when hearing this is: will this just be one more network to keep track of, how will I transfer the friends I have from Facebook and Twitter(since most are not contacts in my gmail) to Buzz, and what will Buzz bring to the table that will be worth all this effort?
An article that gives some great insight as to why Google is trying their hand at a social network is this one from thebigmoney.com. Other than the obvious motivator of trying to stay ahead of the curve, which I’m not really sure Google is doing here since Facebook and Twitter did it first, the other speculated functions of Buzz have been to potentially corner the market for mobile advertising, out-do Facebook in every way, and encourage users to switch to Buzz for all their social networking needs, so Google can index their information.
Forget all of that, what I want to talk about is how we got to this point. While social media has been a great way for people from many walks of life to build online “communities” to find people that have the same interests, professions, hobbies, and even problems, has it also made us less social as a result?
The reason I ask this question is that every time I’m driving somewhere, every other driver is either on their phone or has a bluetooth in their ear. I go to restaurants and have witnessed entire families with their heads down, browsing or texting on their phones. More and more, it’s the people who are the farthest away that are more important than the those sitting right next to us.
At one point, over the summer, I had exchanged a new phone for a different model and had to go without a cellphone for about a week. It was then that I realized my dependency on a cell phone. Being without a cell phone after being accustomed to one for so long, is like thinking about a time before you knew how to read; you know it existed, but you can’t imagine how you survived. The realization of my dependency on a cell phone perplexed me, to say the least.
So, when I saw that Google Buzz was being introduced, I had to cringe a little thinking, “What now? What could they possibly have done to improve the way we communicate with others?” And the answer so far has been, “not much.” After a conversation with friends via Buzz, it came across as no more than a glorified chat. This (no pun intended) is what all the buzz was about?
In all this commotion of who will come out on top: Facebook, Twitter, or Google, I think we’re missing the point. While social media has been integral in the way we share information and how we communicate, it is no substitution for real, human relationships. And as far as the “human” side of Buzz goes, Google’s supposedly added a feature where you can “dislike” someone’s comment, due to so many users that complain about the insipid nature of some conversations, so that eventually, Buzz will intuitively filter out what it thinks you don’t want to hear. I’ll admit, there are some days that I don’t want to hear about someone’s cat, the fight they had with their boyfriend, or how bloated they are that day, but aren’t those the types of comments that remind us there’s a human on the other end and not a robot spewing links and “inspirational” quotes? What’s the point of having a “community” if you can’t say, “having a crappy day”, and have someone say, “how can I help?”
photo source: http://www.sxc.hu
There are some things I would love to change about myself. My procrastination, occasional tardiness(due to procrastination), my tendency to be indecisive, to be more prolific, and more.
But, besides my procrastination, the one singular thing that irritates me about myself most is my trepidation of taking risks. Every time I am faced with a decision that requires an ounce of risk, I painstakingly labor over it, over analyzing the situation to the point that I talk myself out of it. Then I wonder why all of my grandiose plans never come to fruition.
Recently, I was faced with another life-altering decision: moving away a considerable distance for grad school. I researched schools in my immediate area and found, to no avail, not one school that carried my program, or one that interested me enough to invest that kind of money. At first, I had my sights on a university about 2 hours away, not so bad, but between the exorbitant cost of tuition coupled with living expenses, and lack of financial aid, my hopes for that particular institution had been dashed. Then, during a night of boredom/desperation induced researching, I found a school about five hours away that had reasonable tuition and board, plenty of financing options, and the opportunity to graduate with not one, but two degrees in two years. Then doubt and fear began to set in, like they always tend to do. I wouldn’t get it in, I wouldn’t qualify for any financial aid packages, I couldn’t afford it, I’ll never see friends and family, you name it, I had a reason why it wouldn’t happen.
What all this ruminating led me to discover is that all the times in my life when I wasn’t happy, when I was just going with the flow, coasting on autopilot, was due in part to the fact that I wasn’t taking any risks. I wasn’t disrupting the status quo, I wasn’t pushing myself beyond what I thought I was capable of. It also made me realize that when I did take a chance on myself, even the times when I didn’t find success, I wasn’t left with that horrible “what-if” feeling of never knowing the outcome if I had taken a chance.
