Word Nerd

Yes, I'll gleefully admit it - I am a total word nerd.  I love any and all types of word play - puns, double entendres, malopropisms - you name it.

On the flip side, I perhaps take it too harshly when words are misused, whether unintentionally or out of sheer laziness.  For example, if I'm reading a blog or article and there is a misspelled word or incorrect use of a phrase or word, it truly irritates me.  If I happen to voice my disapproval I'm usually met with indifference or a resigned, "mm hmmm", unless I'm discussing the offense with my fellow word lovers.

Every year, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary, for those of you who aren't as geeky as myself) updates their tome to include new entries that reflect our changing language.  I don't know if this particular word has made it in yet, but I for one hope it never does.

I'm referring to the somewhat new habit of using "gift" as a verb.  OOOH, this just bugs the heck out of me!! I am a big fan of the magazine "Entertainment Weekly", but in an article this week they used it! Why? Is it a matter of economy? Sure, it uses less space than to say "they were given gifts", but it just sounds wrong. Is it just me, or does this new usage reek of somthing made up at the HGTV or DIY networks?  It seems to me that they're guilty of co-opting many words and expressions and abusing them (I'm thinking of words like "crafter" and phrases such as "You're gonna wanna go ahead and..." when explaining how to do a project).

Growing up my mom and dad both stressed the importance of choosing words carefully.  And yes, they were the parents who, when presented with the question, "How do you spell....", would promptly tell us to "look it up in the dictionary".  A lot of times they would purposely use 50-cent words so that we would ask them what it meant.  I know they're the reason I have the vocabulary that I do - it wasn't learned in school.

Is it just me, or does it feel like it's not important to use correct punctuation or grammar anymore?  Texting is only going to make this worse.  I can usually tell how old someone is (with exceptions, of course) by the responses I see to a remark on Facebook, for example.  Generally speaking, people my age and older (40+) take the time to spell out their comments.  But those kids in college and high school?  I see lots of  "Ur gonna be late 4 class" and its ilk.  Egads.

I think it's more important than ever to stress proper language usage!  I know the English language is constantly changing - it would have to, or we'd still be saying "Wouldst thou care to sup with me this night?" instead of "Hey, wanna do dinner at 6?".  But I shudder to think that in 30 years I'll be reading, in a book, no less, "U busy 2night".  If this occurs, I will welcome Armageddon.

Losing Control

As I write this, we are in the midst of one of the worst blizzards I can recall in my 41 years.  Really - the last time I remember it being this bad was December 3, 1990. 

Back then, I was a senior in college and working at WFRV-TV, Channel 5 (which at this time was the ABC affiliate in Green Bay, WI - it's now a CBS owned-operated).  Coincidentally, I lived right across the street from the station on East Mason Street, which is now a parking lot for Bellin Hospital, sadly.  So of course I was expected to make it into work - I had no excuse!

This was fine with me - I love all of the hubbub involved in weather-related events, especially as they're occuring.  Right now, I'm sitting at the computer, blogging about this mother-of-all-blizzards, all snug and cozy in my fluffy pink robe and quilted slippers.  It's exactly where I want to be, but I'll have no war stories to share with my co-workers tomorrow about how I nearly died trying to get to work.  But back in '90, especially at a TV station, where emotions are already amped up a notch by the very nature of the job, we had a total blast during the storm.  We were definitely on a skeleton crew, but we managed to eke out a broadcast.  Keep in mind I was also 19 years younger.  It's much easier to brave the elements when you're a fit and feisty twenty-two!

These days, I work at our newspaper, The Reporter.  I had had today scheduled off since last March, which either makes me one lucky so-and-so or cosmically psychic.  So perhaps I'm not in the most fair position when I say we should ALL have a snow day today.

