Demons and Visions

Great Pen and Ink: 4- John R. Neill

2011-08-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

For the Blog this fortnight we have John R. Neill. I am bias with this one too since I had a bunch of Oz books from my Grandma that he has illustrated. His simple flowing line style had a significant influence on my art.

"John Rea Neill (November 12, 1877 - September 13, 1943) was a magazine and children's book illustrator primarily known for illustrating more than forty stories set in the Land of Oz, including L. Frank Baum's, Ruth Plumly Thompson's, and three of his own.[1] His pen-and-ink drawings have become identified almost exclusively with the Oz series. He did a great deal of magazine and newspaper illustration work which is not as well known today." -from Wikipedia.

For a more complete Bio please visit the official page: John R. Neill

To see the article previous please visit the Metallic Visions Blog

Hey I'm Still here!

2010-07-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

So here are some updates...

The Enfinitea experiment only proved to me that I just cannot handle caffine without flairing. I would take them if there was a caffine free option.

We have our house and love it, I have a before and after shot of the kitchen for all of you:

And my Studio in all of it's messy glory:

When Steve and I married we had all of my herbs and spices and all of the 10 yr old watkins spices he got left with after his divorce. It was a lot of herbage to deal with. So the other day I got rid of all the herbs and spices that had lost their wham and cleaned out the bottles. The watkins herbs were in these perfectly sized glass bottles and I hate throwing glass away. So I utilized my wonderful and useful label-maker and re-vamped how I keep my spices.

I love how it turned out and there is so much more space in my little cupboard.

Sceptical Experiments in Weight Loss

2010-02-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

Well the Enfinitea arrived today and I took my first pills. I felt the caffine imediately but it was a very mild feeling of energy rather than a jittery mania as I usual get from caffine. It is also supposed to be good for IBS which my regular 'sanity' pills have given me. I am very leary about these multi level things. So for me to do this and take on the more difficult task of convincing my hubby to do this, the product better be good. You hear that Pat and Troy...

I am going to keep tabs on it here and we shall see. I need to get myself weighed somehow. Last time I found a scale that worked for me I was down to 397lbs. I know scary huge... But it is better than the 450lbs I was at. I am still trying to follow the 'bread for life' diet and I really like it. It is how I have dropped so much already but I have hit a bit of a plateau More importantly I feel really good following it. Here is a link for more info if anyone is interested: the-bread-life-diet

My hubby and I are doing water aerobics once a week, we used to go twice but our evenings have filled up. If I start feeling up to it I am going to try and do Mon-Tue water aerobics and maybe try the Belly dancing class on Wed at the Lehi legacy center. I love that place.

Fav food of the day: double fiber multi-grain bread, toasted with a smidgen of Lighthouse blue cheese dressing and sliced English cucumbers. So light and yet filling and just plain YUMMMMY!

Take joy while you can.

2010-01-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

I am happy, happy because I have a safe place and the man I love more than anything. So over the thanksgiving break my boyfriend Steve asked me to marry him. Actually, his exact words when i told him, once again, that he should marry me were as follows: "It's not like I haven't thought about it." Said has he presented me with a ring. It was charming and fit with our relationship.

On the evening of December 21st, the winter solstice, we were married by a dear old friend on mine who is a licensed pagan minister. It was a lovely and simple ceremony and my hubby liked the idea of everyday of our marriage becoming brighter as the days lengthened. He can be such a romantic. Both my parents and his parents were there and his kids, Tim and Alexandria, were our best man and bridesmaid as it were. My youngest sister Sara was also my bridesmaid. Our closest friends, Beth and Seth were there as well as the much missed Mike and Leah who also served as witnesses. We decorated the living room with snowflakes and candles. The entire ceremony was candle lit and just lovely.

The we spent the first week of our marriage packing up my apartment... We survived it so that bodes well for our relationship.

The only real downside at the moment is that my entire studio is in boxes and it is making me a wee bit crazy. I miss my jewelry making and my beads and my masks and fabric. It is temporary though since we found the perfect house and are in the process of convincing a bank they want to let us have it.

I need to draw more, desperately need to draw more. I am losing my muscle memory for it and that is a very bad thing. So since the big studio stuff is unavailable I have been drawing and experimenting with ideas to combine my 2d and 3d art.

Trying also to get all my pages linked up and cut out the things I can do without to save money since I make zero on my stuff lately. Events are coming up though and things may turn around. I am hopeful, always hopeful, and grateful that I am in a position that I can do what I love and treasure. That I can create and make things that uplift my soul and share them with others.

I started another blog just for art things, this one will be more personal. Not that anyone reads them, not even my husband (haha).

the other blog: http://metallicvisions.wordpress.com/

Pain and Persistance

2009-11-12T12:59:00.001-08:00

I have had some degree of fibromyalgia and a severe case of both depression and social anxiety for 16 years brought on after a brain condition triggered by my acne medication. Up till recently I thought the pain and aches were just my weakness, just me being wussy. It was an odd thing to go from a healthy mildly overweight but active teenager to a suicidal obese space cadet overnight. I managed to survive for the most part and went to college, had to take of a semester to attend counseling to help get over sexual abuse as a child, but then I went back to a university rather than a college and was accepted into their illustration program. It was so hard and I missed a lot but managed to nearly make it through before I crashed and had to drop out because I had developed sleep apnea and could not drive to school anymore.

