Saturday Aesthetic Expression: Guy Fawkes Day

Editing error- Post written by Joey on Brittany's account.  We're so "one" we write for each other now!

Today is celebrated throughout Great Britain as "Guy Fawkes Day".  When you think of Guy Fawkes, what do you think of?  As an American the only thing that comes to mind is fireworks (well, that or V for Vendetta)

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But why on earth do those Brits set off explosions on Guy Fawkes?  Cause that's what he did, well...tried to do.

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Guy Fawkes was a convert to Catholicism after his mother married a Catholic when his father died when he was 8 years old.  But he lived in England when being a Catholic was not exactly safe.  So he moved to Spain for awhile and fought for the Catholic Spainards during the 80 years war before returning home to try and "replace" Queen Elizabeth with a Catholic monarch and return England to the Church.  Well, that kind of backfired- with imprisonment, torture and execution.

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Anyway, we're Catholic, and not so fond of all the bad things Queen Elizabeth and her ilk did to British Catholics like Fawkes, St. William of York and countless other untold martyrs for the Faith. Today the protestant Brits celebrate his defeat by burning effigies of the Guy Fawkes and of the Pope, but that's crazy cuz the Pope is great. Queen Elizabeth on the other hand was a bit of a tyrant.

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And you know what they say in ol' Virginny (where Brittany hails from), "Sic Semper Tyrannis" or in other words:"thus always to tyrants" or in other, other words "this is what yer tyrannical ways'll get ya".

I made our effigy of Queen Elizabeth, though before the addition of the portrait of Elizabeth (printed draft quality of course) it was running precariously close to being a little too blair witchy. I dunno, you be the judge.

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In addition to the creation of the effigy, we also decided to rewrite the traditional Guy Fawkes Day children's rhyme:

Remmember remember the fifth of November

revolution and freedom besought.

I see no reason why tyranny's season

Should ever be forgot...

So yea... there is a long tradition of exacting vengence upon those whom you revile or, in the least irritate you, throughout art history. You don't have to know a lot about the interpersonal relationships of Michaelangelo to guess that the fella he painted in hell with the ears of an ass and a snake biting him was probably not "besties" with the famed sistine chapel painter.

 

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Symbolism is such a great thing. I mean, its way better to paint a guy with a snake biting his "special area" than it is to punch him in the face. Less violent, and a vengence that lasts the ages. That guy is long dead, but everyone is still quite clear of how Michaelangelo felt about him.

 better to burn in these fires than in the eternal ones

Similarly with Queen Elizabeth, I'd much rather burn an effigy of her to abate my personal vengeance and pray for her soul to be spared from God's Justice by His Mercy than the alternative.

Make It! - Plaster Sculpture

It mentions in our tagline that I'm an artist, but I'm sure most of you are like, "sure buddy, so where's the art?" Well, here is a little taste:

Short of some sanding and staining this plaster sculpture is essentially finished. Technically this piece is an example to show to my students which I teach art to through a local homeschooling cooperative but I am so pleased with the final result that I may make a mold of it for a future ceramic installation.

This month rather than creating work (which I love) I think that my primary "make it" has more to do with instilling a sense of beauty and creative expression in my students. Currently I am teaching Introductory Ceramic Handbuilding to a group of 15 elementary aged students as well as Art Design and Fabrication Fundementals to a class of middle-high school students. In early November I will also be taking on a brief 3 week workshop with 20 students elementary-high school.

I love teaching.

Even more I love teaching art.

Even, even more I love teaching art to kids.

With that in mind, any locals who are interested, I offer semester long and workshop length classes to students ranging in age from 5-adult. I can either go to a location (such as the case with the current co-ops) or I also offer classes out of my studio which is equipped with a wheel, a kiln, sundry handbuilding/carving/shaping tools and of course, the requisite studio dachshund.

While the focus of my passion (and fine arts degree) is ceramics (handbuilding, throwing and moldmaking) I also offer multi-media concept design and fabrication classes from beginner-advanced.

For those that want something less intense, with less committment I also have a ton (literally) of molds which are available for "paint your own pottery" type sessions/parties.

I offer a 10% discount to fellow Catholics as well as donate an additional 10% to charity, for those that are interested.

Finally, one "make it" that Britt and I have been discussing lately is to actually put together a more legit website for me, so stay tuned for that, which will give more images and access to my work as well as provide more details regarding my workshops.

The Experiment

Welcome to our new blog!  We're a young family, with two beautiful daughters, and we're both educated-and unemployed.

We're Joey and Brittany, married in early 2009 while Joey was finishing his degree in ceramics and philosophy while Brittany was working as a non-profit social worker.  We've never expected to make a lot of money doing the things we love to do, and still don't.  But after we had our 1st daughter, Charlotte, in November of 2009, and we realized that it would cost us money for Brittany to continue working with daycare and travel costs, so we became a no-income family.  We were lucky enough to have the remainder of Joey's school and some of our basic living expenses paid and saved for, but we never expected to have to live on that for this long.

Joey graduated in December of 2010 with a BFA in Fine Arts  and a BA in Philosophy-aka "bartending".  In the first few months after school, we worked hard looking for a job for him, but realized quite quickly that this was not likely in this economy.  In the 8 months since graduating, he's had 2 interviews. 

But life is good!  We've grown as a family so much!  Brittany's learned how to cook everything from scratch, we've given up soda, and take out pizza, and lots of other "luxuries" that most people our age consider "essentials".  But in all this, we are still finding ourselves part of a very consumeristic society.  If there's something we need, we head to the store- the thrift store usually- or onto amazon.  We research and we fret over that last penny, but we still go over our budget.  We're just too comfortable with the availabilty of our credit card.

So we're starting a family experiment this month to kick start our new blog.  We're going to spend no money for the month of September!

The Rules
For one month, we will not buy things.  Paying our electric bill, obviously, does not qualify as buying a thing.  Going out to eat, on the other hand, does.

We will be paying our recurring monthly bills during this month, but we will be trying to keep them as low as possible.  Quick showers and no more AC and a few more rules should help.  We'll be comparing our water, electricity and phone bills at the end of the month to see how we did.

We will attempt to feed our family on no money, but will allow a small budget for fresh fruits and vegetables to keep our family healthy and strong.  We will not compromise our Real Food values in the interest of free food.

Our first resource for food will be what we already have in our house (and no we didn't stock up on anything, except butter which was on a great sale this week, beforehand).  We will eat from the back of our pantry and freezer and from what is left of our poor little garden before we buy anything.

Our second resource for food will be bartering.  We have a farmer's market near us on mondays and tuesdays with a farmer we've already established a bartering realationship with who will be a good go to for this.

It there's still something we need, we will purchase it at the lowest price possible.

We won't just "hold off" until October 1st and go on a spending frenzy.  We will genuinely attempt to source out those things that we would otherwise purchase in a free or nearly free manner.  For example,  Joey is currently looking for lumber to build raised beds for our gardens for next year, and Brittany is looking for things like a yogurt maker, and books.

Necessities don't count.  If we need to purchase medicine, we will do it.  If we have to go to the doctor, we will go.

In the end, the goal isn't to spend no money, but to not make purchases. 

The reason people buy things is because it's convienent.  The less convienent something becomes, the less expensive it becomes.  That's the society we belong to.  We don't want to do things, so we pay people to do the things we can do for ourselves.  But our goal isn't to remove ourselves from that society (go "off-grid") but to find our resources through the community we live in, in as low impact a way as possible.

Want to follow us on this journey and see just how good (or poorly) we do?  Jump on board and see Our Live Active Culture in action!