Office Desk Steez

"self-portrait"

My name tag at work.

I don't know, I've always wanted to to a "portrait" of the back of my head. So I just did it. I'll probably do more of these post-it portraits...

Where it all started...

I've been really preoccupied with work and homework lately so I haven't had too much time to post like I want to. Sorry!! But I did want to push myself to make time for this particular post because it was around this time last year that I started up this blog. Soooo I guess that would make this my 1st Bloggiversary!! (is that even how you spell it?!)

Cue the confetti and triumphant horns.

Anyway, I thought that I would take things waaay back and talk about the first piece of artwork that truly inspired me. I was about 20 years old I think and I went to the National Gallery in DC for a field trip with my art history class. The main exhibit featured English artist Thomas Gainsborough and a vast collection of his portrait work and landscapes. In one of the rooms was this painting of a famous dancer in the 1700s:

Giovanna Baccelli, Thomas Gainsborough 1782. Oil on canvas.

Entranced, I was. It was the first time I felt a connection to a particular piece of artwork or artist. It also inspired me to make my first real decision about a career as an artist: to be a portrait painter. Though I had no idea how to make that happen, seeing that exhibit made the dream seem so possible. It literally changed my life!

Found Art: Animal Portraits at Gentle Barn!

Also while I was away on vacation, my friends and I visited The Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita. The Gentle Barn is a farm sanctuary for abused animals. The kind folks there spend countless hours dedicated to rehabilitating the animals, restoring their spirits and their trust in humans. It was a really nice experience because it really did feel very peaceful there. The animals were really hot because the weather was scorching that day, haha, but they looked happy. I was surprised at how at ease they were around so many people. Even chickens and turkeys allowed people to pet them! I'd never seen that before. I also had never been sneezed on by a horse before then, but hey I guess there's a first time for everything. As it turns out, it isn't any better or worse than getting sneezed on by a human - I'd still just rather not get sneezed on.

Hellooo Introverts

Ha

Can I rant for a sec? Then we'll get back to the regularly scheduled program, I promise.

Okay so yesterday I had briefly mentioned being an introvert, and immediately I thought of a post from Magnet For Foolishness that my friend shared with me a few weeks ago. If you're reading this and you're an introvert, I think that you will appreciate the things that the author, Sonya, brings to light.

To piggyback off of her points, I do think that introversion is something that gets misunderstood time and time again, often being confused with shyness. And I think it's worth bringing up because many, many artists are pegged with the stigma of being socially awkward, brooding, anti-social personalities when in a lot of cases that's not the truth at all. I take great offense when people treat introversion like a behavioral or psychological disorder, and think that by pushing an introvert to be more outgoing is the way to "fix" them. Uh-huh, that's nice and all...except that we actually don't need to be fixed. It's very insulting. I've dealt with that many times throughout my life, from family and friends alike. So Introverts, trust me, you are not alone! Mama knows. A shy person that's afraid of people, is overly self-conscious, and insecure might need some outside help; but not an introverted person. An introvert is simply self-contained, self-satisfied, and independent. We are thinkers.

Found Art: Downtown LA

Shakespeare?? Is it thou?

I went walking around downtown LA recently on a "food crawl" (delicious, by the way), and came across this intriguing piece of work on one of the buildings. Please forgive the image quality, I had to use my camera phone haha. In case you can't tell, those are birds coming out of the guy's arm and on his chest is a heart kind of combined with an engine.

As a typical introvert, I appreciated the introspective expression of the face and posture. Overall I think it's one of those "weird, in a good way" kind of paintings. It looks like Shakespeare to me, though obviously not an exact interpretation of the poet we're used to seeing throughout the years. I'm thinking it might be a portrait of the artist as Shakespeare + The Thinker? I don't know, I'm definitely taking wild guesses! But that's part of the fun when looking at some pieces - trying to pull some sort of meaning out of what you're seeing, be it your own or what the artist wants you to see. Either way, whoever did it is certainly a talented person and really had something to say. It wasn't necessarily part of our tour, but it made us all stop and talk about it at least for a few minutes. I thought it was worth sharing!

If anyone knows who did this, please let me know!!