Alla Prima

Many people (at least in the blogs I read, if not the real-life conservative hub of Houston) are growing more and more concerned about the environment. After I saw Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, I began noticing more and more sites where people would pledge to install compact flourescents, for example, or avoid taking too many long car trips. At the same time, with the economy slowing down, I’ve seen numerous people talking about why it’s ridiculous that everyone seems to think that they need two or more cars for each household, why we need to stop paying so much for clothing and food, etc.

My husband and I are at a crossroads of sorts, financially speaking. Though hindsight is 20/20 and I might have reconsidered quitting my job to go back to school full time, we have done very well on a single teacher’s salary, weathering several expensive car repairs and paying for graduate tuition. We have a pretty good sized apartment that is miraculously cheap, too–we’re right on the edge of a “good” part of town (meaning lower crime than two blocks back), we get to stay in the city instead of living in the suburbs (less money for gas), and we’re right by a nature trail. The apartments are just old, so I think the Energy Corridor engineers and such have somehow missed them. We’re also surrounded by trees, so our energy bill is pretty low, even though we have opted for Green Mountain Energy, a 100 percent solar power option.

Nevertheless, if you look at a 60 percent solution breakdown of what a budget should look like (taxes and fixed expenses at 60 percent with 40 percent savings), we’re still at 70 percent. That explains why we had to stretch to pay for those car expenses and why we have less money than we would like for fun (vacation, etc.) That means we need to cut just under $4000 from our annual budget to be truly “living within our means” at a more comfortable level. We will get some of that back when my expensive cell phone plan is up in October and when I will be getting my own health insurance again (those expenses combined add up to around $2000 a year, and that’s because I have a cheap health insurance plan with a sky-high deductible. Let’s hope I can last until September without getting in a wreck or going to the emergency room.) Still, we have another $2000 to go.

Which brings me to our cars. See, one of the perks about living in the city is that we do have public transportation, however crappy it may be, and my husband can technically ride it to work, though he may spend thirty minutes or so waiting for the bus. His car, though newer than mine, is also not so hot with regard to gas mileage, and we’ve spent more than $2000 on various problems within the past twelve months, not including oil changes and inspections (we’ve spent roughly $600 fixing the alternator on mine, which has been the most expensive problem it’s ever had.) My car can get around 32mpg on the highway, which is what I would be taking to get to work (away from town, avoiding traffic… another perk to living in the city and working in a suburb). That means we spend anywhere from ten to twenty dollars less filling up my tank, and I don’t even have to do it so often as my husband.

So, we may try to sell one of the cars (probably his), and possibly buy a couple of bikes with the money we save. We figure that biking is a little faster than walking on the nature trail, and we can use the bikes whenever we want to go out for fun (triathlon anyone?), then save the car for once a week grocery trips. We’ll have to see how feasible this actually is (my husband likes to sleep in until the last minute before work), but I’m hopeful that it will work. The funny thing is, while we’re helping the environment, we’re also truly living within our means.

Here are a few other ideas we may try which will probably help the environment and our budget:

1) Put up a clothesline next to the bathroom in the back room to dry more of our own clothing.

2) Learn how to cut hair so that I can give Chris a quick buzz when he needs it, instead of waiting until he gets shaggy enough to justify a trip to the barber. We’ll save money on haircuts… and gas.

3) Use our cloth grocery bags. Surprisingly, they are easier to carry than plastic bags, they hold more stuff… and they make it less tempting to go overboard at the grocery store because we have a limited number of them.

4) Continue living in an energy-efficient apartment instead of a house. We figured out that it actually is NOT better to own a home right now, even with a 20 percent down payment. Why? Taxes and insurance are really high in a city, and if we get a 30 year fixed rate mortgage (all we could afford within a year), we will mostly be paying interest, not principal, so we wouldn’t accumulate much home equity that way. Plus, we’d have to live in the suburbs… and I’m not sure that we could get an energy efficient home in a bedroom community. Twice the electricity bill, more liability for home repairs, having to mow the lawn *every* weekend, more driving? No thanks.

