he calls me his girl-love.

well, he's my rockstar.

positive pointing #33: untraditional!

I'm am thankful for glorious color and outrageous ideas that enable "normal" to reinvent itself.

A rich lime green + white accents + a paper mache peacock + polka dot shower curtain + a blooming, striped trashcan. suddenly, the normal isn't normal anymore. It's not just a bathroom. It's the three dimensional equivalent to I-just-discovered-this-song-and-i-can't-get-enough-of-it. It's a tad of of the excitement you feel at the arrival gate of an airport, a tiny splash of christmas morning anticipation, a little of the happiness you get from mom-made blueberry pancakes on saturday morning and the pressing feeling that there is a heaven and this is a tiny piece of it.

I packaged Invisible Children

Grace, Sunday, Innocent and Rosaline

Invisible Children Logo

Each case had the child's name attatched to a piece of rope that was..

connected to their story inside.

postive pointing #32: discovery

This poster is for a favorite band of mine, Boister. (I did not design it but I'd like to know who did!) I keep a running file of surprising, inspiring design ideas on my laptop desktop for moments of creative dryness.I found and snagged this from the internet because I was struck by all the designs rules it seems to break. breaking rules is fun.

for example:

rule#32 mixing bright colors with pastels never works out well.

rule #27 a perfect row of circles isn't a good idea.

rule # 15 Lime green should never be used.

rule #64 all truly great designs have an incredibly minimal color palette.

I'm am so thankful when I am proven wrong in my design judgements,
cause it keeps me curious and invigorated.

such a wellspring of visual wonder out there. never ending.
keeps my booty dancin.

Chalice Visits II

she got her nose pierced. i think it's pretty.

taking photos through mirrors without using the viewfinder is HARD.
this is about the 55th shot.

working late in the evening. empty shop. borrowed killer camera.

mommy and son. both blondies!

my sweeties.

Chalice Visits!!

chalice by my side. where she should be. :)


Took Chali with me to meet Stef at Wash Park and have some yummy lunch with her and the little dude.
she's a wonderful friend. I'm blessed to have her here in CO with me.

please click to enlarge above photo and see just how adoring chalice's face is. it's presh.

babies are just so holdable.
look at his little face!

we are sisters. and we really like each other.

more coming......

better packaging makes yummier hot cocoa.

^^dazzling. i know.

my redesign.

positive pointing #31

Tonight I have to write a research paper
My brain feels very scrumpled.
I have to string words, paragraphs and pages together
logically. beautifully. intelligently.

My mind feels like a cryptic bundle of ugly.

It's disheartening
but strangely invigorating.

There is nothing quite like last-minute papers
to send me flying around like there's the world to save
and sleeping like I've done just that.

I thankful for a busy life.
for deadlines and workshifts
and closing times and budgets
because they keep me blazing forward
and feeling glowingly victorious on friday afternoons

and savoring my nothing moments.

positive pointing #30

I'm thankful for almonds.

they are perfectly crunchy (for headache times and otherwise)

my stomach loves them (and dosen't attack me for eating them)

my mouth loves them (they've got a subtle buttery/sweet taste)

they can go with me anywhere because they can't be smashed and don't go bad (i think)

they are good for my body and my skin.

we've been good friends for a very long time now and I never get sick of seeing that petite, tear-drop face.

Did God make almonds just for me?

sometimes I'm tempted to think so.

positive pointing #29

I'm thankful for little ones.

After seeing "Where the Wild Things Are" last night, I am throughly enchanted, once-again with the perspective children have of the world. not because their perspective is so pure and innocent--they are little sinners also. and sneaky little buggers too--but because it's so different from the average, logical adults.

they are effortlessly simple, honest and playful

in a way that adults can never be

either because we forgot how to be

or because we learned not to be.

i'm not sure if it's bad to leave those things behind.

i don't think it is.

but it was fascinating to me to sit in the theater last night and remember exactly how the inside of a cardboard box USED to look like to me--it wasn't a box. it was pure possibility-- and what it felt like to just sit inside a tent that I had just made; to collect all my books, some games and dolls and a lamp or two and then just sit there, utterly content.

that box, that tent, my home, my mother--this is the difference between adults and children i think--was my entire world.

positive pointing # 28

i'm thankful forthe crunch crunch of yellowbrown leaves on my walk to and from my front door. Each foot fall is a photo. These color schemes are genuis! who thought of these colors? and to put them together? and to cover earth's floor with them at the same time every year?

my maker.

