Aspire to Ascend ...

I'm posting another page I did a few months ago.  I recently learned I am a high-functioning autistic.  I was not ready to learn this ... perhaps I never would be.  There was a minute of hope where all my social challenges suddenly made sense ... and I felt a sense of freedom in knowing I didn't have to pretend to be normal any longer.  But my hope quickly disintegrated, as I realized God had placed me in some communities that would require me to step beyond my autistic abilities; He put me in a place of dependence on Him.  Actually, I've always depended on Him in social situations, but this was the first time that dependence became my reality.

I am slowly ascending out of a pit of despair and back toward hope.  It is a slow, but steady journey.

It's Been a Rough few Years

Hmmm ... I'm afraid to look at the last date on my blog post.  I've been in school for 6 years now and preparing to finish my last few classes.  I long for a life of normalcy I have not known for so long ... and may never know again.  I did very little art the first few years of my degree, but started working my way back into some art journaling last year ... and found I was so thirsty for it.  There was a hunger in my soul for expression that could not be met any other way.

And I also miss writing ... the pounding out of emotion on a keyboard.  Some day I will be a write ... but today ... I am an artist.

So ... I am hoping to get some long overdue art posted.  I've been working on art journals for the past 2 years, but haven't posted much of anything ... so hoping to get at least a few things posted on my blog again.

I'm Back!!

Yikes ... I've been gone way too long!  Life was running me over, but I am taking a break from school after this term ends in 2 weeks and I will get back in track with some art and stuff.

I am doing an altered handkerchief swap with some dear friends and this is the start of mine:

 I am really excited about this swap and found it so difficult to stop once I got mine going.

On the Career Front

This was a stressful week. My future boss in Information Technology worked out a deal with my current boss to share me between the 2 departments. I am being given tasks with little direction and I have to basically figure out how to do them -- and then do them LOL I am also getting paid to study the architecture and set up of this new enterprise system we are getting ready to test -- and then I have to figure out how to test it.

I just got scolded a week ago for trying to solve my own IT problem -- and now I am expected to be the problem solver, so this may take some adjusting to. It's also kind of weird, because I come from a very social department where everyone is nosy and in each other's business and we know everything about each other professionally and pesonally -- and now I am in a group full of computer nerds who eat lunch at their desk every day LOL

The good thing is that they placed me in the old desk of my mentor -- and that is a bit comforting.

But the stressful part was this backstabbing --- grrrrr! There is a co-worker in another department that was using me as his go-between to get things from my new IT boss ... and he is upet that he just lost that leverage. He volunteered to send me some info I needed on a project and as soon as I accepted his offer, he sent me a nasty e-mail copying his boss on how he could no longer assist people in IT. He's getting quite the reputation for temper tantrums and back-stabbing.

Collage of my Parents

I finally got a photo from my brother's camera downloaded of the collage I did of my parents. I gave this to my father on Christmas Day and he passed away exactly a week later. I painted the photo using the techniques I learned in Karen Michel's class few years ago. I had some difficulties, as usually you start with a high contrast photo ... but I had to use what I could find and this was my favorite picture of them together.

I didn't do a very good job on my Moms eyes. What was funny ... my Dad said he recognized my Mom right away and wanted to know who the man in the picture was . I told him that was him ... but the funny thing is I did a better job on him and it looks just like him LOL He said he never saw them together in a photo LOL

My brother only took one photo --- grrr! So this is all I have. It is not particularly good. The little white dots are where the flash was shining on the glossy parts.

Collage Art

Wow ... I can't tell you when the last time was that I did a real collage on canvas LOL This was a stressful holiday, as my Dad was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness and not expected to make it much longer. My sister is doing in-home hospice care for him and he made it out on Christmas Eve to be with his family, but is basically an invalid for the remainder of his days.

We were all fried between his hospital stay, last-minute preparations to bring him home, and all the normal holiday rush ... so we had a couple art nights to de-stress ... and this was the third of my pieces. The first one was a painting of my parents for my Dad's xmas gift, but no one had a camera to take a photo ... so I don't have a photo of that one right now.

The background was done with scrapbook papers and paint ... Kelly Rae Roberts style. The painted face was inspired by DJ Pettitt, but I did a little different painting technique and I really like the look ... so I hope you guys do too :)

This seems to fit in with several prompts, so I am posting it on Arty Girlz, Mixed Media Monday, and Wednesday Stamper.

The photo is not particularly good, so I also scanned as much as I could squeeze on my scanner bed for a better shot of the face I painted.

