Happy Kringle!

Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker (Mariinsky Ballet)

This is my favorite piece of music, and I think that these dancers are fantastic.

Snow thoughts.

It is snowing, and snowing more at one time than it ever does here. I can't even concentrate enough to study for my final tomorrow because I am too busy enjoying the view from inside this snow-globe of mine. The trees are bowing to each other in their crystal costumes, preparing for a waltz (no doubt penned by Tchaikovsky). Once they begin to dance, small stars will fly into the overcast sky. Vehicles become objects foreign to my recognition, they become relics of some civilization I do not understand. The falling snow acts to hypnotize and lull one away from any sort of awareness of time. The birds, like me, have hidden away to watch this transformation for themselves.

I am so happy right now, sitting at my desk, bundled up in my dark room, rubbing my toes on the carpet to warm them, and looking out onto a world covered in clean. I love this world, I love this weather, and I love each and every fairy-flake. This is a world enchanted, of which I am queen.

Can I just say that The KIllers' "Dustland Fairytale" is one of the most encouraging songs I've ever heard? It is.

Leaf Ghosts.

this morning

This was an encouraging sight before my physical science final

I'm still laughing about this.

The ONLY good thing about being up at 5am

Research Paper Time, again.

Fun stuff.

Today I saw the supernatural in the clouds.

Oil pools in the clouds. I was mesmerized. I know that these pictures don't do it justice, I just hope that you all can see traces of it. So beautiful.

The funniest Bible verse ever.

He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

Genesis 10:9

It is too much, its killing me!

I just read an unfortunate sentence.

"What William Morris and his associates began at the Kelmscott Press spread rapidly through Europe and North America. By the end of World War I, the precious mannerisms and medievalisms of the Pre Raphaelites and that unfortunate manifestation known as art nouveau had been sloughed off."

It started out so wonderfully, and ended in blasphemy. Terrible.

Raindrops are millions of angels sent to break through your complacency and scream into your ears, "You are alive!!!"

At least that's what I think.

Research Paper Time.

I am teaching my American Literature I class tomorrow (scary!). I'm not sure why I am the only student who has to, but I am. It will be about Emily Dickinson for a whole 50 minutes. These are the bird poems I like. They aren't my favorite of her's, but they are still lovely. Just thought I'd share.

#130

These are the days when Birds come back --
A very few -- a Bird or two --
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old -- old sophistries of June --
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee --
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear --
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze --
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake --
They consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!


#328

A Bird came down the Walk --
He did not know I saw --
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass --
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass --

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around --
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought --
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home --

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam --
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

I saw this magical, golden pool of leaves today. I stepped into it half expecting to fall into a different world.

Thoughts before Physical Science one morning. . .

I love looking at embroidery threads. I imagine what they could depict on fabrics if given the opportunity. Right now, there are flowers growing up my sleeves in lovely Autumn colors. And there are patterns and textures inside the flowers! I like looking at wooden surfaces-like a table top-and seeing all the patterns in the grain. The best thing about these patterns is that they were once the source of life for the entire tree! It is like a snapshot of a tree's spirit, or just a remaining trace of it's spirit.

Nature is already celebrating the holidays.

View from the bake sale table, I was sitting there all day long, and that's what I could see. Occasionally, there were people too.

I give you the fruits of my labors: Frankenstein's Laboratory!

Chicken industry threatened by what?!? Why do I care?

(Ok, in all fairness, I am concerned about these poor, inbred chickens, but honestly, they get a headline the day before elections?!

Don't even try to tell me that God isn't an artist.

1

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n,
and strikes,
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I love the melting feeling you get when you come in from the cold. I am so glad that we get to experience these sorts of sensations!

Bono and Brandon Flowers on the same stage, that is just too exciting.

The wind is blowing my curtains. They are beautiful, they look like a waterfall.

Doodling on the aeroplane

As we were landing, the guy sitting next to me asked me if I was an artist.

Cumberland University

Holy cow, I just stumbled upon this. I am in it! And it also features my English Professor, Dr. Rex (he's the one with the earring).

"Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward."

- Soren Kierkegaard -



Very interesting. It was on my gmail this morning.
Also, Soren is a nice name.

Alone in an Airport

I'm sitting in the Denver airport listening to people's conversations. This trip has been filled with running into kind strangers. I think they are members of a secret army trying to restore my faith in humanity in general. It may be working.

Also there is snow here.

It's about time.

Here's the third in this series, she's coming along nicely, if I may say so myself.

Hilarious

Not only does this cat technically have four ears, it's name is Yoda.

What I'm about-Part V

I think very often about shadows. I take pictures of lovely shadows that I see with the intent of using them in a painting. I remember as a child, after watching Peter Pan and seeing him catch his shadow, thinking that your shadow was a very essential part of who you are, your spirit. Of course, he needed his spirit with him so that he could be whole, and (I'm convinced) so he could really fly. I have sat watching my shadow, waiting for it to do something independent of me. It makes sense that I haven't seen it do such a thing though. As long as we are attached, my shadow/spirit and the physical me, I think we'll balance each out and act in accord. You see, my physical being would be very mechanical without my spirit. And my spirit would probably fly every-which-way without being grounded by my physical self.

There is a leaf, it is yellow, on the ground in front of me (I am sitting out on a bench in the park-like lawn of my campus). Even though it is technically (scientifically) cut off from from its life source, it is still accompanied by it's shadow. How can I think it dead? It still casts a shadow, it still has a spirit. It still conveys beauty to me, and in a way I may have never known had it remained high in the air, anchored to the branch. Such a dear little leaf. Leaves are like feather except better because they are alive.
Why do we have such a negative view of shadows? Why are they 'scary'? What is so terrible about a shadow that we would want to 'cast no shadow'?

