Identity Crisis

That was then...

...this is now.

Every once in awhile I go through this little artistic identity crisis. I look at myself and think that I must have split personalities, I wonder where the old me is lurking, I long for it, then I wonder if I even care to resurrect it. Around Christmas time this was all drudged back up when the boys got a ton of art supplies. One thing they got was a giant art tackle box and it reminded me of my supply box in college, only cheerier, and without all the stickered sarcasm.



Then I dug out some jars for the boys to use while painting and as I sat there watching Lil' Spitfire clean his brush in one of the jars I realized just how long that jar had been with me. Since before my beautiful children and my incredible husband. Well, before we were married anyway, not much has been around since before him! It still had my paint sludge in the bottom. It was one of the silly jars I used while making my giant, brooding, moody paintings and my other random mixed media work. Including the thing I did with a bloody abandoned baby discarded in a trashcan lit from the inside with a strobe light. Needless to say having a flashback that included that image and then looking up to see my own baby's tiny hand in the same jar was a little bizarre. Probably not as bizarre as making a bloody baby though, just guessing.


That was then...

...this is now.


Now here I am, a wife, a mamma, a scrapbooker? Seriously, scrapbooking?! But I used to laugh at those people with their silly coordinating sticker obsessions and enough ribbon to hang several convicts! I also swore I'd never be a graphic designer so how's that for never say never? Speaking of graphic design here was another funny past life vs. new life occurrence, Lil' Spitfire got a Fisher-Price digital art studio with a pen tablet for his birthday! Man I fought the Wacom back in the day, I used it like I was holding it with my toes for about a week. Then mmmm, pen tablet love!



I'll have to show off some more of my past life art sometime soon. Hopefully I can dig up some clearer pictures than the first one in this post!

A Bad Case Of Nastomania

nosto·ma·nia (näs′tō mā′nē ə, -mān′yə)

Main Entry: nostomania

Part of Speech: n

Definition: excessive or abnormal nostalgia; an obsessive or abnormal interest in nostalgia, especially as an extreme manifestation of homesickness; a passion for nostalgia

Etymology: Greek nostos 'homecoming'

As promised earlier, I have returned with a box of nostalgic love! You should be proud of me because I've only very recently grown enough to be able to share embarrassing photos of myself and this cigar box contains some doozies! I hate to let you in on this little tip but you can click the pic to enlarge, oy vey.

Ugh, I feel my cheeks burning already! Lots of me pics. We had an amusement park close by with a fantastic old photo booth. Here you can see me with my high school boyfriend (the one that took me on my first art museum trip in this story) and behind that a strip of just me. Yep, I entered the booth alone to take pictures, that's how much fun I thought it was.

Yes, that's me in the backpack with the terrible perm and bangs that I only dreamed of being able to fluff and spray to early nineties splendor. More importantly that is me about to embark on the infamous 8th grade hiking trip. I was not this happy by the end of the week! But I am wearing my crispy new Poison concert tee fresh from their concert in Buffalo NY where my bestest bud, Billie, and I sat with stars in our eyes in spite of being located in the nose bleeds and my chaperoning Dad managed somehow to sleep through the entire show!




The cigar box full inventory
Pictures:

• my first boyfriend ever in a pink frame, a gift he gave me for Valentines day. It also had adorable red heart earrings attached. Little factoid, the thing that made me like this kid was that he had frequent nose bleeds and would write his name on his desk with the blood. I acted like this was gross because the other girls did but really though it was hysterical!
• film strip with boyfriend
• film strip with me
• me and Billie sticking out our tongues
• picture of me in some school related club
  
• all my school ID cards from the first through college
• my first car: a super hot, though mishap prone, 70's Fiat convertible. I totaled it in college and replaced it with the '68 convertible beetle we still have
• that lovely hiking picture
• key chain with my grandparents pic
• buttons, two with my soft ball pic and one with my brother's baseball pic

other stuff:

• various patches for achievements
• coins imprinted with important personalized messages like "Sunny loves so and so" (by another old machine that was next to the old photo booth)
• my teeth
• a cast of my thumb
• trouble dolls
• "best friend" heart earrings and necklace, I have one half and Billie the other
  
• shell bracelet that I made with Billie
  
• a bookmark from my grandma
• a boat carved by my brother from bark
• some coins we mutilated while bored
• 3D glasses
• a KKK business card, no joke, this was handed to me by a guy at my new high school after moving south, talk about culture shock!
• A note from my mom on how proud my parents were of me that was put in my lunch box
• high school graduation tassel
• girl scout memorabilia
• my dad's St. Christopher money clip
• One of my only match box cars, a pink Jeep with Snoopy driving
• 70's style wallpaper sample from my old room in Fredonia, NY before the redo
• a little naked baby figure. I have no idea where it came from but it's been around as long as I can remember and I've always loved it.
  

Old School Scrapping: How Not To Scrapbook

After getting my gorgeous craft organizers for Christmas I decided it was time to clean out my craft room and get really organized. In the process I ran across a lot of fun stuff I had completely forgotten about, one of which was my very first scrapbook. I didn't know I was scrapping at the time, not really. I had never heard of scrapbooking before, and certainly hadn't experience the crazed, mega addictive, craft-art-movement-obsession that I know it to be now!

I remember discovering this little gem at a junk store and being a little disappointed it wasn't still filled with old photos. I soon filled it with my own junk. Thankfully I have perfected my technique a bit more, both aesthetically and structurally. I used the worst of all glues on this bad boy, rubber cement! There is no good use for rubber cement, other than maybe asphyxiation. It's messy, it stinks, it yellows while you watch it, it super holds when you don't want it to while other things peel apart at a glance. I can't believe my art profs would advocate its use! Anywho, some of the innards:

The left side of this spread features a lovely picture of me and my bestest friend Billie in our crazy hats playing mini-golf the summer after graduating high school, a picture of me in the lower right sporting my beloved purple hair, some bingo chips and what I believe is a note where I've written "I love so and so" repeatedly as a way to practice my handwriting (one of my favorite past times!). On the right are all things freshman move-in day. A pic of my college dorm, name tag and of course a Razorback or two.



Good stuff! I had many a lovely, and not so lovely, reminder of my days of yore while digging through all my memorabilia! I found some other good stuff that would make my aforementioned friend fall out of her seat with laughter, that might have to make an appearance at a later date. Until next time you can remember these wise words from the margarita swilling crooner Jimmy Buffet, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."