The Art of the Post-It Note

Art is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Art is an Ansel Adams photograph of Yosemite National Park. Art is a wall full of post-it notes.

Today I came across the article posted below. I added it to my blog because it reaffirms my belief in the dual nature of art: it can be as complex and colorful as an ancient tapestry, or as quiet and simple as a two sentence poem. One does not need to be a genius in sculpting or master watercolors or have the voice of Josh Groban to create art. All you need is a little bit of imagination.

Enough rambling. Here’s the article:

College Student Posts Colorful Creation
By Elizabeth Landau - CNN

For most people, Post-it Notes are disposable, ordinary office papers used for note-taking and reminders. But for 19-year-old David Alvarez of Leavenworth, Washington, they were the perfect medium for a 10-foot-tall mosaic depicting Ray Charles.



Using more than 2,000 of those ubiquitous brightly-colored sticky scraps, Alvarez composed a three-dimensional representation of the famous musician. The piece has just gone on display at Wenatchee Valley College in Wenatchee, Washington, where Alvarez is in his second year of studies.

"It's something so simple. You can still see the flaps sticking out on some of them," he said. "Naturally the Post-it Note just sort of flaps out."

While learning new techniques in Adobe Photoshop in a class, he experimented with taking a photograph of Ray Charles and making it look like a mosaic on the computer screen. He then translated this idea into the Post-it work.

He spent three months constructing the mosaic, sometimes sacrificing schoolwork for his art. At least one of his papers for his summer English courses suffered, but he persevered so that he could participate in an art show July 28 at the Stanley Civic Center in Wenatchee.

Originally, the Post-it Notes stayed in this unique format only by virtue of their manufactured stickiness, which does not hold up as well as glue, Alvarez found. When he displayed his work at the show, he monitored the project for 14 hours, continuously replacing notes that were falling off. The aspiring art teacher now uses glue to hold the notes in place.

For his next project, he is considering a mosaic using 4-inch x 4-inch notes, up from the 3-inch x 3-inch size used in the Ray Charles piece.

"Part of me wants to, part of me doesn't," he said. "It was so hard to align. It took a lot of time and patience."

The Offering

All I have to offer you is bitterness and pain,
A heart of deepest darkness, stained with blackest shame.
All I have to give to you is stubborn, foolish pride,
A will that had forsaken truth to follow tempting lies.
All I have to show to You: a broken, wounded soul,
Shattered in a million pieces, longing to be whole.
Nothing left to give away: an empty, wasted life,
An angry child of hatred imprisoned in my strife.

How can I give to you, the King, the worst of all I am?
How dare I come before you now and in your presence stand?
What right have I to plead for grace and speak your sacred name?
How can I beg for unearned help when I bear all the blame?

I wait in fear for you to speak, trembling with guilt and dread,
I expect the verdict that I deserve, but instead, you lift my head.
You gently wipe my tearstained face and whisper in my ear,
“Your guilt has all been swept away, fear has no power here.
Draw near to me, my precious one, and hear what you should know.
Your once-lost life has been made clean, as pure as fresh new snow.
Your stubborn heart, your life of pride, your sin and your mistakes
That’s all I ever ask for, that’s what I long to take.”

The Cost of Unconditional Love

Whoever said that unconditional love is free never owned a cat.

I had no idea how expensive love actually is until the day a tiny yellow kitten showed up on my parent’s back porch. Lizzy was one big ball of fluff, with a sweet little face and a tail two sizes too big for her body. You could hold her in the palm of one hand, and her pathetic “mew” wouldn’t frighten a cricket. She seemed so innocent, so perfect. This little beauty could not possibly be THAT much trouble, right? It took me exactly two hours to realize that this tiny life would create more-than-tiny changes to MY life.

My first inkling of a major change came when I set out to buy all those little odds and ends associated with owning a cat: carrier, scratching post, collar, litter box and litter, food, toys, nail clippers, brush, food and water bowls. Total cost of the first shopping trip: $80.