I mean it!  Why can't we just relegate control to the elements for ONE day every 20 or so years?  Will society collapse if we don't show up to work?  Will our already soggy economy really suffer that badly if the good people of the Midwest choose to do the smart thing and stay home, rather than risking life and limb for the assuredly hour-long commute?  Sure, we managed to pull off a broadcast on that December day back in '90, and no one even had a cell phone (HORRORS!).  But why?  We could've thrown on some old Beatles cartoons and 99% of the viewing public would've been fine with that.

Back in the summer of '08, Fond du Lac suffered from the worst flooding in over 90 years.  That storm was truly tragic - many people lost their homes or the damage was so severe, they had to live elsewhere while FEMA or family helped with the rebuilding.  That was a completely different scenario than this storm - we had no choice but to let Mother Nature do her thing, however horrible it was.  But today, if our jobs aren't essential to the well-being of the public, we should choose to not brave the elements and force ourselves to just stay inside and weather the storm, drinking hot chocolate and watching the Weather Channel.  Let's make that our holiday gift to ourselves.  It'll be a hoot!

Don't Believe the Hype!

Am I a "real" artist now?  Read my "statement" and judge for yourself:

Work of Post-Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The mind creates, the chaos permeates. In the material reality, art objects are calculations of the iterations of the mind -- a mind that uses the chaos as a zeitgeist to deconstruct ideas, patterns, and emotions. With the rationalization of the mixed-media environment, the mind is conceiving a point where it will be free from the chaos to transcend immersions into the machinations of the delphic reality. Work of Post-Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction contains 10 scraps of ephemera (also refered to as "logics") that enable the user to make external visual comparisons.


measuring chains, constructing realities putting into place forms
a matrix of illusion and disillusion
a strange attracting force
so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it


Mel Kolstad's work investigates the nuances of modulations through the use of found objects and close-ups which emphasize the Mechanical nature of mixed media. Kolstad explores abstract and interstitial scenery as motifs to describe the idea of infinite reality. Using cursive loops, non-linear narratives, and allegorical images as patterns, Kolstad creates meditative environments which suggest the expansion of art...


Blah, blah, blah.  Isn't this hilarious?  I found it on Market-O-Matic and, while it sounds intellectual, it also sort of brings to light the tremendous amount of bullcrap that swirls around "real art".

In the past three years or so, I have been obsessed with Artist Trading Cards (or ATCs for short).  This passion has spilled over into many aspects of my life - live trades every month in Milwaukee, many new friends, artist workshops, teaching my own classes, connecting with other artists, and having my work featured on several blogs and a couple of magazines.  I am really starting to feel confident about my abilities as an artist, and I'm even getting over the hesitation of calling myself one (but it's still hard to do - I still worry about sounding pretentious).

I think each and every one of us has artistic ability in some form.  I never thought I did until I found my niche, which is collage and mixed media.  I still don't think I can draw, and I don't consider myself a "fine artist" (I'm pretty sure that in most circles that means you have your MFA or something). 

But like art itself, this differentiation is so subjective!  And really, what constitutes "real artist"?  Think about your own expression - be it acting, music, art, photography, whatever you do creatively - how would you define your success?  Do you have to be rich and famous to be successful, or could it be just having a couple pieces selected for a show?  Is it having throngs of admirers, or a couple of really swell comments on your Flickr page or admirers at your gig?  Is it being the star, or being part of the bigger picture?  Do you have to get paid to do what you love, or is it enough to just really love what you do (being paid IS always nice, though!) 

When I look at the high-gloss art magazines like ArtForum or Art in America, and I see what is being shown in the famous galleries, I wonder how these pieces got chosen.  Oh, please don't take this as sour grapes - I don't aspire to show in a New York gallery, because I don't think I would fit in that world - but it does interest me as to why some pieces get chosen over others.  I will admit (as should every other person who's done an art piece) that there have been times that I've said, aloud even, "Pfft.  I could do that.".  Now, I realize that it's not as easy as it looks, but come on!!!  Three lines on a blank canvas?!  For a couple thousand dollars?  As Aretha Franklin would say, who's zoomin' who here?

