Pheasants

On the way to class Thursday I saw a male ringed-necked pheasant just kind of hanging out in town by himself. It was a very special treat. I've been taking special notice of the animals I see, especially when their appearance is something of a surprise, or unusual, or just makes me happy to see it. I guess I feel like, in a way, it's natures way of telling me to stop and take a moment to recognize what's around you and reflect on what that can mean for you right now.

These guys were pretty common enough when I was growing up. Even though they like to hide, it wasn't unusual to see them on occasion in their natural habitat along the road or in a field. We even saw them in our backyard. They are very beautiful though. So very colorful with red, brown, purple, blue, green and gold. They are even kind of flashy with their long tail feathers. They also have a very distinctive call.

I was reminded of its distinction of being a game bird and of the days when we went hunting about this time of year. It was family time, early mornings out with the dogs walking the fields. I don't remember ever shooting one myself.  Even though they do fly, their first instinct is to hide. (that's what the dogs were for, to flush them out). Flying at that point often meant getting shot. 

Bloom Where You're Planted

This is my Utah cacti from its spot in our backyard where we lived in central Utah. When the neighbors next to my mom and dad' moved a couple years ago, they told me I could have it from their yard. They brought it down from the hills surrounding the home where I grew up so I took it and planted in my own yard.

Other than being a piece of home, the only other connection I've had to them was rather painful!  When I was about 10 or 11, I was walking along and accidentally hit one of these plants with the toe of my shoe.  It was not even very hard just bumped it really, but it was enough for one of those sharp spikes to get through my shoe and sock and anchor itself into the tip of my big toe.  There are tiny barbs at the end of the spikes that keep them from going out the same way they came in.I remember that it throbbed and ached for a couple days, and I couldn't wear closed toed shoes, but I guess my body just sort of absorbed it  because I never did get the thing out. So I guess, its a part of me, in a very literal sort of way.

These plants are hardy things though, living in a very harsh environment.  They require very little water, and have adapted to the dry, hot, rocky desert terrain of central Utah where they thrive. Their growth is slow, sometimes imperceptible and they even have a beautiful blossom in the early summer. 

Through the close proximity and attention of this particular bunch, I have been able to observe their growth, see the green life through the prickles and take great joy in their rare flowers. I was so thrilled last year when they bloomed just before we left. This is the one plant I just could not leave when we moved across the country. (OK, I brought my favorite Iris bulbs too.) I hauled it across the country in a bowl I haphazardly dumped them into just before leaving. This prickly thing was a bit more of a challenge to travel with than the iris bulbs! They've been in that same horrible plastic container for a year now and well, they haven't died. I finally started seeing it green up again recently and finally got around to giving them some much needed attention. There was a legitimate concern that the whole process of transplanting them would kill them all, so I opted for a more conservative approach which was to just cut some of the younger ones off from the main bunch as a sort of trial run. I cut off 5 of the smaller ones, dried the cut spot in the sun for about 48 hours to avoid rot, then transferred them to their own little pots that had the proper soil and drainage that they require to thrive. Hopefully they will be much more comfortable now. They are sitting in our sunny living room window next to the others.

Throughout this process I started to find that I can relate to them. Not sure that I like relating to such a prickly thing, but I definitely feel terribly small and entirely out of my element right now. No longer secure and surrounded by those just like me who are bigger and stronger than I am. And now here I am, also trying now to use all the strength that I have stored up in me during a time of comfort and ease, to just survive, to push out new roots and grow. slowly and imperceptibly it seems,  in this new and unfamiliar environment, hoping that one day, I will bloom where I'm planted. 

Bloom Where You're Planted

Being Vulnerable

I turned in my first ART1010 project today. Its been such a long time since I've done any drawing and I realized how much I really enjoy it. I had to do a simple composition design on the principles and elements of art design. Half of it had to demonstrate the use of color. It was a little more difficult dealing with something other than graphite pencils though and I kept thinking it was ruining my design. Its very relaxing and fulfilling though, I love doing the shading with my fingers getting them all black and dirty. I would love to take another drawing class sometime. I do better when its for an assignment and I get a little artistic and constructive criticism. Part of the artistic process is to show your work to others. So here is to stretching and putting yourself out there and allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

Wallpaper

Quote of the week:

"It seems to be human nature: as we become more familiar with something,even something miraculous and awe-inspiring, we lose our sense of awe and treat it as commonplace." 

Its like Wallpaper. After a while of having it up you don't really see it anymore.  It is just part of the background. I was listening to President Uchtdorf's talk while sitting at the kitchen table Saturday Morning.  When he talked about seeing the miracle that is the gospel as common place, it hit a soft spot with me. He went on to say, "We are surrounded by such an astonishing wealth of light and truth that I wonder if we truly appreciate what we have." 

How incredibly blessed I am to have had this light and truth of the gospel my whole life. To really have never been without it. And I think that I take it for granted.   It comes right back to being converted. Conversion isn't an event its a process. Sometimes when you are in the middle of it you don't see it or appreciate it because its become wallpaper. You can't see how far you've come or how high you are or how close to the top you really are. 

I think that's often why you don't know what you've got until its gone.  But I don't think you have to appreciate what you have just because its gone. You can enjoy the moment for what it is. The view just has to change, put on a different lens.  Macro, telephoto doesn't matter, just change it up.  Maybe you need to get higher, or get lower. Several years ago I got a book for Christmas called, "Elevate the Everyday".  It was basically a photography book from a mom talking to other mom's about taking pictures of our children. It was a lesson book about how to elevate the everyday moments to more than they would appear to be at first, and more than being just your basic how to photography, it was about living and appreciating the moments for what they are.