Allow me to clarify what I consider a “risk”. When I talk about taking a risk, I’m not necessarily talking about taking your retirement to Vegas and placing the whole thing on black. I’m talking about measured risks–risks that have clear outcomes that aren’t going to push you to the brink of ruin if they don’t work out. Things like applying for a certain job, trying out for a team, talking to someone you really like, situations that, if they don’t work out, the worst that can happen is you go back to living the life you had before, but at least with the knowledge that you tried.
So, with all this thought given to taking risks, I set up a little check list for myself the next time I needed help deciding whether or not a risk was worth taking. Because, let’s face it: there are some choices in life that need a considerable amount of introspection and some that don’t–like what my next hair color should be.
Here is my Risk Check-List:
1) What do I have to gain from this risk? And, if I lose something in the process, do the benefits outweigh the losses?
2) What are the consequences if the risk ends in failure? Can I live with them?
3) Will anyone else be affected by this choice? Friends, family, coworkers, partner? And if so, how will you deal with it and is it worth challenging those relationships?
4) Could you live with yourself if you didn’t try at all?
Does this checklist help you at all? Does it make you consider something you had not before? While you consider that, I leave you with this quote, one that I think perfectly sums up my attitude towards taking risks on the things you really want in life.
“What is more mortifying than to feel you’ve missed the Plum for want of courage to shake the Tree?” ~Logan Pearsall Smith
I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, I’ve just started my last semester of college! Which means craziness for the immediate time being. Along with my commitment to my studies, I’m making a commitment to myself and anyone who takes the time to read my blog, to post on a regular basis. It’s just a matter of instituting a schedule. So stay tuned! I’ve got lots to talk about!
That better be a diamond...or else!
Recently, after being asked the somewhat intrusive question, “when are you getting married?”, by numerous people, my boyfriend and I started to discuss the matter. After dating for almost three years, I guess it was a topic that should be discussed eventually, especially since everyone around us seemed more concerned than we did.
Naturally, whenever the topic came up, the questions that followed usually involved when the ring would be bought, how big the diamond, and how big the budget. Again, this to me is like asking someone what their salary or annual income is–you just don’t(at least if you’re not tacky, you don’t). Apparently, these people mistook my wincing for mild indigestion.
So, after some discussion, and the conclusion that we would like to get married some day, I decided to do some comparison research on engagement rings. After literally about an hour of research, I came to the conclusion that the going price of diamonds was, for lack of a better word, regoddamndiculous. With myself a few short months away from graduation, and the bf only a year out of college, the cost of the average engagement ring would be about the same price as a modest down payment on a house, about a quarter of my student loan debt, and various other investments that I find more valuable than a giant, useless rock on my finger.
I started researching alternatives, and the first one that sprang to mind was moissanite, which I had previously only thought of as a high quality cubic zirconia. I couldn’t have been more wrong. While I found it difficult to find reliable sources of information, a few stuck out including this blog post, which actually inspired the one I’m writing now. The post references an eye-opening 1982 article from The Atlantic magazine that gives a detailed(and long) history of the diamond industry, marketing, and economic impact. I had been aware of the advertising industry’s major involvement in making diamonds the commodity they are today, but the article describes just how they managed to do so. And you wonder why there’s a lack of trust in the advertising industry.
Without the full history lesson, the diamond industry began with Cecil Rhodes, a British imperialist, who controlled about 90% of the diamond mining industry in South Africa in the late 1800’s. If he had his way, every country in the world would be under British rule and we’d all be speaking Kings English (I’d like to think that I’d speak cockney) right now, because that worked out so well for us the first time around.
Along with the price and the false advertising, there are other things that bug me about diamonds: their fueling and funding of slave labor, warlords, and other conflicts; the negative environmental impact of their mining; the fact that they’ve become a status symbol; and finally, that you’ll never get back what you paid for them if sold(a scam involving this is also discussed in The Atlantic article).