I'm thankful for the repetition. every fall is the same. leaves litter the floor. the sound is the same. it reminds of being ten in the fall, being fourteen in the fall, being at home, being at the neighbors, being a freshman in college, being in philadelphia--the shuffle, crinkle never changes. I could use some constants.

positive pointing #27

I'm thankful that I get to work in a small, friendly environemnt with COLOR!
...that i work by myself--play my music, set my own vibe, do things within my system
...that i get to help people decide which hat suits them best
...that I can talk to random strangers on daily basis. (for some reason, really talkative customers are not annoying me at all yet. I just love to hear ALL about their day. i'm sure this will wear off)
...that I'm now comfortable, and not terrified of, the beast-of-a-register
...that I have another thing to focus on besides art and all the projects that await me; that need me. my mind can rest and i can just be girly.

positive pointing(s) #26

good goodies from my poppy!
look closely people. click on it. you'll want to see it all.

of special note:

• The Satorialist--THE BOOK. that is my red bull. page after page of yum.
  

• two carved coins made into necklace pendants. super cool. Carved so only the profile of the face is left framed in a nice circle.

• MadeByHank purple pencil case which i have showed off nonstop since it landed in my purse "look at this! my dad got it for me. admire it!!"

• five couplets of glittery, feathery magnetic little birds to stick in any corner that needs brightening. oh. who knows me better than my father?
  

Eric sewed (yes.) me this pillowcase with fabric he found at a thrift store. is it not glorious?

my sweet gift from sienna. a true piece of herself thats fit for me.

Henry's mom gave me sunflowers last night! I'v never seen myself as a sunflower person and now, with them on my green piano, i suddenly am. we're getting along so well!

11 orange roses from my eric. not a dozen. The 12th one exploded off it's stem in Eric's rush to give them to me; caught the edge of the car door and face-planted into the pavement. sad but true.

and now, I am twenty one.

positive pointing #25

My school used to be a Tuberculosis Treatment center.
5,000 people from all over the country came there in hopes of living.
Not for an art education, not for a change of scenery, not for vacation.
They wanted to live; to survive.
Most of them died on my campus.

For my class we are introducing ourselves to one of these people through the records that remain of them. I found a man named Sam Stahler tucked inside a manilla folder in the back of a cardboard filing box. Sam and me lived on the very same street in Philadelphia, only three blocks away from each other. About 60 years ago, Sam came to RMCAD from Philly, just like me. He left behind his family and his streets and everything he'd built his life around and come to know and was shocked, also, by the spaciousness of Colorado, by the thin air, by the towering mountains that you never grow used to; the snow-laden winters, the quiet people and he missed the bustle and motion of Philadelphia and felt the pain that distance created.

Sam died on my campus. He was 24.
Somehow this really puts things in perspective for me.
I'm thankful that I know Sam.

positive pointing #24

September 28th will always be my own a personal holiday where I can celebrate these two miracles in my life. It's the day God gave me both these human beings to walk with me and stand beside me and generally sprinkle all kinds of goodness around me. They are continual gifts to me.

Happy Birthday Chali and Eric!
You don't know how bottomless my love is for you.

a little introduction to the vast world of Typography:

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

positive pointing #23

Something about today was very quiet and peaceful. Most times, my quiet days are anxious, stuffy days. The silent fuzz of nothingness rings in my ears. I usually don't like it. Silence is, typically, seconds meandering over this way and that way and side to side; anywhere but forward. Silence means slow. I'll turn my music up louder, download sermons, make lists of things to do, places to go where I can go a get some noise (a nearby coffeee shop, Target, a friend's house). Who can I call? What plans can I make? I'll go running and turn my Ipod up until it fills all my senses!

But today was not that way. It was as if everyone was on the same page. Nobody wanted noise today, so there was none to be found. Even the sky was in on it. At about 3:00 it turned a pleasant muted grey. I turned off my radio during my drive to church. I ate lunch with Eric in the shade of an umbrella without much chatter. I kept my phone in the trunk of my car and had short, crisp chats when I did use it. Eric and I walked the deserted streets of downtown Denver to his emptied school Campus and down long, echoing hallways. I nodded to the few people I passed, and they pleasantly dipped their chin back. I wasn't agitated. I didn't get snappy. I didn't put on a show for anyone. I just sailed on the breeze of the day.