Which brings me to my original point - is "real" art where it's at?  Or should we, in choosing art for our homes, stick to the pieces we truly love?  Who says that a piece that costs $25 is any less valuable than one that sets you back $2500?  What if you bring a 'valuable' work of art home and totally hate it, but hang it in a prominent place in your home just so you can tell people you own a (insert artist du jour's name here)?  That sort of behavior has always bothered me.  At that point the art in question is no better than the latest designer handbag or hybrid Lexus. 

So, to be a "real" artist, do I have to write a statement like the one above?  I hope not - I would never want to start believing my own hype.

Gloomy Goodness

As I write this, it is about 2:30 p.m. CST and gloomy as heck outside.  And I couldn't be happier.

Most people to whom I relate my fondness for gloom think me mighty strange - I mean, doesn't everyone prefer sunny, warm days over 40 degree late fall gloom?  Not everyone!  Perhaps I'm the only exception.

This penchant for overcast isn't new - as a kid I loved cloudy, rainy days.  I wonder sometimes if it had something to do with my allergies.  I've had seasonal allergies since I was four, and they did seem to be alleviated somewhat by rain.  Being a sedentary kid as well, rainy/gloomy days gave me an excuse to stay inside and watch TV or play with my dollhouse instead of being shooed outside by my mom ("It's much too nice to be inside today!  Why don't you go over to Jodie's house?").

In fact, there's an inside joke in my family about my fondness for these days - I believe it was around 1975, and we were at my Grammie's for dinner.  It was this time of year, I believe - maybe even Thanksgiving Day - and the TV was on (chances are it was football).  An ad came on for Exxon, and I remember thinking in my 7 year-old head that the general look and ambiance of the ad made me feel the same way that gloomy days do.  So to this day, whenever my sis Jen calls me, she'll ask me if it's an Exxon day where I am (and now my nieces call them "Exxon Days" too!).  Yes, we're weird.  :D

Flash forward to about two years ago.  I was reading a great book called, "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  In it, she chronicles her life encyclopedia-style; it's a fantastic book.  One of the entries was entitled "Wabi-Sabi".

SHAZAM!!!  This word explained EXACTLY how gloomy days make me feel!!!  Ms. Rosenthal had seen the word in an issue of Utne Reader, and this is how they explained it:

"Wabi-Sabi: As a single idea, wabi-sabi fuses two moods seamlessly: a sigh of slightly bittersweet contentment, awareness of the transience of earthly things; and a resigned pleasure in simple things that bear the marks of that transience."  Bingo.

This is also why I love Dada art so much.  If you check out old or new Dadaist works, you'll find that many of them are on a stark white background.  Letters and numbers are often used, and many times the fonts that are utilized are very stark and Helvetica-esque.  If asked, I would venture to say that, while one might really love the piece, it wouldn't evoke for them happy days on the beach (unless the beach in question were in Norway in January).  I've always appreciated art that has that wonderful tinge of wabi-sabi to it - and not just Dada.  Even some Norman Rockwell paintings have it (I'm thinking mainly of his work entitled, "Homecoming", which shows a soldier arriving back home after WWII.  I love that you can't see his face, but if you could, I'd imagine it to be the epitome of what wabi-sabi looks like).

I say, let's embrace the feeling.  Maybe, in our never-ending quests to be 'happy' (especially this time of year, when many of us attempt to craft picture-perfect holidays that would never exist except in Martha Stewart's stylist's head) we've forgotten that we don't have to be.  All we have to do is just 'be'.  And if we can find comfort in the gloomiest of days, then perhaps we can be content with other aspects of our lives too.

