photo illustration by yours truly

Today I interrupt your ordinary arts-and-crafts posts to say, "UNICYCLING SHOULD TOTALLY BE AN OLYMPIC SPORT! While I love the fact that unicycling is very unique I certainly wouldn't mind it becoming popular and having talented athletes explore the depths of what can be done on one wheel.

I've been bit by the Olympic spirit, having watched every gymnastics event with my little gymnast sister. So of course I was thinking about it yesterday while riding on a hiking trail. I can barely ride my unicycle backwards, but recently I've been looking at videos of some impressive athletes who do spectacular things on one wheel. Unicycling could totally be an Olympic sport, and this is why...

Reason 1) Unicycles are awesome.

Reason 2) Unicycling is challenging, rewarding, and a very diverse sport. It's still a young sport-- it wasn't taken seriously by athletes outside of circuses until recently-- but already there are unicycling events that mimic (and often 'branch out' to the point where they only borrow a few concepts of) a wide variety of events such as trials biking, mountain biking, freestyle skateboarding, dancing, ice skating, hockey, racing, and slacklining. Plus, you have the typical unicycle tricks that people think of, like juggling while riding a giraffe uni.

Reason 3) THIS:

(extreme off road riding)


(beautiful dance, like ice skating...)


(street)


(cool show with a violin)


(another dance, and a favorite song)


(WHAT IN THE WORLD AND HOW DOES HE DO THAT?)


(crazy circus tricks)


(Can you tell I'm fond of the dancing? This starts getting totally awesome around halfways through).


That is all.

The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci

The Crucifixion by Diego Velazquez

Traditional icon of the Ressurection

This is just a note to let you know I won't be blogging over the next week. :) In the meantime, enjoy these wonderful pieces of art!

Also, I recently read this journal by an artist on DeviantArt. It's an absolute must-read for every Catholic artist. Read it here. The article is all about the vocation of the artist... here's just one of several epic quotes:

"We must depict Christ. I don't mean we have to just draw pictures of Him (though that's very important). We have to depict the object of human longing, or a very small glimpse of it anyway. Jesus Christ IS beauty, just assuredly as He is Truth, and Goodness. And One. It is part of His identity, of who He is. He is the most beautiful person of all time. Our lives have to be an image of that beauty, as we strive for sanctity living in "imitation of Christ". Our art must be the fruit of our own sanctity, of the divine indwelling of God within us. So we must depict the hope that is within us, we must depict the beauty of Christ, by making beautiful art.

Make good, excellent, beautiful art. A lot of modern Christian art makes a very utilitarian mistake of utilizing poor art for the sake of telling the truth of our faith. It's not authentic, it's not sincere. It's preachy: preaching is boring. It's not beautiful because it isn't sincere, and it shoots itself in the foot. You can be sure no poor work ever came out of a certain carpenter's shop in Nazareth."

~Aodhagain on DeviantArt

This article really struck me... I'm determined to go read JPII's Letter to Artists and actually slow down and appreciate it more.

 I found this post buried deep in the "edit posts" section of my blog dashboard. I wrote this on one of those days when you could just feel the Creator at work, when everything from the curling pages of my literature book to the dirt on a pair of shoes held a sort of unimaginable wonder that sends shivers of joy tickling down your arms.


I hope you have days like that, too. I hope you are trying, (as I am trying)  to see God everywhere... Everything He has made has some reflection of His goodness and truth and beauty...


I normally don't post my random musings on this blog. Normally I post about art and craft projects. But you can't do anything creative without inspiration.


And so, since I've nothing else to post today, you get a random musing from yours truly.


_____________________

A dream...

I recently stopped by the craft store while they were having a wonderful sale on the beautiful Swavorski Crystal beads and findings.

I absolutely love these beads... but they are expensive, even at sale prices. So I settled with a couple of sets of my absolute favorites...

These beads are so stunning that I immediately went to my craft table to dream away. I saw dream, because making a bracelet in the stunning design shown above would cost almost $30 for the supplies alone...  I can't justify that for myself. And I don't yet know if something like this would sell in my Shoppe... and besides, I bought the beads to use as focals in some more of my popular "Royalty Teardrop" design.

(However, if any of you readers want a bracelet like this, you'll make me very, very happy.)

While dreaming, I took pictures of some ideas... And I say some, for I am always chock-full of ideas. I sooo wish that I had an excuse to buy a ton of these beads and make these ideas a reality!

The same design as shown above

Wouldn't clusters of these be stunning on a bracelet?

You can always use different colors... or a mix of colors!

Cool necklace idea...

I want a jewelry set like this! A crystal drop necklace... Sparkling dangle earrings... (I didn't have enough purple beads to put one at the bottom of the other earring for this picture, lol!