You might not think so, but this picture is fantastic! The reason I say so, is that it kind of culminates this semester, and 2nd college career in a visual way. If you’ll notice, this is from the “It’s a Small World Afterall” exhibit at Disney World. Looking at the top right corner you’ll see Alladin who sang “It’s a Whole New World”. Well, I’m in the finishing stages of aquiring a degree in Graphic Design at UTC. It has been so much more than I had expected…not in an output way, but in an enrichment way. I wouldn’t say I am the best designer to graduate in our class, by any means, because me and the “technology”, ie computer, go round and round everyday, but I know enough to graduate. I wish I was better. I plan to spend a minimum of an hour a day this summer, honing my skills in Adobe CS’s. I can get it, just not as fast as my technology teething classmates.
A lot of great things have happened though. I found out I am not too shabby at illustrating… a talent that before I was afraid to pull out of my bag.There is so much amazing talent out there, that I think subconsciously I felt I could never compete. I am not the best in the world, but I am certainly going to keep studying painting and drawing in hopes of getting a lot better.
The image above is showing the work of Disney’s Mary Blair. She created It’s a Small World and a million other gorgeous and creative things. She is my hero. I love her style and her stick to it attitude. I got a lot of inspiration for the dolls I created from her. Yeah, I know it’s somewhat gaudy and tacky and visually assaulting, I like it. Enough said.
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Well, I don’t know about you, but public speaking is something I could live without….I think. Recently I had to give a 5-6 minute talk about my work at UTC , and supposedly there were a lot of “big players” coming to hear. I remembered a few weeks before when my class and I had presented to just ourselves, and we were all peaked with nausea at just the thought of it. How would we ever speak to a full house of design professionals. Well, as the day neared, I felt less and less confident that I could keep my composure and pull this off. I’m fine unless I can’t breath. I don’t mind looking stupid, so much, but having difficulty breathing is altogether different. I like to breath….so much so that I breath way too much when I get nervous, and end up hyperventilating. I was already so wound up trying to sew dolls night and day, that I felt sure this would be what would happen. Overtired is an ugly place to be…it totally messes with your judgement. I am usually pretty healthily self-confident, but that all seemed to go out the window the more tired I got.
Anyway, I decided I should “practice”, so I began to videotape myself. I was getting sooooooo cracked up out all the things that happened….a giant, and I do mean giant, bumble bee ran directly into my head and I squealed like a game show winner on take one. Take two, a bug flew into my lipgloss, and GOT STUCK and I videotaped myself frantically gacking and spitting, trying to rid myself of the bug. Take three….going along fine for about 30 seconds, then my battery went dead and I had to stop and recharge. That was it for that day. But, I as I kept practicing, I decided that cop-out or no cop-out, I really liked the charm of me giving my project live via satelitte. I thought it had some warmth to it…and a little humor, well, maybe. And that’s just it, you never know what mood the crowd will be in. Fortunately for me, I think they all got it, and thought it was funny enough. I got a LOT of positive comments about it and so maybe I am not as mindnumblingly boring as I had thought I was. I do hate hearing my own voice though…there is NO WAY I could possibly sound that way. I need a dialect coach. Maybe I should put that on my to-do list…let’s see it would be about number 1003900032.
PS I have recently been contacted by the Chattanooga Civic Art League to speak about my work at their May meeting. I think I just will.
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So last week, as I mentioned in the last post, was Senior Exhibition 1 at UTC Cress Gallery. It was spectacular, if I do say so myself. Lots and lots of happy and welcoming faces milling about the gallery, musing over the exhibits. I meandered a lot and was stopped a couple of times to discuss my work. My favorite inquisitor was classmate of mine, Stephen Bush’s “nana”. What a cute, cute, lady. She wanted to know if I would walk over to the wall with her and tell her what I was thinking when I made each one of my dolls. I hadn’t been ask that, so if nothing else it was original. Another admirer was a guy who had come to see Sharon Farrelly’s gorgeous tableware. He took picture after picture after DETAILED picture. At first, I can honestly say, I thought he had designs on my designs. Coincidentally the very next day, I was headed once again to Greenlife, and lo and behold Sharon walked across in front of my car. I pulled over and asked her what she thought of this whole situation. She was sick with a cold, and by her own admission not thinking too well, and she assured me that he was a marathoner and that he couldn’t sew, so I should not be worried. She also said she would call her other friend who had been with him and see what she thought. They both remembered that he was a painter, and that he organized art swaps, and that he blogged about artists sometimes. I don’t know if I felt better or worse after that revelation. I could feel better that surely an artist wouldn’t blatantly steal another artist’s work, although truthfully I have seen that right under my nose more than once. Or I could feel worse that if he in fact was an artist, he could probably copy them with little effort. I was interested in HIS blog so I looked him up. Yep, sure enough, there were pictures of my dolls (no artist credit) and some pictures of Shaina Dobosh’s project. I GUESS I am okay with this. I mean he did say in the caption that these were some dolls he had seen in Chattanooga and had liked them. That’s nice enough. He has a lot of interesting and WELL photographed information about Chattanooga even though he lives in South Carolina…and is originally from Germany. Check him out if you are interested. http://spitzbube.blogspot.com/
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