Thankful

Below is a very small sampling of the things for which I am most grateful:

1.  My family, which, for the last five years, has included the wonderful Kolstads;

2.  My friends (too many to list, but you should know who you are)

3.  The 'big three' - a roof over my head, plentiful to eat and clothes on my back (and for that, YOU should be thankful - me clothes-less is frightening)

4.  My limbs - I'm able to walk and type (and make art!) without any assistance

5.  My eyes and ears - despite the unfortunate bad news out there, there is still so much beauty to absorb through these very wonderful senses.  I am grateful every day that I'm able to take in my surroundings.

6.  The ability to read and write (according to WikiAnswers, 1 BILLION people worldwide are illiterate).

7.  I have a job.  Sure, I complain about it, but for now I still have it.

8.  I'm grateful I live in a country where I CAN complain - it's a freedom I fear many of us take very much for granted.  I hope with all of my being it will be forever this way, and that in the future more of the world will be able to speak freely without repercussion.

9.  The myriad opportunities that await me everyday.  I'm grateful that I can choose to accept them with a positive attitude, and I hope I do, most days.

10.  I saved my husband for last.  He is the kindest, dearest, most thoughtful and wonderful man I've had the pleasure to meet.  Anyone who's met Brian knows what I mean.  It is absolutely an honor to share my life with him and I give thanks every day that we're together. 

Take some time today to focus on what REALLY matters to you.  Our lives are all so blessed, even if they may not seem so at times.  Hey, we're above ground, right? 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Books, glorious books!

I was just on Jill K. Berry's blog - she explains the one-off class she'll be teaching at Valley Ridge this upcoming Labor Day weekend.  It is a bookshelf made of books, and we'll be making books to place in the bookshelf.  It's really quite amazing, and I'm very excited!  I hope I can take the class!!

Jill's blog entry got me thinking about books in general.  They're such an ubiquitous item, books - but where would we be without them?  One might forget that we've only been reading books the way we do for the past 100 years or so, and to have the types of bookshelves the way we do now?  The last 75 years, tops. It used to be that you'd have a couple of Classics and the Bible.  Now look how we read!  It's incredible to me how many books are readily available.  And with do-it-yourself bookmaking from Websites like Blurb, the sky's the limit with what you'll be able to get your hands on.  It's really quite an exciting time for books!

You might've heard all of the hand-wringing by the major booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders over concerns about this year's holiday shopping season; they're expecting less-than-stellar sales.  Some 'experts' say we're not reading as much as we used to; others say that it's the weak economy and that more and more people are utilizing the library.  Whatever the case, I think the worry is for naught; I believe the problem will correct itself in a few years at the most.

While it may be true that we're not reading as many books for our own pleasure, I'd like to wager that we're reading now more than ever before.  In fact, I'd say that in 100 years, illteracy will all but be erased.  Why?  Because if the last 5 years or so are any indication, we'll be gleaning most of our information from this here computer thingy.  And unless you're willing to watch nothing but You Tube and Hulu videos, you'll have to learn to read, if you can't already.  Many people also predict that in the next 20-25 years most of us will be reading our books on a Kindle-type device.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.....okay, I can handle spending time on the computer for things like facebook time, e-mailing friends, uploading photos to Flickr - but READING?  Yes, I realize that I may be rereading this blog entry 25 years from now and laughing, but I'll be damned if I'm going to sacrifice my pages-and-cover books to ANOTHER computer-like device!!!   For many of us book-aholics ("bibliophiles" to you Latin speakers), the rituals of reading are as much a part of the experience of reading as the actual, well, reading.  There is a smell to books that cannot be replicated with a hand-held Kindle thingy.  You can't turn pages on that thing.  You don't need batteries to operate a book.  You also don't need an initial fee of $250 to read a regular book.  Oh sure, you can get instant gratification with the portable devices, being able to download a book and start reading it 10 seconds later.  But unless you've waited until the last second to start a 20-page term paper or you're stuck in the century's worst blizzard that will keep you in the house for the next three months, who needs a book that quickly?  Isn't Amazon's next-day shipping fast enough?  Or head to the mall if it means that much to you!