5) Plant more stuff on the back porch.

6) Make soap, candles, clothing… everything. Shop at Goodwill and consignment shops (another plus about the city–high end vintage clothing.) Use my sewing machine.

Now, I know I’ll be working next year, so why not just buy the house anyway? Of course, there’s more to life than just number-crunching. But, through all the number crunching, we did discover that we need to be pretty slick in order to achieve our goals of raising a family and continuing Chris’s education. If we have children, we will spend almost $7000 per year in today’s dollars on health care (can’t use my cheap crappy plan if I’m actually giving birth to children who will in turn get sick all the time because their immune systems aren’t up to speed), plus $750 for each delivery. That doesn’t count the start-up costs of a baby (cloth diapers are around $500 for 24 sets, though those could be used for multiple children). Plus, I would like to stay home with the kids, at least until they’re in kindergarten. I’ve honestly seen too many whiny, clingy children who go to daycare… plus by my working full time, we go into a higher tax bracket (ten percent more to the IRS…) and I’d have to pay out the wazoo for someone else to watch my kids, probably not giving them the same attention and care that I could with all my child development education and such.

Though the prospect of paying for children seems foreboding, it was nice to realize that by simply cutting one of the cars and committing to working summer school in future years, we will be able to save for a house and for children, and we should also be able to pay for Chris’s master’s degree. If he gets a PhD, we’ll have to change a few of our goals and maybe live in a trailer instead of a house when we have kids (or have two kids instead of three)… but that’s cool with me.

And now… I’m going to make some banana bread and wake up my husband. I think we’ve had enough of trying to plan the future for one week, especially considering that we really don’t get to make all those decisions anyway. But we can learn habits that may help the shocks of the future.

I’ve almost completed three practice paintings, so I have two more to go before I’ll begin painting “real” pieces for showing and selling purposes.

This time, I painted a tree. I’m aware that the composition is entirely symmetrical, but still, I think it turned out pretty well. My strokes are loosening.

Not bad, eh? The practice definitely helps.

In other news, a friend from church came over to help me learn how to sew. I’m definitely excited about expanding my repertoire of useful skills, and since money is tight, I’d like to be able to sew clothing, placemats, and the like. I will post photos once I get this going.

Not sure that soap-making is going to work out this summer (not enough money!) but perhaps later on in the fall… It’s funny how I can think of nothing except making stuff this summer, while my husband has spent the entire time reading. He’s probably finished ten books already.

On that note, I am reading Walden and Civil Disobedience by Thoreau finally. I guess it’s about time I picked up something weightier than Martha Stewart Living.

Today, I did something really daring. After two years of living in a multicultural, multiracial part of this city, I have finally made real pad thai. I’ve made stir fry before, typically using Uncle Ben’s rice (yes, this is a sin) and Kikkoman soy sauce. But this time, I used real rice noodles, bean sprouts, fish sauce (boy does that stuff reek), and tofu. Yes, you read that correctly. This is the first time I’ve ever cooked with tofu, and I’m totally doing it again.

Even my carnivorous husband was making yum-yum sounds while he was shoveling noodles into his mouth. It was even more successful than my stealth swap of Eggbeaters into his scrambled eggs last weekend. Maybe the beer with lime helped.

It was so good that we may even try to make it for some of the people at our church. Since they’re Asian, though, it had better be good. It’s like trying to make spaghetti sauce for someone whose parents are Italian.

In other news, I was going to write a political post, then decided against it. Let me just say, though, that Michelle Obama is one classy lady… and I want that black and white dress. Enough said.