I wonder if pine trees look so sad because they never die? I think that's why deciduous trees are so excited- their lives come and go, they have a season of death and then are revived. Pines are old and tired. They have to suffer through the cold of winter always conscious of the bitter reality surrounding them. But then, God has allowed them to see snow, which is not something He has afforded the other trees. And maybe they enjoy being a shelter for other living things whose lives are not as enduring as their own. I wonder what they think of the flamboyant display of Autumn? I'm not sure they approve at all. Pine trees remind me of nuns.

I definitely think the Transcendentalists/Romantics had something right. Nature is obviously linked to the spiritual. God does reveal Himself through the sky and the trees and the waters. I don't agree with everything they've stated, but I do think they started off in the right direction. God reveals Himself through His creation in the same way that an artist does. One can learn the style of an artist, and recognize a work as being his/hers, just as we can see and recognize and understand the beauty that God has allowed us to interact with.

A peek at my newest painting

Today would have been John Lennon's 68th Birthday

Sonnet:To Science

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Edgar Allan Poe 1845


My feelings exactly.

I just traced (online! Oh the joys of internet!) one side of my family back to 1490 in England. Holy cow, I feel very small.

Here's a free download of The Guggenheim Grotto

I don't know what you'll think, but I love it. This is good music, and if I had money (ah the life of an artist. At least I'm not starving, er, that is when I'm not forgetting to eat because I'm painting) I'd buy every last song they've made. One day.

Here it is!

'A Tear Isn't Such a Bad Thing' makes me cry, but its just so beautiful at the same time that I have to listen to it.

This is the 200th post!

I give you Edinburgh, a view from Greyfriar's Cemetery.

What I'm about-Part IV

It has been too long since I've pondered these sorts of thoughts on paper (well, here it is on a screen, but never mind). I've just experienced a wonderful kind of art: a story, but more specifically, a fairy tale. My heart was awakened with the realization of seeing a happy ending. Of course, it was a just a movie, but the need for a chaotic world to again come to order is central to all of humanity. There are fairy tales in every language, in all eras of time. They bear the simplest of truths about us as the human race: we want love, we want to be happy, and we want to know the ending. But if you think about it, really Jane Austen was writing fairy tales too. Her characters are seeking those same things, but without all the magic. Well wait. Of course there's magic in Austen! What else would you call a dance that everyone knows so perfectly, that two people can stare at each other, while dancing, with such a super-natural intensity, that by the time they leave the room, they are madly in love. Sounds like a spell to me. And they encounter all the trials and confusion before they get their happy ending, just like in fairy tales.
My favorite fairy tale is that of Tatsinda. (I won't relay it to you here, but I will encourage you to seek it out and fall in love with it for your self.)

I painted for 4 hours today. It has become more ingrained in my daily activity than ever before. Things I need to do everyday: sleep-paint-sing-read-write-think-speak-breathe. And I suppose eat (if I remember, I never had trouble remembering to eat until recently.)

I wonder what animals think of us? I wonder what they think of our forks and spoons and tv's? I wonder what they think of the sky?

Today was the first day I could hear Autumn singing, albeit from a distance yet. She isn't quite here, but she will be soon in all of her operatic glories, with all of her flamboyant costumes. If only Summer would quite bowing and just let the curtain fall already. . .

I love having chills, it is like an alarm screaming "You're alive!!!"

This morning it rained for the first time in a long time. I love the smell of rain. Breathing in air cleansed by rain is breathing what makes flowers happen, that is magical air. Breathing is growing. Can you imagine the anticipation that plants experience when they see a thunderstorm forming on the horizon? They must all be in a frenzy! That explains why they dance about so much before it rains.

Once I saw the mouth of a spring. I felt I had stumbled upon the 'world navel'. Surely the source of water marks the source of life. Think of the trouble that Genesis goes to to explain the rivers converging in the garden. And as far as archetypes go, water equals life.

Today I finished the first painting in a series of five (for now) that I'm working on. I think these are really going to be important for me, as far as art goes. They are really piecing together a lot of the loves I have-of text and pattern and iconography and antiquity and shiny-ness and symbolism- essentially art and literature, now that I really think about it. Maybe that explains why Im double-majoring in art and english? Hm. I hope they will be readable to more than just me, but then I do love to explain things, now don't I?

A Bird's House: Bird, Cage and Master in Ibsen's "A Doll House"

I just thought I'd share one of my research papers from last spring with everyone. This was pretty easy to write, just because this play stirs up lots of, well, anger. Plus I generally have lots to say on this issue. Ok, here it is:


