Hopped On And Felt The Summertime

Lets just sit back for a second and think about the supposed impending months of sunshine (according to the view from my window...tut-tut, looks like rain).  The lack of class and classmates, the probable summer job, and (for the unfortunate handful) the move back in with the rents. Now for the good stuff: the evenings dedicated to sunset-strolling, sun dresses with your flower of choice slapped h'all up on em', and sugar-dunked strawberries.

So with my new internship (that makes me way too exceedingly happy to wake up to every morning), my newly attained online newspaper writing gig, and being in the lovely Southern California all summer long, I figured I should map out some off-time musts to do this summer.

Of course there are always the typicals: catching up on some good literate, reading the plays for the up-coming audition season, watching television shows I've missed during the year full seasons at a time, aaand go to the pool and eat a lot (dur).

But I digress. This summer, I, Kelsey Jean, will complete these five items, and I invite you to join me.

1) Re-visit one of my favorite locations, The Getty.  Every time I frequent this lovely institution I walk away with a better understanding of art and its history, like Monet himself is whispering sweet nothings of the late 1800s into my ear. Plus, I have never been in the summertime.  Art looks and feels better when I'm sweat stricken and in a pretty dress, brings me back to my elementary field-trip days when we were told to dress up when visiting a museum.  My favorite "special" dress was navy and velvet...field-trips took place in May...you do the math.  I was a sweaty little girl come art museum day.

2) Go to Santa Barbara Art Sunday! I think the last time I had the pleasure of strolling the shores while delighting my eyes to some beautiful art treats while munching on an ice-cream cone was LAST summer. Far too long. I love galleries and outdoor displays, it's like a free museum and you get to learn about all of the up-and-coming artists in your area.



3) Go Mansion Huntin'.

 Hah, I kid you.  No, i am not looking for a mansion to inhabit, but I do looove to look.  I'd say some good architecture and radically antique or radically modern furniture can fully brighten my day alone (hey, art is art is art). So I would like to drive to an embarrassingly wealthy neighborhood (perhaps Malibu?) and just poke around, see how the fabulous live.  If there's an open house- even better! Better pack my heels...

4) This next activity may seem strikingly out of left field (is that how that saying goes? Why is left field so rare?) but here is my stab at attempting to be a little more active...or at least move more.
Play soccer in the park! Normally this is so not my cup of tea, I hung up my cleats along with the ol' nick-name "crazy legs," right after I was diagnosed.  It just never appealed to me after that.  However, this past school year I have played a few casual games of 'futball' in my school park and they were shockingly entertaining! I was thoroughly exhausted, but the interaction between everyone, the camaraderie of the two teams, it was just too fun! The whole thing is simple to organize: send out a mass text, slap down a few backpacks as goals, grab a ball, and you're good to go!

5) I'm going to wake up one morning and decide to board a plane to Europe. From there I will backpack from London to Paris to Amsterdam and back. Yup, that's it. If you haven't caught on yet I am obviously not that cool. But do you know who is? My boyfriend, that's who.  Yes this terribly spontaneous soul woke up one morning and decided he needed to see Europe at this time in his life.  A week later a ticket was purchased and he leaves at the end of the month. I'm terribly jealous but bubbling over with excitement for him as well.  Paris is the city for me, smelling of rain and cigarettes and reeking of culture, it's everything I could ever want in a location.  I predict he'll find Amsterdam quite amusing.

Happy Summer,
Kelsey Jean

So... How Do I Look?

This life is so, so surprising.  As of late, I have felt like someone or something of higher importance than myself has felt the need to randomly push me from my layout-pool-chair-of-teenagedom into the deep-end-of-adulthood.  And guess what? The water's foine.  I have successfully managed 19 credits of college education, professionally maintained an internship, taken part in various dramatic pieces of art on campus, and had one hoot of a time socially, all in this past spring semester!

It is currently finals week and I can already smell the sunscreen and bb q charcoal just beckoning me towards a summertime of dipping in a (non metaphorical) pool.

Well today I received the pleasant news of further summer plans.  I will be interning with a new company doing some blogging and social networking! YES. Oh the learning possibilities.  Because of this news, because I was reminded of how fortunate I am that I will [hopefully] someday get to write as a means of occupation, I am here at my laptop blogging as a means of celebration.

And today I will celebrate with something I have been wanting to write about since my existence as a "blogger." Ready ladies (and Jacob)...Fashion!

treehugger.com

Now, before you go and get your hopes up, no, I am not going to regurgitate "fashion tips" from Vogue or Seventeen. I will not tell you "what's hot now" or tell you what your "color" is.

I think the Best thing about fashion is that it is an utter reflection of the person wearing the clothes.  Again with the human canvas theory- a body is a canvas.  What a person puts on said canvas should be a statement about the truth of the person.

For this reason, no one should ever feel the need to ask a friend, "Does this look good/hot/trampy/horrendous/dear-god-take-it-off-bad on me?"

lovelyish.com

If you feel a piece of clothing is beautiful, just a work of art by itself, then WEAR IT! Put things on your body that make YOU feel pretty and YOU feel sexy and YOU feel radiant! 

