This is what I'll be doing this weekend.  Selling pottery and gourds and helping my mom with her booth. 

I haven't had much time to sit still lately with school, the Peddler's Fair, and life in general.  The online English class is pretty much a killer...it's a lot of work.  There is a lot of interesting discussion going on about the topic of Social Class in America.  I don't usually think about that too much, I would like to think that class in America doesn't exist but it does.

Of course since it's our focus in English right now, I'm seeing all kinds of things that I usually don't notice.  An article that we read called, A Touchy Subject, talked about the fact that when people get irritated about the subject and don't want to talk about class, they probably are in the middle class.  I define people by their character and try real hard not to look at class signals but unfortunately, the world DOES look at those things.

Any thoughts?

 

Theme in White, 1954 by Luigi Lucioni. Etching.

I found this print to be very interesting because in my lithography class yesterday, I began a drawing of Aspen trunks.  I had never paid much attention to printmaking before beginning this class.  Strange how we notice things that we never saw before once we focus on something new. 

I think I'm going to love the class.  I love the feeling of drawing on stone!!  Hopefully, I'll have my first prints by the end of next week.  Last week my brain was overloaded with new information but this week, I'm excited!

 

Chase always cracks me up.  Notable sayings this week:

When he spent the night this week, he said,
"Sleeping spoils the sleepover!" 

and tonight when his knee hurt,
"I think I broke my skeleton"

Talking about the prehistoric shark that he made with clay,
"Orthacanthus has an eel-like body"  What kind of 4-year-old talks like that??!!

Kids are definately educational!

Note about my last blog:  My goal has always been to teach so there is nothing new there.  I don't see myself teaching art in a traditional position at a college but I haven't ruled it out completely.  I would like more to teach at retreat-style seminars and possibly my own private program/school.

 

 

Hi COS people and Xanga regulars~

My name is Lisa Gatz and I have been blogging for quite some time now.  I had a site before this one for about 5 years and this "Gourdgeous" site for about 1 year.  I try to make art and really enjoy working with ceramics and hard-shelled gourds.  I have 3 grown daughters, 2 grandsons, and a partridge in a pear tree.   Oh I mean and a husband.  And a dog.  And a headache.

I will be using my blog for a time for class assignments in my English 2 class.  I'll try to keep updated on my regular blog entries as well. 

J.Jordan asked these questions:

Major? 

3D Art is my major.  I want to teach as well as work on art personally.

Two goals for this semester--one academic goal and one life goal.

My first goal is to be 12 units closer to my transfer with a 4.0!
The second goal is to create 3 gourd bowls in my new series and be ready for the Southwest Gourd Art Festival.

What have you recently learned how to do?

I'm learning to play slide guitar...it's much trickier than I expected!

 

 

Success

August's topic on Featured Grownups has to do with success and how we define it, what it means to us.

I'm kind of turned off by the word, "success".  I've heard it used most when someone labels the value of a person's career or life.  I've also heard the word used when someone evaluates a performance or an attempt at some prize.

The word success drags with it heavy baggage for me. It holds memories of people with tunnel vision who believe that success is only defined in their narrow outlook and is almost always dependent on money.

The concept of success equalling financial gain makes me sick.  That sums up everything that I DON'T believe in!  Money and things are ephemeral in this life.  The older I get the more I realize that there is very little that lasts beyond our time on earth.  Even if your money survives you and is handed down, it means absolutely nothing if there is no love and connection to go with it to the next generation.

I feel that the only lasting thing that I can do while I'm here is to live as honestly as possible and be true to what I understand as good.  For me personally, I think that the only tangible way that the world will feel my existence is in the love that I give to others.  That sounds really cliche as I write it but I really, deeply believe this. 

I try to be true to the person that I am; I try to figure out how to create meaningful things (I'll let you know if I ever get there!)  But the most important thing is the love that I show other people.  I think that I have tons to learn on how that can be done but I desire to learn it.

So if I had to use that distasteful word, success, so that we can agree on a concept, my definition of success is being sure that I'm giving all that I can while remaining in truth.  Nope, haven't even come close to that yet but it's my goal.

 

 

A quick new bloggie...

I had an order for one of my frog bowls so here's the new one.  I like it a little better.  His name is Fred.  I call it, "Fred Ponders the Heavens"

 

The pictures didn't come out too great but I'm too tired to retake them today. 

I'm a little on the manic side both today and yesterday but I'm learning that it's part of my creative process.  Just go with it.  It will eventually tone down and then I can get some rest.  For now, I'm filling up my sketchbook.

"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then"

I heard Against the Wind by Bob Seger today on the radio and I know that I've heard this phrase a million times but today it struck me.  So many times I say that I wish I knew then what I know now and for the most part, that's so true.

The things that made me reckless I don't wish back.  Sometimes I would like that endless energy that let me feel like I could do anything.  Cautious is good in moderate amounts only.

Internet Island Topic Post #16.00: "Secrets, Confessions, Opinions, and Comfort"

---

16.01: Secrets

A lot of secrets are shattered in the blogging community, thanks to the relative anonymity of the process. Since we can be anything we want to be in cyberspace, it is a perfect place to share secrets great and small. Have you ever shared a secret with your internet brethern, or would you like to do so now?

I tend to share a lot on my blog.  On my old Xanga site, sometimes I shared REALLY intimate parts of my life.  Why do I have a new blog?  Well the truth is that I wrote some things in my old blog that were read by my in-laws and my mom and I hurt their feelings.  I saved my old blog to disk so that I would have a record of my online "journal".  The first incident had to do with me complaining about my mother in law when Jim had his heart surgery last year.  I was really stressed and didn't have much tolerance for other peopes' processes.  I panicked and shut the site down when I found out that she was upset.  A little later, I found out that I had also hurt my mom with things that I had wrote.

Blogging, for me, can be dangerous and deceiving in its illusion of  anonymity. Although I use it to write and process things that are very unformed in my mind...kind of like thinking online...those thoughts can be brutal and the feelings of the moment can seem monumental.  It helps me to sort things out or just blow off some steam when I write but I don't like to hand write in a journal.   Blogging has been more useful to me.

I guess somehow I lost sight of who was reading my blog and the public nature of it.  I wrote things that I wouldn't have chosen to share with those people because I felt no need to drag that crap up.  Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking to myself out loud when I blog.

The situation with my mom was the worst because I believe that we have a very good relationship.  We've had some rocky times and there are things that I have had to take responsibility for, ugly things on my part.  But you know, my mother is a good and wonderful woman.  And it absolutely broke my heart to know how I had hurt her.  I didn't talk to her about some of those things in person before because I knew that they were mine to work out and would only cause pain if spoken out loud.  We worked it out, I think, but I fear that I may have left some scars with her.  Hopefully our relationship is stronger having worked through it.

I'm more careful now in what I write.  Maybe that's not all good because I really did love the freedom to just spew out all kinds of shit from my brain  but I have to face reality: blogs are public.  If you write it, it may come back and hit you in the face.

Any secrets that I share here would have to be those that I'm fairly sure wouldn't hurt someone somewhere.