I am beginning a series of posts that are for my Art and Design class. This is the first one and I will answer the following 5 questions:

1.  In terms of your influences, what is your environment?  Where are you from?  What are you from?  What are the forces, things, people, and situations that shaped you into who you are?

I’d say that my environment  is anything and everything I come in contact with in life: my family, my friends, my roommate, the church, the weather, Baylor, etc. I am from Flower Mound, a good-sized “town” next door to Lewisville and Grapevine, just north of the DFW airport. It’s a fairly wealthy town, so I grew up privileged, not spoiled, but definitely used to a certain standard of living. I was fairly reserved as a child and spent most of my time either at school or at home, so my family was very influential on me. For example: I grew up listening to music with my dad, which led to my tastes to be mostly geared towards the 80’s (because of my dad’s music) and then a little of the 90’s (because of my friends’ music). I was always very concerned with pleasing my parents and therefore did things that were pleasing to them (e.g. doing well in school, choosing good friends, and going to church activities). My friends did influence me, of course, but because I chose friends that were good influences, they simply offered a more “modern” version of what my parents were giving me.

2.  How do you think your current environment affects your opinions and tastes?

Once I went to college, I communicated much less with my parents and much more with my friends. Now that I’m engaged and planning a life with my fiancé, I am becoming even more detached from my parents. Their influence is decreasing and the influence of my fiancé, friends, and faith is exponentially increasing. I am changing a lot of even my core beliefs because I never questioned the beliefs of my parents that I simply took on as my own. I am keeping most of them, but I am owning them more and tweaking them to fit my personal opinions.

3.  What makes you feel alive and awake?

There are many things that wake me up and make me feel alive. Worshipping Jesus gets me fired up and fills me with joy, and meditating on certain scriptures helps keep me aware of God’s incredible love for me. I love taking close-up pictures of nature that reflect the incredible detail that God created. Spending time with my friends, especially with my friends that make me laugh, is incredibly life-giving. I love laughing and many of my friends have laughs that just crack me up! It de-stresses me and lifts my heart.

4.  What do you need to listen to, look at, or experience to keep your ideas fresh?

Like I’ve already said, laughing with my friends rejuvenates me remarkably well. Being in nature is usually refreshing, but when it’s too hot to breathe or too cold to feel my extremities, I enjoy nature more from indoors. Also, when my life gets cluttered, I have to organize and clean something. It relieves stress and makes me feel like my life is in order. I can’t concentrate on anything else when I feel cluttered.

5.  Experience artistry that is unfamiliar to you.  What would that be?

I have a friend that is a member of a Christian Screamo band, and one night his band performed at our church’s youth building. I went with a couple of other friends, and attended the concert to support our friend in an environment we trusted. It was interesting, to say the least. The band itself wasn’t too weird, since we knew they were Christians and trying to send a good message. But the crowd, since you can’t often understand the words of screamo, were there for the “music.” They were not all Christians, and their “dancing” was a little unsettling. A few people looked as if they engaging in a karate match with an invisible opponent, one was doing one-handed cartwheels, and others were simply running around in a “mosh-pit.” It was fun and interesting to see and hear something new, but screamo isn’t something that I think I’ll be putting on my iPod.