Rescuing a stray cat is all very noble, until you discover that your new bundle of joy has brought home a bad case of ear mites. Whoever came up with the name “mites” definitely got the terminology correct, because you “might” be able to kill them, they “might” not come back, and you “might” or “might not” destroy your sheets, clothes, curtains, and every other piece of material you own after multiple washings. I also must not forget the bliss of countless ear cleanings both at home and at the vet’s, which results in Lizzy glaring at me as if I had repeatedly smacked her over the head. This whole process is in addition to receiving two doses of Revolution parasite protection, which I now firmly believe causes the ear mites to grow back even hardier. Total cost of medicine and cleanings at the vet: $87. Total labor: I stopped counting after the 10th ear cleaning.




When Lizzy was 2 months old, I came home to the sad, pathetic sound of muffled crying. After a few minutes of searching, I realized that she was trapped behind the kitchen cabinets somewhere between the pantry and the dishwasher. Lizzy had somehow managed to open a kitchen drawer (without the benefit of opposable thumbs), crawl BEHIND the drawer, and get stuck behind the cabinets. I spent no less than 10 minutes crouching on my knees in a dress and heels, sticking my hand through the hole and calling to her before she figured out how to climb back out of the drawer. The next day I child-proofed every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen and bathroom. Total cost: $15. Total labor: 1½ hours, including the time it took for me to re-assemble a drawer that came apart in the process.


Next came the 3 rounds of shots that every kitten is required to receive. Leukemia, rabies, pet Alzheimer prevention…whatever. I have no idea what they do. I just know they cost a lot. Total cost: $240. Total labor: 2½ hours at the vet.

Last month, Lizzy learned to climb my dresser by sticking her feet into the handles. Just two days ago, she discovered that she is now big enough to jump up onto the bathroom sink and the kitchen counter. This means that every last refuge for my breakables is officially gone, a fact that became reality when I discovered a broken candle holder at the bottom of my bathtub. I have now begun showering in flip flops, a practice which I plan to continue until I am absolutely sure there are no more shards of glass left. Total cost: $10 so far… Total labor: 30 minutes and counting, as I am still finding pieces of glass…

Tomorrow, Lizzy will go to the vets to get spayed. The cost of the surgery is actually quite reasonable, thanks to the low-cost fixing program established by the Humane Society. However, the vet’s over-booked surgery schedule means that I must take her in on a weekday. Total cost: $29 and a ½ vacation day from work. Total labor: estimated 45-60 minutes for drop off/pick up.

At this point, any sane person would ask themselves if all this is worth the effort. Lizzy is just a cat, right? She will not make me a messy painting which I will pretend is a masterpiece at the level of a Monet. She will not throw her arms around me and give me a kiss goodbye on her way to school. She will not grow up to take care of me in my old age. Why pay the cost for a seemingly useless creature who will disobey me, get into almost constant trouble, and even ignore me on occasion? The long answer is fairly complicated and will not be understood by non-pet owners. However, I will do my best to explain:

Every day without fail (except for the day of the cabinet incident), Lizzy meets me at the front door, already purring by the time I pick her up and scratch her ears. She waits outside my bedroom door every morning and when I let her in, she clambers all over me and showers me with “kisses.” When I am reading, she unceremoniously plops herself down on my lap and wraps her little paws around her face before falling asleep. If I leave the room for an extended period of time, she always leaves whatever toy has her occupied at the moment to come look for me. She makes me laugh at least once a day, what with her obsession with the ceiling fan and cardboard boxes. The truth is, I don’t even count the cost when I see her sweet little face. She loves me no matter what, and you can’t put a price tag on that.

I suppose the short answer for why I bother is the same reason God bothers with us. No “sane” being would pay such a high price for people who mock him, spit on him, and nail him to a cross. But God’s love has no limits. He paid the ultimate “Total cost” when He sent His Son to die in our place. His “Total labor” is never-ending: As long as humans draw breath on this earth, He will be gently guiding us back to Himself.