I spent several years taking care of people and ignoring myself, it was an old habit. I took care of my friends 2 kids for a year, took care of my beloved grandparents until my grandmother died and my grandfather was put in a home, spent a year searching for a job I could do and beating myself up for my weaknesses. Ended up working for a year at a motel in the graveyard position and that was just bad. It was easy enough work but the hours and the exposure to deadbeats cooking meth in their motel rooms took it's toll. In Sept of 2006 I crashed hard. I spent over a month in bed. By this time I was out of my families house (though I love them dearly they are high stress and my sisters tend to devalue everyone Else's pain and tell you that you there is no help and you will just have to deal with it and work harder.) So I was living with a friend who was incapable of helping anyone else. No boyfriend, poor family who had no time for me, broken friend to live with, no job, no hopes.

I started my business in desperation. I needed something I could do from home and something that would help restore my spirit. It worked, sort of. My dear Aunt has been supporting me financially since then and I have had some very limited successes. June 2007 I went with my youngest sister and best friend to a festival thing in Ohio (I live in Utah) It was a risk, especially since it was just me and a 15yr old crossing the country in a rented car. It was a fun drive and a miserable event and when I got home I crashed hard again. and 5 months later my roommate abandoned me to full rent, but I turned her room into my sewing room.

I have just, early this year, gotten back to some kind of normal level but it has become painfully obvious to me and others that even with work I will never get back to the energy level I was at before the motel job fiasco. Worse I have developed conditions over the years that aggravate the fibromyalgia. I have to watch everyday what I do, how I sit and stand, what I eat, when and how I sleep... that alone is exhausting. To top it off, my father and brother both of whom are Nurses do not believe it is a real condition.

Dark as it all seems, my mother is a wonderful person who never fails to renew some of my spirit. My boyfriend (dating 1 1/2 years) treats me with respect and love and encourages me. And even though it often seems very much like my art and crafts are entirely shunned and unwanted, I get to do what I like, at least for now. So what if I have to spend a week here fighting depression and a week there fighting debilitating pain, it reminds me I am alive and gives me fuel for my art. And I am not the only artist with such trials. If others can do it so can I.

I thank you so much for the courage to tell your tale. I apologize for the absurd length of it. Thank you.
-Bobbie

To begin with...

2009-11-11T12:29:00.001-08:00

Well this has been a long time in coming, no matter how much I have fought against it. I, Bobbie Berendson, have joined the blogger community. (listens to the cries of horror and the pandemonium in the streets.) I have no idea just how to do this, so I will just spit it all out and see what happens.

I am an artist in the truest sense of the word. Everything in my life is touched by my creativity, I can't help it, it is just what I have always done. It has been a release for so many things in my life that I have had no control over: sexual abuse, family illnesses, my own illnesses and stumbling blocks, my genes, the list goes on. I credit my mother with much of my attitude, I usually face things with a smile and a considerable amount of faith. However, the issues in my life, especially my childhood, left me a lonely introvert.

I started drawing seriously in 7th grade. I also started writing around then too, I wanted to be a writer and though that didn't pan out I still have a wealth of tales to tell in my head. Art was more practical for me since I could aim for a scholarship in art to help me get into college. I had a lot of help and a wealth of wonderful teachers, from high school to UVSC to BYU. Unfortunately It turned out that I just wasn't a good enough artist at the time I finished my illustration program at BYU to get a job. It doesn't help that my talents fit better in the age of pulp magazines than they do in our modern world.

Due to the fact that no matter how much I looked and applied I could not get a job that I could do with my physical limitations as well as the fact that this silly art thing left me frustrated and strongly compelled to keep creating things; I dared open my own little internet shop in the spring of 2006. Metallic Visions was born.

Now days 2D art has become more of a hobby to me and I spend more time making my own kind of unique jewelry, masks, and sculpture than anything else. I like what I do, no I love it, I love creating things and this current venture of mine uses so many of my skills, which is a nice thing when you are a jack of all trades with not one mastered. I hate trying to sell them, it also doesn't help that I am clinically depressed and suffering from social anxiety bordering on agoraphobia. But I have learned in my life that the only person you can count on 100% is yourself and if I want people to see what I can do I will have to show them, even if I am terrified and it burns me out. Thus the creation, in part, of the blog.

So often I wish that I could be like so many other people and be satisfied with a regular job and a regular hobby. That is not for some of us, some of us are artists and come what may we must create. It is our duty, our curse, our gift, and our salvation, and at the end of the day I am grateful for it.

Now I just wish I could make a living with it.... heheheh