Henrik Ibsen’s play, “A Doll House,” deals realistically with the many false expectations in marriage, class, and gender relations of the late 19th century, but focuses largely on exposing the illusions in the marriage relationship of Torvald and Nora Helmer. Their entire relationship has been based on the expectations of society. They have turned their marriage into a model union to which their generation would aspire. They have a lovely home, the wife is beautiful and submissive, the husband is god-like in his manliness, and all of the expectations of the idealistic society around them have been met. They seem happy, but as Nora comes to the startling realization of truth, we find that their entire marriage, and Nora’s life, has been nothing more than mirrors and smoke. They have been like little dolls in a dollhouse being controlled by some outside force, but more personally to Nora, she has been playing the role of a pet bird in a cage.
Ibsen’s treatment of their relationship reveals much about thought processes of the characters, especially his repeated uses of bird imagery. David B. Drake says that in Ibsen’s works there are “. . . series of verbal and visual motifs that function not just as supporting elements, but as contributing components” (33). Torvald refers to Nora as a bird in several key places in the play. By using such names for his wife, Torvald reveals how he bought into the mainstream thought of his day and how he uses societal norms to exploit a human being. Anne Marie Redkal suggests that these names “. . . function as a repressive code” (155). Nora’s acceptance of these names (at first) shows her submission to the expectations of a wife living in the late 19th century and acceptance of “her role as sky-lark . . . in the masquerade in which Helmer [Torvald] wants to keep her (155). While Nora is on the more repressed end of this relationship, both she and Torvald have been controlled by an obsession with meeting the standards of 1879. Neither of them are living in full understanding of their behavior until Nora awakens, and then readers cannot know if Torvald changes, for the play ends as Nora slams the door to her home. When this door is slammed, she has finally escaped her cage. The place that she called home had become violent to her. It represents everything that kept her from being herself and from being free. Her house is the immobilizing power of illusion and expectation, and when she leaves it, she is moving on to discover who she says she is, without the roles that had previously defined her. She also leaves the expectations of others behind her in order to find out what it is that she expects of herself and which roles she wants to play. A bird that has been raised in confinement and dependance knows no other way of life, just as Nora was raised knowing what everyone expected and planned for her, and therefore knew no other way to live and behave.
When Torvald refers to Nora as a bird, it doesn’t mean a creature that is free to move about as it pleases, but implies a trained pet who is kept strictly in a cage for show. When Torvald has Nora perform her Tarantella, it is as if she is performing a trick to delight her owner and his
Starner 3
friends. After her dance Torvald says, “. . . what’s important is, she made a success, an overwhelming success” (Ibsen 444). Of course, when the truth comes to light later that evening about her business with Krogstad, and she reacts with explanations, he demands that there be “. . . none of your slippery tricks” (446). Torvald expects to be able to control her every action and reaction. After she begins to think clearly and addresses Torvald seriously, she realizes how her life has truly been lived; “Now when I look back, it seems as if I’d lived here like a beggar - just from hand to mouth. I’ve lived by doing tricks for you Torvald. But that’s the way you wanted it” (448). And as Muriel C. Bradbrook suggests, “Nora’s marriage becomes eight years prostitution,” in her view after she comes to this realization (454).
Such a bird would be pretty and would add a bit of excitement and beauty to the home of the owner. This bird’s wings need not be clipped, only subjected to the restraints of a cage. Nora is repeatedly reminded by her husband that she is first and foremost a wife and mother. By keeping these roles in the forefront of her mind, he is able to keep her in a sort of cage. The bird would only be allowed to experience what its owner saw fit for it to see and feel. Torvald decides that Nora shouldn’t worry herself over things that he doesn’t approve of. When Nora shows interest in Dr. Rank’s recent scientific discovery, Torvald belittles her back into her place by saying, “Come now - little Nora talking about scientific research!” (445) as if it is some novelty to do so. He believes that she isn’t able to handle such deep and involved topics and that her little bird-brain can’t comprehend anything but the simplest of trite topics. In fact, he even calls her a “feather head” just to further belittle her after the conversation with Dr. Rank (445).
Torvald controls what she can and cannot eat. In the beginning of the play, we find Nora sneaking macaroons, something Torvald doesn’t allow her, a grown woman, to eat. This bird would only eat what it is fed, sleep where it is told, and sing and do tricks when demanded of it. Nora is this bird, her home and Torvald’s expectations are her cage, and Torvald is her keeper.
More apparent than implied bird-likeness are the multiple times that Torvald actually refers to Nora directly as a bird. In Act I, we find Nora and Torvald at the height of their grand illusion of happiness, and it is here that we find the most references to birds. The first words we hear from Torvald in the entire play are “Is that my little lark twittering out there?” (421). He asks her this while she is unpacking the results of shopping for Christmas. She answers that is is his “little lark,” and a reader may take this exchange as a little sweet talk from a husband to his wife. It could be taken as a pet name for his beloved wife. Only a few lines more, and we find that it isn’t so. After they talk a little about money, something that Torvald obviously considers to be over her head, he says to her, “Now, now, the little lark’s wings mustn’t droop . . .” (422). She isn’t allowed to be disappointed, or even let her emotion show. She is expected to always be lively and happy and certainly never capable of doing anything more than “twittering.”
The next exchange of bird names comes about because of money as well. Torvald has asked Nora what she might like for Christmas, and she says she’d like some money of her own. He doesn’t know it, but she means to save the money to pay back the debt she incurred while securing his health. He asks, “What are those little birds called that always fly through their fortunes?” “Oh yes, spendthrifts,” says Nora. She goes on to say that she doesn’t mean to run through with the money. “Don’t deny it, my dear little Nora,” says Torvald, “Spendthrifts are sweet, but they use up a frightful amount of money. It’s incredible what it costs a man to feed such birds” (422). She is trying to be responsible for her debts, and he can only accuse her of being a “spendthrift.” He isn’t interested in what she wants as a gift unless he approves. Torvald thinks her only able to be a flighty little thing that spends money. Torvald sees Nora trying to be somewhat serious, and he comes back with “I couldn’t wish you anything but what you are, my sweet little lark” (422). Her husband doesn’t want her to think. He can do that for her. He wants her to only be an “empty-headed ornament in a house designed to keep his life functioning smoothly” (Jacobus 418). When she begins to talk seriously about an issue of finance, he reminds her that she is only his little lark and nothing more.
