What I Think About Life Currently

This has been a melancholy year for me (thus far anyways, there's still two more months to go and you never know what could happen). It's been full of a lot of frustrations and let downs smattered with a few very sad moments. I've been upset and stressed and more than a little annoyed on a few occasions. This semester especially has been loaded with a lot of adversity.

Sometimes I feel like the world is leaving me behind. When I was super young I used to get so terrified when  my family was going somewhere and my mom or dad would start the car while I wasn't in it. I would panic thinking they were going to leave without me and never come back. That anxiousness I felt then is a kin to what I find myself feeling a lot these days. I see so many of my friends going off and doing wonderful things with their lives and what am I doing with mine?

Most good natured people I know would now take this opportunity to list off how awesome I am. That I'm witty and fun and super talented in the art department, not to mention I'm such a lovely lady. It's very kind of them and don't get me wrong, I often think the exact same things about myself (it isn't much of a secret that I have a massive ego). However, sometimes that isn't enough when I feel like my life is stuck in the same monotonous routine day in and day out.

I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who's felt this way.

These past few days I've been feeling particularly self-loathing. Last night I could barely get any sleep thinking about life and how lonely mine is. Naturally it made today kind-of a downer. 

 

Tonight I felt like I just didn't want to sit and watch some show on TV that focuses on the world and doesn't show anything that will ever solve problems or specifically solve any of my problems. So I went to a better source where I found this:

What I love about this clip is that these women share that they are mothers and daughters, wives and friends first. They focus on who they are, not what they've accomplished. The relationships they've cultivated are so much more important than where they've gone and what they're doing. They know they are daughters of God with a divine inheritance and a divine nature. I have always loved the Young Women Theme which states:

WE ARE DAUGHTERS of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. WE WILL “STAND as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith • Divine Nature • Individual Worth • Knowledge • Choice and Accountability • Good Works • Integrity • and Virtue

WE BELIEVE as we come to accept and act upon these values, WE WILL BE PREPARED to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

That first line has always been so important to me. How significant it is to know that no matter what there is someone out there who knows you and loves you and that even when life is tough and you feel like you're going nowhere someone is there to lend a hand. God lives and loves me, I am His daughter and even if life may be hard and it probably won't get easier for me instantly it's ok because it will someday. Life can only get better from here.

Fairy Tales

Illustration by the Great Arthur Rackham for the story "The Old Woman in the Woods"
I copied this image for a class assignment last fall, it can be found here (gotta love shameless self promotion).

I love fairy tales. I believe I've mentioned this before. When I was perhaps 4 or 5 my parents got my sister a bike for her Birthday. Shortly thereafter my dad ran over it and destroyed it. My parents were unable to afford replacing my sister's bike and my dad, feeling understandably awful about the turn of events, bought my sister a collection of fairy tales to replace the bike.

I know that to most people a few books is not much of a replacement for a ruined bike (at least monetarily) but those books mean the world to my sister and also to me. My dad read those fairy tales to my sister and I  for years. "Cinderella", "Goldilocks", "Little Red Riding Hood", and that lot were not mentioned in this set of fairy tales. This is where I learned about "The Golden Goose" and "The Story of Caliph Stork." The illustrations were beautiful and the stories were wonderful.

This set of fairy tales was followed by other anthologies of children's stories. Ones where I learned about the "Transparent Apple and Silver Saucer" (a Russian version of "Cinderella" that is much more morbid than the French version we are familiar with) and the "Firebird". I don't think I was properly exposed to the fairy tales Disney taught us about until I was heading into my teen years and discovered Andrew Lang's Rainbow Fairy books.

There are 12 books in his anthology. Each one named after a color...The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, etc. It is perhaps the most complete set of fairy tales out there ranging from Grimm's folk tales to Perrault's fairy tales. Baba Yaga makes a few appearances as does Sigurd, and the Twelve Brothers (a personal favorite of mine). There are too many wonderful stories contained in those volumes to enumerate them all. I still go to the library often and read these fairy tales and admire the beautiful illustrations. It may sound odd but doing so calms me down and makes me happy when I've had a hard day.

It was these influences that filled me with the desire to draw. The stories are so lovely and simple, the illustrations so exquisite in detail, all I want to do is create works like that. This is why I'm studying to be an illustrator. The ability to tell a story visually is stunning to me. It makes me hope that some day a young child will pick up something I've put myself into, that I love and cherish, and that it will inspire them to create a visual story.

I love fairy tales.


From "Rosanella" illustrated by Henry Justice Ford for the Green Fairy Book.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

I absolutely love fairy tales. Seriously, I'm not aware of anyone who's read more fairy tales than I have (I could throw around some story names that you haven't even heard of but it's probably pretentious enough that I'm making such a silly claim as it is).

That being said, I take issue with Disney. Now don't get me wrong, I love Disney movies. They're an essential part of childhood (and adulthood if you're me). My issues lie with the Disney Corporation.

I dislike the how they revamp their princesses every few years to be more modern. They were beautiful when they were created, can't you just leave them that way? I also get super upset when I see a greeting card designed for six year old girls with an array of princesses on it twirling around in golden dresses making shallow comments on looking pretty for the ball. What the hell Disney? When you made those princesses they had different personalities and things they cared about! It's not ok to just conglomerate them into one mass ego with seven different smiling faces.

Anyways....what super gets under my skin is the iron grip Disney keeps on all its films. Every ten years or so they re-release an old classic saying it's "better than ever" (because the original totally needed to be improved upon) and then charge $30 for it.

This brings me to my point. This month Disney has once again re-released their beautiful classic "Cinderella" (as a side note: if you want to read a really excellent rendition of this fairy tale go find a story called "Donkeyskin." It's marvelous.) Naturally, it's been remastered.

Here is the scene where Cinderella's fairy godmother sings a song and what not:

Now here's the trailer Disney put out to promote their re-release:

Am I the only one who's noticed that the voices have been changed??

WHAT THE HELL DISNEY?? You change her looks to keep her modern, you dumb her down to sell her to children, now you gotta change her voice? This is super annoying guys!

Now, I understand this is only a trailer and maybe the whole movie hasn't been changed but still. It's ridiculous.

I'm very disappointed with you Disney. Very disappointed.

Walt would be turning in his grave.