And the Results are in....

I feel like I've been holding everybody in suspense because I haven't posted in a while.  Well this is how it went:

1.  It was a long two hour drive that usually is an hour and a half at best.  Reason being is this:

 and mostly because of this, 

this is how I drove to Oneonta on the Monday before my show.  That was quite the adventure.

2.  So I got all my stuff unloaded from my jeep and my branches off the roof and put it all in my spot of the gallery.  That was fun. (<--Sarcasm at its best.)

After I unloaded everything, I was tired, I hardly slept the night before cuz I was so excited, so I got food at the commons on campus.  I was totally amazed my card still worked there after not being there for like 3 months.  After eating I ended up going to my hotel and checking in.  First time I've every stayed at one and payed for it by myself. 

A nice king sized bed all to myself for a week.  It was nice.  Lets see what else do I remember....

3. Tuesday:  I go in a wait for my teacher and run into some friends and say hi and chat a little and then get to work with the teacher to suspend my branches.  Of course my teacher forgot how short I was when we were getting out the lift, "Jackie, Get the door!"  The door is about 7 feet high and the latch is on the top.  He forgot that lil' old me is 5 ft 2. (I laugh every time at this)  "Yea Terry like I can reach the latch.  Even on tippy toes I can't even reach it."  SOOOooo that was an adventure in and out of itself.  We get the branches hung in about an hour and a half.  Of course I only brought four cuz that's all that would fit on my jeep plus at actually worked better for my project too.  Although I did imagine something a bit more domed shaped but there was no way that could've worked considering the space I had and the resources.  So Tuesday morning was tree branch hanging and Tuesday afternoon was lights and cloth hanging...

And each day I was up without and alarm by 8am and there working on my project each day.  Pretty proud of myself for that.

3. Wednesday.  Ugh Wednesday.  That was the day I started hanging the leaves.  I used a drill to drill little holes into the leaves for the fishing line I used to hang them on the branches.  I didn't use all my 150 leaves.  Probably around about 50 of them.  People kept asking me "what you gonna use the rest for?"  My reply is that I can use them for other projects, hanging them in some of the trees around my house, hang them in my house around my room.  I really don't know but I got a crap load of them.  So it took all of the morning to hanging them on two branches and the afternoon to use them on the other.  I got so ticked off that after a while I said I was done. It looked good and I didn't want to do anymore and overload them.  My next problem was that how was I gonna light the sucker. I didn't bring any extension cords and the teacher, Terry, originally said and I quote "You can't borrow any because their going to be up for 3 weeks."  So I went out and brought an extension cord myself thinking that it would b long enough and that brown would make it less obvious that there was a cord attached to my lights.  Terry's didn't like it at all soooo now this is another funny part.... He let me borrow his white extension cords for this and so I returned the too short and brow cord and got my money back and used Terry's.  And so by Wednesday night it was all finished and I ended up going to bed late and got to sleep late the next day.... The day of my show.  The day I've been waiting for since the summer before.

On the day of the show, I slept in and loved it,  hung out with a friend before the show and she helped my style my hair and i got all ready.  My friend and I, got to the gallery and I called my parents and they were right on time and followed each other in.  And for most of the show I showed off my lil' 5 month old nephew to everyone I knew cuz I said i was going to anyways.  I loved it and flirted with them all.  Over all I say the show was a great success.  A lot of people saw my work but were too scared to go underneath it which they were suppost to.  And well I was proud of it.

My sister, nephew and my dad

4.  The evil Critique: It was the Tuesday after the show opened and I drove back to Oneonta for it.  I get there and there's no food... bummer, but there was cookies so can't really complain.  And it only lasted for about an hour and a half and I was the second person to go.  One of the kids asked why I used live tree for my project when I was talking about the Lorax and not really cutting them down.  She ticked me off sooo bad and I didn't really have a good comeback at the time but how else would I be able to hang my leaves without the trees limbs breaking from rot and the statement wasn't really about the trees at all.  It was about how time is passing and they stay rooted and unchanged for years.  One of the teachers didn't like that fact that I used lights but it gave the feeling I was looking for.  And Terry, the teacher that I was kind of fighting with all week backed me up on how the lights gave the right feel if there was no sun shining into the gallery.  Oh the irony of fighting all week and him seeing what I was trying to get out.  People with Asperger Syndrome have a hard time getting how they feel into the right words when they come out but I used my art to get what I was feeling out.  It felt awesome, peaceful, and great.  So overall a great critique because I was proud and I wasn't gonna let other people ruin how I felt about my project.  It took me 2 and a half years to come out of artistic shell and here it was plain and simple.

AND NOW THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!! And the final grade for this project...... an A+!!!!!! That's all folks!!