Tuesday, October 12, 2010

A Change of Heart

NYC is shopping and fashion and Fifth Avenue and flagship stores and major designers and it is a place where you feel out of place in jeans - let alone a pair of sweatpants (oh no, they must be Lululemon black work out pants - with a yoga mat strung across your back). For the second day in a row I went shopping. I missed Macy's on Sunday and I have this coupon... I really need this blanket and figure, heck, 20% off a blanket, and I KNOW they have them. It was Columbus Day and that means SALE and the place was absolutely crazy. At first I could not imagine all that STUFF but then I realized there are a heck of a lot of people here frantically buying it all and I don't think they'd like to hear 'we're out of that' much around here. Which is EXACTLY what I heard over and over again with every darling boot I found to try on (30% OFF!). The nicest part of the day was lunch on the 8th floor - butternut squash and apple soup with an asiago cheese bagel - while I watched the havoc all around me. Empty handed (ME - at a Macy's sale) I headed home to lay down before my sculpture class. I threw on not only a pair of jeans (actually, I already had those on) a long sleeve t-shirt and flip flops and felt like a true renegade walking to class. Or an artist.

This sculpture class is a little confusing. On the surface, it all seems so easy - I mean, put a little blob of clay here and take a little blob of clay off there and make a head. It does take 3 hours to get to the 'head' part and when you get there you realize his chin juts out too far so you scrape off his face and then you realize his forehead is higher so you pile more clay on the top of his head. I believe, what I am learning, is the relationship of things to each other. If his ear is this far from the back of his head, it needs to be this far to his eye. Funny, but that is what I am learning in every single one of these stinkin' classes. My oil painting teacher asked us to start somewhere else in the room - not with the model - and use the distance from the wall to the door to the floor to the rug to the vase to his foot, etc. to see the relationship of everything to each other and get those distances right to get all the proportions right. I think it just takes longer sculpting a head than drawing a head because there are so many SIDES! I still struggle to visualize the model's head volume-wise like my drawing teacher is trying to teach us. It is a different way of seeing and I understand what it would be like to be able to see space around you in the way he is encouraging us to do but it's tough. We usually don't spend so much time measuring distances as we flit around all day.

It is a little hard to believe that I will be in Pasco and not at sculpture class next Monday - it's already been a month! The school has some fund raiser all week and there aren't any classes so I am heading home for a week. Flynn asked if I was moving here and I pretty easily told him no, I'm coming home. I will so much miss all the walking. Around here, if you want something, you walk there and I have lost a few pounds and my legs ache but I have found I just have to wear low heeled shoes that fit well (I will fill a suitcase with shoes not worn to take home with me next week - and there I was, buying more!). I will also, so much, miss walking to these fabulous museums and staying there until my feet hurt. I will miss Central Park and all the fun stores and the yummy pizza and bagels and even the subway where it is so darn convenient to hop on and save yourself a few miles of walking! It is also really fun to wander thru the different areas of Manhattan and try to time the lights at the crosswalks and be the first one to step out (that is so weird that you feel so triumphant that you timed THAT one so perfectly and beat everyone else to it!). I'm sure this list will continue to grow but I miss my house - I need a little more room if I'm actually going to live here - I am so squished! And that would mean expensive and I don't want to be so far from Flynn & Krista and Laynie - I really, really miss them. If only I could have every single one of my kids so close as they are where I could just drop in for a minute any time and I could babysit for a few hours and give them back and we could have dinner together once a week and they could cook... Hmmm, I'm sounding a little lonely! Yep - can't wait for F&K&L to get here tomorrow night! Whoo Hoo!

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