What I'm Working On

Geez ... I can't believe I haven't been back to my blog in a month LOL

1. An assemblage collage I hoped to submit to Somerset -- did not get finished LOL -- will repurpose that into something a little different now I think. I got hung up, because I envisoned crackle paste and could find not find crackle paste to save my life ... sigh ... I also couldn't find a box big enough to hold the dimension, so I kind of gave up on the idea -- so off to my UFO (UnFinished Object) pile it goes!
2. Went through a gazillion ideas for the cover of a metal book I am hosting with the Altered Guild group -- most of which weren't working for me. I finally went back to a revised Plan A. I heated and sooted copper peices, stamped into it, and applied a gazillion layers of sealer to protect the soot, and then embossed the images. I have to get the inside part done, so I weight it down ... and then add my embossed stuff --- but I am determined to get this step on the first cover done this week, so I can submit for Wednesday Stamper since they are doing a metal prompt.
3. I have various journal pages for Soul Journal and Collage Play started --- no progress there LOL
4. I've done a little collaging on mail art envies
5. I've done homework out the wazoo for college -- and am really struggling to keep up, but I am getting near the end of this term. I had big plans to get art things wrapped up over my long Thanksgiving weekend -- and I ended up doing homework almsot the whole weekend :(
6. I decided to call my Lynne Perella collage from August fit into -- because I can't find the rest of the journaling I was going to write on there LOL I took pics and they were terrible, so I will have to try and photograph again. I had sunglare last time. It's cloudy, so maybe now is the time.
7. And --- this weekend, I've been trying to get well. I caught some kind of viral infection and sleeping 14 hours a day is pretty much what I've been doing. I feel a little better today, so now I have to cram for my homework LOL

Still Kickin'

Not sure how long since I posted ... but a while I am guessing LOL This has been a tough semester at school -- perhaps I should have stuck with a part-time schedule ... but I really like my classmates and I'm trying to keep up with them so we can keep taking classes together.

One of my classes net term is a hybrid, which means one day in class and the rest is online work. Sometimes the hybrid end up being more work in the end ... but I sure hope this one doesn't LOL I miss my art time :(

This coming week is our mid-terms and I am hoping it will get a bit easier. My body is soooo fatigued :(

Wild Kingdom

My road trip to Kansas was quite the adventure! I live in the big city and I am quite used to pigeons and what-not, but I have missed all the wild life small-town and rural life offers. I must say my preference is not to meet up with wildlife along the road where they can dart out however.

Here is a little inventory in all the animals I encountered on my trip:

5 Deer (I met up with 3 contemplating suicide on my midnight drive home -- eeek!)
2 Wild Turkeys (admittedly one got smooshed trying to cross the road -- but not by me LOL -- and no I wasn’t drinking!)
2 Rabbits (them babies run across the highway in no time flat!)
6 Buzzards (these guys were circling my Aunt’s property looking for dead animals presumably -- quite intimidating when you see that many together)
1 Owl in flight
3 Hawks (this was shocking -- I usually see more lie a dozen on my trip)
2 Rooster Pheasants
2 Field Mice (crossing the highway -- wonder which animals were chasing them LOL)
2 Bob Cats (This gave me the creeps! There were 3 dead animals that got smooshed in the highway … then a Bob Cat with glittering eyes laying in wait on the left side of the highway … and a second Bob Cat laying in wait on the right side of the highway less than 1000 feet down. I assume they were trying to tag team it and catch some innocent animal trying to cross there since this was a popular crossing zone. What menacing characters!)
2 Foxes
1 Coyote
1 Raccoon
2 Prairie Dogs
3 Blue Jays
1 Domestic Goat (he was wandering around a country road)

Basically, I saw everything except a partridge in a pear tree LOL

July 4 Art

We'll call this my art for July 4th LOL

Scavenging for Assemblage Stuff

Yippeeee! This was good timing. I am visiting my cousins and Aunt in Kansas. My Uncle was an avid collector of forgotten timeless treasures, junk, and you name it. My Uncle passed away a few years ago and my Aunt and cousin were cleaning up some things lying around. There was a huge pile of rusty stuff outside and they let me scavenge for what I wanted before everything else gets melted down.

I have cool ideas for shrines and assemblage just rolling around in my head now :)

Soar with Eagles

This was the last collage page in my doodle book. You were to look through magazines for images that spoke to you that define health ... whatever kind of health that may be.

More Class Homework

I am officially out of school for the term --- wooo hooo! My homework was long done, but I had a few more pieces from my success class I wanted to upload now that school is over. This is probably the only class I'll have in my academic career allowing that kind of freedom LOL

These are Academic Advantage tip cards. The teacher supplied large index cards and said we could alter them in whatever way we chose as long as we included our tips. Here I am showing the cover and the backs of 2 cards to show what my background looked like. I stained them with walnut ink, used Color Mists from Outside the Margins, and rubberstamped.

College Update

I don't think I have said much on my blog, but some of you know I went back to school to pursue a degree in the Information Technology field. I love art ... it is my passion, but not something I would ever want to beat myself up over trying to make money with. I do art for recreation and to fill my soul.

I love the IT stuff -- working with data. It's hard to describe, but I get such a charge when I can figure out what is broken with something. I met with my mentor today and he has been so supportive and so encouraging of me following at least part of his footsteps. And he was cracking me up. My academic advisor made a recommendation for what IT class to start with next term and my mentor was saying you could do a lot of damage in that programming language if you didn't know what you were doing -- not a good choice for an intro -- but he was cracking me up -- and the idea that things could go incredibly wrong or incredibly well I found appealing and adventurous LOL

I am so excited. I have As in my classes so far -- and I'm getting close to the finish line for this term, so it is looking like I will keep my As -- assuming I don't fall off the wagon or something ... but school is one of those things I always loved and I can't stand not doing my very best, so I don't foresee that happening.

