Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand

Saturday, March 5, 2011

BYU Museum of Art-Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand

I saw this exhibit advertised back in the Fall and thought it would be wonderful to go and see.  It took a little while for us to commit to a day to go, but we finally got tickets for a Saturday.  I didn't want to wait until the very end of the exhibit in May because I knew that at that time it would be hard to get it.  We had already experienced that at the Human Body Exhibit, that game through Salt Lake.  There were four main reasons I wanted to go.
1. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity!
2. It was free.
3. Many of his works are used in LDS gospel literature.
4. They were original paintings of Christ.

The reason it was a once in a lifetime opportunity was because there were many years of negotiations with Sweden and Denmark to allow almost 40 original works of Carl Bloch to be shipped to Utah to be in one museum.  These paintings came out of churches and museums!  They are letting us, in Utah, borrow their artwork.  I asked my dad after the exhibit if the people in these churches where these painting came out of were okay with them being shipped here.  I was expecting a response that they wouldn't be very happy about it.  Well my dad said that he actually heard that they wanted them to come here.  They wanted to share them with others.  I thought to myself, what would my attitude have been if I was in their situation??? Those people were great examples to me.

The Actual Visit-
Trav and I invited a lot of people to join us if they wanted to and my dad, Shannon, Amanda and Jeremy were able to come with us. When we walked into the exhibit it was so quiet and it almost felt like it feels to walk into the temple.  The Spirit was definitely there. It was so interesting to read about each painting and its purpose.  We also rented an iPad that explained parts of the painting in detail and showed you a 360 degree view of the cathedral that it came from.  The cathedrals were absolutely beautiful, but the paintings were amazing!  It was so special to see Christ's love, charity, forgiveness, and sincerity if the eyes that Carl Bloch painted. It was a very neat experience, and I so glad I took the opportunity to go.  I recommend you all go!!!



This was one of my favorite paintings called "Christ and the Young Child".  The reason I loved it is because Christ is lighting up the darkness in the painting, just as he lights up the darkness in our life.  My favorite part is that they described that Christ is inviting all of us to become like a little child.  It is best explained in

Mosiah 3:19
19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.


Christ has always had a special place for children and wants to be near them.  I want to strive to have the attributes of a child, so Christ wants to be near me. 
 
I wasn't expecting this museum visit to be such a spiritual experience, but it really was. I really appreciate the works of Carl Bloch. 
 
FYI...Another one of his paintings is on the cover of the Ensign for March 2011.

Goodbye Katie

My friend and co-worker, Katie Grossman, left to Minneapolis this last week.  She isn't actually in my group, but she works on the same floor and we have had the chance to get to know eachother by working on different projects together.  She is getting married in June to her boyfriend who she has been with for 7-8.  They are getting married in Moab and I have seen her wedding plans coming together and it is going to be a beautiful wedding.  The reason that she left was because she got offered a financial analyst position with Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.  They said they would train her and help her to keep on progressing in her career so she couldn't pass up the opportunity.  Me, Malerie and Katie were just starting to be really good friends, and now she is headed off on her own adventure. 

Me, Diane Brannon (one of Katie's friends from RETECHS), Malerie and Katie

We decided to go lunch together on her last day here.  We went to the Beehive Teahouse in Salt Lake.  It has quite a nice atmosphere and you sit on nice chairs and couches vs. a normal booth or table.  It was fun to just chat together.  I'm definitely going to miss her, but so happy that she got the position she was waiting for!  Good luck in Minneapolis!

An odd request from Trav....

So for probably a couple years now Trav has wanted to get a Chia Pet just to see how they work.  I told him I wasn't even sure where to get one or if they sell them anymore because it has been forever since they have been advertised on TV and were "in". He would try to talk me into to going and looking for one and I always kind of avoided the request  because I thought it would just be a waste of money and I didn't really want one in our house.  Well needless to say we were at Target about a month ago and they had two shelves full of clearance items.  He saw this Spongebob Chi Pet and couldn't resist.  As a side note, Spongebob was his ultimate favorite cartoon.  So that made him even want this more.  We looked at the price and it was like $3.24, so I was like okay.  I thought to myself, it is cheap and then he won't want to go searching for one later. So we bought it.

As we read the instructions we found out that it needs water daily and that there were enough seeds included that you could replant it several times.  The first time nothing really grew, so trav reseeded it and tried again.  This time he was very meticulous about watering it.  He said the instructions stated that it must remain very moist for the first few days.  He would fill Spongebob full of water once a day, spray it with a spray bottle every time he remembered and then we he wasn't by it, he would cover it with a ziploc bag to keep the moisture in.  He made sure it was in a good temperature location and in the perfect amount of sunlight.  I am proud to say he got it to grow.  The picture below was probably after about 1 1/2 weeks. 

That picture was taken right before he gave up on it.  He told me it was taking to much work and he let the plant die.  He said that the chia just soaked up too much water too fast (it is a sponge ya know...lol...lame joke I know)  In the end, it was just fun to see how carefully he cared for his "Cha Cha Cha CHIA".  Good Times!!

ReAL Salt Lake has Real Fans!

Tuesday, March 1

ReAL Salt Lake Soccer Game

My group at work shares a suite at the Rio Tinto Stadium.  Trav and I were lucky enough to get invited to go to one of the games.  We have never been, but we were excited to see how a soccer game was.  The game started at 8.  We got a parking pass along with the tickets so we could park right by the stadium, which was so nice. When we got to the suite, dinner was provided, along with popcorn and dessert.  We got ourselves some food and sat down outside to watch the game.  Our team is actually pretty good.  They won 4 to 1.  There were fans at the end of the stadium pounding drums the entire time. When they would score, everyone would go NUTS!  The announcer would say GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALL and hold it out for longer than I think most people have breath to do.  Everyone would jump and people were waving flags and the really huge flags were throwing confetti in the air.  It was quite exciting to see how excited ReAL fans can get.

