Virtual Brush Box

The six personal narrative classes have come & gone.

First Person: Personal Narrative Writing
UAB Art, ArtPlay
Teaching Artist – Javacia Harris Bowser

How did I do on my specific aims for the class? [Thoughts Before A Class]

1) Go somewhere, do something.

Yup.

2) Generate blog posts.

Hit this one out of the park. This is post #7 about the class directly. While in town for class, I found photo subjects for Friday posts and art subjects for Sunday posts. After all these years, I think in blog posts. Can’t say if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is definitely a thing I do.

3) Professional development.

Meh. I wrote four assignments. Approximately 3,000 words. More writing is better than less writing. OTOH, all of it was very much a piece of what I already write. Partly due to the short time frame. Assignment on Monday, due Friday. Text on a deadline? Pas de problem. Soul-searching, personally innovative text on a deadline? Not happening. One option would be to gradually redo the assignments in a more narrative style. I may. Or I may get caught up in simply getting text out the door.

4) Write & 5) Submit.

Nope. Nothing I wrote cries out for a market.

So what did I learn? I can safely say that Personal Narrative, as a genre, is not for me.

Emotional subtext. I am a subtle as a brick. Would I benefit from increased emotional complexity? Probably. Am I likely to change at my age? Probably not. Nor am I interested in reading books that plumb the profound depths of a stranger. Unless you are one of my nearest & dearest, I do not care to hear about your personal growth. I am delighted you have gained as a human. Please go do it somewhere else.

Trauma. Personal narrative is all about transformation. Because X happened, I learned Y things. Generally, X is some horrible life event. I do not want to have horrible life events. I do not want to read about horrible life events. I will not bring down the tone of this post by giving specific examples of the terrible things that people write about. If you are interested, do a search on Memoir. Or use your imagination. Ick. I do not need more angst in my life. I have a gracious plenty. Why invite more darkness into my life?

Thus endeth the personal narrative adventure.

Post From Another Class Member

Aust’s Proquestinations: Personal Narrative Assignment #1 – Embracing My Roots

My Class Posts

[What Is Personal Narrative, Thoughts Before A Class]
[Why I Write, Personal Narrative Class #1]
[What Is The Story Of Your Name? Personal Narrative Assignment #1, Class #2]
[Turning Yourself into a Character, Personal Narrative Assignment #2, Class #3]
[Life in Seven States, Or Seven State-Like Entities, Personal Narrative Assignment #3, Class #4]
[Confessions of a Confirmed Cat Person, Personal Narrative Assignment #4, Classes #5&6]
Personal Narrative, Thoughts After A Class

Per my own curiosity, posts that arose because of class

[Sunset On A Sidewalk, Photography]
[Heart Of Gold Mural, Art]
[Found Fall, Photography]
[Scattered Reflections, Photography]
[Mosaic Tiles, Art]
[Park photos] pending

So, four writing assignments and a baker’s dozen of posts. Not a bad haul.

Onwards!
Katherine

Wooden Covered Bridge
Brierfield Ironworks
Brierfield, Alabama USA
2 November 2024

Technical Details

Camera phone.

I seem to be on a bridge kick. If two can be called a trend. [A Bridge To The Past, Photography]

I need to get back out with my big camera. That was the point of this Friday feature. But I keep finding post-appropriate subjects when I have my phone. [Photo Safari The First, Beeswax Creek Park]

Onwards!
Katherine

AFK

~~~

Cahaba Valley Creek, also known as Bishop Creek
City of Pelham Park AL USA
August 2024

Byproduct of photo trip [Reflection, Leaf]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Waiting. Undecided when I went to bed last night.

~~~

What has the home team been doing lately? Nothing of substance. Well, from lifestyle POV, they’ve been busy: eating, sleeping, pooping, walking, living their best life. From an achievement POV, nothing of substance.

Rodney had a western ride in late September. [Western Saddle Observations]

Milton did a fly-by of the cart at the beginning of last month. We asked him to stand between the shafts. He was fine during, but exhibited nervous behaviors after. [Circling Back To Square One]

After that, the wheels didn’t fall off so much as gradually roll to a stop.

One weekend was pet issues. [Jasmine Has An Outing]

The next weekend was pitiful. [The Post-Vet Woe Report]

The subsequent weekends suffered from motivation leakage. Work slid off the schedule. Also, the end of October and the beginning of November contained horse shows that I was not at. This always puts me in a mood. [Off To The Show They Go]

Time will tell if this is permanent situational realignment or a brief blip. We did keep up with the morning walks, even during the pitiful, albeit slowly.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Election day in the US. WHAM: Headstone at Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite now protected by plastic case, 2020.

~~~

One morning, I was getting the walk started with the two horses while the other human was busy. Leading these two is tricky as Rodney is – understandably – concerned about keeping his tender hindquarters away from the bitey bits. There tends to be an element of disarray.

The three of us walked off.

I unhooked Milton to see if he would fall in. [Follow The Leader]

I halted the train next Milton’s favorite rest area. Did he need to stop?

No, he did not.

In fact, he charged to the front, the actual front, past me, and marched off.

He then proceed to lead all the way to the turnaround point at the far corner of the field. Clearly, we were doing it wrong and he needed to take over to show us how it was done.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Taco Bell is advertising a 90s menu. When I was in college in the 80s, the 1950s were an ancient time, suitable as a source for goofy costumes. For kids in college now, the equivalent time is the 1990s. That is not possible. I don’t care what the math says. I remember the 90s. They were last week.

~~~

If you don’t have horses at home, do you ever want to know what it is like? Non-stop excitement, I tell you. If you do have horses at home, you are laughing by now.

Last Saturday on our way out to actually go somewhere, we had to stop by feed store #1 to order another bag of yeast supplement.

We also picked up a bag of treats, which saved us from having to stop at feed store #2.

They were the wrong style of treats. The individual cookies are bigger, which means we will go through the bag faster, which means we will eventually end up at feed store #2 for treats of the correct brand and size. While we are there, we will pick up bags of sawdust pellets for Rodney’s stall.

The wonder of it all.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. “Non-members are also free — our holiday gift to you! –” Washington (DC) Calligraphers Guild: Alphabets & Letters & Accordion Books, Oh My! with Julie Wildman. Wed, Dec 04 via Zoom. Check it out. WCG has great presentations.

~~~

Process Notes

These are more traditionally fractal than my first set of fractal numbers. Five iterations, 50% reduction. To start, I made each individual number more box-like so that there was a place to put the next batch, but not too much or the design defaulted to 8. I was tempted to skip 1 & 7. Figured the fractal bits would be floating around in space. They both came out kinda cool. TIL, clicking can copy to a specific spot, which is useful when your design has many repeat elements that aren’t quite repetitive enough to copy and paste an entire section.

Got the idea for this when I revisited the square post for another project. [Fractal Square]

I like this better than the first set. Those were better in theory than in practice. [Fractal Numbers, take 1].

[Fractal Alphabet]

Update. In case the 3×3 grid is not showing up on your screen, this is how the colors are arranged.

Onwards!
Katherine