Pumping Up The Ro Fo Sho...

Today is a good day.

I cannot remember a time when I wasn't drawing or interested in art. I remember that I would draw my whole family and write their names above their heads. I don't remember ever coloring outside the lines...even though I'm sure there was a time that I did! But, I do remember in 1st grade when the teacher leading us in some kind of coloring exercise said, "Always stay in the lines," I thought, "Duh." :) My first memory is drawing people kind of like this:



Haha, I never gave the girls eyebrows because I thought they looked like boys with them! I don't know why! As I got older, I started seeing faces as more of a "U" shape than a circle, and I started drawing my hands like mittens and my feet in shoes. My first childhood dream was to be an artist. However, even though I was an imaginative little girl, I was also a bit practical. As I grew older I learned that being an artist was not a stable career choice. So, I just drew and painted as a hobby for many many...many years! :)

When I was 13 or 14 years old, I developed and interest in photography. I wrote myself a letter to open when I turned 20. You can read about that story here. It's actually one of my favorite posts I've ever written, so I encourage you to read it for the first time or again...I loved reading it again :) If that makes me silly, I don't care! EXTREMELY long story short...I have evolved since that post. I've also derailed since that post. I was up and ready to go...and then I was battling my depression again...2 years of me trying to feel stable again. I produced a TON of art for a brief moment, and then I stopped for a long time. Well! I've started again, AND I've started photographing again. And since I'm on a good solid path for treatment (which was described in my last post here) I have the enthusiasm again. I also have a time limit...I'm 30...if I don't get it together now, I'll be 40 and wondering what I did in the last decade.

Here are the things going on for The Ro Fo Sho Art & Photography: I've created my own little space to really WORK in...to feel inspired and create in. It is indeed very little, and I really need another table, as well as more shelving. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on that right now...I need to make sure I have enough for paper, canvases, pencils, pastels, etc. for what I have planned. Once I get enough pieces to use as examples for what I have to offer, I will create a facebook fan page...hopefully very soon! Someday I'll have a website too! But here's the biggest news I can share: I'm really really REALLY going to try and go back to school for an art education degree, so that I may learn how to become a better artist and so that I can really share my passion with the people who need passion the most, the youth!



 

 

 

 

It's going to be a challenging journey for me. Even though I've started treatment for my clinical depression, I have a long way to go because I waited too long to be as proactive about it as I am now. There are still mornings I don't want to get out of bed...there are still moments when I look off into space and think, "I'm too old and tired to do anything now. I've run out of time." These thoughts, even typing them, bring a clenched feeling in my chest of darkness and hopelessness...but I consciously make myself push it away...I channel in light and inspiration instead. The thing is I AM older...and if I don't get better, then I'm wasting my life. So, my parting wisdom for today...depression causes life to pass too quickly and before you know it, you've felt miserable for far too long...don't let this happen! Find a way to bring the light and inspiration back in to yourself...bring yourself back to who you were before the dark. Don't give up!

Hugs and love, my lovelies!

"My Happiness"

this post goes with the previous post...but as you read the previous post, you should jump over and read this one too! does that make sense? well it does in my head...so there you go. you should know my head doesn't really operate in a way that may make sense. moving on! hopefully this will all come together as i try to explain the evolution of "ro fo sho art." to simplify it as much as i can...this journey to "ro fo sho art" has evolved and morphed from idea after idea...but it's all coming together now...i'm gonna make it all make sense...i hope! praying:)