So maybe I celebrated a little too soon… Turns out that I am missing two references because this school district requires five. I would have taken care of this sooner (like in January), but because I thought they had a hiring freeze, I didn’t get all five references out. It’s okay, because my professors have my back, but I’ll need to go up to school tomorrow to give put them in their mailboxes. Once I have the references in, human resources will call to officially offer the job, then I’ll give verbal acceptance. Once that happens, I’ll sign a bunch of paperwork, including my contract. I already have fingerprints on file and a background check complete (that’s required in all school districts because we, um, work with children). After the contract is signed, I’ll receive a number. Then, I’ll be official.

Still, I did have a principal offer me a job. That’s as good as anything, and I would be very surprised if they called to say that I don’t get the job because I’m missing two references, especially because a couple of my references have links to the district.

I received a copy of the curriculum today, and I’m stoked. I’ll teach Art I with an emphasis on drawing and painting, so we’ll need to have some cool sketchbooks. I’ll probably have upper levels, too, but I have no idea how many yet. Upper level art is somewhat less structured, in part because the AP kids need to build a portfolio, and they need to get some idea of what it’s like to be an artist, without the teacher telling you what to do. Even I am not a showing/selling artist (yet,) but I definitely don’t have anyone telling me what to paint.

I saw this on YouTube. Very nice. I really like the mix of collage and drawing, and I’m planning to have students do some of this. I’ve heard of using old library books, as well as binding our own. I’ll probably save that for upper level classes where kids won’t be as freaked out about learning how to draw.

I’ve just finished my second practice painting of the summer–a portrait of my husband. I hope that he will be the subject of many, many more… kind of like how Edward Hopper always used his wife as a model for the women in his paintings.

I think it was pretty successful considering that I haven’t painted a person from life since a figure painting course I took in 2004. I (sadly) did use photographs for later works. Even though that’s easier, it is much better and more challenging to paint from life. I’m hoping that most of my works for showing purposes can be done from life.

I’ve been giving some more thought to what I want to paint. I really do enjoy the process of observing from life, particularly human life, because it is so challenging. I don’t get quite as jonesed about painting stacks of boxes, but it is fun to try to capture a person’s facial expression during the short period of time that they can hold a pose. I also like to paint trees and other scenes from life. I was told that this was more or less silly… that art has to be more complex, conceptually speaking, than just painting something that you like to look at. I like the Asian approach to this, though. Some actually consider it to be a religious experience to paint something from life–a piece of fruit, a waterfall, or a bird–so long as it is done according to a strict ink style. The outcome is not nearly so important as the Zen experience for the painter and the “chi” made evident in the brush strokes.

I would like to paint works that send positive or at least thought-provoking messages into the world (and that’s the hard part–not being too cliche), but I also can derive personal satisfaction from simply drawing and painting from life. Perhaps this is why Dutch 17th century artists at the height of the Protestant Reformation began focusing on scenes from everyday life instead of contrived religious themes.

Forgot to paint an all-over burnt sienna wash first to build up a nice stick surface for the oil paint… this is why I need to practice… but still, it did make for a nice wash drawing.

I also need to work a bit more on proportion, as well as laying down the strokes. I think I get a little too excited about detail sometimes, so perhaps I need to work faster to achieve more of those nice, organic, broad strokes that show up in my wash drawings. Still, I think this one was pretty successful. Maybe I’ll just paint portraits for the rest of my life.

I got one! Finally! That means I don’t have to substitute teach for another year, and I don’t have to worm my way in through teaching English. Thank goodness.

Let’s just say that a certain person who is Kind of a Big Deal in the Texas art education system interviewed me. Let’s just say that it went very, very well, and she thought I’d do just fine teaching high school two-dimensional art. That means I don’t have to take more courses in sculpture or ceramics ASAP (which worried me because I want to take them slowly and savor them, instead of taking a bunch in the summer and not learning as much), and I also don’t have to learn how to discipline young children. Let’s further say that I interviewed with a principal, and she offered me a job on the spot. I’ll sign the contract as soon as HR arranges it.

WOW.