After several weeks wondering if I would get an academic advsor, they finally assigned me one ... and not a moment too soon. I never got all my loose ends tied up before being propelled into classes. My admissions counselor was all about getting the sale -- getting it signed -- blah blah blah She had a really flippant attitude about my fears of not doing math for 20 years and everything that seemed to come out her mouth was either dishonest or disrespectful. My academic advisor has been really nice and I get to meet him in person tomorrow evening -- and he already assured me that I will not have to deal with admissions anymore --- wooo hoooo!

Hula or Homework?

Which is more fun ... to hula hoop or do homework? LOL I'm working on a research paper, so you know what my answer will be LOL

I'm struggling with all these journal pages and completing homework for college, so I printed one of my homework assignments on decorative paper for a background LOL

Anatomy of an Injury

This art journal page was inspired by a fall on my face LOL I haven't banged up my knees like this since I was a kid -- guess I was overdue. I fell on the street and banged the dickens out of my knees ... not to mention a horridly large bruise on my chin and a sprained wrist and hand.

My bruises are all gone now, but the tenderness in my knees, hand, and chin is taking a while to heal.

I found some clip-art anatomy of the affected areas for this page. I'm a little late, but thought this was appropriate for last week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt.

Lookie What I Got!!

I have been carless for the past 6 months -- and it really bit LOL

I was waiting for my income tax so I get a better used car ... and guess what? I found one!

I found a little mom-and-pop kind of car lot where this guy fixes up cars that have been in minor collisions and resells them. I picked out a car last week. The advantage is the car had not been started yet and I got to see what it looked like before he fixed it up -- and it truly was minor damage on this car. I saw the engine and everything firsthand. My brother and I felt very good about this car.

They are done fixing it up for me and it is so perty!! He replaced a few dinged up panels on the car and the tires are almost brand new. The body is pristine -- except for one minor scratch.

Oh yeah -- this is a 2001 Saturn SC-2 with 77,000 miles. My last car had 83,000 when I got it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all my local gals who carted me and all my junk to local art meetings!

This is only my 2nd car -- and I am excited at how spiffy and sporty it looks!

This car has a feature called a suicide door. That sounds creepy, but it's really cool, because I can get art stuff in the back seat real easy LOL I got some weird lighting effects when I took the photo of the inside, so the seats look all speckly and funky ... but the interior is just as pristine as the outside. And this car has all the fun extras :)

The only defect I found is the seat won't move forward. He told me to bring it on Saturday. He will fix that for me and also detail the inside for me.

I am so thrilled --- this makes the 6-month hardship worth it!

Betray

Well, I'll spare you all this sad story -- but this was kind of an art therapy page for me. I had to let go of an 8-year friendship and regain control of my life. It is still shocking to me that I was so blind to what was happening -- but life lessons were learned from this experience.

Long Time No See

It seems I have lost interest in blogging lately -- and perhaps art too. There have been a lot of life changes in the past month -- out with the old and in with the new as they say. My focus has been on my job lately -- and there is potential for it to turn into a more professional career, but to really make this hapen I need to pursue a degree.

I only have a few credit hours, as I took one semester of college immediately following high school, but due to a number of life circumstances I was unable to return. It has been laziness that I have not considered returning before now -- but it is time. I was never one to take classes just for the sake of taking classes. My goal at 18 was to major in English, so I could become a fiction writer one day.

My focus is quite different now. I have several mentors at work and they say I am a natural for IT work -- particularly when it comes to being a Business Analyst -- and I also love working with the data. Data sounds so boring, but I love tackling challenges. If I don't have to use my wits to solve problems, I'm not really interested LOL

I have the potential to move into several slightly different fields of work at my job, so hopefully I can hang on long enough to get at least an Associate's degree -- but a Bachelor's degree would definitely be better.

I'm going to fous on getting as much art stuff wrapped up as I can -- but ultimately, I will have to drop a lot of groups and probably will not sign up for any more long-term commitments. My focus will be moved back onto my local art group, as I have spread myself so thin I feel I am not getting everything I can out of my local art group.

This is a lot of change for me and I am trying to embrace it -- but we'll see LOL I am also hoping that cutting back on the art stuff over time will motivate me to get my art stuff all organized. I get to a certain point and it just stops while I mess things back up with more art LOL I'd like to truly get it organized -- in a way that I can actually manage it. I never got to the point where everything has its own place. I don't know how successful I will be in that area -- but a little peer pressure will help LOL

Winter Wonderland

Someone must have been dreaming pretty hard of a white Christmas, because we got one LOL

I also took pics of the little squirrel feast I left him for Christmas -- and a kitten I've been calling Thunder.