2010 In The Spotlight

The last scribbles of 2010 - what a year this has been. I'm currently skimming the list of blog posts from this year to pull out a few of the highlights. Click to recap.

February - the Battle of Bat Boy. Life Lessons from Circle In The Square.

March - NYU Audition.

May - The best letter I ever got.

September - Ready, set, go.

November - The Price We Pay.

Not a lot of highlights, but if I highlighted everything that was important, there'd be too many posts to call it a list of highlights, it'd just be a list of lights. :)

So what are my final thoughts?

I spent much of this morning going through the hurt and the aches and the mistakes and the skeletons in my closet from the past year and officially putting them to rest, as much as I can. Mistakes are unavoidable. I'm going to get hurt, things are going to suck sometimes. But I don't need to hang on to what hurt me this year. I've learned, and now I'm turning my face towards 2011 and everything it has in store. 365 days is a decently long time to get stuff done, and I'm going to be 21 in the wildest city in the world for most of those days. I'm going to live, I'm going to have fun, I'm going to learn, and I'm going to be someone new when the next December 31st rolls around. I hope she's wonderful.

Happy New Year to all of you Spotlightees :) Much love from Harlequin to you. Have a fabulous year.

Magic!

My laptop has been refurbished thanks to a dear techie darling of mine from SCSU. I put everything important onto my new external hard drive and then he wiped my laptop clean and put a new system into it and other things I don't quite understand. It was technical magic.

In short, my laptop is up and running and free of viruses and all is well.

Updates coming soon.

Virus

My laptop is currently infected almost beyond use, so updates may be sparse until it is fixed. :(

Advice from Les Barany

Just when I think I've said all I want for today, perusing the world of art makes me want to share, and gives me plenty to think about. As much as I agree with a lot of what is said in this letter of advice from H.R. Giger's agent, I feel that art is something to be lived and to breathe, there is no formula to follow, and though this is incredibly inspiring, I find that I don't agree with some. Take what you will and create from the chaos within. Mary Shelley did it. I'd like to be as neat as her some day.

Dear Aspiring Artist:

Here is my advice. Think of it as a five-year plan:

Take whatever courses you find the most interesting.

Study closely the work of the Old Masters.

Stop making art that originates only from your own imagination.

Stay with one technique until you perfect it.

On any given day, always be in the middle of reading a book. When you finish one, start the next. Fiction, nonfiction, biographies, autobiographies, history, science, psychology, or how to build a kite. Anything but go easy on the comic books.

Buy and read the first 6 pages of newspaper every day and also the editorial commentaries. Skip the entertainment section. Su Doku is fine. Do the crossword puzzle.

Fill up a sketchbook every month with pen or pencil drawings of the world around you, not from your imagination.

Buy a book on figure drawing. It's the only art book you will ever need.

Until you can draw an accurate portrait of someone, you don’t know how to draw.

Stay away from the airbrush. You'll never master it, hardly anyone ever has.

Visit every museum in your city. Often, until you have seen everything in it. Every kind of museum. Not only the art museums but, of course, those as well.

Forget about contemporary art by living artists, at least for the next few years.

Stay away from most art galleries. Go to art auctions. That's where the real action is.

Learn to play chess.

Take a business course.

Talk to you mother or father at least once a week.

Stop going to the movies until you have rented and seen every film on this list.
http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html

Do not watch television unless it’s the news or documentaries.

Do not use an Ipod.

No video games, either.

Learn a foreign language.

Learn to cook.

Spend 8 hours in a hospital emergency room.

Save up money so you can travel to a foreign country within the next five years.

Do not litter.

Avoid politically correct people.

Vote in every election or never dare to utter a political opinion. You are not entitled to one.

Buy a digital camera and take photos every day.
If you see nothing interesting to photograph, you will never be a good artist. Keep only one photo of every ten you take. Delete the rest. It will force you to learn how to edit the garbage from your life, to make choices, to recognize what has real value and what is superficial.

Visit an old age home.

Listen to classical music and jazz. If you are unable to appreciate it at least as much as contemporary music, you lack the sensitivity to develop into an artist of any real depth.

Go to the ballet. Classical or Modern, it doesn't matter. It will teach you to appreciate physical grace and the relationship between sound and movement.

Wake up every morning no later than 8 AM, regardless of what time you went to sleep.

Learn to play a musical instrument.

Learn to swim.

Keep your word.

Never explain your art. People who ask you to do so are idiots.

Never explain yourself. Better yet, never do anything that will, later, require you to explain yourself or to say you're sorry.

Always use spell check.

Stop aspiring and start doing.

This will keep you very busy but it can't be helped.
In my opinion, this is how you might, possibly, have a shot at becoming a good artist.

Hope this helps,

Les Barany

Solstice

It's been a long time coming, but as of about 11:20 last night, my final paper is complete, I am home safe and sound in my little podunk hometown, and my first semester at NYU is officially complete.
Just kidding, I'm actually so happy not to be freaking out or feeling overworked. A few weeks of family, floofy little kitties, Christmas spirit, and then I'll be going back to New York so I don't get an overdose of all this goodness and want to strangle everyone. :)

Now that the madness of the past fortnight or so is over, I promised my readers updates on a lot of things. I'm not going to overload you all with everything at once, so they will be in separate updates, but they will happen. Here's what I promised:

Nora York
Finals (general thoughts on classes)
Finding My Art
Staying fit over break
What's up for next semester.

And right now I'm exceptionally concerned about the fourth topic, "Staying Fit Over Break." Now that I don't have yoga twice a week and dance three times a week, I'm worried that my little body is going to fall terribly out of shape and I'm going to nearly die of shock when second semester kicks in again and I have to get back into my routine. Next semester I'm still with Byron for his Broadway Styles class and Contemporary, and we're supposed to continue ballet, though I'm not sure where that stands since Francesca just had her first baby. I'm also picking up a class in Eskrima where yoga used to be. Click it if you're curious.

What my initial intentions are, for this break, are to do some kind of yoga and stretch every day, or very nearly every day, and Byron's physical work-out/warm-up at least twice a week, just to keep my stamina up. Hopefully I can overcome whatever mental block I will have created (but the couch is so comfy...) and keep myself working and physically in the place I need to be.

Maybe that will go in Diary of a Fancer - maybe I'll write about some of my experiences in dance classes there as well. Regardless, I have a lot of physical work to keep up on over break.


If I don't write by tomorrow, Happy Winter Solstice to all! December 21st is the official Solstice this year. Celebrate this wonderful season and all the love you have in your lives. I've certainly got more than I can even imagine.

Tastes of Reality

Some Tommy, to spread the joy of the day.

"I'm free - I'm free,
And freedom tastes of reality!"

Practical finals are over, classes are complete, and I have two more papers to write and then I can put Fall 2010 behind me.

Once I am home, there will be updates. Promise. But for now I am still in the throes of NYC with much to do before I can really relax.

Going to see Black Swan with my little monster, Michelle, today. Maybe I'll learn how to dance by watching psychotic obsessive ballerinas do it. If Natalie Portman can pique turn and pirouette like a prima ballerina in six months, I can do it too.

"Crawling on the planet's face..."

I feel like Brad and Janet at the end of Rocky Horror. Take that how you will.
(Working till 4 am and then waking up at 9 is a cruel joke.)

Interesting artistic musing of the week.

"Art can be so... passive aggressive."

Happenstance

So I'm totally procrastinating, but I had to give this a shout out...

Headshot glory!

Click it.


Muchas amour pour ma chica, Karen. Yeah, that was Spanrench.