Lizzy’s unconditional love can never compare to what God has done and continues to do for me. But my slightly insane cat has taught me this very important lesson: Unconditional love is not free. When it comes to my salvation, I thank God that I do not have to pay the cost.

The Ultimate Easter Egg Hunt

How cool is an Easter egg hunt? All you need to do to possess candy, gum, and money is simply LOOK for it. The concept is so awesome that I would like to be the first advocate for the institution of the Easter Egg Hunt Policy at my job: I go to work, search under my desk, find my paycheck, and go home.

So maybe the Easter Egg Hunt Policy won’t catch on in the workplace anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean we should give up on egg hunts, just because we aren’t children anymore. Let me explain…

I recently visited the Cathedral Cave, a cavern in the Ozarks first discovered by Fair and Everett Pinnell in 1919. When I walked through the entrance, I saw all the usual things associated with caves: drippy-wet stalactites and stalagmites, clammy walls, bats hanging from the ceiling. What I was not prepared for, however, was the absolute magnitude of the place. Cathedral Cave was a world all of its own, with gently sloping hills, rock formations shining with geodes, a collapsed bridge that once separated two different “floors,” and canyons plunging far beneath my feet. This secret society was host to many inhabitants, including Pipistrelles and myotine bats, camel crickets, wolf spiders, pickerel frogs, and the very interesting grotto salamander.

Our tour guide led us to a stream on the floor of the cave to look for the grotto salamander. These strange lizards are born with completely clear skin. Having never lived under the sun, the salamanders have no use for pigmentation. They are born with eyes, but as there is no light to see with, skin usually grows over them when they become adults. When our guide spotted a salamander, she instructed us to shine our flashlights slightly away from him; his sensitive system could not handle a direct beam of light.

An hour later, as we were trudging out of the cave and back into the bright light of day, I started thinking about the Pinnell brothers. They had been out exploring one day, never expecting that they would stumble onto an entire underground world never before seen in all of recorded history. Had they decided to stay home that day, the cave might still be another undiscovered mystery buried in the earth. All that beauty, wasted on the blind grotto salamander! I asked myself why God would spend so much time on a place that might never have been seen by human eyes. Then, it struck me: God is the inventor of the Ultimate Easter Egg Hunt.

Imagine God sneaking around the earth, giggling to himself as he hides a hollowed-out cave here or a waterfall there. He is pouring water into a ravine and touching His hand to a lake to make it sparkle, all the time anticipating the looks on His children’s faces when they discover his hidden “eggs.” He then sits back, folds his arms, and says to the human race, “Ready…Set….GO!”

Far be if for me to not take on the challenge of the hunt! I do not want to be like that grotto salamander, quietly going about my zero-pigment existence, never venturing out of my dark hole to visit the light-wielding world above. There is an entire universe of hidden “eggs” out there. God is smiling eagerly, waiting for us to find his extravagant, fabulous, beautiful wonders.

Ready, set….GO!

Life According to the Classics

As those of you who know me (which should be all of you, unless you are one who likes to read the blogs of strangers), I love to read. Despite what one certain person who calls me a book snob might think, I do in fact try to read a little bit of everything. I will, however, admit that my first love is the Classics.

The Classics are called the Classics for this obvious reason: they have withstood the test of time. Therefore it follows that the Classics are (mostly) worth the time and effort required to read them. Once the reader gets past the outdated language and the foreign customs, she will almost always find some valuable life lesson or useful tidbit of information. So as not to forget these hidden jewels, I have begun writing down my favorite quotes from the Classics. Here is a sampling of what I have discovered:

§ "Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly." (Elizabeth Bennett, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

§ "Let us laugh when we are laughy, as we sleep when we are sleepy." (Men's Wives, by William Thackery)

§ "Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue.” (Sir Percy Blakeney, I Will Repay by Emmuska Baroness Orczy)

§ "He can hold his tongue well. That man's dumbness is wonderful to listen to." (Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy)

§ "Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage." (Feste, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare)

§ “The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.” (Merlin to King Arthur, The Once and Future King by T.H. White)

I Don’t Choose Which Things Bug Me…

…but I do seem to have a rather long list. Here are just a few examples:

§ People who can’t perform basic functions in Microsoft Excel or Word
§ The voice of local radio show host Cornbread
§ Waiting in the “10 items or less” line behind some lady who is checking out her month’s worth of groceries
§ Skinny girls who wear clothes three sizes too big
§ Sunday drivers
§ Terrible books that make it to the New York Times best seller list
§ “Campers” who can’t leave home without their 200 foot RVs, tvs, air-conditioning, DVD players, and satellite dishes
§ “No right turn on red” signs
§ Green beans
§ Paying property tax at Christmas time

And not to seem too negative, I wrote down some things to think about when I am feeling irritated at people and life in general.

Things That Do Not Bug Me (And That I, In Fact, Love)
§ Self checkout lanes
§ The fast response time of my landlord when the AC breaks on the hottest day of the year
§ I-tunes
§ Co-workers who bring me food (you know who you are)
§ Autumn leaves and Starbucks chai
§ My cat curling up next to me in bed every morning
§ A library filled with books that do not suck
§ The friendly greeter at Wal-Mart
§ Down comforters
§ Friends, family, and a God who loves me despite my rather long list of things that bug me

Beer Bash or Tea Party?

One rainy afternoon not too long ago, back in those almost forgotten days before the heat wave, I sat on my couch sipping hot tea and watching the water pour down my living room window. Lizzy, my 4 month old cat, was quietly snoozing on my lap instead of her usual activities: climbing the curtains, eating flies, and falling off of bookshelves and counter-tops. As I sat there in that brief moment of quiet, I had this thought: Has my life been like a beer bash or a tea party?

The difference is, of course, obvious. A beer bash involves downing one drink after another until you are left standing in the middle of a room that keeps spinning, wearing a lampshade on your head and wondering how exactly it is that you got there in the first place. The enjoyment of each individual beer is not really important, because the real goal of a beer bash is the buzz – a high that lasts as long as the drinks.

A tea party is a much different affair. One must sit down at a tea party, because dancing with a boiling pot of water is not really all that practical. The tea should then be sipped slowly (chugging hot tea is neither safe nor socially acceptable.) The subtle flavors of earl grey, chamomile, and orange spice can only be discovered through this slow, deliberate process of enjoyment.

So there it is: the big question I pondered on that rainy day. Am I jumping from one thing to another for the thrill of the free fall itself? Or am I taking my time with life, savoring each day for what it holds? Instead of answering, I will simply turn the question back to you…
Are you living life like a beer bash or a tea party?

Pop Quiz

I would like to begin my very first entry on my very first blog with a pop quiz. Please answer the following questions (points will be deducted for cheating, making faces at the blogger, and complaining about reading long posts):

I started blogging because...

a. I like to share my thoughts
b. I love writing
c. I am bored
d. My cat stopped listening to me
e. Everyone else is doing it

The answer is: All of the above. I know, technically that wasn't an option. But if you answered correctly, then you are smart enough to be a reader on this blog. If you answered incorrectly, well, I suppose you can still keep reading because you were partially correct. Just know that you will now be moved off of the "preferred reader," "best friend of the blogger," and "VIP" lists. But you can redeem yourself by answering this next question correctly:

My screen name is tempest816 because:

a. 8/16 is my birthday
b. I love violent storms
c. I am sometimes known to create violent storms
d. Unvoiced thoughts in my head turn into violent storms
e. "Tempest816" sounds cool

The answer? "All of the above!" Are you catching on? Good! One more question:

This blog will include:

a. Favorite photos
b. Anecdotes about the crazy people around me (names may or may not be changed to protect the not-so-innocent)
c. Samples of what I am working on (poetry, stories, etc)
d. A running commentary on my super-fantastically exciting life
e. Whatever pops into my head

And the answer is.... "All of the above." If you got that one wrong, then I have one thing to say to you: In the words of my favorite local radio commercial, "You're too stupid to be here."

Until we meet again...