My first art reception...

...was last week. The show was a group exhibition of works from collaboration projects between visual artists and writers in the fall.

Me and my painting, Mutability. (The color is slightly off in this photo, but that's life...and cameras.)

If you think the patch of blue on the lower right looks like water, you're not wrong. The writer I was paired with decided to write about self-image, and water seemed to correspond with his concept. One can see one's reflection in water--contemplate oneself--but water, and the images reflected on it, move constantly. And the way we think about ourselves shifts constantly, too. This painting turned out more nonobjective than I thought it would, but it works for the project. And I like it.



I know you want to see it from another angle.



I also really like being in a show with a reception and nibbly-dibblies and everything. (There was really good banana bread with chocolate chips.) As a double major, I had writing in the show, too. It was in a booklet hanging at a reading station with all the other essays, including the one by the writer I collaborated with--but most people, including me, were more absorbed by the visual art. Probably because you can't eat reception goodies and hold a booklet open at the same time.

 

Monday Miscellanies

1. Shannon Hale turns an old idea on its head in her post, "I knew he loved me when he hocked a logie at my face."

2. I want to see this documentary:



3. Happy happy news and pictures from Stephanie Perkins.

4. Zombies vs. Unicorns. I need to read more about this.

AAAHHHHH!!!!

That's a happy scream. It's also a frustrated one. I was just perusing the new books my local library system ordered this month, when I came across this:

Summary:

This is the story of Amelia and Riley, bad kids from bad Brookfield High who have transferred to Ashbury High for their final year. They've been in love since they were fourteen, they go out dancing every night, and sleep through school all day. And Ashbury can't get enough of them.

Everyone's trying to get their attention; even teachers are dressing differently, trying to make their classes more interesting. Everyone wants to be cooler, tougher, funnier, hoping to be invited into their cool, self-contained world.

But they don't know that all Amelia can think about is her past -- an idyllic time before she ran away from home. Riley thinks he's losing her to the past, maybe even to a place further back in time. He turns to the students of Ashbury for help, and things get much, much worse.

In the tradition of the gothic novel, this is a story about ghosts, secrets, madness, passion, locked doors, femmes fatales, and that terrifying moment in the final year of high school when you realise that the future's come to get you. (From Amazon.com)
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How did I not know this was coming out??? No matter; I'm super glad to hear of its existence. I really enjoy Jaclyn Moriarty's other books (Feeling Sorry for Celia, The Year of Secret Assignments, The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie), and I have a hard time thinking this one is any less awesome than the others. While these books all take place in the same Australian town and involve many of the same characters (each book focuses on different ones), they can be read in any order. Also, the stories are told in epistolary form, and Moriarty does a fantastic job of telling the reader everything they need to know from journal entries, e-mails, memos, and apparently in this new one, essay questions from exams.

I can't wait to read The Ghosts of Ashbury High; I'm practically salivating.

Have you ever been surprised and delighted by a book's seemingly sudden existence?

The first snow!!!

It's happening right now. I was squeezing in a little internet time--difficult to do lately--when a friend texted me that it was snowing! So I jammed my hat on my head, grabbed my coat, and went outside pajama pants and all to watch the snow and catch a few flakes on my tongue.

I know there won't be much of it, and it will melt quickly--and I don't even want piles of snow on the ground until after Thanksgiving, thank you very much--but it's still exciting to see the first snowflakes of the season.



Enjoying the little things,