Perhaps another thing that these fake book hustlers didn't think of was the library/bookstore experience.  True book-aholics (sorry, bibliophiles!) consider these places sacrosanct.  They are my absolute favorite places to congregate, especially with my mom and sister.  Many times when we're together, we make time for a "Borders Run".  We will most certainly part ways once inside, but then we'll meet up again at the end and talk about the books we've chosen.  My mom is so well-read, she could tell you something about nearly every new book out at any given time (and yes, she reads the New York Times Book Review every week).  I tend to read more in the way of non-fiction and memoirs, but Mom gives Jen and me the books she's read, so I always have a wonderful choice awaiting me on my bookshelves.  And our library here in Fond du Lac is a wonderful gathering place, with a children's library, an art gallery, a used book store, a first-rate meeting room and a great staff.  Even with Google, you still need reference librarians!  Let's not forget the sheer pleasure of reading with like-minded souls.

And to end this blog entry full circle, let's talk about bookshelves!  If we do go the electronic route with our books, what are we going to use our bookshelves for - more tchotchkes?  Yeah, like we need any more of those!  I will take my paper books any day, thank you very much.  I mean, you can't make book art like Jill's with a Kindle!

LOST

Yesterday we had our November live trade for our Milwaukee ATC (Artist Trading Card) group - this time, it was held at Artworks in Kenosha.  It's quite a hike from Fond du Lac - about 100 miles.  But I love the group so it doesn't bother me to travel these distances.

What DOES bother me, however, is my atrocious sense of direction.  Everyone knows that eye color, hair color, left or righthandedness, personality traits - these things are hereditary.  I'm here to tell you that I'm convinced our sense of direction is too.  Me, my mom and my Grammie?  We all would get lost trying to escape a paper bag.

This being directionally challenged - its roots run deep.  My earliest memory of being lost occured when I was five.  I lived near a pretty deep woods (considering we were in suburbia) and my best friend Jodie and I decided we were going to explore these woods by ourselves.  It didn't take us long to realize that we had no idea where we were.  We must've been in pretty deep because we didn't hear our parents calling for us.  To make matters worse, I had lost a shoe in some mud and stepped on a rusty nail (Tetanus, anyone?).  When we finally made our way out of the "wilderness", I was crying and yelling, "Are you gonna spank me?".  I had clearly defined priorities, mainly the preservation of my behind (I didn't get spanked - I think Mom & Dad knew I had been punished enough).

My favorite memory of being lost happened about five years ago - my Grammie and I were on our way down to Milwaukee for the day.  I felt so prepared:  I made sure I had all of my Google maps, one for every single stop we made that day.  But of course, these maps don't account for construction and we were there in August (the height of construction season in Wisconsin).  So when we got to Water St. and it said to turn left, and there was no left, we both laughed hysterically.  It took us a good five minutes to get our bearings, but we finally figured out where we were supposed to go.  It certainly helped that the layout of the downtown area hadn't changed all that much since my Grammie lived there in the 50's.

But getting back to the live trades - each month we try and hit a new fun spot in Milwaukee, somewhere art-oriented and willing to take a crowd (sometimes a LOUD crowd) of 20-30.  Now for some reason, yesterday was a breeze.  I gave myself a little pep talk when I got in the car - "You are NOT going to get lost!" - and maybe that worked.  Maybe I'm finally figuring out which way is East.  Either way, I'm not going to jinx it by saying that I've got this direction thing down.  Brian has asked me numerous times (mainly when I'm on the phone in hysterics because I'm going to be late for my trade and he has to walk me through the directions over the phone) if I'd like a GPS.  To that I say, thanks but no thanks!  If I accept my handicap and hand over my fate to a satellite, I'm admitting defeat.  To hell with that!  I will learn the difference between a street and an avenue if it kills me.  And if I'm attempting to read a map while driving, it probably will.  :)