The day I arrived in Tennessee, Julie, Laura & I went directly to a "Hymn Sing" at this neato old church in downtown Nashville. The group that was playing / leading was called Bifrost, which I think is a Scandinavian term for the bridge between earth and sky.
We gathered in a beautiful sanctuary that had a high ceiling, intricate structural details that I don't have the vocabulary to describe. and white pews with soft blue cushions. It was cozy because the musicians felt close as they crowded in the front of the place. The music was live (which I must say is my favorite form of music). There were 2 violins, a piano, a cello, acoustic guitars, a stand-up base, a mandolin and a xylophone type thing. The main three musicians kept switching instruments throughout our time together - which I enjoyed. Also, they sang to us and then asked us to join in the second time through. It was a lovely welcome to Nashville even though I was tired from my flight.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention - the church where this took place has all these strange abandoned rooms upstairs with random broken pews and old unused furniture lining hallways and resting in dark rooms. We were given a tour up the pitch black castle-like stairway to see some of the rooms that are loaned out to local artists. They use them for their studios which I think is cool, especially since the church seems to have a heart for artists. They display different artists work in the hallways and in the one main room I passed through. It is nice to see people with a heart for something, showing not telling. I think it speaks louder and the effect is deeper and perhaps longer when actions are produced. I want to be like that. Active.
"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." - Frank Tibolt
The next day was spent in preparation for a Kentucky cabin visit. Julie, Laura & myself planned, fought, shopped & gathered the necessities for our little gathering. Here are Julie and Laura leaving Laura's new place (so cute - you have to see how this girl decorates her home. I love it!)
Brian drove over from Chattanooga, helped us pack up, and we were off.
It was cold and windy and really cold. We got in after dark and had fun unpacking food and setting things in places, pretending it was home for the weekend. Jina joined us later that night, but in the meantime we thawed.
The next day we ate, took walks & pictures, talked and colored. It was fun in a relaxing and try to keep warm kinda way...
See? FUN!
And beautiful...
So I mentioned coloring, well in my family coloring is always worth mentioning. Brian brought his grand Prismacolor set of colored pencils. I think they are beautiful because I love anytime lots of colors are gathered together. I guess before I got into the coloring thing with Brian, Julie and Laura, they kept saying "oh, don't worry about putting the colored pencils back in the right place because Linda will probably re-do the whole thing."
They were so right, I wanted to re-organize the whole thing, just to see how the different colors might flow into each other or how they can complement or contrast each other simply depending on how one chooses to organize. (sigh) I love it. I think I was a little overwhelmed though because I never actually got around to the re-organizing. It's probably better I refrained since I might have just done it the whole weekend, ignoring everyone unless they were offering helpful ideas of possible order for the beloved colors. I bet there is probably some psychological term that describes this obsession I have, but I don't need to label it. I know the definition and that is enough.
Another reason I can feel overwhelmed with the whole too many colors thing is that it often includes people around me who are creating. Brian and Julie are both artistic in ways that can intimidate me. I don't mean intimidate in a bad way. I will try to explain.
Brian is sort of wild and free. Like his hair. Often times however his hair turns out in the morning, after the work of sleeping on it, is how he wears it. His approach to what he creates is similar in that he works at it but has this ability to let it go. He doesn't mind blury photographs, because he finds beauty in them. All I see is a mistake. He sees something unique.
He is gifted not only in his eye-hand-paper coordination, but also in accepting what happens in that process as part of the art.
I can remember one time when he and I lived in Fresno and had met at a park for a walk and sketch in our journals time. We were siting in the grass working on a tree. I kept getting frustrated, caught up in the details and how my drawing wasn't looking just like the actual tree. He offered some tips and encouraged me to go with the flow. Then, he did the most shocking thing. He grabbed my journal from me and tossed his in my place. "Here, you work on mine and I will work on yours, " he said nonchalantly as I gaped at him. It was so hard for me, I wanted to do it just perfect and I wanted to do MINE perfectly, but he just wanted me to lighten up and let those imperfections become a part of the end result. It was great, even if I messed up his drawing! I just love that about him! But I often feel intimidated by his wildness, I notice my rigid ways more when I see the simplicity and freedom with which he plays and creates.
Julie is also gifted in her eye-hand-paper coordination. Everything she does seems to exude care, beauty and simplicity. Everything she sets her mind or pen to has this defined and crisply sweet quality to it. It is hard to explain unless you are looking at her work. It is interesting because her writing is like her art in that it draws you in and often makes you laugh.
So, being third in this cool trail of kids gives me perspective I guess. I will never create with the crazy & unpredictable strokes of Brian or draw with the delicate and precise swirls of Jules. I am fine with that. I don't want to be them, I want to be me. But there is this part of me that expects some hint of family resemblance. I seem to think the outcomes of my creativity should somehow look similar to my siblings'. Like our faces, you would expect shared features with the same two parents, right? Ya, me too. Sorry, we are all sold out of talent here. Move along.
Tee-hee.
Well, here is a picture I took that I just like. 1) because it seems to glow, and 2) the subject is a little coy that UB (& sort of AJ) gave me right before my trip.
I wore this every day, if it didn't match my outfit I just slipped it under my shirt. It is on a long chain so it worked great. I kept thinking of it as my little traveling coy (like a gnome, but scalier).
I not only love colors, but coloring as well.
True story:
We are pretty sure that all of us (Julie, Brian, Laura, Jina & me) got food poisoning from some bad turkey we ate Friday.
See Exhibit A below.
One by one each of us started to feel sickly in the tummy about the same time, approximately 5-7 hours after ingesting Exhibit A. Jina & I did some calculations from what we know of bacteria that tends towards food poisoning, and realized that by the time the rest of our party arrived (Gabrielle, Kristina & Andrea) we might all be "indisposed".
The rest of our afternoon was quite comical as we discussed the best foods / drinks to ingest in view of the likelihood that they would be visiting us again shortly. We also began to seriously plan which restrooms each of us would use (as there were only two). It was funny & sad. We decided to pray that God would heal us. As the time drew closer for our friends to arrive, one by one we started to feel better. It was a miracle. Even though it would have been a great story to tell, I am so grateful that God spared us.
Twins. I think Laura looks like a mischievous kid in this pic.
Silly Brian.
me, Jules & Bri.
Our Risk Game where we laughed nervously about the rumblings in our tummy.
Kristina played us a few of her songs. It was a treat, because she was going to play them in front of a lot more people the next day. We got the pre-show show.
Brian & Kristina P.
Um. Triplets I guess. And yes their hairs are au'naturale.
Laura D. and Kristina P. had to leave early Saturday morning, but here are the left-behinders.
