(Not) Normal People

Some time ago I was listenig to the radio while driving my car. The guy on the radio was talking about an internet survey where they were asking people if they felt they were normal. The guy on the radio was amazed by how many people answered "NO" to this question. These people had a reason to belive they are just not normal. He was very worried with the results and he tought it is a very serious problem.

So why do I write about this, well, in the first place because I do NOT consider myself normal. And before even answering the question, we ahould ask ourselves, what is NORMAL? Is "normal" having a regular job, even if you hate it? Is normal been in a marriage for a long time even if you cheat on your spouse or fantasize with doing it? Is "normal" looking like a million dollars, having the coolest car, wearing the latest trends in fashion? So what is normal? I do not know, I cannot give you an answer.

But yet, I know that I am not one of those "normal" people. I never felt like one. I never really clicked with no-one, and believe me I tried. I have always been a loner, the things that I like don't seem to be the things most people like, and the thing "normal" people seem to like , those things I just don't care about. So yes, I am NOT normal, I accept it, and not just that, I embrace my not-normal life. We are all different, we are all unique. Who knows, maybe I have some weird anti-social tendencies, but who cares. I'm happy with my life and I have all the people I love and care for near me.

So while this guy is so preocuppied with the not-normal people, I'm thinking, what about those who are not normal and have done so many great things. When I was in school I studied with a lot of "geeks", they were not what you can call "normal", but they were awsome people, just misunderstood. There, that's it "misunderstood", I dont think this is about "normal",  is about society not understanding people who are different from what most people "should be" or "should act" or "should look like".

I really don't think that this guy should be worried about the not-normal's, in the end, the not-normals are the ones who make great thing happen, the ones who make the world a better place. Now those who are "normal", now those are the one's that really scare me.

I'm back

After so long I came back to this blog space. It certainly has been a long time. In 2009 I decided to go back to school. I finally did what I should have done a long time ago, study art. So I went for my Master in Fine Arts degree.
 It is going to take a while to finish, since my bachelor's degree isn't in art I have been taking several classes with the bachelor students, but I'm getting there. The road is tough, but I'm enjoying every single step.

Update

It's been a while since my last post. I got sick and spent a couple of weeks in misery. After that I seem to lost touch with the muses, so it's been a bit hard to catch up with the paintings and all.

Today I went and got some wood from a friend. He makes custom cabinets and he just throws away the remaining wood. I couldn't believe it. These are very nice pieces of wood. So now I go and get the scrap pieces of wood. They are just the perfect size for paintings. So I hope to get back to work on the studio soon!

I alaso got my first sale on ETsy!!! Doing the happy dance! Got very excited about it. I had almost lost all hope about selling a thing there. But lo and behold when I least expected it, there was an email saying I sold something!! And yes, it was the giraffes. I love that aceo, I really liked it! So now I need to go and paint some more giraffes (and keep one for myself!)

Thanks all for now! Till next time!

100 ACEOs Challenge - 7 thru 11

Here is the next group of ACEOs, acos no7 thru 11. I did these yesterday and just finished posting them to my etsy shop (yazz.etsy.com)

ACEO #7

ACEO #8

ACEO #9

ACEO #10 (my personal favorite...I just love giraffes)

ACEO #11

100 ACEOs Challenge -aceos 1 thru 6

These are the first 6 aceos of the 100 ACEO Challenge. These were done on April 11th.

They are all on sale in yazz.etsy.com

ACEO #1

ACEO #2

ACEO #3

ACEO #4

ACEO #5

ACEO #6

The 100 ACEOs Challenge!!

Even though I paint every day, I am always looking for new things, new techniques to try, new materials to experiment with. It keeps things interesting, which is something I need since I tend to get bored pretty easily.

Well I was thinking the other day of finding something new...a new adventure (like little flapjack says!). I was thinking about the artists that do the paint-a-day kind of thing. They paint a new painting every day and they post it to their blogs. Well that sounds cool...but well.. it's already being done by many artists.

I needed some totally new idea...well maybe not that new...but I needed something that might be old, but with a new, different twist... and I neede to challenge myself. After all, the whole idea is to learn and grow!

Well that's how I came up with the idea of the 100 ACEOs Challenge. ACEOs are small enough that I can do several on one siting. For those of you who don't know ACEOs are little works of art, the size of a trading card (2.5" x 3.5") and well the whole idea is that you trade them, or sell them. Ebay is full of them.

Ok...so I am making aceos...but how many... 100 of course. Why? Well first because it's a nice number. But basically because somebody once said that you see some improvement in your painting abilities after every 100 paintings. So that's why. Maybe they where not takinga bout aceos...so maybe I won't see that much improvement...but hey... who knows! I'll tell you when I'm done.

