Missouri in Spring.
My absolute favorite season, narrowly beating fall because I just love when all the green things pop out of the piles of brown dead things. As I kid I always drew tulips and spring flowers on everything. I like rainy days (although this week, the rain has made me rather melancholy--with my trip being canceled and all the uncertainty in the world.) I woke up one morning and decided to go for a walk. Down the road from my house, lies a small trail. It isn't very long, maybe a quarter of a mile into the woods. Reminds me a lot of the woods I grew up playing in behind my house. It doesn't really go anywhere, just to an access point for the utility company and then it dead ends in an area that is probably a flood plain. As I walked along the mossy path, two white-tailed deer were frozen, unblinking ahead of me. I stopped to watch them, inching closer until finally, they sprang off, their white tails bobbing and their legs springing through the leaves. Once I passed them, they criss-crossed the path and I looked back to see them behind me, watching me walk alone through the woods. Whenever I walk through the woods, I think of Mary Oliver and I thought this poem was perfect for the occasion: How I go to the woods Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.” ― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
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I truly wish I had taken better before/after pictures of our living room before we built this amazing shelving unit. Last year, we were working hard to build this unit and get new furniture. Most of what we have had, has been around for a while. I wanted something new, that would last a long time and add some beauty to our living space. We have tons of artwork, books and pottery that I wanted to showcase with the fishtank on this wall. It's a tough room to style because there is some sort of doorway on every wall...and we have a fireplace, a 70 inch t.v. and a fish tank so where do you make the focal point? I feel like using the chairs here, allow the space to feel more open than our big, black love seat did so I was happy to get rid of it. The rest of the living room is almost done. We are going to build a new t.v. cabinet and I need to figure out what artwork to hang on the two main walls....and then, the entry way needs to be redone....Eventually, I will probably update the curtains. Please excuse this panorama. It has been quite dark and gloomy here and our living room is pretty dark as it is so it is hard to get a good image of the entire room. We re-did the fireplace mantle. We tried just stripping down the black paint but the pine underneath was ugly so we built a new casing to go over it that we could stain to match the shelving/floors. Here it is decorated for fall. Over the next few weeks, I am going to update the wall paper in the entry way area below, move the plants out, hang up a new coat rack system, and find a new amazing door mat for this area. I am also going to paint the door. This is the last area in the house, that has not been touched since we moved in. The wallpaper is looking warn, and dated. I'm so excited about the new wallpaper that I ordered!! Artemis from anthropology. It was expensive, but I've wanted it for 3 years and now that I'm not going on any vacations for a while, I justified the purchase. This has been a long, expensive project....and the last room we will probably touch for a while. We have talked about updating the kitchen with granite counters, and new cabinets but that will probably be a while before we do that. I've needed some 'productive' distraction the last few days. It's been hard for me to focus on entertainment in general, as I have been glued to the news and thinking constantly about the loss of control over everything in my career. I don't know what the next few weeks look like--this is supposed to be my spring break. I'm supposed to be in Jamaica, I'm supposed to be relaxing....but instead I am obsessively looking at the news. It's bad, I need to stop. I'm trying to make art, and read and go for walks, but my thoughts start spiraling easily and I've been texting constantly with coworkers and friends about all the cancelations and social distancing and just the bleak outlook of the world in general.
I was so happy to stumble on Hyperallergic's View from the Easel. I've been looking at tons of art studio spaces..these 'cribs' inspire me so much. I decided to share my art making space in hopes that it will be an inspiration to others. I've been working on graduate classes in oil painting from the local university. I recently converted the 'sunroom' in the back of our house into a painting studio. This room has been an office, a plant room (in winter), a breakfast nook and even though it houses some of my art supplies now, it is still a catch-all. A place where we line up totes, tools, laundry baskets, before hauling them up to the attic or down to the basement. A few nails in the orange-painted paneling hold smaller, light-weight canvases that are left over from various portrait series I started last semester. The newest and best feature of this room is the Ott light that allows me to work early in the morning or in the evening, after the sun has moved past the south-east side of the house and the room is dark. I enjoy plein air painting, when the weather cooperates and love to set up my easel on the back patio in spring. I am looking forward to a change in weather which allows me to do more of that. I would also love more of a 'wall easel' to allow me to hang up heavier panels and bigger canvases. We have a small, older home built in the 1920s, so I feel lucky to carve out a little space like this with so much natural light. I'm going to be real honest with you for a minute. I have a junk 'drawer' in almost every room. This meme really hit home with me. I definitely have a junk drawer in the kitchen and it definitely has almost everything listed in that post. We always had a 'junk' drawer...when I was growing up, it was where we kept the scissors and the tape---it was the most important drawer in the house! This week, I decided to give ours a good clean out. We've lived in this house for 13 years, so the junk drawers and closets and storage areas are very neglected. In the busy pace of life, who has time to manage the 'junk'?? I threw away an expired package of hot hands, expired box tops, lids off pens, half-gone packages of flower food, old batteries, and several other items that I am unsure of what they even were for to begin with. I tried to sort the often used things into a plastic container. Is that what everyone else does with their bread ties, and rubber bands and push pins and nails and clothes pins and matchbooks???? If you don't have a junk drawer, where do you store those valuables? Please tell me, I'm curious... Now, I have a desk in the guest room that has several drawers that need to be cleaned out...and I am also working on the bathroom storage...it has gotten completely out of hand....later, I will tackle all of the closets. I'm going to be productive, and take care of the stuff that I rarely have time to deal with. Does anyone else feel the need to get fully ready for the day, even when you have no where to go and will see no one?