Could this have possibly turned out any better? Praise God!

And I’ll probably have to change the name of this blog soon, cause I’m not sure I want students finding me… *Grins*

I fear this blog is becoming more about me trying to get a job as an art teacher than about art itself, which is kinda stupid. Still, I need to get one, and I have to keep interviewing until I do. The great thing about art is that you don’t have to perform–the piece itself does all the performance and speaks volumes about who you are. And that can be scarier than putting on a suit and trying to explain in a few sentences about why what you’re doing will matter and why you’re more qualified than someone else. Truthfully, though, I’m not more qualified than anyone. I’m at the bottom of the food chain. I just try really, really hard.

I wonder sometimes at the audacity I have at trying to become a teacher. Perhaps I would be better off going back to school and getting a degree in illustration or graphic design. I could do it, too. One of my professors mentioned that I could study at Yale if I wanted to, because I’m pretty good at drawing. I know, Yale’s where the creepy student tried to film a series of self-induced abortions and call it “art”, but they also have trained several very good traditional oil painters. I found out later that this prof’s wife went to an Ivy league school for painting, so I guess he knew all about that.

Maybe I shouldn’t focus so much on getting the job at this point. That’s necessary, of course, but the real reason I want to be an art teacher is so that I can watch kids’ faces when they learn how to really see something for the first time. I don’t care if they’re five years old or fifteen years old… I really don’t! And I want to make things with my hands. But I can do that now, before I get a “real” job.

The thing is, I just can’t give up this time. I think I gave up too quickly on graphic design, though I may have had some moral reasons for doing so. Same goes with painting–I couldn’t conceive how I would actually make the leap from art student to gallery artist.

I’ve been practically re-living my painting classes from college as I’ve been working on these paintings and re-visiting the work of John Singer Sargent and Eric Fischl. I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to become absorbed in a painting, to have the smell of paint on my hands, to feel the joy of building up layers of color, and to have no particular reason for doing it except that I want to improve my skills and explore ideas.

Before I try to re-hash the past few days, let me just say, Netflix, where have you been all my life? See, I haven’t watched TV in the traditional sense for around four years now, which many people (particularly seventeen-year-olds) find incredible, but I honestly don’t miss it. (Yes, that’s right. I have never seen Sex and the City, nor Desperate Housewives. Horrors.) I do like to watch movies, however, and the Blockbuster for fancy-pants doctors and lawyers nearby didn’t even have Jane Eyre, much less Waking Life or some other trippy college-type movie.

In any case, my husband finally joined Netflix, and we’ve already watched several documentaries in addition to No Country for Old Men, which was gory but quite good. While they’re sending movies back and forth from your queue, you can watch films on the internet for free. We watched Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me, and then made a foray into Michael Apted’s Up! series. I saw the first movie, Seven Up!, while subbing for a psychology class, and I was immediately hooked. Even though most of the participants are kind of jaded about being in the spotlight for so long and having to analyze their lives and actions in a way that few people have to every seven years, the films are quite fascinating. They do make one realize how quickly time passes and how many changes can occur within a short period of time.

On that note, I’m still working on the job search, and I’m also thinking about what sort of outcome we will have. I say “we” because I can no longer act alone; all of my actions will affect another person. I may (in the spirit of Seven Up!) hesitate to say too much more about searching for a job, since this is every bit as in the public domain as a documentary. Still, I am mindful of what all this means.

I haven’t found a job yet, but I was contacted by another school district’s visual arts person. I’ve already talked to three of these people in high places, but this one contacted me first. Maybe this is a sign? I have felt a bit like a job-seeking whore, flaunting myself at all these districts. It’s nice to be pursued.

