Eye of the Beholder

(Side note: Now when I hear the word Beholder, the image that comes to mind first is the one in the Monster Manual from the first AD&D manual. Welcome to my slightly warped mind.)

I was having some wacky dreams last night. One of them got me to thinking. I was a judge in an art show that was primarily pictures and statues of dragons. There was some beautiful work and some that I really didn't get. I got into an argument with two of the other judges about this one piece that I thought was beautiful in its execution and I marveled at what went into creating the piece but they just couldn't see it. They wanted to give the prize to a piece that was nice but I had seen its like at what seemed like a million conventions and it always seems to get the prize when there are other pieces that are so much more interesting to me. One of the judges said to me as a defense of their vote, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and then a Beholder showed up behind her (I think it was another piece of art in the show) and I woke up.

I don't remember who first said I don't know what art is but I know what I like but I have heard a lot of people say it while they are looking at something that they just don't get or that they really understand. I know my likes and dislikes of art are subjective. I like Magritte, Calder, Picasso, Da Vinci, and Rodan to name a few. When I was a kid, my parents took me to a lot of art shows and museums. At the time I didn't understand why they did that, but now I do and appreciate what I saw when I was a child.

I am starting to take Caroline to museums and show her various forms of art because she loves to draw and I want her to see what is out there. Caroline and I go to art shows at conventions and look at the pictures together. She comments on what she likes and doesn't like. Unicorns are a winner. Dragons are good as long as they aren't scary. She can recognize various characters from TV series that she has seen. And she is sorting out what she likes or doesn't like about a piece of art. It is interesting to see her thought process on it. On a number of occasions, she had told me how she would change it to suit her. Which got me to look at the pieces differently.

I know that not everyone "gets" what I do. I am happy when someone does but I don't expect it. I make puppets and some people don't see puppets as art but rather a craft or a tool. I didn't really think of them as art until I saw the museum at the Center for Puppetry Arts and I could see how they could be viewed from an artistic point of view. As I worked at the museum, I learned a lot about creating shows and how to set them up for the audience so they can understand what is being presented to them.

Right now I am working on a project that is totally out of my comfort zone. I am doing it to expand what I can do as an artist. It is making me take a hard look at what I have done and what I want to do. Depending on how it turns out, I hope to be showing it to a much wider audience that I ever have before. Some of those who see it will get it and others won't. I may even expand some viewers' horizons and change how they see art. Or I could totally crash and burn with this project, but I want to take the chance.

I am grateful that I feel comfortable using the word art to describe my work.

Number 6

Patrick McGoohan has passed on after a short illness.

obit here

The Prisoner is a series that has shaped my life in ways that I can't even imagine. For years I thought the image of the Rover and other odd visuals was just a bizarre dream that I had as a child until my parents informed me that no, that was a TV series that I saw when I was child.

He was describe by a friend of mine who worked with him as an actor's actor and I have to agree.

I always enjoyed his performances and I am sadden at his passing.

Khaaaaaaannnnn!!!!

Well first Patrick McGoohan and now Ricardo Montalban has passed away.

Mr. Montalban was an actor that was overlooked a lot but his resume is very full with wonderful characters he created.

More recently I have noticed his voice showing up in various shows that Caroline likes to watch like Dora and Kim Possible.

Ariel liked him in Spykids.

The first thing I remember him from was Wild Wild West.

He had a smooth and sultry voice that could make anything sound sexy.

My sympathies to his family and friends. He was a good man according to those who had worked with him.

LJ Idol 5 Week 16 Coloring outside the lines

When I was a child one of the activities that I did with my mother that I enjoyed a lot was coloring. We would get a coloring book like the Beatles or Daktari or a random set of pictures. I would work on one page and my mother would work on the other. My mother could color within the lines very well. I was in awe of her ability. I, being young, was not that good at being able to go right to the line but not go over. I worked hard on it but never quite mastered the ability that my mother had for getting it just so. Eventually I outgrew coloring in coloring book or so I thought at the time.

When I reflect on what I have done in my life, I see that I have spend most of my time outside the lines. When I was in high school, with the full support of my parents, I took shop rather than Home Ec. That was rather unheard of at the time at my high school. So three other girls and I decided that we wanted to learn power tools more than ovens. There was some resistance but I did shop, graphic arts and two years of photography that has served me well over the years.

I went to the Yale School of Drama for a masters in stage management which for a woman to do it not that unusual. There are more female than male stage managers. My background was different from most of my fellow students. I didn't have a degree in theater but in history. My puppetry experience put me ahead of the curve when it came to anything that had to do with puppets. I was consulted by many of my fellow students about what could and couldn't be done with puppets. My knowledge of stage blood was such that I ended up teaching props a couple of my "secret" formulas which would also come out of most forms of cloth with relative ease. I had worked with a couple of magicians so I had a background in stage magic along with the piece of paper that stated that I agreed not to discuss how we did the tricks. I was an odd duck and I was informed by word and deed that I was such and therefore outside the lines.

When I started to work at Del Rey, I was a little older than most editorial assistants. I had a heck of a lot more life experience than many of the editors that worked at Random House. My background was diverse and I had connections both on my own and through Peter that gave me access to information and people that was useful in doing my job. I was quick to learn my job along with the jobs of the other people in Ballantine. I had to learn the hard way about the chain of command and stepping on political toes because I could do so much. So I had to pull back to working within the lines which was hard to do because I knew that I could do so much more.

Now I have a daughter. The other day we were sitting next to each other with a coloring book that had Disney Princesses in it. We had a box of crayons and were each coloring our own pictures. Caroline commented on how well I could color within the lines and expressed that she wanted to be able to do that. I looked at what I had done. It wasn't perfect but it was pretty good. I had become my mother and had learned, somewhere a long the way, how to color within the lines. Caroline leaned into me and continued to color her picture. I watched as she carefully tried to stay within the lines but didn't quite make it. I know in my heart of hearts that by the time she needs to know how to color within the lines, she'll figure it out because I did without known that I had.