Art is composed to be judged- that's just part of the process. As Markus has stated, every person has a right to an opinion about art- be it good or bad.  If everyone liked the dress you wore to Formal then it's not art.

Fashion is a personal opinion.  Rock what says the most about who you are as a person, not a brand an advertisement says looks fabulous on you.

Fashionably, Originally,

Kelsey Jean

Art is taking the chaos of life and imposing order on it

In high school I had a wonderful-nay, beautiful AP English teacher.  How I write today is a manifestation of my personality and her technique (and all the good parts I attribute to her technique).  Religiously, almost daily, she would remind us as a class that "art is taking the chaos of life and imposing order on it."  Never in my entire life will I forget that saying, I don't think it possible if I put forth my greatest efforts.  It's permanence within the depths of my skull are not entirely due to the pounding repetition of the phrase, but also because I have not encountered such a combination of words that resonates such a truth about the world until hearing this one.  We as humans don't have many orderly things.  Sure, we take a stab at democracy and religion and running corporations, but those don't always work out; nothing ever does certainly.   Art on the other hand, art is honest and truthful and therefore orderly.  What better way to explain and interpret the world than taking something from within yourself to offer up to the rest of humankind.  If more people participated in some art form and presented it, I bet we wouldn't feel so alone as a race.

The world being so large, and me being so wee, I haven't seen as much art as I would like, but I'm hungry for more.  I've been fortunate enough to have gazed upon a handful of gorgeous art museums in Paris.  Thankfully, the Getty is within my grasp as well; I'm there quite often.  And besides that, every time I enter a new city my goal is to find the nearest and best (based on my taste and opinion) art galleries and exhibits.

Currently, my favorite artist is Mick Lestrade.  I stumbled upon this creative genius at the weekly display of art among the beach at the lovely Santa Barbara. The first glimpse of Mick's work had my eyes begging for more.  So I find myself in Santa Barbara whenever feasible just to flip through his beautiful interpretations of this world.

My darling boyfriend of mine purchased me one of Mick's paintings for my last birthday.  I wake up every morning just titillated at the sight of it.  As you can see, one of Mick's techniques is to simpley thrust paint splatters among a canvas and then he finds the picture from the splatter...GENIUS! I adore the man (the most charming little French man you'll ever meet) and all of his work.

Now, in the past I haven't been a large fan of exposing my paintings to the general public, for the plain reason of I felt it too exposing.  My paintings are the chaos of my life and my attempt to impose order, so I thought the process of sharing to be all too revealing.  But then in Meisner class last week I had a revelation (hard to believe, I know).  Markus was talking about how the point of art is to share, to help other people learn and to grow (hence my statement made concerning the world being a better place if more art were to be swapped around) and that it was even selfish to keep one's art to himself.  So here I go Markus! These are a few of my paintings...

This one is an ode to Mick.  He has a similar one, but instead with a caucasian person holding an ice-cream cone (mine is cotton candy).

Kelsey Jean

   

Frivolous Body Art

   Just the other evening my dear, old (in reference to the friendship itself not her age), gal pal and I were chit-chatting about tattoos while in my family jacuzzi-- where I find a lot of good conversation is born.  Throughout the talk we giggled at girls we knew that got  meaningless hearts or butterflies, among other nonsensical, pointless doodles thrown upon their very skin.  And their reasoning?  Because it's cute. Well Duh. I stand opposed.   


   I believe in art and I believe in beauty and I believe in poetry, and absolutely the intermingling of the three.  I also strongly believe tattoos are one of this culture's neatest, most intense, (supposedly) passionate forms of art.  For a person to take a statement, whether it be a portrait, or symbol, or phrase, or what-have-you, and ink it-- with some assistance from a trained professional-- onto their very being is such an immense artistic move.  People are walking around everyday with their bodies' as canvases.  Beautiful!  And just as Monet had a thing or two to say about each of his paintings, tattoos have (or should have) essays upon novels upon numerous factoids of information just about bursting to be told about the art's model.  Art has meaning, art is not "just cute".  So if you get a lame tattoo at least make-up some meaning for it and slap it on at your earliest convenience.  


   I, myself have a little piece of art on my body, and no I promise I didn't make-up a false meaning for the thing.

   I could potentially write a thesis paper on this bit of ink gracing my lower, right back...but I'll spare you and provide just a nice overview. 

   I was diagnosed with cancer in my freshman year of high school, which consisted of a four pound cancerous tumor commandeering one of my kidneys-- the right side, hence the location.  Now at the age of 18, I can obviously say I was "saved" (get it? A life preserver? eeh? eeeeh?), from my disease.  I was saved by so many people, good people.  The entire oncology team I worked with, at both UCLA hospital and Cottage hospital were so good to me; including every nurse and surgeon involved.  My community was just darling and helped my family out immensely what with meals and nice wishes and cards and gifts and love, love, love!  I was saved by other fellow cancer patients I met that shared their journey with me absolutely filling me to the brim with hope and passion for this world.  Mostly, the tattoo is a constant reminder to have faith in humanity, especially in a world where all the bad may at times seem to completely devour the good.  Though, I am living proof that there are indeed good, swell folks out there that will save you if given the chance.   

Passionately,

Kelsey Jean