As a large portion of the action unfolds, Torvald and Nora have little interaction. Nora receives threats from Krogstad, reunites with Mrs. Linde, talks with Dr. Rank and plays with her children before she and her husband ever really get to have a conversation alone again in the play. In the conversation that finally comes about out of Krogstad’s visits, Torvald again chooses to remind Nora that she is his pet bird. When Torvald returns home, he asks Nora if anyone has been there. She says there hasn’t been, even though Krogstad has only just left the house. Torvald saw him leave and catches Nora in a lie. He mockingly chides her with “My little songbird must never do that again. A songbird needs a clean beak to warble with. No false notes” (432). This statement puts Nora in a very odd position. She has a huge burden to bear, one that Krogstad is holding over her head, and here is her husband telling her to come clean. She desperately wants to tell him what’s going on, but she fears his reaction to the news. She becomes more confused on his stance when he condemns those who deal in forgery (Nora’s “crime”), but then says, “What ever comes, you’ll see: When it really counts, I have the strength and courage enough as a man to take on the whole weight myself” (436). She doesn’t know how he will respond, so she keeps trying to work out the problem without Torvald finding out about it. After this little semi-serious conversation is decidedly cut short by Torvald, Nora returns to being concerned with the trivial again to seem unaffected. Her conversation turns to Christmas decorations and costume parties. Now that she has returned to her appointed role, Torvald declares, “Oh you, my darling little songbird” (433). She is having these new experiences and still has her relationship with Torvald, but she is finding it hard to deal with the situations that are outside of this illusionistic world of bird and master. She is learning to deal with her own problems without Torvald and is learning that she may not be able to count on him to save her.
Nora tries once more to convince Torvald to let Krogstad have his position at the bank back. This time there is evidence that she is learning to use the role of the little songbird to help her. She tempts him with “Your lark would be singing high and low in every room” if he will do what she asks (435). She has learned to play the role of the lark to get what she wants, and that marks a new realization in her. She knows now that none of this lark nonsense has been true, but that it has been a tool for Torvald to get what he wants out of her and now she is trying to use it for her benefit. Now that she is questioning that role, she begins to think more seriously about other roles that define her life. Are they just as false? Redkal suggests that she is “in the end totally confused by questions of right and wrong; her natural feeling on the one hand, faith in authorities on the other, leave her totally bewildered” (152).
The time comes for the Tarantella to be performed, but Nora is far more concerned with something else. Krogstad has put a letter explaining the whole ordeal into Torvald’s locked mailbox with the intention of using this knowledge to blackmail Torvald. Nora begins to behave very strangely. She pretends to forget the dance to distract him from opening the mailbox, and she calls for macaroons and champagne. Torvald obviously notices the differences. “Now, now, now -- no hysterics. Be my own little lark,” he says as he’s leaving the room (442). He tries to bring her back around to being under his control. Dr. Rank is truly concerned and asks if there is something wrong. Torvald’s reply of “Oh, of course not” shows his lack of genuine concern for Nora (442). When he wants Nora to join him, he calls, “What’s become of the little lark?” and she comes towards him with “Here’s your lark!” showing that she has again submitted to the role (442).
The Tarantella has been danced; and Torvald has finally pulled Nora, who wanted to stay at the party to avoid the inevitable conflict, away from the crowd. She admits that she is tired and tells Torvald, “whatever you do is always right” (444). “Now my little lark talks sense,” Torvald replies (444). The little lark only talks sense when she is agreeing with Torvald. He only lets her go to sleep after Dr. Rank has interrupted the amorous attempts that Torvald makes in vain towards Nora. Torvald says, “Good night, little songbird” (446).
The true intent of Torvald’s bird names comes out after the letter from Krogstad has been read. Torvald believes his life is over when he says, “I’ll be swept down miserably into the depths on account of a featherbrained woman!” (446). His names have been reflective of his true thoughts of her. She is just a feather brained woman. She is useless unless she can be controlled. This drastic leap in tone towards Nora is almost as shocking to readers as it would have been to her. His tone had been so sweet when she was acting under his strict rule. Now that she has been doing things without him, his voice is filled with hatred. The play moves on through his railings against Nora and her lack of morals until he takes a letter addressed to Nora and opens it. “I’m saved Nora, I’m saved!” says Torvald (447). He tries to make up for all the terrible things he’s said to her by basically acting as if they hadn’t happened and by saying he’s forgiven her. Here was the chance for him to save her, to take the whole weight upon himself like he said he would, but he didn’t. Nora knows now that everything was false. There is no way for her to know what is and is not true in her life.
Nora leaves the room to change clothes. While she is changing, Torvald stands by the door and says, “Try to calm yourself and collect your thoughts again, my frightened little songbird. You can rest easy now; I’ve got wide wings to protect you with . . . You’re safe here; I’ll keep you like a hunted dove . . .” (447). She comes out in a dress, instead of her nightclothes. She had been collecting her thoughts for some time now. The pattern of conversation changes at this point. Nora “regains the power of speech and . . . talks like a man” (Redkal 174). Before, it was Torvald monologuing with Nora inserting an occasional sentence, and that was generally in agreement. Now Torvald can barely get a word in, for Nora is releasing years of repressed thoughts and feelings. She tells him she is leaving and that she has duties to herself. “Before all else you are a wife and a mother,” Torvald says. “I don’t believe in that anymore,” says Nora, “I believe that before all else I am a human being . . .” (448). She is no longer under the impression that she is only to be defined by being a bird-wife. She wants to be human. She also confronts him about his sudden change of heart towards her after the whole ordeal had been cleared away: “When your big fright was over - and it wasn’t from any threat against me, only from what might damage you - when all the danger was past, for you it was like nothing had happened. I was exactly the same, you little lark . . .” (449).
Nora’s eyes have been opened to reality. Torvald, the society she had been operating in, and her life had all been a fraud. This forgery of true living was a far greater crime than both she and Krogstad had committed. She isn’t leaving to get back at Torvald, but she is leaving, as Brian W. Downs says, “. . . in order that she may meditate in peace upon her position as a woman and a member of the human community” (161). Nora is sick with the thought of living with a stranger for eight years and bearing him three children. Ibsen has woven the beautiful and continuous strand of bird-imagery through this piece, and ties off the knot by releasing that bird. Nora is going to find out who she is. She no longer is content with living in illusion, so she slams the door and flies away.