I have a fresh manicure, and I've been getting up at my normal time to put on makeup and fix my hair all week, even though I have no place to be and no plans. Something about staying with my routine helps me to feel like I am more productive....But let's be honest, I'm also the gal that wears a little bit of makeup almost every day---even when camping. Not because I am high maintenance, but because it feels wrong to do otherwise. I'm not into trash bag style. It is weird for me to get up every day and put on sweats/pjs/lounge clothes. I'm not complaining, it is fine, it is just weird. I think I get that from my mom. My aunt told me a story that my mom used to do that, get up and put on a full face of makeup just to sit on the couch....I didn't remember her doing that, but I believe it and I think that is why I am inclined to do the same. It is crazy how many things are hardwired into our behavior, that make us who we are, that program us into our norms and routines that we get from our parents but we don't realize it. Today's post is harder to commit to, I keep walking away and coming back...looking at the news, reading articles, I went for a walk in the woods. I'm fearful of what might happen to my friends, to my community and the world in general in the next few weeks. My thoughts are all over the place as I process what a real quarantine will look like. Am I prepared for that? I don't know but I'm trying to wrap my brain around it. 'Life disruptions can focus the mind in ways that are beneficial to making good art. "Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding (Art & Fear, p. 21)." I hope that this strange period can be weathered with minimal stress and engender productive new perspectives. I can't sugar-coat a pandemic, but I do want to remind you that artists have always deepened the conversations around major shared experiences - perhaps this is an opportunity to put your training to such a use.' --Kyle McKenzie March 12th This post really changed my mind about the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Initially, I did not think that the Coronavirus would have any impact on my life. Right now I am consumed with thoughts of how it will change everything that I had planned over the next few months. 2020 was set to be a great year. I had trips planned to Jamaica, Chicago, and the Dominican Republic. We currently have tickets to 4 concerts this summer, but it doesn't look like any of those things will transpire..... I'm obsessively checking twitter, FB, reddit, and other social media for updates. On Wednesday night, when president Trump gave his evening address saying he was suspending all travel from Europe, I got really freaked out. When my university announced all on-campus classes canceled through May 1st, I got even more freaked out. I told my students on Thursday and Friday to take home their sketchbooks, as I did not know when I would see them again and I did not know what would happen after spring break (March 16-22). My school hasn't said much about what the rest of the school year looks like. The end of our school year was disrupted last year by a tornado which took out several neighborhoods and electricity around the city. We ended up canceling the last day of finals and I never felt like I had the closure I needed for the year to end. If we don't end up going back this year, it will feel extremely unfinished. While I do have some activities planned that students could theoretically do online....it isn't the same as making art in an art studio. And I don't expect that many of my students will actually do the work anyway. A lot of them will need to babysit siblings and can barely figure out how to upload an image into canvas.....but I did teach them how to do that at the very least.... And what if I get sick...what will my school district expect of me if we are supposed to conduct school 'online'....will I still be expected to report to my classroom each day? I brought home some supplies and bought some canvases yesterday. I'm hoping a wave of inspiration will hit me. But at this time, writing this blog is hard because I just can't focus and all the trivial stuff that I normally fill up this blog with seems frivolous and lame. This weekend we watched Contagion. It was a pretty scary reminder of how bad people can behave in the face of panic. At any rate, it seems like we might get quarantined and will need stuff to do. Here is a list of movies : Dawn of the Dead Shaun of the Dead The Crazies This is the End Zombieland (1 & 2) I am Legend World war Z 28 days later 28 weeks later Warmbodies Resident Evil (any of them) Bird Box The Happening In 2007, Jeremy and I ran off to Jamaica to get married. It was his first time to see the ocean and our first trip on an airplane together. We stayed at the Royal Caribbean Sandal's Resort in Montego Bay. 5 other couples traveled with us to celebrate our wedding. We relaxed at the resort and had a wonderful vacation.
