Biology

Basil and Future Bonsai
Originally uploaded by RedTea

I am discovering a lot about seeds as the days pass. For one thing my sister thinks I am going to have a hard time growing trees from seed. I guess I figured this, but I had high hopes. I wonder what my project would look like if it were about seeds not growing? I think I could work through that little bump. As for now I am done buying seeds.

I collected seeds from my yard back at my parents’ house. It was a disgusting ordeal. I was collecting White Oak acorns, and when I creaked some open to see if they were good they where full of maggots. No wonder I have never seen a young White Oak seedling around the yard. One thing that I have seen a lot of are the green maples. Not the Crimson King, birch, some sort of blossom etc.

Do you think that my seeds will grow? I wish there was a way to speed things up, but an important part of this artwork is patience, but does this go with the Senior project? Do you want to know a secret? I have wanted to grow trees for a long time now. When I was young I would think about planting apple seeds. I kind of slipped into this project. In fact I don’t even remember how it came to be like this. Where did I get the idea of transferring the essence of the medication in my veins to trees? Couldn’t I pick something easier? What will I do if the trees do grow and I don’t get the greenhouse space? How will I take care of them?

Oh, because I never told you I will explain. You see the University has a lot of greenhouse space that goes unused (according to my sister). It is for Biology students. I am trying to get some of this space.

What would have my life been like if I had went into Biology instead of art? I do not regret my choice, I have learned much, but there is something to be said about Science. Math. Math is only important in that it is connected with Science. It has been to long since I have been in a lab coat, sure I took Biology, but I am wondering if I can take it again. I guess I can take a harder Biology. What do I have to lose? My grades?

Is the day over yet?

meow
Originally uploaded by RedTea

Here I am waiting until the time I can go to the clay studio.

Sliver curtains hanging from a black bar and a melon green blanket on a black chair with matching pillow. In front of me is a room. In back of me a wall. Spiders crawl around the school. I wonder how I got in the school to begin with. Looking at all the skills spread out before me mine look like children’s drawings. In fact I was told once I would make a very good children’s illustrator. That was long ago. Today I made my children’s drawing in a small notebook. A horrible feeling hang over me, and all I could bring myself to do was draw.

Seeds. I wish I had my seeds now. I wish I could soak them in water, put them in my refrigerator, and wait for the cold to make them germinate. I wish I could plant the seedlings in the perfect combination of sand and soil. I wish I could put the little seedlings into pots (pots that I made) and place them around a gallery space coupled with starter plants.

Patience. It is something that I am going to have to learn. Bonsai trees take time. There is an Ann Arbor Bonsai Society that has an auction every year on Sept 26. I will be attending this auction. I hope it is everything that I have been told it is.

I am supposed to be seating here as wonderful things explode from my fingertips. Every key pressed makes a wonderful sound and the song is quite nurturing. It is encouraging hearing that sound. It makes you think things are happening. You are going somewhere. It encourages you to write more bolder, crazier ideas.

It has been a half an hour. Now it has been an hour.

Sketching cats endlessly, such a mindless action. Everyone else has such propose, they have ideas that need to be done right away or the winter will get in the way (or such and such). I decided not to work on the potter’s wheel today because I forgot my supplies.

HA! I tricked you. I went and worked with clay anyway. The story goes like this. I was drawing cats and then trees when I realized that I didn’t want to be in my Senior studios just writing and drawing and doing stuff like that.

I am free! Studio time is over!

Mission Statement

I will take you on a quest to embody in the real world the essence of the medication that runs through my veins into trees.

This quest will require the development of a strong inner self which I will develop through meditation in the form of writing and clay, and in the process document my journey throughout the year for your benefit. I will explain how this medication came to be in my body, reveling memories and weaknesses. Finally I will explore the impact of the essence of these medications on the world today, putting up advertisements to raise awareness about how they enable the mentally ill to live normal lives.

To make a bonsai pot

Covered in earth. Clay dried on my pants, Green tea in my fridge. Today is a good day. I meditated today, with my hands molding the clay between my fingers. It span, I tried to find the center. For that sweet moment in time, I found my place. I was there in the clay studio in a way that I haven’t been in a long time for so many forms of art.

Everything made sense. I had big plans on how I was going to continue my practice in Maya and mix oil pastel (a medium from my youth) and digital. Computer animation, digital photography, and oil pastel all blended together in a seamless scene moving breathing. Then my brain hiccupped, and I faced a long drawn out depression. I stopped doing artwork. Then I stopped being able to do artwork. Then I stopped wanting to do artwork.

Part of me misses those two years I let art pass me by. What would I have become if I continued my Maya project. What would I have become if I continued to float just below mania. What a wonderful state. Some people spend years in hypomania, some people spend more time in mania then depression. I guess that everyone is on there own special ride.

I should tell you about my meditation for today. As I slipped my hand into the bucket of used clay slip and pull up a little handful a smile appears on my face. I think back to my first day in a clay art class. Wow that was long ago. FYI Based on my performance today
I will have to put more time into meditating with Clay.

I feel that Clay is a wonderful tool for getting in touch with my Bonsai trees. It is a natural material found in the soil that the trees grow out of.


Oh, oh so far I have collected the following seeds all very fresh:

10 American Wisteria Seeds (the American is supposed to be easier to get to bloom then the Chinese kind)
100 Chinese Elm Seeds (I have no idea what I will do with all these trees, of course not all of them will become seedlings)
30 Liquidambar Seeds
30 Judas Tree Seeds (with a name like this I am assigning it to Geodon)

I am biding on:

30 Japanese Cedar
7 Variegated Japanese Red Pine
5 Japanese White Pine
30 Trident Maple
30 Red Maple (one of the many kinds)

P.S. Today is my Birthday!