Works Cited
Bradbrook, Muriel C. “A Doll’s House: Ibsen the Moralist.” The Bedford Introduction to Drama.
Fifth Edition. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2005. 453-56.
Downs, Brian W. Ibsen: The Intellectual Background. New York: Octagon Books. 1975.
Drake, David B. “Ibsen’s A Doll House.” Explicator Fall 1994: 32-35. Academic Source
Premier. Ebscohost. Cumberland University, Vise Library. 31 Mar. 2008.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Fifth Edition. Ed. Lee A.
Jacobus. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2005. 421-50.
Jacobus, Lee A. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Fifth Edition. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus.
Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2005. 418-21.
Redkal, Anne Marie. “The Female Jouissance: An Analysis of Henrik Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem.”
Scandinavian Studies Summer 2002: 149-80. Academic Source Premier.
Ebscohost. Cumberland University, Vise Library. 31 Mar. 2008.

A round of applause for Aryabhata!

Copernicus wasn't the first to think of a Sun-centered solar system. In the 5th century, the Indian astronomer Aryabhata wrote that the Earth circles the Sun, not the other way around as the rest of the world thought. Now wasn't he just smart?

Like all the new pictures?

I finally figured it out.

A few days ago I. . .

. . .saw clouds of such epic proportions that I wanted to do something to change the course of history, like lead an army of idealists into battle with this world or something. But what could I really do?

I want my life to be written in poetry, not just prose. Or at least for the poetic parts to be so vastly lovely that it makes up for the mundane in between.

We drove beside a bird for like 45 seconds. It was at eye level with me and moving along side at the same speed. It gave me the feeling of flying almost. I wish I could fly. I wish I could be where ever I wanted to be.

O Holy Night (listen to this and your life will be more worth living.)

One more reason why I love Nathaniel Hawthorne:

"Sunlight is painting."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

He said it, he meant it, I love it.

Australia

I am beyond excited about this movie.

What I'm about-Part III

A couple of nights ago, I looked up into the blue midnight velvet to see the diamonds. The big dipper looked so close, like I could touch it and send the stars flying out in every direction. When I was little, I remember having a dream that I could be scooped up in the big dipper and it could carry me across the sky. I think of this every time I look up into the night sky. being able to see into space, to see the stars, reminds me that there is so much more going on than what I can immediately see and experience. I am able then to realize my own smallness in those moments.
This hasn't really related to art yet at all. Well, maybe it has. THis is my reaction to viewing a work of art. The sky is a very effective backdrop for viewing God's ever-evolving pictures. And isn't art supposed to make us think? And remember? And communicate a truth/beauty?
I want to always feel as alive as I did last night. I want to do the sort of spontaneous things that emphasize with every breath that I am living, breathing. I feel this most clearly if I am caught in the rain or out running around playing late at night with friends. I love the night.

"Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation,
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination"
-Charles Hart/ Andrew Lloyd Webber The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera

Of course, I love the day time. Especially in Autumn.
I love walking on the same stones in castles and courtyards where queens and kings have lived their lives. It is placing your feet on hundreds of years of human experience. Learning what you can from the mistakes and successes they had. Realizing that I have the same limitations, weaknesses, abilities, and possibilities that they did.
I wish I could smell honeysuckles in the Autumn-time. That would probably be a glimpse of heaven for me.
I love the works of Hawthorne. Human nature, redemption, love, beauty, freedom, art, change, being, community, humanity.
I saw a Shakespeare play under the stars last night. I t was enjoyable, and I have a new-found appreciation for liberties in others' interpretations, but how much better was the communion of friends!? People need to be with people. I'm so glad God created us this way. "No man is an island," but if he is, he shouldn't be. Life is not meant to be lived/interpreted/sustained alone.

