mainly because i was completely enamored with the painting on the poster,
which i found out in later years was painted by james christensen,
 |
| "tales beneath timp" by james c. christensen |
who initially stemmed my first love of art in 6th grade (or younger?),
i believe,
with this charming image.
but that's a different story.
this story is from this past weekend.
//
two of my friends were hired to record the timpanogos storytelling festival and make a professional-grade cd so that people could re-live the stories from the comfort of their living rooms.
as such, each friend was given an extra weekend pass to the festival. they offered one to me, which i gladly accepted.
i'd grown up close by but had never been to the event; i was excited that the opportunity was practically handed to me. we couldn't find anyone who could take the second ticket.
i figured i'd still go.
i'd heard a lot about the festival and expected a lot out of it, which is risky, because when expectations are set high,
they are given extra distance to fall.
well, this weekend happened to be super packed with various opportunities, including not one but three concerts i wanted to attend, my bfa project, and other personal goals that i was really determined to conquer.
thursday came.
i sort of got in a funk with my project.
tried to work on it;
did a meh- sortofa job.
kinda felt a funk comin' on like a bad cold.
that started to spiral down a tad, other things got caught in the...funk-web, for lack of better term, and pulled down with the rest of it.
so i gave up and went to the festival.
luckily, the thursday event was just an introduction to the storytellers, so they each performed a short set. pretty good. it was interesting how i could tell who i thought i'd resonate with more than others.
friday came.
definitely in a funk.
tried to work;
failed.
went to the festival.
and glad i did. there were a few speakers that just captivated me and i started to just let the stories come over me like waves. in fact, i was really glad i went alone, just so i could soak it up and do my thing without worrying about if whoever i was with was enjoying it (a tendency i often have).
some stories were light and airy and i didn't try to derive any other sort of meaning out of them. i laughed when i felt like it and i didn't when i didn't.
others had more to them. there were obvious morals and lessons.
yet other stories carried substance in layers, and so i could choose to peel back as many as i wanted to, and delve as deeply as i needed.
i think that last kind of story is often how stories happen in real life: we are given the onion and we choose how deep we're going to go.
...don't feel guilty for thinking of donkey's onion analogy in shrek. go ahead and quote that line in your head; i just did.
anyway, i quite enjoyed the freedom of going wherever i wanted to go, but with just enough pressure of making it worth my free ticket and my expensive time.
i figured i'd work half a day saturday so that i'd make up for time i didn't spend on my project on friday. but it was going to be an impossibly busy day.
saturday came.
still in a funk.
tried to be productive;
failed.
did yoga,
gave up productivity,
went to the festival.
well, turns out that's all i really needed to do.
...more about that in an upcoming post.
but in short (or, main thought, i guess)---
inspiration is to be found everywhere.
i think i was secretly hoping, maybe expecting--that festival to
absolutely douse me with inspiration-kerosene
so that i could strike up a match of action
and toss it onto that inspiration
which would ignite a brilliant flame of creativity and direction,
so that i'd know how to carry out an overwhelming and daunting task of, say, a bfa final project.
but nope.
didn't do that.
instead,
it was like a slo-cooker.
ideas were tossed in here and there from different stories,
different personalities,
different perspectives,
different worlds--
and there they started to simmer.
in my thought-pot.
some stories sort of let me take off the lid of that pot
so that i could smell and almost see what was cooking,
and then i'd put the lid back on.
by the end of tonight,
boooooy did that stew start to smell good.
i sort of think that slo-cooking is a better way to go.
no one likes charred veggies anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment