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Image Observation #1

So, as I stated in the last post, my creative writing professor is requiring us to each keep an image observation notebook to record written images of what is going on around us. As I was walking back to my room after class the first day that she had explained this, I overheard someone around me say this and it caught my attention:

“in a world where people only go outside to go inside somewhere else…”


I have no idea what the people were talking about because this is all I heard. But it did get me thinking about really how true it is. How often do we go outside to really just be outside? Even if we do go outside to just be outside, we go with the notion that eventually we are going to go back inside sometime. None of us live outside, so we never really go outside to not go back inside. Anyway, it is just a thought to ponder. 🙂

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Drawing, Writing, and Paying Attention to the World

It seems like lately I am constantly being reminded of the fact that we often get so caught up in life and forget to pay attention to the world around us. This semester I am taking several Art and English classes and in just the last two weeks both my creative writing and my drawing class have been constantly encouraging me and my classmates to notice and observe our surroundings more closely than we might have done before.

I know that it may seem somewhat obvious that you must really look at objects to really draw them well. But the key to being able to draw or paint well is to really be able to see the object that you are looking at. Sometimes it is harder than you think to rid your mind of the preconceived notions that you have about what an apple looks like, and truly focus on drawing the one that you have in front of you. I guarantee that it will look much different than the shiny, perfectly rounded apple with a stem, leaf, and worm with a smiley face crawling out of it that you might have pictured in your head. My professor gave us this quote and told us to try our best to follow it:

“Bind my attention to both the vigor and detail of the actual world” -Annie Dillard


In my creative writing class we have to keep an image observation notebook where we have to record bits of conversation that catches our ears from other people’s conversations (eavesdropping basically) and also jot down images that catch our eyes or describe people or things. (basically written images of whatever we see) I have noticed that by doing this, I have started to become more attentive to everything that is happening around me. Part of one of the assigned readings for that class really caught my eye:

“Learn the names of everything: birds, cheese, tractors, cars, buildings. A writer is all at once everything–an architect, French cook, farmer–and at the same time, a writer is none of these things.” -Natalie Goldberg

Okay so I know that might seem like it doesn’t relate exactly to what I was talking about, but if you read the entire article, the author is talking about the importance of not only noticing the things that are around you, but also learning the names of them, because knowing the names of these things, especially as a writer, gives you a greater ability to be able to describe an image. She tells about herself deciding to learn the names of plants and flowers in her environment and as she walked around her neighborhood and asked people the names of the plants in their yard, she was amazed at how many people had no idea the names of the plants growing in their own yards. How many of you know the names of all the plants growing in your yards? My point exactly. Sometimes we get so caught up in the busyness of everyday life and we forget to notice and pay attention to the little details. When was the last time that you even noticed the plants growing in your own yard?

So anyway, this week try to “bind your attention to both the vigor and detail of the actual world” and learn the names of some of your plants. 🙂

Natalie Goldberg’s article “Be Specific” from her book, Writing Down the Bones.
Annie Dillard, from her book, An American Childhood.

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Love Like Crazy

This is part of a country song, but I also think that it is pretty good advice for life in general:

“Be a best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you
Go to work, do your best, don’t outsmart your common sense
Never let your prayin’ knees get lazy
And love like crazy”

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The Icing on the Cake :)

So this is also written on the side of the page, but in case that is hard to read, I posted it here too. Plus it is pretty much required that the first post of a blog should state some kind of explanation of something 🙂

My family all calls me Cake, stemming from when my little sisters were little and couldn’t pronounce Cait. So it is only fitting that I would also relate to the saying “the icing on the cake.” I think that truly it is the perfect expression for my life. I am really a pretty simple girl. I grew up in the country and as a kid I was always outside climbing trees and helping in the garden. In my future, I don’t wish for fame or fortune, but my ultimate dream is to live in a little country farmhouse on the Wallace family homestead, the land that has been in my family since my great-great-great grandpa got out of the Civil War, and I would like to be a happily married housewife that serves the Lord and cooks, cleans, grows vegetables in the garden, raises the kids, and decorates the house. I would be perfectly happy with a pretty simple existence to the greater world. I think that the basic things like God and family are what bring ultimate happiness in life. Having said that, there are many other things in life that, like “the icing on the cake,” bring a smile to our faces and make each day a little brighter, because they are small additions to an already good life. The icing on the cake is an expression used to refer to something good that happens on top of an already good thing or situation. In my life, I love creative things like painting, drawing, writing, photography, graphic design, sewing, decorating, cooking, gardening, etc… and so every time I see beautiful artwork, or create it myself, or read something inspiring, capture a piece of beauty in the world through a photograph, touch pretty fabric, design something, cook something tasty, grow a plant from a seed, or simply see something beautiful in the world, I consider these things “the icing on the cake” in life. I encourage you to take time each day to revel in the world around you and notice all the beauty and astonishment in nature or in a photograph, a reflection, a funny comment someone said, or anything you might find inspiring as your own “icing on the cake.”

Love, Cake

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