Still avoiding my dissertation…
ow operating dissertation-avoidance through some kid-centric products on my Etsy site. If you have a little one, whether a little boy or a little girl, I promise you I will have WAY TOO MUCH FUN procrastinating on my dissertation and customizing a journal or paper pack for your little peanut. A lot of the pics on my site focus on princesses because I just got a custom order for a friend’s daughter, but I have a large variety of themed papers and stickers (cars, sports, animals, Sesame Street, Harry Potter, etc.) just waiting to find a new home in a journal or paper pack.
I even have a new Go Green! journal for kids, which offers fun, creative ways to teach and encourage environmentalism and an appreciation of nature in your little one.
Some pics of my “For Kids” section, featuring a balanced mix of vintage and modern papers and lots of fun stickers and other prizes that I like to hide in the envelopes I include:
Unintentionally creepy pumpkins.
ach year around the first week of October, the local grocery stores start stocking up on their pumpkin inventory. I’m sure I’m not relaying any top-secret information here. I’m sure it happens near you, too. There are some choice, stellarly globular pumpkins to choose from with perfectly positioned “handle” stems, and I’m generally pretty impressed by the selection. Until I cock my head about 45 degrees and notice the Good Pumpkins’ bastard step-children (no offense) on the neighboring crate. And they scare the living SH*T out of me. And not in the appropriately ghoulish Halloweeny way, either.
I’m not sure who paints these pumpkins, but I’m pretty d@mn sure they should be served a restraining order from the entire child population. Hugely bulbous eyes, buck teeth ready to chomp, often some oddly colored tennis-ball-sized noses and freakishly shapened eyebrows… Pumpkins are meant to be carved, not to be painted. I mean… trick-or-treating occurs at night. It’s generally dark at night. Ergo, no one will see your freakshow pumpkin anyway (thank dog). But during the day… why should you induce nightmares in such a way?? It’s highly inconsiderate and cruel.
That being said, there are some acceptable ways to paint pumpkins. Most of them require a significant amount of artistic talent, un/fortunately, which just goes back to the fact that: pumpkins are meant to be carved, not to be painted.
Here’s why…
Cool painted pumpkins:
Source: http://bit.ly/ATNSY
Nightmare-inducing painted pumpkins:
Source: http://bit.ly/3cbc91
Cool Nightmare Before Christmas-inspired painted pumpkin:
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rivernaiad/2993504572/
Creepily smiling pumpkin that has no business being near our neighborhood children:
Source: http://bit.ly/zmvbx
Awesomely crafted and painted (to an insanely perfect degree) Yo Gabba Gabba pumpkins:
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pairadocs/2985953954/
Terrifying pumpkins that I can only assume are alcoholics due to their bulbous noses:
Source: http://bit.ly/LjCcZ
No more self-imposed creative limitations.
am highly skilled when it comes to adapting to lengthy guilt trips. So skilled, in fact, that sometimes I actually forget how to get back home to Guilt-Free Land. Since I entered grad school (roughly X years ago), I haven’t really allowed myself much of a creative outlet. My thinking, especially as procrastination on my doctoral work grew stronger, was something along the lines of, “If I have the time to illuminate this initial, then I should be devoting that time to my dissertation.” Instead, I devoted that time to effectuating a stealth downward-spiral into self-doubt and severe depression. Go figure.
This blog, coupled with my second, more design-oriented blog, has been INVALUABLE with respect to me gradually allowing myself more and more creative liberties. Over the past year, I’ve produced more crafty and artistic projects than I had completed in the previous five years combined. No exaggeration. And it’s been such a boost, not only for my mood, but for my motivation, my pride in myself for being productive and producing work I’m happy with… and that confidence and productivity seep into the academic side of my life as well. So, now the key is to find the balance between the creative and the intellectual. Which seems slightly ridiculous, because the two are hardly mutually exclusive. Yet, for some reason, in my mind, I had categorized them as such. I went into my undergraduate career planning on majoring in Fine Arts. I dropped it before my freshman year came to a close, and I moved onto French and English literature. Once I made that switch, it was almost as though I tucked away all my art supplies, donned a beret and became “French girl.” Funny, huh? Considering France’s relationship to artistic revolutions.
Anyway.
So I’m now reacquainting myself with my artistic side. I’ve been doing a lot of paper repurposing, but I’ve also been drawing a lot in my sketchbook and re-honing my lettering and calligraphy skills. Fortunately, it’s been a lot like riding a bike. (Big sigh of relief there.) My fire lit instantly, and it glows brightly. And I plan to keep stoking it as much as I can. Note: as much as I “can” does not equal as much as I “want.” Have to remember the dissertation… May graduation… I think I can.
In the meantime, I’ve finally decided to get my butt on Etsy and attempt to make some money off of my fun little creations. Shameless plug, yes. Sorry sorry. But, please remember, I’m a poor grad student with overdue medical bills. Self-preservation, baby.
I’ve already featured some pics of my new Etsy shop over at Words & Eggs, but I know that I have some followers here that don’t follow W&E. So, here are a few images of my favorite items in my shop: paper packs, mixed paper Paper Clips Journals, custom lettering, and customized handmade family trees. Please take a look, and feel free to contact me or convo me with any questions! Thanks to all of you for your continued support, and for creating a lovely little inspirational community here for me…
The thing with creativity and inspiration is that you never know when it’s going to flood the gates… or when it’s going to completely dry up. For now, I’m taking full advantage and bathing in the flood waters. I’d love the financial opportunity to continue to do so. Please let me know if you’d like to work with me and/or brainstorm any projects. There are LOTS of options for family trees: Christmas advent calendar trees, anniversary trees, newborn baby trees featuring baby stats, friendship trees… the list goes on. They make great, unique birthday and holiday gifts!
OK, I’ll stop plugging myself now.
Thanks again,
LY
The task of the translator…
or my dissertation, I’m undertaking an English translation of a nineteenth-century drame romantique by Alfred de Vigny, which has resulted in lots of sifting through translation theory and methods.
Walter Benjamin, the great German critic, philosopher, and translator, has written extensively on the motivations and moves of a translation and the (often mind-numbingly humbling) “Task of the Translator,” which serves as the title for Benjamin’s 1923 introduction to his translation of Charles Baudelaire. It becomes a bit difficult to reconcile my feelings of paralyzing inadequacy when I realize that, essentially, I am attempting to give (an English) voice to a man who existed at another time, in another land… and who did, indeed, speak English. In fact, he translated works from English into French — works of Shakespeare, no less! So… who the h*ll am I??? (I just had the urge to shout, “Who am I? I’m Jean ValJean!” but I refrained). Unfortunately, Benjamin doesn’t exactly provide an answer. But he does provide some illuminations on the purpose and power of translation, which nicely enlighten on one hand:
. . . a translation comes later than the original, and since the important works of world literature never find their chosen translators at the time of their origin, their translation marks their stage of continued life.
and further terrify me on the other:
A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.
Ugh. Pure language. “Pure” language? I fear I do not have the holy grail to language purity. (Does anyone?) Way to kick me while I’m down, Benji.
(Benjamin image from HERE; Initial “F” from dailydropcap.com)
Whenever it rains like this, I think of Verlaine.
“Il pleure dans mon coeur . . . “
II pleut doucement sur la ville.
Arthur Rimbaud
Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville;
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon coeur?
Verlaine & Rimbaud (Henri Fantin-Latour, 1872)
Ô bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie
Ô le chant de la pluie!
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison? . . .
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi
Sans amour et sans haine
Mon coeur a tant de peine!
-Paul Verlaine, from Romances sans paroles (1874)
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