As promised...

...pictures from ATL Pride, in no particular order:

(I have 105 pictures, so this is simply a smattering.)

These guys and gals were marching with sings for "Save the Ta-Tas," "Domestic Partnerships/Benefits," "Gays in the Military," "Youth Pride," "Unity," and "Love." One of the signs has Trans-something on it, but I can't read my pic, and my memory fails.

(Sorry, I do not know how to do the wonderful "click to embiggen" that Java does so well.)

Fabulous rainbow peacock people. I did get a front shot, but this has the better view of the spectrum. (I am peeved that indigo is no longer in the rainbow. First no Pluto, now they're taking my colors away. grrrr)

...IDK. Seriously. But it was an interesting sight nonetheless.

More people with signs! Honestly, this section was one of my favorites.

These guys were with the same group as above.

Here's one of the better drag queens that was in the parade. There were 2 or 3 others with him, but this is the best shot.

Many, many drag queens, as well as some of whose gender of origin I was not certain. This made me happy.

The bar/club the Atlanta Eagle got raided less than a month before the parade. The manner of the officers towards the patrons was absolutely horrid, and their float focused on that.

Awesome rainbow skating super-dude! He was going back and forth from end to end of the parade the whole time.

I just realized this one is crooked. And I have no idea how to fix it on here. Oh, well, take a gander at (a sideways) St. Mark's United Methodist. Woot! The insie was decked out in rainbows as well, but my camera died before I could get a shot.

There are more, but "les devoirs et le deuxieme examen francais disent a moi, 'ETUDIE!'" ('my homework and the secon french exam say to me, 'STUDY!'" Review while blogging, probably not the best way, but useful!) It makes me sad that I can't get the accents on here with the same key combos as in Word.

Enjoy the pride-tastic pics.

Laters,

~Brill

Reconnecting

I am a Ceramics III student this semester, the only level III student in a class of II, III, and IV. There are only 4 assignments for the entire semester, and Mr. Sir does not grade until the final day, so I have the whole semester to complete the requirements. The assignments are:

-Mix a glaze (he shows how, and then I mix another from the dry chemicals in the studio)

-One dinnerware set for two that matches/goes together. This includes 2 large plates, 2 small plates, 2 bowls, 2 cups, 2 saucers, and 1 or 2 something else (i.e. a casserole dish, a gravy boat, 2 tumblers, etc.)

-A sculptural series of four

-A choice series, number determined individually (I am doing 4)

Of these, I have completed the glaze mixing. Keep in mind that there are 1.5 weeks left of school, and I have 4 other classes to work on as well.

I have not been lazy. I have only the "something else" to do for my dinnerware set before it is complete. That life-sucking project has consumed the bulk of my class time since the second week of classes. I have accomplished a lot to that end, but at the expense of my other 2 projects. I started working on my sculptural series, trees, just after midterms, trying to use combined wheel-thrown forms that I then altered. It failed. At life. Repeatedly. I talked with a classmate from the IV class yesterday, and she suggested I try coil or slab methods of hand-building. (She's doing practically nothing but hand-building for her individual objectives, and has some fabulous stuff. I can't wait for the shows this year!)

I decided to give it a try; I've been doing nothing but wheel work for the last year, though I really enjoyed building things by hand. I tried a tree done with coil method, and Joy! Elation! SUCCESS! Something that vaguely resembles an arboreal entity! Not only that, but I really felt closer to what I was doing than I have for a while. Though I am focusing in both drawing and ceramics, recently I have felt a kind of malaise in ceramics class, closely linked with not producing anything I really felt "in to" or anything that could go towards my show next Spring. Working with the clay tonight, not trying to force it around on the wheel, I felt that start to dissipate; I felt excited and connected to what I was doing.

I hope I can keep this up, and finish my projects, but mostly keep that connection to my work that I seem to have strayed from. I knew the other methods were there, I just had spent so much time on the wheel that my brain wasn't processing anything else. I need to keep the cerebral cortex firing on ALL cylinders, and connecting thoughts. D'oh.

Night.

~Brilliance and Light

A very Proud Halloween, and religious sadness (but mostly rambling)

Last weekend was Atlanta Gay Pride, and I had the opportunity to go. It was an absolute blast. Ally went as an organization event, and we stayed at the home church of one of the members and former officers. We arrived Saturday evening and got settled in, then everyone else went out to party a bit. I had some very interesting reading, was very tired, and had the suspicion -confirmed- that the security system might not be generous enough to let them in if they got back after midnight, so I stayed at the church. We all went to church there (Saint Mark's United Methodist) Sunday morning and then watched the parade. The route leads right in front of the church, so we got seats on the curb facing the church and had an excellent view of the parade.

Although I had a full battery when it started, my camera died right before the end of the march, so I missed a few good shots, including a man who'd painted himself into a rainbow and donned a suit of bubble wrap--JUST a suit of bubble wrap. I did get a picture on a friend's camera, though.

After the parade we went down to the park and walked the booths for a bit before heading back to school. All around, pride was amazing, hilarious, inspiring, and kind of sad in some ways. St. Mark's was very welcoming and open, had rainbows all over the chapel and had a speaker from the Human Rights Campaign. Even though the woman whose church it was had told us it was a welcoming and accepting church, I felt anxious before the service over wearing my "gay tag," a rainbow dog tag on a chain.

I am a gay/bisexual, trans-spectrum human being, predominately identifying as a female. I am a Christian. I feel that God loves me, and He/She will always love me and I should strive to live as morally straight a life as possible. Jesus said,

³⁰And you shall love the Lord your God out of and with your whole heart and out of and with all your soul (your life) and out of and with all your mind (with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding) and out of and with all your strength. This is the first and principal commandment.

^{³¹The second is like it and is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)}

And I try. And I often fail, because I am human, and I am a fallen creature. But He/She loves me anyway. Knowing that, I get little love from The Church. I felt honest surprise -joy, elation, relief, giddiness, a real sense of rightness, but also surprise- when the actions and words of everyone I heard in that church actually matched the professed acceptance. That church made me happy, but my surprise makes me that much more aware of how far I feel I have been pushed or have willingly retracted myself from the established church.

I loved church as a child, and still do to some extent. Though not by any stretch of the imagination a singer, my most earnest form of worship has always been through music. Whenever I have attended a church without a good music program, I have felt that my communion with God has been stifled or limited in some way. While I am not currently attending regularly, I make a point in my personal worship to listen and sing songs that seem to have a deeper spirituality. It helps.

{{This is where the pictures are supposed to be, but We are Experiencing Technical Difficulties. My camera would let me look at the pics, then it gave me generic icon images, then it died, so we'll see how generous it's feeling after a recharge and a stern talking to.}}

You'll just have to make do with pictures of protesters from another march/ pride/ something. I found this on Pundit Kitchen and it made me happy.

see more Political Pictures

This post was a lot more rambling than I intended, and didn't focus on what I'd originally planned on posting, but I've been meaning to do a post or two on religion (Cameron got a bug in my ear for that), so here you go. Deal with it, oh three people who read my blog.

~Brill