Flying Girl Has Stayed Too Late at the Party, or Jump

Flying Girl Has Stayed Too Late at the Party, or Jump
10/20/08
Golden Fluid Acrylics

This painting comes from the Illustration Friday prompt, "Late." The first thing that popped into my head was the White Rabbit, oh my ears and whiskers, I'm late, I'm late. I think that was my HS yearbook quote. At the very least, it was the runner up. Then I thought, nah. And the second thought was "I'm Late," as in, hello baby, as in, infant, not hot tamale. And I thought, nah. Then I thought about what really felt late to me... that moment in the night when the sky feels softer, when the light begins to creep in, and the birds begin to sing, and you think, ohmygoodness, am I still out from the night before. You either feel like staying up and making chocolate chip cookies, or guilt ridden, as if you have wasted something precious.

These IF prompts are interesting, because they often take me out of my immediate life. Sometimes it becomes a conceptual thing. Sometimes it's about the past. Sometimes it could be a statement about society.

This painting is a combination of those things. Aside from being the person who always stays too long at social gatherings, because, I think, I don't know how to let go, this illustrates something I believe about change.

Sometimes we have to be smacked in the face that the world is changing for us to let go of the comfort of the past and dive into the unknown of the future. You see, the party is so much fun, why shouldn't it last forever? Except it can't. And the sun rises and you are reminded that shoes and martinis and glamour and excess are the way we burn out, if not given some balance with something deeper.

So here is the lotus, calling FG to jump out of her easy partiness, and leap towards the journey that is really hers.

Yes, I do think that's what's happening in America and the world, lately. Party is over. People didn't want to stop. Well, the universe gave us a kick in the butt, and now it's fall or fly in the new order of things.

I must be in a strange frame of mind, because my TBD piece is even weirder than my philosophizing.
Shed
10/20/08 The Big Draw #20
Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, Black Gesso. Gel Pen.

Oh, shoot. I forgot the words I was going to write in there. Oh well. I think it was going to say something like, "when the time comes, we must shed our confining skin," in white gel pen on the black gesso. Hopefully using less words than that.

It's pretty random, I think, but that's good, because it fits with a tag that I recieved from Karen at Beelieve. I have been asked to share six random things

1. I don't know how to drive. Yes, I am almost 38. It's lame. I always took the subways and never had a car in the years I lived in NYC and so never learned. I keep meaning to take care of that while I'm here in Florida, but other things keep cropping up.

2. I went to the High School of Music and Art, also known as Fiorello H. LaGuardia H.S. of Music and the Arts, which contains two schools... Music and Art and Performing Art (yes, the Fame school) and I received most of my formal art education in that school.

3. I am left handed and right brained, and I think these are two facts that contribute to my not being able to tell which is left and which is right unless I think about it very carefully. Also, addition, reading a clock, and the alphabet (despite working in a library for 8 years while in school).

4. I am afraid of heights, deep water, tsunamis, and zombies... but not irrationally so. I mean, I can get over it, but I definitely have to steel myself for it. Okay. The zombie thing is pretty irrational, I just can't help myself.

5. I have one tattoo, two piercings in each ear, one in my nose, and I used to have one in my eyebrow that I only took out last year. I would get more tattoos, but the first one took 7 years of planning and sketching and procrastination until I got it on the day I presented my Master's Thesis and earned my degree. I take these things very seriously. ;)

6. Uhmm. I'm running out of things since I am always saying random things. When I am in the city, one of my favorite places (among the museums and subways and parks and cafes) is a rooftop. Almost any rooftop. I love to sit up there and look at the sky and the buildings and feel the air and the peace in the chaos, and maybe flirt a little with my fear of heights... although I am very careful about getting close to the edge. And if I see someone else getting close to the edge, I will panic a bit. Interesting that the FG today is on a rooftop.

Okay, that was 6. Here are the rules.

Tag rules: Link to the person who tagged you. Post the rules on your blog. Write 6 random things about yourself. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted

And I will tag...
Marta, Kate, D'arcy, Marisa, Jena, Cliodhna