Dilemmas and Fruit

(click on image to enlarge)

I was feeling kinda fruity last night, after an eventful day at work. So I experimented some more with Photoshop. As I said yesterday, I wanted to combine my digital manipulation skills with painting using this program. So here is my first attempt. The background is peeled clementines in a watercolor effect. The girl, "Clementine", is a manipulated photo of one of her namesakes. I pushed and prodded and painted and highlighted and tweaked a clementine into a face. The hair is a manipulation of the leaves. I added some clementines for her headdress, then played around with light and colors. Le voila!

So, while you ponder Clementine, here is today's installment, of Genie's Dilemma. The three page directive went over quite well with the department. I have heard no grumblings; instead people seemed engrossed in it. I got all the exams revised according to specs. AH!

Of course, since things were going so smoothly, another lovely new challenge fell into my lap, well, actually, into my mailbox. The posting for my position (Curriculum Leader) and for the Assistant CL were placed in my box, as a subtle reminder that I need to reapply for this job if I want it for another year.

Do I want it for another year? Sheesh. Can't I have one day of peace? heh

Renata, who is the ACL right now was supposed to have the job for another year, and was surprised and delighted to find out that it was posted again. She doesn't want to reapply.

Do I? Of course, I have very little time to think about this...

Deep in thought, I made yet another fruity concoction with Photoshop (PS).

(click on image to enlarge)

I used my other favorite fruit, the pomegranate. It inspired a "Little Red Riding Hood" theme. I took a photo of a half pomegranate, and manipulated, painted, shaded, pushed and prodded it into her face. I duplicated the layer, and manipulated it to create her hood. The background image is a plate of pomegranates in watercolor brush, softened so as not to overpower the main figures. Then I painted a hand and a pomegranate that is being offered to her as "bait"? "reward"? Something?

I have a lot to think about today. I know I have achieved much, with Renata, in less than a year, and I can be proud of my accomplishments. There have been endless sources of frustrations, but these will exist whether I take this position for another year or not. The difference then will be, I will have no control over the situation, and it might easily revert to what it was before we put in all this work. IF I take the job, it will mean I might be working with someone who won't be as easy to work with as Renata. Maybe no one at all, since no one applied for the position I have right now in six rounds of postings last year. Did I mention our school does not have the best of reputations right now? Do you wonder why, reading my rants? :)

I will be still, and listen to what the Universe whispers to me.

As part of the process of becoming more authentically me, I am participating in another amazing blogging book club 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women hosted by the Incomparable and Highly Creative, and Resourceful, and Amazing Jamie!

I will be blogging about this daily, but I want to start by acknowledging my creative past.

I was always a creative kid. Doodling, fascinated with beads, filling notebooks with gibberish even before I understood human language. My father was an artist himself, an architect and a lover of all the arts. He made sure my life was steeped in the beauty of music, the lyricism of fine arts, the enchanting lines of architecture, the wonder of photography.

It was not until I entered the school system that I started to feel that being eroded day by day with constant criticism, constant comparison, constant rules.

• I wrote my first poem at age 8 about a butterfly. My teacher laughed at it.
• I was in a choir in elementary school. Our teacher would walk around to listen to us, and she told me to lip sync because I was throwing the others off.
• In my grade 8 art class, my watercolor of a woman was scoffed at by the teacher saying it looked more like a bull frog!
• I took piano lessons for 8 years (a lot of 8's) and when I joined the conservatory, my piano teacher screwed up his face like he swallowed a whole grove of lemons, and said "You have a lovely musicality (enter lemon face) but your technique is appalling."

Did that stop me? In some ways, yes (I gave up the piano and was afraid to sing). In some ways, no (I kept writing and painting).

I hated school until I went to university. There I found praise, encouragement, and respect for my creations and my ideas. I found professors who were not only creative themselves but who inspired creativity in us through their assignments.

What has it taught me? To be a better teacher. To encourage my students' creativity, to give them choices, to honor their interpretations and respect their visions. Because no matter what, no one has the right to shut someone else down because they see the world, and paint it, in a different light.

That is what I have learned.

I hope your days are bright, your decisions easy and your creativity fruitful! :)

Blessed be :)