Father Joseph's Mass

Today, my cousin is visiting and spending time with my three brothers and I.

My cousin, Margaret, was discussing Church with my twin brother and I earlier this morning. She was questioning us about the responses at mass, since she has recently been regularly attending mass.  Joseph, the youngest brother of age seven, joined into the conversation, and was inspired by it.

"Let's play Church!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Before we could even respond, he began to collect his plethora of stuffed animals and arrange them in the living room.  Due to the fact that Joey is the youngest of us, we are often expected (mostly by him) to accept everything he says and play whatever game he demands that we take part in.  With this, and seeing the hard work that he was putting into it by writing down hymns and arranging his "altar", we had no choice but to go along with his idea.

The living room "chapel" was soon finished being decorated.  Margaret placed a white blanket over the coffee table "altar" and lit a small candle, while Matt set up the church organ and choir demo music programmed into our electric keyboard.

"You've got to record this." Margaret said to me.  When Joey began to get upset by our lack of seriousness toward his mass, she quickly added, "It's so you can watch this years from now.  Marisa, go get a camera!"

So, I turned on the video camera on my cell phone, and the procession began.  The choir music played as  Joey entered in wearing his blue bathrobe and a red scarf around his neck.  He held up a small crucifix until he got to his altar and set it down.  He looked at us awkwardly and turned around to turn off the background music.

"Welcome to Mass."  Joey addressed his audience of three family members, and then lost track of what he was supposed to do.  After we made the Sign of the Cross, he grabbed his children's Bible and read out loud.  "The First Rainbow: Many years after Adam and Eve...."

After he read the story of Noah to us, Father Joseph prepared the communion (with our reminders of how it is supposed to be done at mass).  We said an Our Father together as a family and gave each other the sign of peace.  As the church organ demo played, we ate our cookie Body of Christ one by one.  The mass soon ended, and we watched in amusement as Joseph led his Beanie Baby altar servers and organists out with the processional hymn.

With this little anecdote, I would like to conclude with just a couple of thoughts.  For some odd reason, this stupid little game made me realize the value of family and religion.  It's nice to see that religion brought all of us together today. In addition, I am glad to see that although he did not understand much of it, Joey has shown a genuine interest in religion and the Bible.  Coming from a very Catholic family, this meant a lot to me.

God bless my family! I love them more than anything.

Soap Opera of the Artistically Minded

Today, I had another episode of discouragement and anxiety due because of a portfolio development class I am currently taking.  You see, my issue is that whenever I am forced to draw any type of still life-- whether the kind with a bunch of objects jumbled together on a table under a lamp, or just stuff inside of my house-- I become extremely frustrated with myself for different reasons.  It happens without fail, and even more intensely than my frustration when drawing or painting people, animals, or just any piece that requires less observation.  Yet, I have come up with some very nice portfolio pieces that happen to be drawings of still objects.  And, no matter what kind of anger I feel toward my work or style, I will continue to draw them every time I have the opportunity to.

To the people who do not have a passion for the arts and fail to understand why we artists go through so much for our work: our love for what we do is just like how people love anything or anyone.  From painters, to dancers, to singers, and many other kinds of artists, our experiences with what we do are really no different from any kind of love relationship.  There will always be certain stages that we undergo:

1. Falling in love.  Some of us started out at a young age.  I first realized my passion for drawing when I was extremely young.  I first began to draw from observation outside of the required studio art classes in school when I was about eight years old.  From fourth grade through my middle school years, I developed a cartoon-like style and spent every moment, whether at school or at home, creating short visual stories and comics.  By the time I was in eighth grade, I could not see myself making a career of anything that did not come from my visual creations and ideas.  From the moment I signed up for my first portfolio development classes that very summer, I began a serious commitment to improve my artwork.  
2. The blissful beginning of the relationship.  At this point, after we have begun our committed relationship with our desired field of art, it seems like nothing can go wrong.  We receive complements from time to time, which makes us feel even better about what we do and pushes us forward.  Everything seems right, because what could be more right than working so hard at something you love to do?
3. Conflicts.  From time to time, we will have minor, or even huge self-conflicts.  It begins with simple mistakes.  Our confidence goes down.  Suddenly, everything we do just seems ugly and wrong.  It takes a lot of calming down to get back into the happy stage.  
4. The breakup. Sometimes, our frustration with what we do goes so far that we feel like we just can't do it any longer.  We look into alternate careers or hobbies.  Many times have my drawings or paintings been left unfinished, some of them have taken years for me to return to, or I even start something completely over.  We cry.  We become overly critical of ourselves.  It's seemingly our fault, or maybe it seems like what we are doing just isn't really right for us.  This heartbreak is experienced many, many times in our careers as artists.
5. Getting back together.  After a period of discouragement and anxiety, we begin to realize how much we miss it.  I will open my sketchbook to a clean sheet of paper or an unused canvas and just start to sketch random things.  Usually, I start out with doodles, but eventually, I begin to gain confidence and resort back to my realism as well as my silly cartoons.  I feel like I can paint faces draw charcoal skulls again without wanting to take an ax to my easel.  Whether from self-pride or from the complements of others, our confidence in what we do grows back, and new ideas and works come alive.  At this point, the heartbreak is over, and we feel like it's time to start anew and continue pursuing our artistic ventures.  
6. Back to the honeymoon stage.  Our skills have improved, often because our past episodes of frustration drive us to work even harder at our artwork once we have completely calmed down.  We feel as though everything, once again, is right.  We are doing what we love, and seemingly, nothing can go wrong.  But then we go back to step 3.

So, to conclude my random insight, I feel as though the struggle of artists, particularly those who choose art as a career, in the eyes of someone who does not have much of an interest in the arts just seems like one of those relationships in which the couple keeps fighting/breaking up and getting back together.  It seems like a pointless deal.  We could also do something else instead of going through periods of constant heartbreak and frustration and anger.  But we don't.  Real love has no conditions. We appreciate people, activities, and things for their positive points.  To me, no feeling is greater than what I feel when I am creating a visual piece.    It is absolutely worth undergoing the bad moments because no matter what, I will always pull through and make something that I am proud of.  I love drawing and painting, and I intend to dance this ridiculous tango with my artwork until the day I kick.  

Beowulf in a Nutshell

I was bored, and I had an easy English assignment in which I had to write an outline of the story of Beowulf. And my blog has been ignored. So here we go.  (Images that are not my doodles are (c) of whoever made them!)

So if anyone struggled with the story... enjoy!

Concerns of Social Networking (From Older Individuals)