The Night It Is Aching

Well, I have been so busy lately I haven't even been able to think about sitting down and writing a blog, but I have fleetingly thought of it once or twice before dashing off to another rehearsal, or trying to get some much needed rest. I am currently preparing for Dramapalooza, the spring festival of student directed pieces that is annually held here at Theatre @ SE. It opens tomorrow, with an evening of dance, followed by One Act Plays on Wednesday and performance art Haikus closing the festival on Thursday. It has been one of the busiest, most exhaustive times of my life, but definitely worth it and I think our audiences will thoroughly enjoy themselves at all three nights. I am excited about tomorrow, because I get to sit back, relax and be a spectator for the whole evening.

I already have my next project lined up, but this time I will be playing a different role and in a different medium. I have signed on to be the costume designer for Looking North a new tv series about a Christian family moving to a new place, moving forward with their lives after the death of the mother of the family, and trying to hold on to their Christian values in a trying world. I am very very excited to be working on this project, I have previously worked with the director, she was the Stage Manager in the production of The Mousetrap I was in this past December, and I know or have worked with several members of the cast before. I am also excited to be designing for this show because it will be the first big project I have designed and the first time I have done any work that will be filmed. I am already bursting with ideas and doing research like mad! Hair and makeup is also falling under my control, so I just get to play with all of it. I have to admit, after this festival and all my recent classwork, I am glad to be doing something in a non- acting position!

This weekend I will be going to the Dallas Museum of Art for the first time, with a friend of mine, and I am thrilled. It was a last minute decision and I have wanted to go for a very long time. We will also be visiting the Nasher Sculpture Center, and I'm being "dragged" to Half Price Books, but I guess I'll suffer through that ordeal somehow. I think I might have to start sleeping on the porch if I'm allowed in many more bookstores!

I now must get some rest but want to end this blog with a description of what the night is like tonight. Nightime has and always will be my favorite time of the day. I am most productive and creative at night, and have an intense love of just sitting in the night air, hearing the sounds of the night and noticing the subtle difference of the black of the sky and the black of the trees. Whether you can see the glimmer of the stars, my favorite constellation, Orion, hunting in the sky, or the sky is low and thick with clouds, doesn't matter. The night has and always will be a magical time for me.

Tonight the air has a slight chill and is heavy with the sounds being carried by the watery breeze. The sky is overcast, smoky brown clouds creating a sharp contrast behind the deep black of the trees that surround the building. The moon is almost obscured by these clouds, but it's thin crescent form remains visible as thin clouds drift over it, changing it's texture, but never covering it completely. A train is audible, a car, every sound magnified by the water that is hanging in the air, like the continuation of the clouds down to the earth. Everything is strangely still, as if the very atmosphere is waiting on the heavens to open up and let the clouds empty out onto the land. The clouds part suddenly, just over the part of sky that holds the moon, and it is suddenly no longer a celestial body, but a lopsided grin, smiling down on the Earth. The cicadas and tree frogs are singing a symphony, the wind chimes sway gently, but make no sound. The air grows chillier, the black wrought iron gate, closing around the red brick building, lays a sense of peace at its feet. And then the clouds descend pressing further down, the sky is completely dark, except for one tiny part. The moon seems to grow brighter as the clouds grow darker, somehow parting at the perfect moment so that the moon is always in sight, beaming down at the earth, the bemused grin remaining fixed on it's world, the constant in the ever changing landscape of the sky.

Rediscovering My Love of Art

Last week I went to the art gallery here on campus as I realized that it is housed in the building I spend the majority of my time in and I had never actually been in it in my three years here (rather odd for someone who loves art as much as I do.) I had forgotten up until recently how much I love art and how happy it makes me. The current exhibition was The Cost of Shame: Victims In The Shadows, and was a focus on violence in the lives of women. There were some wonderful pieces included in the display, but unfortunately my phone battery was dying so I didn't get pictures of all of them. These are the pictures I did get of 3 of my favorites.

I loved the natural elements of this one.

There was something so haunting about this one, it was very visually interesting about it, with the layer of black laying peeled back from the color underneath.

This was my favorite in the exhibition and was done by a friend of mine, a very talented artist, Ethan Prus. Unfortunately the colors are nowhere near as vibrant in this picture as they are in the original painting, but I just loved this painting. I thought the look in the subject's eye was marvelous. She seemed to have a mixture of defiance and a haunted quality about her and it really was so wonderful in person.

And that was my most recent forray into art, I am planning on going to some galleries in Denison next week. I didn't know there were any, but the internet can help you find many things you didn't know were there!I'm hoping for a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art soon, and am looking forward to going to the next exhibition at the gallery in the Visual and Performing Arts Center.