What I'm about-Part II

I love the wind. When an unseen force can visibly affect the situation of your scarf, your hair, it is an amazing thing. Exhilarating, actually. And inspiring. I felt the first hint of autumn in the wind a few days ago, and it stirred sleeping bits of my heart.
I love Pineapples. They are the yellow-greenest taste I've ever experienced. they are perfectly sweet and sour, but not at all angry. Elizabethan portraits are wonderful. The details in the dress is spectacular.
I love people. I love the communities that I have been enveloped in, kindred spirits. And I talk to my plants. I like remembering moments when I was little playing in the woods. I spoke to so many plants and they all had very interesting things to say in return. I love the lilting voice of creeks and rivers, and the operatic voice of waterfalls. I'm so thankful I can hear.
I love being in a museum, looking at a work of art and trying to figure out what everyone else around me is thinking about it. I wonder how they look at it. Do they analyze it formally, or do they soak it up first, without a thought in their head, before they attempt understanding (like me)? Do they think about the way their eyes flow across the canvas/paper/stone, or do they have a hard controlling their excited eyes?
Today I learned about language families and origins of languages. How amazing is the human mind?! And the imagination! Many times, it seems, optimists should be called imaginists.
I love the colors in pearls and oil puddles. I always wanted to step in the puddles so that my footprints would be pearly. Eyes would be lovely if they were pearly. But eyes already are. Looking at eyes is like seeing threads and forests and jewels and frozen storms all at once. Or like seeing a bit of someone's soul under a microscope.
The interaction of the senses is very interesting to me. You see a vase of flowers, then your mind tells you what it is, the come to mind all of the other sensual connections you have with the object, how it smells, what it feels like, and of course attached memories. All from a glimpse.
Wayne Thiebaud's Candy Counter 1969-The jar in the upper-right corner is one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen. Jawbreaker Machine 1963 is exciting too. I saw one of his rows of cake slices at the Frist during a pop art exhibit. I definitely prefer his approach to that of Warhol, Lichtenstein, etc. Thiebaud's later works are just as colorful and decadent as his early desserts. Green River Lands 1998 is stunning, as is his Reservoir and Orchard 2001. Apartment Hill 1980 is amazing. In it he has created a living thing out of a piece of earth and the buildings and cars of humans. It is interesting that the juxtaposition of those two things could communicate a figure to me, but it does. It's beautiful.
I love the feeling you get when you know a painting is finished. That experience wouldn't be half as rewarding if it wasn't terrible having a half-finished work about, or even worse, a piece that looks done, but you know deep down inside that it isn't.
It is the fact that we must die that makes being alive so fantastic and amazing and mind-blowing.
Freckles are funny things, proof that God loves irregular patterns. But then, there isn't anything irregular about where each one is placed, very precise. Now that is meticulous.
I love the taste of dark chocolate and the smell of coffee. I think that somewhere in time, that smell and taste were separated. They should belong to the same thing. Dark chocolate should smell like coffee.
Oo! I love the soft fluffy bed of purple and frosted thorns that are a thistle. I love the crazy, curling explosion of abandon that is a passion flower. If I were a fairy, I would wear a passion flower hat.
I love being with my family and remembering through (primitive) technology my childhood. I loved seeing a 5 year old me fly through the house in a red toga and devil hat, with Gabe close behind dressed like Miss Muffett. I love the affirmation that photos and videos give to our memories.
Earth is the largest work of installation art ever, and it is constantly changing. We should stop and notice this more. Every person is an ever changing work of art, with so many things to communicate, like art.

Look what I learned

Mnemosyne- Mother of the Greek Muses and a personification of memory and recollection.

I think this is exciting.

What I'm about-Part I

My Dean, Mr. Ted Rose, is having keep a journal-type thing of thoughts pertaining to me and how they filter through to my art. I thought I put the first entry here, and I might do that all through it. He and I have formed a small class (I am the only student) that meets constantly called "Portfolio Presentation" or "Get Meiska into the Perfect Graduate School by Christmas." Warning, this is a portion of my brain. Don't expect to see a link between the subjects.

Here goes:

I love old things-photographs, letters, shoes, whatever- anything with a past, with a memory (only these things can't express a memory. Maybe that's where I come in?) Art Nouveau, organic lines and shapes, William Morris, Alphonse Mucha. I have always been delighted by the posters from 1870-1930ish. Early Kandinsky. The Pre-Raphaelites.
I like painting figures, faces, because=? It engages the viewer in a series of questions- "Why are you looking at me?" "What do you see?" It also causes the viewer to question the subject- "What kind of life did/do you have?" "What joys and pains did you experience?" "Are our lives, though far removed in years, similar in any way?" etc. That's why I like working from old photographs. They do have a background that I and the viewer can question.
I love fairy tales. I love Picasso's early paintings (Saltambiques, Blues). Pattern tends to catch my attention, I love it's interaction with the things around it.
I like remembering things, moments, and being able to translate everything that goes into such a memory into a painting. I'm interessted in time's affect of memory and our own iimagination's affect on our memories.
I am interested in the relationship between the viewer and art and subsequently the viewer and the artist. I think an engaging pair of eyes confronts the viewer and forces the viewer to sstep out and have the realization that they are viewing.
Illuminated manuscripts, scriptures, etc! THey are so lovely and ornate. Icons are beautiful. I think a series of paintings on boards shaped like gothic windows/icons would be amazing. Only they should feature people we cannonize today, or family maybe. Hm.
I love fabrics, especially velvets. I love the way the light and shadows play of fabric, in fact, it may be the most rollicking fun that lights and darks get to have. Trees have always been fundamental to my survival. They've lived here or there a lot longer than me, still around. What have they witnssed? What has my ancient oak tree, outside my bedroom window for 21 years, seen of my life? Could I measure my life by those events?
I want to go to India. And to Wales. And back to Portugal, Scotland, England. I want to go to Russia. I want to see the people there laugh at my name. But I don't want a 'visit' mindset. I want to be immersed in the culture, I don't want a schedule.
I think I am fatally stricken with wanderlust, and probably wonderlust too I guess. I want to see as much as I can, as soon as I can. That alone would have tempted me to become a pirate had I been born male and 200 plus years ago. Or royalty (not that you can really choose that).
The color green is my favorite. It is the color that is life. Things that are growing and can be rejuvenated are green. It is both rich and cool, which is quite an accomplishment.
Synaesthetics intrigue me. Kandinsky experienced this phenomena with music/painting. I do this too to a degree, but more with taste/touch/smell/experience things. Maybe I'm a tactile synaesthete?
Words are interesting things. I like to think about how it is that a single sound, or string of sounds, holds a world of meaning, and that meaning changes with every single person and their experiences, and can change at any time in every person's life. I like realizing, riding down the highway, that each in every car has a life and problems and joys and experiences. Roads are intersections of the most diverse kind, but we all keep on driving, we meld with the vehicle. Driving steals a person's humanity.

