To Close

Seeing as this is my last blog, I thought I’d just talk about things that make me happy. I think I spoke in one of my earlier blogs about how important it is to be happy, but everyone has different things that make them happy. Here’s a few of mine. I love feeling of the sun when it first turns into summer. The smell of rain right before a storm. I love just driving down the country side as the sun is setting and coming across a lake. The sound of a kitten purring or the way a flower looks right before it blooms. I love lazy days, days you just get to wake up and sit around in your pjs, have some coffee, and just watch movies (those days are even better if it’s raining outside). I think finding happiness in the little things, is the best way to just find happiness as a whole. Those little things, just make your days better. They just make you happier… and what’s life if your not happy?

The truth about reading

Every once in awhile I pick up a book. It sounds simple, but when you think about it, sometimes it’s difficult to schedule in time for such simple things such as reading for pleasure, but there are some major benefits to reading. The things I love about just reading are that one, it allows you to travel to a completely different place, time, and even universe. Who doesn’t want to escape reality for a little while. Second, I find it really interesting that books expose you to a different language and way of thinking. After I read, the way I think and even the way I speak can sometimes morph into the book I’ve been amerced in. Especially phrases of speech the main character uses a lot. Finally, the last thing I love about reading is, it’s timeless. There’s something magical about things in our culture that endure. To pick up a book and read for the pleasure of reading, is the same thing people have been doing for ages. It’s a timeless equalizer. A reminder that we still have something in common with the past. And do people ever really change?

Purpose

Have you ever sat back and wondered why things are the way they are. If you believe in a God, then you believe there is a devine overseer of all things. If thats true then there’s a reason for why things are the way they are. For me this brings about the question, why am I me? Why was born into a wonderful family with both a mom and dad in the picture. Why was I given everything I ever needed or wanted out of life, when there are so many people who don’t have these things. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve been so blessed that I wonder why me.

I think the important thing to remember is that in the end there has to be a reason. If you believe in a God and your blessed, then there is a reason your blessed. If you don’t believe in a God and life is hard, then that’s just random chance. In my mind. I think God blesses people for certain reasons, to fufill some purpose that only by having those “blessings” are we able to fufull. It is our job to figure out that purpose.

In the end, its designed for one person and one person alone.

Isn’t it nice to know, were special!

Things to Consider

I had a realization the other day. Sometimes I stress myself so much with everything going on in my life that I lose track of the most important element of life and that is to live. It’s so easy to find yourself so focused on the future and getting to where you want to be, that you forget to enjoy the present. When I think of this a particular movie quote comes to mind. It goes something like this, “it does not due to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” These are the wise words of Harry Potter’s head master Albus Dumbledore. When he spoke these words to young Harry, he was looking into a mirror. A mirror that would reflect the deepest desires of your heart. He stated that men would waste there life away standing in front of the mirror, even driving themselves mad trying to attain what they couldn’t have. It’s interesting to me that many times this is true. We as people are so focused on our future, so driven by trying to get what we want, we many times forget to enjoy what we have. So here’s something to consider. We don’t have a future without a past. And today, is just yesterdays future, isn’t it?

The most strange and completely normal thing that we all do

Can we take a moment to realize just how strange sleeping is?

What are dreams and what are there purpose? I read once that dreams are a reflection of you unconsiousness. That dreams only reflect your deepest desires. I find the whole process of dreaming fascinating. Sleep, itself is an interesting concept because if you really think about it, everytime you close your eyes at night, a little section of your life just dissapears. For hours on end, you lose complete comprehension of everything you know, whilst your mind actively goes through random imagery, conversations, scenarios, memories, you name it. All of these things you have no control over. Over 33% of the average human life is spent sleeping. That’s over quarter of your life that you have no memory of. If you really just take a step back and think about this. It becomes apparent that sleeping is one of the most strange and completely normal thing that people do.

The problem with being creative

The problem with being creative is that sometimes you just can’t be creative anymore.