the following was written june 1, 2008

i wrote a letter to myself when i was barely 14 years old. i couldn't open it until i turned 20 and somehow i managed to hold on to it that long. my sophomore year of college i was working in the library as a reference assistant... i did some assisting but i also had a lot of time to think... and something i was struggling with was my current major. it went from biochemistry to journalism and finally to elementary education... and elementary ed wasn't so appealing anymore. i jotted down notes and doodles contemplating, "what should i do!?" on october 9th, 2002, my 20th birthday, i opened this letter to myself... i honestly could not remember anything i had written. the letter asked if i had been kissed yet or had fallen in love all ready... and if not, there's something wrong! my 14 year old self commanded that i be in college and be making as excellent grades as always. my 14 year old self commanded that i be working my way toward becoming a professional photographer. i read this check point over and over and flashed back to some vivid memories. i don't remember the root of this passion. it's like it was always there hiding on the tip of my brain and all over my heart screaming and begging for my logical and practical ways to recognize that my artistic and outrageous ways could lead me in a direction that would not only be soul fulfilling but practical and logical and successful. national geographic took my breath away... took me all over the world. the vivid glossy pages took me up and up and up to this blissful place where the world was all around me just waiting to be captured. as a pre teen and teen i didn't read those magazines about cute boys and cute clothes (unless one of my friends had one) but instead couldn't wait for the next national geographic. it was euphoria. yes i know i'm a nerd. i collected the maps from inside the magazines hoping to one day travel from the anacondas of the orinoco river to the nebula in orion's belt... taking pictures all along the way. i tried to get into photography my junior year... this was the first year it was available to me and so as a sophomore i was sitting with my counselor and insisting that i take this class!!! well it was full... "but you'll definitely get in your senior year. seniors get first pick!" the little twit said! so as a junior i found myself sitting in the same counselor's office and again asking for the photography class for my senior year... "oh dear. it's all ready full." sad face from the idiot. tears were streaming down my face. i told her it wasn't just a blow off class for me... this was what i wanted to do with my future! you would think a high school counselor who is supposed to be preparing students for college would take in to consideration what they will want to pursue in college! but no. there was just no way around it. "sorry!" sad faced bitch. i guess in turn i accepted it as a whimsical idea and a path with no future. photography could just be a hobby. and then i met a certain young man the summer after my senior year who promised he would teach me photography... from taking the pictures to watching them come to life in the darkroom. and i fell in love with this guy. and ultimately my love for photography now included that love for that boy. but our time in the darkroom didn't involve lessons on photography... the darkroom was where he kissed me and said he didn't love me. the darkroom was where he told me he didn't want anything to do with me. i drowned in the red light with the smell of chemicals and his cologne and my tears suffocating me. photography became a reminder of a broken heart. but when i opened that letter on my 20th birthday, i didn't give him a single thought. he was gone from my mind and from my heart. i didn't think about that dumb ass counselor who i felt wrecked everything. damn she was an idiot! instead, when i opened that letter, that begging and screaming inside me jumped up and said, "hey hey hey!!!! now? can we start now???" and so that was my last year at college. the following summer i traveled to some unforgettable places and acquired some unforgettable memories... and in february 2004, i found myself parked outside of the oklahoma school of photography. i was so afraid! i never got the chance to learn anything about photography! i assumed that all of those people inside got to take classes in high school and they probably had mentors and guidance. i had dead ends. i was afraid i was going to look like a fool. but... i had the screaming and the begging inside me. i had the passion that had been a part of me since birth. i had the dream of a 14 year old girl who i just couldn't let down. so i walked through those doors. i made some forever friends. annie and emily (annabelle and dwinks) and i were meant to start that adventure that day together. i met abi. i met ron. and i met mike... i can't think about mike without crying. but this is another story all together. he is gone but he is remembered... i still ask myself what would mike think or say or suggest. here i am today. a supervisor in a photo lab. studio work and freelance on my resume. a certificate from a nationally accredited school that hangs above my desk saying, "This certifies that Amy Rose Conway has successfully completed the course of instruction and has been examined and found duly qualified as a professionally skilled photographer and lab technician and is hereby awarded this Diploma as an acknowledgment of her knowledge and in recommendation of her acquirements. Awarded this Seventeenth day of September, Two Thousand Four." i'm still finding my way and still learning. i'm trying to save money for the dream of a studio gallery i will own someday. i'm considering more schooling. i'm not jumping into anything on a whim but contemplating how to set myself apart and developing the strategy i will need to succeed. and ultimately i'm trying to figure out what it takes to become a master photographer in the eyes of my fellow professionals. ...and i have to rant a little bit. i've been reading so i know i'm not alone. myself and other professional photographers have recognized that we are at war with a new breed. photographers who claim they are professional and charging lower prices and taking clients away. this has spawned an idea of what looks professional... but ultimately the consumer is not getting what they deserve. sure it may be cheaper to hire that photographer who took that really great picture... but that photographer didn't give you what you could have had. a person can not just pick up a camera, take some good shots, and then claim to be a professional. we who are professionals have worked for that credential! we have studied photography and appreciated it and we continue to grow and learn year after year after year. we push ourselves to do better to be better to set ourselves apart and to provide the most beautiful, breathtaking, and truly amazing photos a person could ever have that will ultimately be the most tangible form of a memory one can ever possess. this is my story... it started over a decade ago... but it's nowhere close to being finished. I...AM...A...PHOTOGRAPHER.