I just saw a flower move. I have a vase of tiger lillies and daisies on the counter across my room. I was laying on my bed just staring at the flower, not doing anything in particular, and the lily's petal just opened up. Right in front of me! I have a very mischeivious feeling about me now, like I should be suspicious of that flower and spy on it. Of course, I always knew flowers could move. . .

soon

School is getting ready to start, and I can't wait for that time to get here. But at the same time, I wish I had more time between now and then. I have a lot to finish up and get started on. Normally when I feel like this, I would just start on it, but now I sit and think about how much I have to do, and accomplish nothing. I think its the summer blues.

My english professor just informed me that part of my being able to miss every Monday for lab includes me teaching a class on Emily Dickinson in Novemeber, a thought that is both exciting and scary. It will be good for me because for a fellowship at grad school, I'll have to teach a whole entire class. But still scary.

Lots to think about, to be thankful for.

Happy Birthday, Mr. The Edge

The best

The best time to sit in traffic, is during an electrical storm at night. Being stuck on the tip top of a bridge over looking the Nashville skyline on one side, and what seems to me to be God's most excellent light display since Creation on the other, is pure bliss. Sensory details have popping up recently to form a symphony of delight for me. I've noticed things more deeply than ever before, it catches my breath now to see the lightning coming while still in a calm, bright area. It gives me chills. Drinking orange blossom iced tea, or mint iced tea, is a sensation like no other. Drinking something that tastes like it smells is like becoming a flower (only iced tea works for the flower effect, flowers should never be hot, they wilt). Last week at camp, far from any city's lights or stream of vehicles, I swam at night during a storm. (There were lots of moths swimming to, as it were, because of their reckless pursuit of {the pool} light, which is also amazing) I looked up into the falling rain to discover I was moving at light speed, or so it seemed. The wind was moving the water all about and there was a chill in the air; it was the closest I've ever been to (physically) feeling shipwrecked. These sensoric (I may have discovered a new word there) moments also happen during the most mundane of activities. Like getting into bed after a hot, humid day (the kind of day that makes my hair a perfect afro) and feeling the crisp, cool sheets and the approaching rest. And I reach to turn off the ligth, and I notice the shadows being cast on the wall and get caught up in them. I get into bed every night, but just sometimes it hits me just right and I breathe a deep sigh of contentment and thankfulness. He didn't have to make my life rich with these extra little feelings, but I think He knows me well enough to know when I need to experience His closeness in this sort of grasp-able way, even though it isn't tangible really to most. And sometimes He just indulges me.

Leonard and Mary Starner

These are my great, great, great grandparents. Mary was a Quaker! This picture was taken somewhere between 1886 and 1900.

The Exquisite Corpse (Except with Words)

The Exquisite Corpse is a game that the Dadaists played where they continue a drawing off of a small piece of the drawing of a previous friend, so it turns out to be a huge drawing that is crazy. Well, last year on the way to a rafting trip, those in the vehicle compiled a story at the rate of four words each, kind of in the vein of the Dadaists. Here it is:

I believe there was a beautiful young lady who had a strange body and long hair with a funny dress, the dress was with platypus fur and pink scale of rattle snake. Her shoes were even stranger. You can't imagine her in the happy time when she was at the pancake palace ball. She floated like the ice cream in a float, root beer. In the new north way of the ocean was the little frog prince she loved. He had not yet declared his love for his lovely great love. His heart was like a frog jumping on the trampoline of lu-uhve! A car ran over his evil step-mother, oh what an awesome thing. It was a truck running over his moldy froggish, freakish, fiend! But enough of that because the truth is out what a giant happened. He was invovled with the fancy happy dancing police of Switzerland and the horse flies. He was very unconventional. Now lets see what happens because his happy ever after was not there, it was in Morrocco. Betty-Lou was the lady's name, but he called her what-to-do ever after. I don't know what to do, but this is crazy, like Betty-Lou, she's a pet do-do bird. I don't remember exactly, but she cry after she watch sesame street. Her parents were Pre-Raphaelites who loved strawberry yogurt and bananas. The night before her wedding she ran. He wasn't frogly. This made her very sad anytime she pondered her past. She wished she was at a theme park. Can you imagine a time when lizards could fly? Sky diving was her biggest fear, but she remembered the brave lizards and jumped for joy. The lizards always made sucj a wonderful home. They always look around and hunt for grapefruit, the fuzzy green kind. But they also enjoy the sun, especially on the beach when they take trips to hippie farms. Betty-lou worshipped almighty god! And the deer frolicked in the dark forest, made even funkier by the smokiness. She became a missionary, to the country of Norweigia. The one who listened was the frog prince, whom she loved dearly, over every other one. Everybody knows the happy couple obeyed the Lord's leading to get married and continue to take the first love to people in Gatlinburg on their honeymoon. Kangaroos are not very friendly, but sure will come close to you, but they won't hurt unless you're wearing avacado green checkered pants and red high-heel shoes and also his lovely bejewelled disco outfit. If slugs flew, salt would no longer be necessary. But she will need to see what he will give her for sprinting off London Bridge into a bowl of pudding. His precious lovely disco suit was ruined by the German Nazis. Nazis don't like pudding, of course, "We won't make pudding ever!" they said. Losers! Kazakistani commandos trip pver their disco shoes which is their destruction.