So, to make things real I neede to set a period of time in which to finish the 100 ACEOs. Just because, I went for the end of this month. I started on the 11th...so I have 20 days to paint the 100 aceos. I gues 5 or 6 a day doesn't sound too bad...and who knows...I might go from here to the Thousand ACEOs challenge.

So, if you are an artist...or NOT...and if you are interested in joining in...you are all welcome. You can try the whole 100 aceos or set your own limits. How about doing themed aceos, say 50 animal aceos, or 25 people aceos and setting a period of time to have them completed.

I finished 6 ACEOs yesterday. I am off to do 6 more today. If you are interested, these will be on sale in my etsy shop : yazz.etsy.com

Girls Paintings

I finished these a few weeks ago. I started to paint them for my daughter and she has them in her room. She also had fun painting some on her own.

These two I just listed on my shop in etsy.com

I'll put some more later on.

Gardening

Yesterday, Wednesday, was a green day for me. Which is a good thing since I tend to associate days with colors (don't really know why- I also do it with numbers), but Wednesday I do associate with green (and orange). Monday is pink, Tuesday is blue, Thursday is purple, Friday red, Saturday..hmmm not sure about Saturday really, but Sunday is a yellow/ orangy-yellow (of course it's Sun-day). Anyway, I have a small garden on the side of the house, and I have been neglecting it for a while, so it was all weedy.

In Puerto Rico we don't get any snow, it's sunny and hot all the time. That means we have the garden all year long. Well I pass through my little garden every day, and I was starting to feel guilty about it been so weedy so I left the sudio yestarday and went outside to the garden.

It is a small garden, and the plants are small as well. But some of them get out of control and try to get into their neighbors place. So I needed to cut down some of them. I also get a lot of weeds growing everywhere. I got rid of most of them.

In the garden I have several flower plants, as it's original purpose was to be a flower garden. But it has trasformed a bit and now we also have several bell pepper plants.

We also have some "culantro" plants, they love it here. We didn't plant these, but they grow here like crazy and they are grat for cooking, so it's nice to have them.

We already ate some of the peppers. Here we have some more.

Here is a pic of the garden after de-weeding it. I planted some more pepper plants and my sister brought me some sweet-pepper seed!!! Sweet!

And to have a greener Wednesday, in the afternoon my daughter, who belongs to her school's 4-H club, had a meeting. They planted some sunflower seeds last week. Now the plants were already like 2 and a half inches tall. Now, this I didn't now, that you could use these small plants and add them to your salad just like that or have them as a juice.

They cut them all and prepared a juice. It was...different, but it tasted ok. I didn't bring the camera to the meeting, but I wish I had to show some pics. The juice is supposed to be full of antioxidants and good things to make you feel full of energy.

Ok, that's it for today...until next time!

Yazmin

Quebradilas A Todo Color (Quebradillas On Full Color)

Last Saturday I participated in "Quebradillas a Todo Color" sort of an art show/fair event with artists, artisans, and live music in the town of Quebradillas. These sort of events are starting to pop up around the north-west and west side of the island and are really good for artists to expose their work and for the people to get to see art outside a museum and meet the actual artists.

I don't think we had these before or at least not on this side of the island. San Juan and the Metro area get most, for not saying all of the fairs and events, while the rest of the island is ignored. But these events are proliferating in this side of the island. Artists are gathering together, uniting forces and bringing the art to the people.

Several groups have formed the MAUi group to which I belong, was created a few years ago with the purpose of giving artists more exposure and help emergent artists. Now we have PINTAA which was created just last year as a non-profit by Mr Carlos Rios. They have been creating new events such as the one in Quebradillas on different towns around the west coast. There is also the group of artists from JuntArte and now we have the people in Quebradillas celebrating “Quebradillas a Todo Color”. I hope that this tendency continues and more people get on board.

Here are some pics of the Quebradillas event. Most are from when we where mounting, so no much people is seen, but the event got a lot of people once it started.

Some pics from my booth, not ready yet, but almost there!

My husband helped me with the mounting.

Annie, a fellow artist and a good friend was my neighbor on the next booth. Here she is mounting her pieces.

One of me, here we are all set. We didn’t bring a table. This was my first time and we didn’t get a table on time, but then we decided to move the chairs to the other side so people could just walk directly to the paintings and actually appreciate them better. So now I’m not even sure I want a table at all.

“Hmm… I just hope it doesn’t rain!”
It actually did, but it wasn’t too bad.

“Bomba” dancing group. They were great!