Which brings me to one of my all time favorites quotes from one of my all time favorite photographers.

Compassion can Transcend Both Time and Space

I was teaching my Sunday School class last week about the prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite.  One of those most profound prophecies was that the entire Nephite civilization would be destroyed in a matter of 4 generations.  One question that was brought up was "Why would they care what was going to happen in 400 years?"  

I have been thinking about that question all week long, perhaps because I didn't feel like it was really answered during class. Why would they care, and a more introspective question why should we care, really, what happens to the world 400 years from now or what happened 2000 years ago?

The day after this question was asked an article appeared in the FAITH section of the Deseret News. Elder Holland an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, had been participating in a conference at the Windsor Castle in London England.  During this conference  titled "Religious Persecution: The Driver for Forced Migration", Elder Holland " spoke to the gathering of civic, philanthropic, and religious leaders from around the world. He pointed to religious freedom, belief and activity as keys to improving the plight of refugees." He said:

"The sexual violence and persecution of refugees is a crisis deserving more global outrage. The world needs to be more outraged than it is," he said, "when we read of the persecution, the violence, the sexual violence, the murder, the rape, the destruction of families and any social structure that these people have had — almost entire cultures being destroyed." (See full article from Deseret News)

In recalling the persecutions and forced migration of Latter-day Saints in 19th-century America, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland noted that their anguish was lessened by the compassion of others. “We will never forget the precious opportunities, blessings, and miracles given to us during that time from God and from kind, caring people.” (See full article from Church News)

In the context of this talk the answer to the question above for me was this: compassion needs to transcend through both time and space. We need to care about the past, the future and what is going on today on the other side of the world. We need to care! These people in need of more global outrage are not my neighbors.   I have not seen their faces. They are as obscure to me as the people 400 years ago.  I do not know there names or much about them really.  But knowing their stories, their trials and their testimonies can still relate to me a sense of compassion for my fellow brothers and sisters. The same way that seeing the faces and understanding the  plight of those fellow world citizens, my brothers and sisters all over the world. The wonderful things about the gift of compassion is that it can transcend both time and space. To me its the difference of being a global citizen and reverting back into tribes and family units, like the Nephites did before the birth of Christ (3 Nephi 7:3). The Nephites just came from a massive thriving economically progressive, culturally diverse civilization to something that history has taught us was the smallest most basic unit of civilization, that of tribes. We have to care, we have to be concerned about things that are going on in the world.  Even if we have to be that small band of righteous saints who hold things together. (Helaman 13:13)

Just one more lesson we can learn from asking questions and internalizing the things we read in the Book of Mormon.


Here is one of two speeches that Elder Holland gave at the conference.

Line and Structure

I started taking a 3D art class this week.  We are starting out by creating wire art which is a new medium for me. It has come difficult issues to work with. My fingers are already sore from working with the stiff 16 gage stuff. And my hands are also black and greasy every time I pick it up. Its been a good learning experience though, to think 3D. Its very hands on which I like.  I like working with something with actual volume instead of the illusion of volume and mass.

This introduction project uses concepts that I have learned before in other art classes. Vocabulary such as volume, form, and line that I have heard and used before.  Wire is a wonderful medium to focus on all different kinds of lines, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curvelinear, contour, cross contour, and implied. Lines have an important use in expression visually.  Lines also work together to define form and shape and create structure within the project.

While working on our zoomorphic (animal) wire projects our instructor explained the importance of a central form or structure as a starting point for our projects. For example the skeletal system in mammals is a supporting structure and a necessary place to start because its the bones that give the shape and form and foundation for everything else, the heart the muscle, skin, hair.

Its hard to photograph this because. . . its all lines, but this is a general idea anyway.

He then posed the question to us "How will you use line in your work whatever it is?" Since I really haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up. . . I don't have a focus yet, but I have used line in different mediums and studies.  Lines are everywhere. . . even in my life.

President Thomas S. Monson talked about choices in this past General Conference. "Choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary - a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right.  Without such faith, we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals."

He's talking about building our structure. Our choices determine our form, what we become, who we are.

"May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. As we contemplate the decisions we make in our
lives each day.  if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice."

Choose Christ.

By choosing Christ as the foundation for our lives, God will make more of us that we could ever make of ourselves. Something truly amazing and beautiful and unique!

Reuben Margolin

I have been researching the work of a Kinetic artists by the name of Reuben Margolin for my 3D art class.  His Kinetic art is a great example of line and structure.

Round wave
This is a mechanical mobile made of wood, string, gears and a motor. This is the focal point of the piece. The repetition of curvelinear lines give it a feeling of comfort through the flowing grace and beauty of the simplest form. . . a single drop of rain. When I first looked at this I maybe if he used another material. Put some color in it dressed it up a little, you know, made it glitter.

Here are the mechanical parts. They are very well put together. Clean and organized.

In this view stepping back and you can see it all together.

Because the mechanical parts are high above its not really a focal point. (Who normally looks under the hood anyway?)  But the mechanics of the kinetic sculpture are what actually gives Round Wave it important form and structure. And it is what literally makes it move and come alive.  Its the bones and muscle and life blood of the piece.

Visually they are beautiful together!

 But it is when it is set in motion that it really come alive.