In 2011, our friends Brent and Amber decided to follow suit, so we went back to the same resort to celebrate our anniversary and they got married (on the same date!). The second time we went to Jamaica, we were scuba diving certified so we got to go on several diving excursions in the ocean with the resort. Since then, we've been to Mexico and Canada together and lots of places in the USA. I've been nervous to talk too much about Spring Break, because I was supposed to go back to Jamaica with MSSU tomorrow. We are studying the art of Jamaica, supposed to be staying in Kingston and traveling around the country to study the art in the region. I didn't study much of the art when we went before as we were focused on weddings and staying at the resort. Now I don't guess I will get to do it at all because of the stupid corona virus. I'm writing this while I listen to birds sing, watch neighbors walk by and smell the charcoal on the grill in the back yard. The blue Coleman grill is burning down some kindling, the iron slats preheating in preparation for homemade burgers.
While I enjoy fall, I think I've always been a lover of spring. Ever since my elementary school pencil learned to draw a tulip on the edge of my notes, I've enjoyed all the green things of spring. This week has been exceptionally nice weather. Waking up to rain storms and light thunder, enjoying jackets without sweating to death in the afternoon. This is the temperate weather that I love the most. I love it when the Missouri woods get a carpet of green, before the trees bud, but the flowering dogwoods and forsythia and redbuds are explosions of white, yellow and pink. I haven't had a million things to do this week, so I've gotten to come home and enjoy the afternoon from my screen porch. It has been incredibly relaxing and highly appreciated. I am so thankful for this week and the calm moments I've had on my porch. Daylight savings.
Spring fever. Full Moon. All of these things point to a difficult week at school. I would not say that my week has been difficult. Hopefully today doesn't bring on some weird crazy event. I'm awake at 4:30 thinking about the global pandemic that is affecting multiple trips and gatherings that I have planned over the next couple of months. I'm thinking about my suitcase that is packed and ready for a trip to Jamaica that I will not be taking on Monday. I'm thinking about the prospect of having the next nine days (and longer, potentially?) off work with nothing at all to do and no where to go. I told my husband that we should use all of the money we are saving from vacations this summer to lease a convertible sports car....he said we should remodel the kitchen....I'm still leaning towards sports car. Quarantine. Pandemic. Social distancing. I'm thinking about the fact that Isaac Newton made wonderful use of his time off from the Plague to make amazing discoveries...and how I'm considering using my time to finish Outlander. I'm thinking about all the things that may or may not happen between now and May first. How bad is this going to get? How sick are people going to get? How will this affect my friends that left for Croatia yesterday? I'm seriously really worried about them not being able to come home..... I'm thinking about how a school closure could affect the summer. I'm wondering if our school calendar and end of the year testing will be canceled? With so many unknowns, I just have a lot of questions about everything that is up in the air...and lingering on every surface.... On long weekends, we really like to have movie marathons. We've also started to anticipate a movie that is coming out in a few months by watching all of the movies in the series that came before. We've gotten really into action movies, even though most of them are predictable with violence and car crashes and don't really make you think, sometimes it is fun to just lose yourself in the chaos. Most recently, we watched all of the Fast and Furious movies, and the 007 movies. I've made a list of what we have definitely watched---thinking about the movies that we watched back to back, marathon style.....and I've also made a list of the movies that we have considered or might watch that way in the future. I really don't care for Star Wars and lot of super hero movie stuff. Do you have any other ideas for marathons that we could watch? Comment below!
Definitive List of Marathons we’ve watched Godfather Harry Potter Mad Max Mission Impossible Aliens Lord of the Rings X-Men Unbreakable Trilogy Fast and the Furious (all 8!) The Conjuring movies The Karate Kid movies Bourne movies Annabelle Movies 007 Movies (with Daniel Craig) To do: Jurassic park Batman movies X-men (finish) Wolverine Star Wars (I’m out) Resident Evil Guardians of the Galaxy John Wick Ocean’s Movies Die Hards (Christmas) Matrix Triple X The rock movies Oceans 11 |
Mrs. Mitchell
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March 2020
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