I’m not going to lie: I like a little sparkle as much as the next gal, but I’m also not as traditional as her either. Those who know me, know I was the girl in high school who had hair every color under the sun at some point, and who’s favorite shirt was a navy blue Dickies button-down with a leopard print color and the name tag “Clyde”. I’d wear a paper origami ring, if I thought it would last.
So, when I decided I wanted a moissanite ring, I thought everyone would agree with my decision, and applaud me for making the responsible choice. Not so. DeBeers, you’ve done well. Somehow, even with the awareness that movies like Blood Diamond has raised, along with the commonly known fact that a diamond is just a useless object we place value on, there is still a stigma around buying a non-diamond ring.
Never mind the fact that moissanites are one-tenth the cost of diamonds, are second to diamonds in hardness(diamonds are 10 on the Mohs scale; moissanites 9.5), will never change color, will last FOREVER, are only man-made so they don’t have an environmental impact, they don’t fund slavery and war, have more fire and brilliance(sparkle) than a diamond, and look exactly like a diamond to the untrained eye. Knowing this, I’d be crazy not to choose a moissanite. And, in the event that the stone ever cracked or chipped, many retailers offer a trade-in program that will give you the value of the stone towards a new stone. Not that they’re that expensive to begin with. With my new found information, I feel confident in my decision, regardless of what anyone, or society, has to say.
So, when the day comes that someone inquires about or compliments my “diamond” ring, I’ll be sure to reply, “thanks, but it’s a moissanite.”
Photo source: stock.xchng(http://www.sxc.hu)
I wanted to avoid making my very first post be the typical January 1st, New Year’s day post that everyone and their mother makes(no offense) that typically consists of wishes to lose weight(which I do, who doesn’t?), save money, make more money, do more of this, less of that. You get the picture.
The concept of this post came from reading Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. Kerouac was a nomad, never content with staying in one place for more than a few days before embarking on his next great adventure. He describes his travels across America through the eyes of an immigrant, one that’s never seen land like that before. Each state offers something unique to the last, and although his experiences were not always positive, he still manages to find value in them. What “On the Road” has made me think about is the ability to live in the now, and not worry about what’s behind you or what’s to come, it’s all an adventure.
Which has brought me to discussing the here and now. First of all, let me preface this post with one simple fact: I’m a procrastinator. I need to look at things in the present because as soon as I start looking back I get distracted by past failures and bad habits, only set myself up for the same mistakes, which I will not do. When I look to the future, I think about all the things I want to accomplish, and it all seems so overwhelming and daunting that I get discouraged before I even start. So, instead of setting a bunch of goals and losing momentum, then getting depressed when I don’t follow through with them, I’m changing my perspective.
To ultimately be successful with anything, you have to think about the work that needs to be done now. Too often I put projects on the back burner, leaving no time to complete them to the best of my ability, leaving me disappointed with half-assed work that doesn’t really show what I’m capable of. Which really isn’t fair to me or the person I’m doing the work for.
So my advice to you guys for the new year is, live in the now, and by that I don’t mean make careless, irrational decisions, just think about what’s important right now, not what was yesterday or tomorrow. By all means, learn from past mistakes and failures, but don’t let them dictate how you’ll make present and future ones. With all of the problems and issues we have to worry about right now, why make it worse by worrying about what might happen in the future?Economies fail, people die, promises fall through. Those all sound like really negative things, but I use them as examples because I feel like people always think the worst when they look to the future. There’s probably a lot more good things that happen than bad, but either way, the point is that we have zero control over it.
So to summarize what has become a much heavier post than I meant it to be: be thankful for what you have now, not what you don’t; focus on what’s important now, because that’s really all we have any control over, and even that is limited. Don’t worry about when you’ll reach your destination, enjoy the ride!
I’m working hard to get this blog up and running, so don’t be discouraged, come back soon and see it in all it’s saucy glory!