The end.

I took a walk this morning about 6:30. It was too warm for moving about, so I cut it short. When I got back to my house, my niece and nephew were sleeping, so I layed down on my bed and stared at the ceiling for a while. My nephew, Ricky, laughed in his sleep. And I smiled.

I'm leavin' on a jet plane. . .

I'm on my way to Glasgow this morning, and will conclude my travels in London at a later date! AH! England! Land of my (sort of) birth!!! YAY! Have fun here with out me, keep watching LOST everyone.

LOST

What a wonderful show! What a wonderful season finale! I'm so happy about the ending! Yay!



(Sorry about the lack of specifics, I don't want to give anything away for anyone!)

Yay Coldplay!

This new album is shaping up rather nicely, I must say. I even pre-ordered it.

Neon Rainbow!

It was the best rainbow I've ever seen.

A visitor

This hawk was sitting outside my dorm on a parking sign! Its huge! I thought it might eat me.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

And here it is post-color:

Design of the cover of our school's Literary Magazine

This was so much fun to do!

My Paintings in the Student Show!

Blue

Autumn (MIles & Flora)

Self Portrait (with Mask)

These are the paintings I put in my University's student show. I'm pretty sure they are having the time of their lives. (Sorry, but the light in the gallery is doing funky things to each of them)

Today was such a lovely day. There was so much windiness and clean air, the refreshing kind you can breathe in so deeply. Today was one of those days that reassures you that you are, in fact, alive. Of course, while I was falling asleep in biology this morning I didn't feel too alive, but as soon as I was free, I felt it. Me and my friends Jaclyn and Brittany (the three of us are affectionately referred to as "The Muses" by Dr. Rex) went and got Chinese for lunch, and then we watched a movie in British Literature II, and then I got out of my evening class early (which is the true miracle of today)! Brittany and I wandered about in Memorial Hall after all the teachers had gone home. We looked for the secret door that leads to the tower, and we examined the specimens in jars in the biology lab (very outside of my comfort zone, especially when it came to the human fetus). After, I sat in a gazebo with my friend and watched the sunset, all the while there was the wind. Since then I've been working hard on assignments and such, but I keep coming back to remembering what a lovely day I've had. So many wonderful blessings! I'm so thankful for each and every one of them. Now there is a storm featuring beautiful lightning, but I think I'll just go to bed and think about how nice tomorrow will be.

9 New Songs I Love!

1. "Told You So" -Guggenheim Grotto

2. "Here We Are" -Patrick Park

3. "A Tear Isn't Such a Bad Thing" -Guggenheim Grotto

4. "Imaginary Girl" -Silver Seas

5. "Perfect Timing (This Morning) -Orba Squara

6. "Such Great Heights" -The Postal Service

7. "Moth in a Cloud of Smoke" -All Smiles

8. "You Picked Me" -A Fine Frenzy

9. "Die Alone" -Ingrid Michaelson

And 9 not so new songs that I find myself presently listening to on repeat one:

"Unintended" -Muse

"Wouldn't it Be Nice" -The Beach Boys

"My Best Friend's Girl" -The Cars

"When You Were Young" -The Killers

"Sister Golden Hair" -America

"A Guide to Marine Life" -Falling Up

"Keep the Car Running" -The Arcade Fire

"My Eyes" -Travis

"Golden Years" -David Bowie

I listened to Electrical Storm on repeat until I cried. I'm not sure why. Its one of those songs that pin-points an emotion so well that you take on that emotion. Its amazing, I love it.

Snow!

It finally snowed just one day this semester. This is a view of the campus' lawn from the room where I was painting. It was so pretty, but gone by lunch time.

Today

The Lord has been so good to me today (as usual, but just sometimes I happen to actually notice more than other days). He has showed me so much love and grace through my friends, through the clouds, through the opportnity to paint, and through His word. He is so much bigger than the things our minds try to confine Him to, and He has plans that are so much more amazing than our minds can hope to comprehend. How exciting!

I read this earlier, and it made me think of how we, sometimes unconsciously, confine God to a single building or one day of the week:

"Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath my hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but unto this man will I look, even unto him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word". Isaiah 66:1-2

Sad!

Today my brother's favorite actor, Heath Ledger, died. That's very sad.

Ok, so I love lots of things.

I love this sign! So funny!

Today it has rained and rained and rained. I love it!

I also love my bookshelf, and all the lovelies that it carries.

And I love my family! I have the best family in the universe. Oo! And my friends, I love them too!

I love Theodore Thistle. And Ghandi, and Bentley the Afrolicious. And Hawthorne.

I love my room and my chair. And my new pair of birds from my dad.

I love the Godiva Chocolate Cheescake I ate last night (and for breakfast).

I love my new white sweater with the wooden buttons.

I love getting to go to the movies.

I love the picture of me with the Cezanne. Wow.

All of these things are good and perfect gifts! Yay! They are gifts just for me from my Heavenly Father (some through my earthly parents)! How astounding.

All is quiet on New Year's Day

And there is a snow shower! And golden clouds! And we're playing Operation!