It was a beautiful sunday that repaired my mangled mind.
It was easy silence. That is a gift.

positive pointing #22

I'm thankful for happy colors found in unexpected places.
Like here, in a back alley, on the back corner of an art supply store that sits off a busy street in Denver. A man had just finished painting the last bit of the yellow square when I remarked how great they looked. "Oh, there just a test run. Not sure what color we're doing the whole wall."

"Just leave it like it is!"
I wanted to say.
But how often do we say exactly what we should?

positive pointing #21

I'm thankful for necklaces. Right now I'm wearing both my sister and my mother around my neck. The locket has my sister's face--and even a little note-- in it and the rose pendant was worn around my mother's neck on her wedding day. When neither my sister or my mother are around when I wish they were, I wear one of these necklaces and, ever so slightly, become calm and am able to put on finger on who I am and where I come from and who I am loved by.

positive pointing #20

Eric made him for me.

positive pointing #19

I'm thankful for a ceiling of grey clouds that made morning last all day. It gave my eyes a rest and allowed me a long, crisp run this morning that I've been sorely needing. It reminded me how cozy it feels to pull sleeves down over my hands upon stepping one foot out the door; the instant reflex that will shortly be followed by gloves being pulled on or slipping back inside for another layer or warmer socks. I'm thankful that winter comes slowly and allows us to adjust, to accept, to prepare for and embrace nature's chilly change of pace.

positive pointing #18

i'm thankful for a job.
i got one today:)
(this is a shot from the inside of the little shop: Starlet. for my people in Maryland: it could be Sunnyside's sister)

positive pointing #17

I'm thankful that I came aross this website the other day and the seemingly endless feast (check out the archive list) it provides for my eyes. The successful mixing and blending of texture, color, pattern delights my core--on paper or the body. This site is stocked full of beautiful photographs of absolutely satisfying blends. It is an affordable, yummy treat from the cyber cosmos. It reminds me that we are all little creators walking around, imitating the true Creator, with brilliant ideas buzzing in our heads about how to put clothes on ourselves that can really turn out to be truly dazzingly.
And then I hit something: I know why and how we dress beautifully! I know the reason why anything is beautiful. Because I know the author of beautiful. He made it. He invented it. That's why I'm aware of the concept and appriciate the way that legs look in black stockings with a pair of shiny heels. The delicate glow of skin next to a pile of gold bracelets. He made it to look that way. So I could look at it, enjoy it and know something about Him. Isn't that a happy thought? I know the secret behind every perfectly cropped jacket and every classy pair of sunglasses.

I'm thankful that he didn't put me in a dusty, colorless planet where everyone wore white jumpsuits. See, now arn't you thankful?

positive pointing #16

Tonight I'm thankful for Bob Marley. His songs sort of feel like the gospel message made into a rhythm. My day had been beige. It had been filled with unexciting things like bad breath, squinting, sweaty feet, uneven fingernails and tired smiles. Things that make me feel throughly unglamorous; that make me feel not on top of the world but carrying the weight of it either. The evening was drawing to a creeping, indecisive end. Bob Marley's tunes slipped into the sound waves. My day toppled into good. I could hum and dance alittle as my egg sizzled contentedly on the stove and my newly-bared feet slapped around the kitchen floor.

There's a bit of summer tucked in every song; some sunshine and sand and a little breeze.
Listen for yourself:

put this on while you're making dinner tonight.

positive pointing #15

I'm thankful for ridiculously long car rides that make me revel in the simple things:
my bed, my space, fresh air, stretching my legs, dogs a knee-level again and things to look forwards to besides breakfast, lunch and gas-stops.

oh, and good smells :)

positive pointing #14

I'm thankful for buses. I took two buses home from school today to check how long the route would take. For some reason the 20 extra minutes that it added to my daily trip didn't bother me. Somewhere between the wonderfully freezing air hitting my face and the textured old men that sat around the front of the bus swapping stories and cigarettes, it hit me. I love the bus. I realized I really miss those crazy old men, the young girls with babies on their hips, the kid with ipod jammed in his ears staring out the windowand the woman carrying an impossible amount of groceries and personal possessions while manuevering a stroller and nursing her infant.