Art:Life:Art

Today is a bit of reminiscing

One of my old roomates was the very talented

Stacia Svedi who was in the B.F.A. for Painting at BYU.

She had an assignment to recreate one of the

works of the masters in a new way.

She chose Jan Johan Vermeer's

"The Milkmaid."

I only have the picture she based her painting on but

I wanted to share because I really enjoyed the

commentary on society she was making.

In Vermeer's painting the lighting is soft and delicate

falling on the milkmaid as she pours the milk 

with an almost reverence. 

He has made the task and the setting a kind

of glorification of the everyday simplicity.

There is no clutter to be found in this scene.

Contrast this with the below, the cupboard is open to display

all the appliances that can be used to "save" time when

cooking and baking. On the counter is the bread machine,

and on the table the mixer and then she chose 

to have me opening a loaf of store bought bread. 

(Kind of love the irony that I posed for this, 

considering I haven't bought store bread

in 3 & 1/2 years now, mine tastes better:)

The scene is cluttered on purpose.

I just love the questions and thoughts she was trying to provoke.

I'm definitely not a "Tech" hater, quite the opposite

but I do think it is very easy to fill my life with clutter

and to forget to enjoy the small and simple things.

Sometimes, I just feel so overwhelmed with

how many people I love and want to

make sure they know that I love them.

In fact, I do wish sometimes I didn't work

so much so I could just spend time with all of them.

I treasure all the friendships I have,

even ones where we may not see each other

more than twice a year but it's as if only days have passed.

My friends and family ( I have to quote my sister Bridget here,

"we are sisters which automatically makes us best friends" )

and the relationships I have with them are

the joy of my life. It's not what activity I'm doing

it who I am doing it with.

Here is one memory of why it's who and not what. Stacia is the bomb dot com!

A few summers ago she and I decided to bike

 from our apartment to Vivian Park.

We set out on our bikes wearing helmets and

casual clothes. Pretty soon the sky started to

cloud over and immediately proceeded to pretend

that Utah has a Monsoon season.

There was inches of water on the road and the bike path.

What follows is just one reason why I love Stacia,

soon we were giggling

and laughing hysterically as we pedalled through the

deepest puddles and became thoroughly soaked.

I'm certain many a motorist thought we were insane but

it was one of the greatest times of my life.

It was slightly cold but we just didn't care

because we were too busy pretending to be jet skis on wheels.

We had gone on and would go on other bike rides

that Summer but this ride, where the weather

wasn't perfect, is the one I loved the most.