Between the lines of failure and success

Keep Moving Forward!!!

Courtney's Post

Russia

Unique Experience

The World is My "Canvas"

The most interesting and difficult thing about painting a realistic self portrait is trying to capture the subject (yourself) in an unbiased and true way. You have to look at yourself from someone else's eyes and try to just look at what's on the surface. But at the same time, you have the ability to create the most realistic, detailed, and deep representation of yourself, more so than anyone else could because you know yourself so well. By incorporating that deeper understanding of why or how you look the way you do, and capturing some of the emotion and personality that lie below the physical surface, you can do something even greater than just painting a realistic-looking picture of yourself.

The green and red painting shown in the document above is a self portrait I did my senior year of high school. It is not digitally rendered, it is hand painted (acrylic) and it is about 3' by 2' on wood. And it took me 3 months. I learned a lot from painting this because I spent so long on it and because initially I was trying to look at myself from someone else's eyes. It wasn't until half way through that I ralized that to make it a true representation of me and to capture the depth and personality of me in it, I HAD to look at me through my own eyes. This is when I chose the color palattes (it was originally to be black and white): the green from my love of nature and peace and my soft personality, the red for my passion and emotion and depth.

Art is autobiographical, along with literature, music, and any other human creation. That is not bad, that is what makes it unique and beautiful. But along with that, we have to realize that our individual outlook on life or people is skewed. And if we judge others or can't appreciate or listen to their view, that is when it is crippling.

I thought I was squeezing the quilts...

At first I wasn’t very sure about this prompt, but combined with the picture, I believe I should be trying to squeeze every drop out of my blanket marking/cutting experience. So here goes.

I remember arriving outside of class, sitting down to get some work done, and Kiel showing up with a bunch of pizza that he wanted me to hide from the janitors. I thought this a reasonable request from my knowledge of janitors, especially ones from BYU. We eventually snuck the goods into the classroom. More goods, these ones inedible, were brought into the room—blankets, lots of them.

I was sort of confused, as I didn’t believe that I would be having anything to do with these blankets, but soon we were instructed, very aptly I might add, by Charla on the art of chalking and cutting blankets for quilt making.

I set to chalking, and soon I was thinking about how to most efficiently and quickly mark a blanket. All interest in conversation waned as carpal tunnel began to sink into my joints, beautifully biting under my skin with every stroke of the chalk(this is, er, poetic exaggeration). I was tossing blankets left and right to eager and awaiting scissor bearers. It felt great to do something that requires some elbow grease, something more tangible, even if on a small scale.

I walked away from that room, blanket slung over shoulder (just kidding), not knowing what might become of those other blankets, but satisfied in having done something. I slept better that night.

Paradigm Shift...

"One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everthing depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art."

Upon reading this quote, I have to admit that I was suprised by the final sentence as it appeared to have no real correlation with the direction of it's preceding two lines. In my mind, the last line should read, "Therefore, man's greatest endeavor should undoubtedly be to gain as much experience as possible."

If everything one writes depends upon only one thing--his experience; and if the quality of one's writing hinges on how relentelessly he forces the last drop from this experience, then would he not be better off if he had more experience? Truly this would allow him to bring more into his writing and likewise free him from having to "sqeeze the last drop" out of his endless ocean of experience.

Therefore, as I so proudly stated in the first paragraph, one of man's greatest desires should be to broad his horizon, look outside of his paradigm, and fill his ocean with rich, meaningful, and priceless experiences.

"...all these things shall give thee experience and be for they good" (D&C 122: 7).

Life experiences

The quote for the week is: "Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." Now, I don't really believe that, though it sounds awesome in a British accent. I actually think life is quite good. Despite all the cruel ironies and unexpected events, I believe that life is worth living. I know that Heavenly Father is in charge, that He won't leave me to deal with my problems alone. I also know that there is a happy ending around here somewhere, and that if I'm patient enough, I will eventually find it.

My Experimental Laboratory

creation, order, trust.

Ben Miller 10-23-10

Good to the Last Drop

I bet this missionary was innocently eating a cookie one day when he had the flash of inspiration to make God's Plan of Happiness an edible treat.

Let's face it. The doctrine of the Plan of Salvation is embedded in our minds. Personally, I find it amazing that we as Latter-day Saints can make profound doctrinal connections with a series of circles. The next time you're bored in class, draw a row of three circles followed by a column of three circles and ask your friend what it is. I bet that more often than not, the answer will be, "Ummm.... oh yeah, the Plan of Salvation."

The Plan of Salvation gives us the sure knowledge that our challenging lives are only Act II in a three-act play. The stage was set in Act I; we prepared for mortality during our premortal existence. Tragedy strikes in Act II; we face hardship, challenge, and trial during our time on earth. Then will come Act III, when the protagonist succeeds; through the atonement of Christ, we will all be resurrected and also redeemed in degree to our obedience to the gospel. Knowing that tragedy is a necessary part of our mortal lives, we can, as Maridee's post suggested, wring out every experience to its last drop, whether good or bitter. I feel that doing this not only helps us to learn from every experience, but also prepares us to fully appreciate the joy that is to come in Act III.

Check out this video. I think that it illustrates well the power of enjoyment after passing through tragedy.

It's difficult to exercise the faith that a terrible experience can make us happier in the end. But if we swallow self-pity and take that leap of faith, we can experience firsthand the peace that a gospel perspective brings.

Learning from Experiences, WAC Feb. 24 2010

Man of La Mancha

One of my favorite novels is Don Quixote. It is a book about a man who can see what no one else can because of the books he has read. Sometimes he is referred to as crazy. Chasing windmills, mistaking a shaving dish for a knights helmet, and treating a servant girl with loose morals as a virtuous princess are his crimes. A priest, his family, and most others we read about in Cervantes’s classic have chosen to remain in what we conveniently term reality, and thus feel obligated to try and cure the hero of the novel with a sort of reality check. The hero of the work dies shortly after those around him end his crusades.
At a first glance the work is very comical. The hours spent reading the novel in the HBLL were spent trying to control the laughter provoked from the book’s hysterical episodes. After a closer look at the work I l realized that each of us has become a Quixote of our own style, seeing only what our experiences have told is reality. Quite regularly the opinions and views from any one person’s reality don’t play well with those of a different person. Whether it is about how to hold an accountability forum, a decision to split up committees half-way through the year, or choosing the games to play at the opening social, we are not always going to see eye to eye with those around us. The realities we see, like Quixote’s, will sometimes clash with what is popular. With this in mind, each of us has two responsibilities: to form the best understanding of reality we can by pulling the most from each of our experiences, and then making allowances for the discrepancies in the numerous realities of those around us.

In Quixote’s reality he saw the Princess Dulcinea. Others saw a lowly servant. Are we becoming or killing the Quixotes of our time?

Goals!

A Combo of WACs