The Emotion of Art

The next two weeks are going to be a whirlwind for me.

Yesterday my son was supposed to try out for the traveling baseball teams but it got called on account of rain (actually a quick burst of a storm, the rest of the night was glorious and they could have gone into the evening with the fancy lights at the field). So that has been moved to Wednesday. He has a game tonight and Wednesday for this league team. And my daughter is playing softball in there someplace. The kicker is that the first tournament is THIS WEEKEND! FRIDAY NIGHT! And they don't have the teams picked. Nor the uniforms and hats ordered. And forget about practicing together. Rocket has been on a traveling team since he was nine. I have no doubt that he will make it, but the question is which one. He has been on the Nationals since he was 10, playing with much the same kids, but you never know. And my husband is the coach of whatever team he is on, so it would be nice to know this.

Thursday is Rocket's graduation from 8th grade. This is a pretty big deal around these parts. I have been working with another mother for several months now in gathering pictures through the years. I intended to make a slide show to share at the event. The other mother wants to make DVD/CDs for everyone. Well, making the slideshow is one thing. I first started with Smilebox. Paid for the year subscription. And several weeks later, it is not working. The playback quality on the file is horrendous. It works fine for email or on my computer. But I can't give these parents that sort of shoddy memory.

So I started over this weekend with a program called Windows Movie Maker that is conveniently installed on my new laptop. Seemed easy enough, and even more robust than Smilebox (I plan to cancel my subscription as soon as I can). I thought I had it all ready to go, showed the other mother the playback and it was looking good.

But after she left something went haywire. Now most of my pictures in one slideshow (there are two) are missing, and the captions I worked painstakingly to place on each picture were all messed up. The music went wonky too. ARGH! I was up until 1:38am this morning just trying to recreate the first slide show (completely deleted the second. I will try again later today). I was able to resave it at 6:45am and brought it to work with me. Because pressing even this one file to the DVD on my laptop took about 30 minutes. And I have 50 to make.

And all this fun kept me from completing some custom orders this weekend. Gah! I will have to work extra fast today in order to get them all done. More coffee anyone?

The Art Bead Scene blog hop is coming on Thursday (best get that started) and my own Challenge of Literature is coming on Thursday as well (can't wait to show you what I created!). Who needs sleep?

So. There you have it. Oh, did I forget to mention that I am getting my hair done up pretty on Friday? Tiny Dancer and I will be having a streak of some color (the kind that is crimped in) put in our hair as a hello to summer and goodbye to school treat. What color should I get? I am thinking a rich purple might be nice. Tiny Dancer is going with orange.

And then on Saturday, in the midst of this tournament we are not ready for, I will be traveling to Milwaukee to meet up with Barbara Lewis for dinner. So excited about that! I will be taking her all day class on Sunday to learn how to torch fire enamel things. I am thinking that anything not bolted down might be fair game (of course that means I will have to clear off the table in my studio in order to be less flammable).

The following week will be the final days of school and then I will be back in Milwaukee for the Bead & Button show. Looking forward to that! I think I will schedule a nap in my mid-June.

That was a much longer post than I planned. I thought I would leave you with this quote found on my calendar this weekend.

Can you make a piece of art without having any emotions? I would guess this to mean that just another pretty thing is not necessarily art, there has to be a story, a passion, an emotional connection either with the artist or the beholder to be truly art. In the same way... if you consider the jewelry (or ....fill in the blank...) that you create to be art, can it be art if it has no connection, no soul, no fire, no story, no emotion? I like this quote because I really do believe that what I make tells a story and it delights me when it elicits emotions in others. When I don't have that connection and can't find the story, it is then that the piece falls flat for me (and usually doesn't sell...). And lately I have been far too tired to bring any emotion to my art, so most creating has ceased. My stores of inspiration need to be built back up in order for me to bring any emotion to what I do. Interesting idea... What do you think?