well, even though I said I wouldn't post unless I had something pivotal in my life and demanded pictures to be shown--I decided I should make a post telling you all that I am alive and still swimming. It's a dog paddle but my head is above water--I am sorely wanting a break to sharpen the saw and get hyped up for next semester. Final projects are a killer... but in all, I'm alive and well. Mom is doing good, dad has a sinus infection and an earache at the same time-- poor guy. But we are all doing well... hope everyone out there can keep swimming too.
me
Twilight
So quite officially, I went and saw the movie with Jennifer, and I liked it. Yeah, it was corny, sappy, and kind of lame--but way better than the book. Even though I didn't give the book a chance... which I am rectifying. I decided I would read the series but even more than that, I decided I should start writing again. If this got published, I'm sure Timothy has a fighting chance in the world. I love creating stories and reveling in other's creations. Anyway, If you haven't gone, I would suggest going because it is pretty good, at least worth seeing once... or twice :)
My Niece Ava Belle
Well everyone, and especially Jami and Brandi YOU ARE AUNTS AND I AM AN UNCLE, wierd huh? so this is her, Jer and Michelle's baby. What a doll. I hope to get a few paintings out of this one. 
the nurse is measuring her and checking everything. The doctor gave her an A+, even though she is slightly tongue tied. :)
Proud new parents.
mom even gaver her a bow.
In Loving Memory
Yesterday was one of the hardest days I've had in a long time. Alot of you know, but my wonderful friend Jo has passed away. At only four years old, he had a good life ahead of him--but sometimes we just don't understand God's plan. He and Lady were in the round pen together--my two favorite horses--while dad cleaned out the corals. They got fighting like horses do, but lady is such a dominant mare, she wasn't going to give in. She laid him a hard kick that snapped his back right leg. The vet came over right away and said there was nothing we could do to save him... we just had to put him down. I love that boy, and I'll miss him. I just thought you all should know.
Escalante Plein Air Competition
WOW! it was such a fun weekend, and far too much of an experience to tell in just one post. We went up on wednesday, and painted all day wednesday, and thursday-submitted our work to the show and silent auction at 7:00pm on thursday (I had just finished one of my paintings at 6:30). And then the rest of the weekend was also spent painting, affilliating with artists, attending demos, and just having so much fun. The two paintings I submitted to the show sold, and I am waiting for my check so I can get some more brushes. (one of which died on me on the trip... so sad) Anyway, the painting above was done at calf creek on friday, a day late, so I couldn't submit it... But way fun trip. this one is 11X14 oil on linen and I'm thinking I'll call it " Solitary" but jeremy want's me to call it "deamon cat" in spanish. can you see the deamon cat by the way? while I was painting the cliff face, I could see these abstract shapes that formed a face, then the painting was so easy. I could simply look at it as a portrait.
Sargent
Yesterday I went on a trip with the illustration department and had a chance to vi set the BYU art museum with Ben and some others. Dixon had told me that there was an original John Singer Sargent there and I was stoked. I asked Ben about it and he confirmed the good news, and was excited for me, as it would be the first time I had seen a Sargent original. When we got there is wasn't in it's usual place, and I was getting nervous. Ben asked the museum people and walked me to it-- and there it was. I was dumbfounded, I couldn't talk, I couldn't swallow, I couldn't breathe. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life. It was a portrait on the old Mrs. Edward Goetz, painted three months prior to her death. Sargent captured her soul in paint and left it there for me to see. Such a beautiful woman, with life and death glinting in her aged eyes. Sargent has the most god given ability to imbued his paintings with life energy. It was beyond any likeness I could wish to capture, even past the "exactness" that I strive for. It was life. He painted that portrait so incredibly, that I could almost feel her breath on my face. It was without a doubt, one of the most spiritual experiences of my life, and has changed my art forever more. It is no more shallow and weak--at least I hope not. I am bent on creating life, not brushstrokes representative of something. Paint that immortalizes my subject for all time. I would like to thank Sargent for painting it for me, it was a personal lesson from the greatest portrait master of all time.
http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Mrs_Edward_Goetz.htm (not at all what is is like in real life.)
http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Mrs_Edward_Goetz.htm (not at all what is is like in real life.)
Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf's a flower
but only so an hour
so leaf subsides to leaf
so eden sank to grief
dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay
When I saw this mom standing in the garden I though of this poem. I had to memorize it in the fifth grade. Now when I think about it, it's really a depressing but uplifting poem that encompasess my artist's statement. Hold on to the small moments life gives you. Because in the end, that's all you have. "live in the moment, bloom where you're planted." Its all the same. the "Nothing gold can stay" part is sucky... but true I guess.
Dad has a grass fetish
Mom has started mowing the grass in between the trees where we normally reward our horses, dad has decided to create his own reward system that mom doesn't mow down. It started small, but like a virus it has spread and is still spreading. We in the corporate sense need to keep it wet, and weed it, but in the end I truly think it will be worth it-- Jo and my Lady baby will love it. So here are some pictures of our "Horse reward system".
In Loving Memory
Lucy died. Actually it is far more tragic and eery than that. A few days ago we smelled the foulest odor of a skunk. At which point we discovered Lucy was missing. We called for her, and went looking for her, but to no avail-- she was gone. We still haven't found her, and that is the most disturbing part, but our theory is the following: She got sprayed by the skunk, and her aged, arthritic body couldn't take any more. After years of being humiliated and chased by cats and I must confess a certain lack of love-- she crawled limply on her forelegs through the briars and thorns for 500 miles, until she could no longer hear our frantic calls and collapsed in a heap of fur and blood and died in her own stench.
Pretty sad.
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