Yup... i still exist. sorry i havent submitted anything (however, check my latest scap....) that will be changing in the next couple weeks when i finish my new project (keep reading for details.)

I think that title covers my life for the past couple months pretty well… ive had some big ups and downs. Particularly some bad times but things are definitely looking up lately….

For the negatives, I had some problem with financial aid, involved in an accident, undertaking the largest art project I have ever taken on, and then had an incident at the atm….

For the positives, financial aid is now fixed, got over a really bad incident, and im now undertaking the largest art project I have ever taken on (yes. It belongs in both categories……

Lets start with the latest negative….. So a good friend of mine went to Costco and like usual they picked up a crate of this REALLY good orange juice (which I usually HATE orange juice, but I absolutely go ga-ga over this brand….). Originally, the plan was for me to have the cash ahead of time, but of course I forgot. She laughed and said it didn’t make a difference, after all she knows where I live. Haha… anyway, so when she left I told her I would hit the ATM after I unloaded the OJ into the fridge, and that I would have the money for her when she was back on campus the following day. So I grabbed my card, and went across the street in my slippers. When I turned the corner to head to the ATM, a huge group of kids were by the atm machine laughing and messing around.. By huge I mean 4 at least… I stopped, turned around and headed back to the bulletin board and just browsed the board. Im kinda anal about privacy when using ATM’s or other things where people are typing in personal information. Plus I try to avoid gatherings of people… what can I say, im related to my grandfathers.. Haha…. Anyway, when I heard them leave I went back around the corner and beelined to the machine. I inserted the card, typed my pin, chose my action, typed in the amount, and it asked me if I wanted a receipt, I hit yes. However, it didn’t print a reciept, give me my money, or my card. Instead I got a slip that said “Contact your Issuer, Card has been detained”. This freaked me out cause I couldn’t figure out why this would happen. I was only trying to get the minumum, and I had enough to do that transaction hundreds of times over…. If I had gotten the pin wrong it would have told me so. Ive used the card several times so I know it works. It was a new card too! So I called Elisa to let her know her cash would be late, and explained the situation. She was concerned and Brandon pointed out I should call the cops incase the atm was tampered by the kids messing around before. I took other precautions as well, ensuring that should the card have been commandeered, they could not access any funds. I really don’t like cheney police. They take for ever and I never heard from them. But ive done everything I can now… the bank opens in two hours and I can request a new card…. It wasn’t my night… however… I did manage a pretty neat landscape painting last night.. Or rather this morning… cause I couldn’t sleep… I was painting from about midnight to 5 or 6 am…..

Anyway… one of the reasons that brings me up from that is the art project I mentioned…. Its not a school project, but a personal project that will take me, one estimation… several days working at least 12 hours a day…. Close to 72 hours of solid work I think…. Which is funny cause my pieces never take more than 12... ANYWAY… it all started on Thursday in my Global View Through Childrens Lit class… yeah, long name. Its an interesting class, we examine cultures from around the world through young adult books. However we have short discussions on picture books as well… but on Thursday, we had our second assignment due, called the Museum display… where we brought in “artifacts” to represent our “culture”…. During the class discussion several people brought up the fact that there was A LOT of crosses, whether for Christianity or Catholicism. There was no representations of any other religions. They started talking about whether that was because some didn’t feel comfortable sharing their religion due to not wanting to offend or to have people be turned off by it…. I was one of those people who felt that way.

You see, my personal religion is a mix between the Christianity I was raised with, and other religions I encountered. One of those uses a symbol that, lets just say scares people away due to its similarity to a negative symbol, so people fear it because of misunderstandings… This got me thinking, I don’t want to have to hide symbols of what I believe, only showing a cross, but hiding the others…. I decided to do something about it… I wanted to put all of my personal symbols of faith, or symbols that represent me, together to show the world. This is what I came up with….

I decided to make a 30inch by 40 inch poster, digital painting… usually I do photo manipulations, peicing various pieces together. that’s partly why it usually doesn’t take me more than 12 hours usually…. But now im painting this digitally, using only images as references…. Anyway. For those who know me closely, know what “Zada” is….a totemistic icon that represents me and my life and acts as a sort of guide as well… anyway, Zada is a white wolf with an angel (or falcon) wing on the right, a dragon wing on the left…. The image will be of a white wolf head, with those wings… in the mouth of the wolf, hangs scales, like those scales used for libra or for justice…. On the side with the feathered wing will be a cross in the dish thing… the opposite side, with the dragon wing, will be a symbol of the other faith…. I havent quite decided yet…. At the center point of the scale, the balancing joint, will be the fleur de lis with the twists… another personal symbol…. Anyway, there will be a moon acting as a halo behind Zada’s head, with a twilight sky… below is a darkening forest….. This blog is getting long so im not going into the details as to what everything means though…

When I get this done im posting it to my online portfolio where I can order a 30x40 inch print (yup.. Its huge to see the details… and then im going to frame it. The amount of detail im putting in it is making this the largest art project ive ever taken on which is kinda scary… but its neat as well…. The project is helping me relax and stop worring about other things….

However, on the first day, I spent a lot of time working on the wolf. its looking amazing if I do say so myself. But spending 7 of the nine hours working on the eyes and surrounding areas, its looking very very real…. And its starting to creep me out! But im enjoying the progress….

Anyway… its almost time for me to call the bank so im gonna head off now.