well i don't have a photograph that i would really like to share, but i think every good blog post needs a picture...usually anyway;) so! here is "my happiness." it's random and weird, but i'm a random and weird person...and i'm hoping...praying...that my vision for achieving happiness for "ro fo sho art" can make sense of my randomness and weirdness...if that makes sense:)

Ro Fo Sho Art

i have four followers that i know of on this blog...thank you dearest readers! i believe others may stop in from time to time...but without the occasional facebook comment...i'm not sure who actually may be reading or full fledged following. note: i enjoy alliteration...and assonance for that matter...as well as rhyming...just a little tid bit from today's random tree. moving on! the point of sharing all of this is that i want people to read this blog...i want my ideas and art read and seen by a mass audience. not for popularity. not for fame. both may seem stuck up...but i think my reason may be the most stuck up of all. so i'm not sure if i will share at this time...let's see where we are at the end of this entry!

sometime between when i was born and 6 years old, i wanted to be an artist. by middle school, i knew that being an artist was as realistic a dream as being a rock star...well let me clarify...being able to survive off of one's dream, one must make money...and sellin' art on the sidewalks and singin' in smoky bars might make payin' the bills a bit challenging...one must have a successful gallery exhibit or CD release...for example. so by the end of middle school, i discovered a love for photography...and i've written about this before so i don't want to write about it now but i'll copy and paste that after this entry for you to read...and then i'll edit this entry and provide the link when you click...here:) i'm sharing this little middle school realization because i figured i could be successful with photography and still be able to achieve that artist dream at the same time! and this photography road will be explained more as well when you click on that link i mentioned before. so go ahead and read that now if you haven't. in addition to that last sentence...i am an artist. the passion i expressed about photography has kind of evolved in to the art i've been working on most recently...but it all ties together...it's all coming to this place that i feel stuck up about mentioning right now...but maybe later.

i am creating "ro fo sho art." i don't want to call it a business...i'm not really sure what to call it...or even how to explain it. so...following these few sentences will be a couple of paragraphs...the first one being an objective of sorts and the second one being a third person narrative of me basically (which could evolve into something else later...i'll let you know).

i want to combine my love for visual, musical, and written art into one vision that brings them all together...not necessarily in a variety of joint forms...but rather in a place...like stepping inside my mind where it all comes together in a chaos of sounds, words, lines, and colors that somehow...in this random and disjointed world...look like pieces in a museum with strange unrecognizable notes falling on frames, pages, and senses.

she's trying to find that spot in her mind where the conscious and subconscious delicately combine. is it a tangible entity or another dimension beyond human perception? how do dreams form from seemingly no where...unrelated to experiences and even random thoughts...where are they from? and these drawings and paintings that evolve spontaneously as her hand meets brush, pencil, or pastel to whatever her canvas may be...how do they unravel from the mess of images in her mind? sometimes it all comes at once and it is so hard to untangle the knots...how can she put the abstract with the concrete? too many questions. but there is a purpose for all of this...there is a reason. she can feel it! there must be a way for her to share her art and her words in a way that appeals to everyone...even those who never pay any attention to art. she has to find this path as she fits the pieces together...combine the art with the memories with the mental place on life's timeline. so...the beginning...

yeah i'm still not going to share my idea just yet...but i don't think it's really stuck up. however, i think it will make more sense with more entries relevant to the vision:)

so! i'll get back to the creation of "ro fo sho art" throughout this blog. for right now...i will share the 3 most recent drawings that have kept me busy as i've been away from writing...


this one is called "energy spinning." i did it with graphite pencils one evening while watching tommy play video games. good times. oh yes! i would also like to mention that i had been watching shows about the universe leading up to this. so when i write about my art coming from a spontaneous place, i believe this one came from supernovas still "spinning" around in my head;)


this one is "stellar memories" created with prisma colors and chalk pastels. this one looked so childlike in the beginning actually...like a children's book on shapes. but the word inside my head when i put the first line down was, "trippy." so that is definitely what evolved. adding the chalk pastels in this one led directly to the following one...


this one is "hearts collide," which may seem to obvious but i don't care...it's how i feel about the love story of my husband and me. anywho! i hadn't used chalk pastels in years so when i added it to the previous drawing, i was really excited to immediately do another quick sketch. "stellar memories" took me days..."hearts collide" took me minutes! oh the joy of chalk pastels!

so this was a long one! and i probably rambled and didn't make sense through the whole thing. but that is why this has been so frustrating for me!!! "ro fo sho art" is such a mess in my head and i'm trying to make it make sense...gah! hopefully it will in the next few days. praying:)