In the past on this blog, I’ve talked about quotes, mind blowing thoughts, and just random tidbits of knowledge. I find all these things to be interesting and engaging. Sometimes I just think your mind must be in motion at all times to come across what I like to call the “wow factor.” By this I mean when you stumble upon those thoughts that just make you question everything you used to think. These “wow factors” are what add to my inspiration. The problem with this is that sometimes, there’s a problem. These free-flowing thoughts just halt. It is in that moment that I become lost. Some people see it as an artists block, in my mind it looks a little differently. In my mind when this happens, it is as if Atlas accidently sneezes as he’s holding the world and for a moment my world is in complete and utter chaos. Why is this? Because for the creative person, this is a death sentence. But running out of ideas isn’t the only challenge artist face. In my major which is visual communications (AKA graphic design), I’m getting a bachelor of fine arts. Every class I take is in the realm of imagination and creativity. Now don’t get me wrong, I know I’m not wired to do anything else, but I wanted to take a few moments to explain what I feel like a lot of people in the world don’t understand about creative people. So fasten your seatbelt and hop onto the soapbox rollercoaster of an fine arts major.

1. People think you have it easy.

So many people think that living in the art department, life is filled with listening to music, creativity, and spontaneity. I’ve been told so many times this. They think that because we are BFA majors, we don’t necessarily have fixed deadlines (ie the phrase “you can’t rush art”), that we get good grades because all art is a matter of opinion, and finally that we don’t have to study or work in the same way other college students do. To answer that question all I need say is this. We have deadlines just like any other student. We also study just like any other student (for example, I get to study the history of art and graphic design, I get to memorize and recognize fonts, and I have to take test remembering dates, timeframes, art movements). We also get graded on skill, not just effort. Those that are more talented can put in less time and still get a better grade, just as those who naturally understand a subject like history or science may not study for a test and still get a better grade than their classmates that studied 3 times what they did.  

2. Art majors are stereotyped

People think that to be an artist you must be strange or weird. And yes, for the most part, we are weird. Who isn’t? I have been surrounded by enough art majors to know that you can normally pick them out of a crowd. But if you actually sit down and talk to them, with an open mind, you find that they really are unique individuals with an interesting perspective. Personally, I find that someone who thinks and acts differently than me, really makes me question and know who I am and why I think the way I do. One final thing I have to add to that, not all art majors sit around drawing anime all day, wearing odd clothing. We are all different just like any other body of students within the same major.

3. Sometimes you just can’t be creative anymore

The final and most important problem creative people have is when you just cannot create anymore. Sometimes you just cant! For example, every class I take revolves around the creative process. Therefore for each class I take, we are constantly getting a new project proposal in which we must figure out the best and most creative solution. With a project of this nature for every class, sometimes your mind feels overloaded. On top of that, I work in the library creating all graphics, displays, coming up with ways to get ideas across in videos and online. I also do free-lace work to earn extra money on the side and for each client, I must put my best foot forward to give them  a unique and interesting design that pleases them. To top it off, I draw the comic for every school newspaper. To put it simply, my life revolves around constantly coming up with new, entertaining ideas. And sometimes, I just have to do so much that I just run out. It is in moments like this that feel overwhelmed. I’ll sit up at night, trying to sleep, all the while trying to think of another solution, a better one than I have.

Here’s the beauty of it all, when I take a step back and relax. When I just sit down and enjoy myself, see some of my friends, talk for a little bit about nothing, when I just watch TV. Suddenly it’ll just come back, because sometimes the things that inspire you to be creative are the little things. The things that don’t always have the “wow factor.” Sometimes its the little things that become the big things. And inspiration is everywhere.  