Yesterday, my husband and I did a cool thing. See, we live in Houston where NOBODY walks anywhere. When I lived in the suburbs as a child, we did walk some, but it seems just too far to do so now. Even people without cars have to rely on the bus system. People drive like maniacs, so it’s rated as one of the more dangerous cities for cyclists. We also have killer weather in the summer–hot, humid, and reeking of teeming algae and other forms of plant life if you’re near a bayou. On top of all this, we have a zillion restaurants, and everything (especially chicken fried steak) really is bigger in Texas. Portion sizes are way larger than they need to be for a populace that spends most of its time near air conditioning (mall-walking is considered a legitimate form of exercise) and away from any sort of intense exercise, unless they’re rich enough to afford a gym membership. It’s a perfect storm that Morgan Spurlock mentioned in Super Size Me and perhaps part of the reason why Houstonians are so fat.

So… (drumroll please) my husband and I walked about eight miles round trip in the afternoon sun to a Starbucks, using a nature trail that winds through part of the city. We avoided car fumes this time by not walking along major streets and didn’t get clipped by any cars this time, either. We had quite a bit of shade, and we even saw a couple of armadillos scrounging around for food. We had to cross a bridge over one MAJOR intersection (a toll road with eight or so lanes of traffic), but it really was quite safe coming from the direction we took this time. We also drank water along the way.

I ordered a mint mocha frapuccino, and my husband ordered coffee and a doughnut. We probably *almost* burned them up by walking all that way, considering that each has probably around 500 or 600 calories. It felt good to get the reward, though; almost like when I trained for a marathon at the end of college. Back then, I would run ten miles on the weekend and burn 1000 calories, and then later I would get to eat a cinnamon roll or something fun like that, in addition to some chocolate milk for a recovery drink. Believe it or not, chocolate milk is better than anything else because it’s the perfect blend of carbs and protein. While it’s probably better to eat an extra 500 kcal of couscous and vegetables (and that would be a LOT), it is fun to do this every now and then.

So… by walking, we saved enough money on gas to pay for my husband’s coffee and part of my frap. We also had an opportunity to burn off extra calories in the process, worked on gradual tans (another plus, since I’m now a little darker than marble white), and saw an armadillo. Not bad for a two-hour weekend excursion.

New rule: if I’m going to spend four bucks on a high-calorie caffeinated beverage, I have to walk for it. Same goes for those addictive espresso brownies.

I just finished baking scones for our ESL dinner tonight. The idea is for us to all bring something from our home countries, so that everyone is representing. Because I go to a multi-ethnic church, we celebrate Chinese New Year and Black History Month with special churchwide dinners, and we also had a Hispanic-themed dinner, as well as these ESL dinners. Because there is no special Generic White Man’s Dinner to honor all of us light-skinned folk (I guess it’s usually White Man’s Day in America, just like how moms and dads claim that every day is Children’s Day, and they don’t need a special day of their own), we’re going to represent our mixed European culture at the ESL dinner.

I couldn’t exactly figure out what to make. I mean, my family has been American for as long as we remember, so we’ve probably been here for two hundred years or so. Most of my family were your standard poor pioneer people, so we probably ate a lot of stuff that you’d find on a farm. I know that my grandfather, whose family were sharecroppers in Oklahoma, enjoyed cornbread mixed with milk for breakfast, but that’s not exactly a great meal to bring to a potluck. I could always bring an apple pie, but that’s kind of cliche, and I read that pies didn’t even really become ubiquitous until the 1950s.

So, in honor of my British heritage (my father’s family was English and we’ve found the coat of arms and everything), I made scones with locally grown Texas blueberries.

My husband, on the other hand, is from a German Mennonite family that emigrated to the United States right around World War I because they were conscientious objectors. (Mennonites in general are opposed to war.) They also ate mostly farm food, but the dishes have really interesting names like “kielke” (egg noodles with cream), “verenika” (cheese pockets), and “zwieback” (soft rolls).

So, today we’re making scones and kielke, which are both made mostly from white flour and cream. Go white people.

Changing subjects, my oil painting is no longer an alla prima because it’s taking me several days… but I will post when I’m finished.