Grape Juice

While dancing on the bubbles of grape juice I decided to go on a quest. Tapping keys slowly every word a small quest in my brain, neurons flaring flowing trough tunnels as deep and as vast as space.

A Great Quest lies before me, like Gandalf knocking on Bilbo’s door the time has come for me to speak. To be heard over all this noise seems impossible, but I will draw out my space for generations to gaze at in the future.

The web under the old dot COM will be great graveyard of the past. A small tree, The Tree of Yoga, held after so many years.

A mind. A mind trained and molded. A mind broken and mended.

Fragments drawn out.

Watching the Days unfold

Everything was going well today. All smiles and happiness, but then I realized I had made a mistake. I am sorry. I did not realize. Everything is turning a greyer shade instead of the bright reds and greens of early fall. I hold within me this mistake, and I want to talk about it, but it will be hours before I call my sister. I must stand up strong until then. I am so sorry. I wanted to tell an interesting story and I didn’t realize I would scare anyone.

It is a half hour before my next class. Now that I have gotten the badness out of my system I can return to smiles. When I am functioning well in this world that’s me all smiles. It is just when things turn on me that I despair. Activity keeps me from despair. When I have time to stop and think with nothing to do that is when my mind wonders.

I am waiting for English to start again. I have ten more minutes not counting Michigan Time (at the University classes start at ten minutes after the time given on the schedule so a 1:00 class would start at 1:10).

You might think that I am goofing of right now but in reality I am slowly forming and molding a plan ever so simple.

When I was in the mental hospital there was a time that I sat in the sun and told another that I was like a cat. I was like a cat in that I was basking in the light. This memory popped into my head today while I was brainstorming.

I think that I need to brush up on my Maya skills. It is about time that I relearn what I learned and I expand on it as well. Who here would like to see some Maya artwork? Raise your hands. I would be taking Maya from a wonderful Professor with a impressive quality of work. I wouldn’t have thought of switching over to the Maya class if it were not for my Professor in the Art of Memory asking if I wanted to switch classes. Which I think was very impressive of him to read my worries.

You see I was worried that our ideas would not match up. That I would end up doing something that I didn’t want to do just to get a good grade.

I have a category on this website called “Student Life.” I find this funny because I in no way live the normal student life. I do not go out to parties; I just focus on classes. I have in incredible ability to tune out all things I consider wastes of time during the school year. Ok, ok, I did watch a bit of Amine in the Winter semester, but these is beside the point. I tune out life so much that when I am outside of school I do not know what to do.

I think that it is time to send in my paper. I mean the big one that is 22 pages long, the one I have not shown you.

I just visited the Sweetland Writing Center. Apparently I need to step back from my paper and rearrange. I have done this before, but with academic writing. Personal writing from the heart is something I have no experience in editing. I think that this post is about long enough by now, time for me to seat back relax, and watch the day pass me by (I have to go to a lecture at 5 so that gives me a little over an half an hour. I think that I will draw cats. So that someday, when I set up my scanner. I will be able use my own cat pictures. They would be on the right side of the post and not the left, so the two could not be confused.

The Tree of Yoga

I found a wonderful Book, The Tree of Yoga. A world famous yoga teacher wrote it…in 1988, but do no think it is out of date because such books do not become out of date. It was B.K.S. Iyengar who wrote the book. What I love about the book is how its title alone (not even counting the rest of the book) supports a part of my Senior Project.

I have decided to take you on a journey. A journey of my mind. A journey that yes includes my path in dealing with my illness, my idea on how to fight the stigma of mental illness and try to find ways in which to fight this illness along with my medication, but this is not the limit of my journey. You will stumble around with me as I walk through the world of Senior Projects trying to find illumination, illumination through meditation.

You might wonder why Yoga and fighting the stigma of mental illness go together, but as taught in the book, the point is not withdrawing from society, but being an example for society. If you do not drink alcohol and your friends ask you to go out to drink alcohol with them tell them you will go with them, but will not drink alcohol. That is what the book says anyway.

I am not done reading the book yet; right now it is comparing the different parts of Yoga to the different parts of a tree. To me the tree of yoga has to be a Bonsai tree, because it is a tree of such art and care.

A certain passage in the book stood out to me (a number of them did). “I am within and I am without.” This is about being a part of society and yet being different in that you do not drink alcohol. It is not the meaning that stood out to me, but it triggered a memory. When I was locked into a small room at the mental hospital I came to the conclusion that my sin in life had always been locking myself in. I had stayed in my house more then I should have, I had spent too much time reading/watching/drawing in my room and I had willingly walked into this small little room. This is interesting in of in itself, but when I got out of the mental hospital I was laying in a bed and I heard in my head, “She used to lock herself in now she is locking herself out.”

I am locking myself in again today. I have decided to stay and work instead of going with a big group to a reuse center to get furniture for our Senior Studios.

The first step of my journey is in clay. I am buying 100 seeds to put into the refrigerator until they spout life. At that point in their journey they will need pots. I could buy 100 pots (if I count my eggs before they hatch), or I could make them one by one. Making the pots would look better, and be cheaper then buying them.

I am afraid however that this is a project that will take time to grow.

For new readers (that would be almost everyone) I am trying to grow Bonsai trees and transferring through meditation the essence of my medication (I have Bipolar disorder) into the roots of the tree. I have some left over medications from changes in my cocktail, and someone suggested that I use real medication. I am really looking to transfer just the essence, but I will think about this.

I will also be creating the essence of new medications by planting seeds. I may not have the education to create my own medications to battle the world’s illnesses, but for those who want to be cured, I can send positive energy their way.