 

I had an interesting thought the other day that kind of blew my mind. Does anything physical really exist? Our minds gather information. Everything we see, we touch, taste, smell, is really just our mind telling us that it exists, but what is real then? The question itself if mind boggeling. Some would say that what we touch is physical, it is obviously physical which is why we can feel it. But isn’t it our brain that tells us we “feel” something. Do we actually feel it? If our mind told us something was soft when it was actually hard, our concept of what is hard would be associated with the word soft. Does anything actually exist outside our own consciousness? The same is true for those who are color blind. They may see some colors but their “blue” for instance is something compleatly different than someone else’s blue and yet they’ve always defined blue as the color in which they see. This brings about another question. How did we ever discover that their blue was different from someone else’s? Aren’t words just abstract expressions of the physical world…if there is a physical world at all…

Mind = blown

Useless tid-bits

I work at the library and I create these flyers to go in the bathroom called Literary Loos. Awesome thing to work on right, but nonetheless I find myself really enjoying creating them. In each monthly issue, there is a “did you know” column and over the years I’ve accumulated massive amounts of useless knowledge, so this week I thought I’d share three fun facts.

Do you know why the “x” is associated with a kiss? This dates way back to a time when most people were illiterate. To make documents official (such as a wedding license) people were asked to sign on the line next to the x. Because many couldn’t write there own name, to make the agreement binding they were instead asked to kiss the x. This is how the x became associated with a kiss. This is also where the phrase “sealed with a kiss” come from.

Number two, do you know why we feel so unified with someone we love? There is a deactivation in the parieto-temporo-occipital region of the brain, the part that shows a person their place in space. This place in space also separates us from others within our mind, making us individuals. But when were in love a deactivation of this part of the brain occurs and for a moment in time we feel as if we are unified with our love.

Finally, did you know that the phrase “to fly off the handle” (meaning to get really angry all of a sudden) comes from a time before they had machines to make products. Sometimes axes were not always mounted to their handles properly, thus when someone would swing the axe, it could fly off creating a dangerous situation with unpredictable results. The same is true when someone suddenly gets mad and this is where the phrase comes from.

Random tid-bits of information to feed your noggin! Hope you enjoyed!

Quote of the Week

These days, I keep a journal. Actually, it’s not quite a journal at all, its more of a memory book, but then again it’s not really that either. Sometimes the things you can’t quite explain, have the most significance to you. There’s just too much in them to be equated to an average word. All I can say is I keep everything in this journal. I keep sketches, letters, songs, lost thoughts, ideas, broken concepts. I keep myself in it. Sometimes, I like to just go through some of the older things, things I wrote awhile back. It was in doing this the other night that I came across a quote I had written down that just really re-registered in my mind. It goes something like this…

“Don’t be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life. You don’t have to live forever you just have to live.”

That was line from the novel Tuck Everlasting and it just really stuck with me. If you know anything about the story, you’d know that the Tuck family was blessed/cursed with eternal life and Winnie Foster was offered this life, but she turned it down. I find it interesting that we as people cling to time. We long for it more and more and yet, the moment at hand when we actually have it, we many times squander it. We as a race are so dependent on it, that our days are attached to it. It is on each of our phones, it’s on our watches, it dictates our lives and rules our existance. If only we had more time for this. If only we had less time for that. Now I know we can’t just throw time out the window, but what if, for once, we didn’t worry about how long we have to do something or how long don’t have. What if we stopped and just lived because in the end, worrying about time is just wasting time, isn’t it?

Food for thought…                              

Introductions

My name is Brittany Davis and I’m currently a Visual Communications Major/Graphic Design minor at Mary Hardin Baylor. A little about me. I love the arts, painting, drawling, sculpting, the whole nine yards. I find every piece of creating invigorating and as such, I believe that a lot can go into adding to a creative mind. God created this world to be beautiful. If you’ve ever seen a sunset across the ocean or the misty mountain snow caps in the winter; if you’ve looked into the expanse of the sparkling sky at night, you know this to be true. God is an artist. It only makes since then that we, as his creation, at our very core desire to seek beauty in the world in which we live. If this is true, then creating art is, at its essence, a part of who we are. I know at least it is for me. Therefore, I only found it fitting that in this blog, I would talk about anything and everything I find to be inspiring. Because only though inspiration comes creation!