It turned out be quite exciting.  I don't know that I would be willing to pay to go to a soccer game because I don't completely understand how it works or the rules, but it was sure nice of my boss to let me and Trav go.  We definitely appreciated it!

Attendees: Malerie (in my group), Katie (in LAG, but she just got promoted and is moving to Minneapolis), her fiance and cousin, and Malerie's friend Shar.  It was fun to chat with all of them at the game. 

I have forgotten what concerts can be like......

Friday, February 18

Ke$ha Concert at The Great Saltair

(This picture must have been at its peak, because it doesn't look quite this fresh anymore)

Let's just say it has been a little while since we have gone to a concert. We had been talking for a couple months about going to the Ke$ha Concert.  It was originally going to be held at "In the Venue", which is where we went to the NFG concert twice.  I knew that it would be packed and crazy there, but I was happy to find out that they moved it to The Great Saltair because it was selling out too quickly. So I got the tickets for Trav for Valentine's Day because he couldn't stop talking about it.

The Day of the Event

The doors opened at 7 PM and the concert started at 8 PM.  I ride TRAX to work everyday, so Trav came and picked me up from work at 5 PM and we headed down to the concert.  I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I just said that I had read they have food inside, and so I'll just grab something there.  So we got there at about 5:30 PM.  There were a couple of spots left to park outside the actual parking lot where they wanted you to pay $5 so we hurried and parked our car.  As we were getting everything gathered and leaving what we needed to in the car, a parking guy comes running up and tells us we have to pay the $5, even though we are just on the side street...so we were like whatever we'll just pay.  We asked him if where we were parked was okay because there was a gate close by that they apparantly open at the end of the concert.  He said that we were fine, so we headed to get in line. 

When we got to the line, I told Trav I'd go grab our tickets at will-call.  Well it turns out that between everything I had left it in the car.  I headed back to the car to go get it.  While I'm up there a different parking dude comes up to me and I said "We've already paid" and he said okay, but I'm going to need you to move your car because we need enough room for a firetruck to turn around here.  So just go into the parking lot and tell them that you already paid.  I was a little hesitant to do that because I thought I might have a hard time getting the parking people to believe me, but I had to move the car.

I drove towards the entrance of the parking lot quite annoyed that 1. They make you pay money to park on the side of the road 2. The first guy told us we were fine, and the second guy said we had to move. I was relieved when I saw the guy we had paid the $5 to was the one that I would have to talk to get it and I knew he knew we paid.  I pulled up and rolled down my window and said, "Hi, we were parked up there on the road and I am moving because we were too close to the gate, but we already paid."  He looked at me and said, "No you didn't".  I said "Yeah we did, we were right over there. We paid you." and he was like, "No you didn't, and for saying that now you have to pay $10."  I said, "You've got to be kidding me!! We paid already."  by this point I was so DANG frustrated I couldn't even stand it and he was acting completely serious.  As I sat there, with I am sure the most angry face in the world he finally says, "I'm just kidding." and I don't know if he heard, but I drove off saying that you are a  complete jerk.  It is so frustrating when you are telling the truth and you feel like the person you are telling doens't believe you. By the time I parked and got back in line with Trav, I wasn't the most happy camper.  He told me to forget about it and to just have fun with him and he completely cheered me up even though deep inside I was still bugged. 

We sat in line from 5:30 until 7.  We did have jackets, but it was getting cold.  We knew it was getting close to when the doors would open, so I ran our coats to the car and tried to stay warm for a few more minutes.  Then I ran back coatless and so was Trav because we knew it would be blistering hot inside.  Finally they opened the doors and we got in.  We started out roughly 15 feet from the stage, which was really close because we had been waiting in line forever.  I hurry and ran to the restroom that was in the back of the concert hall because I knew if I went any later, I would never be able to find Trav in the crowd.  The hour long wait began.  It was full of people pushing and cramming into the building which was quite large.  It was basically a scary mosh pit for an entire hour.  I almost fell down several times, the only thing keeping me up was the fact that we were body to body with everyone around us.  Short girls weren't getting enough air and so they had to body surf to the front by the stage.  A girl by us even fainted and everyone kept pushing and they were trampling her.  Trav and a few around held out there arms and pushed people away saying that there was a girl on the ground.  Finally, her guy friend picked her up, but she was complete passed out, mostly likely because of the intense heat and not getting enough oxygen.  Finally, the opener came out  at 8 and that helped calm the pushing somewhat, but it did continue throughout the entire concert, just not as bad.  The opener was horrible.  I could barely even stand to listen to him and I was really starting to wonder if this whole thing was worth it.

Ke$ha Comes on Stage

We were all so grateful when Ke$ha finally appeared.  We rocked to her music, sang to her music, jumped to her music, and enjoyed the huge show that she, her band, and dancers put on!!! It was absolutely insane and so awesome! By the end, even with all the parking drama, being claustrophobic, having my feet and legs so tired from trying to stand up in that crazy crowd, and having now ate.  It was worth it.  It was so fun to have Trav by me and us just jamming out!!  It was like we were teenagers again!

I know this is a really long story and I'll be suprised if you actually read it all, but because I consider this my journal, I want to remember the details because I know eventually I'll forget.

You have to realize that when I went to the concert these shoes were really white and the shoelaces were really pink.  This just shows how many times my feet got stepped on.  I haven't even dared clean them yet because it is so dirty!

Valentine's Day!

Our Valentine's Day kind of started on the weekend before.  We went out to dinner to Wingers and then we went at saw the movie, "The Way Back".  I haven't ever seen that movie advertised on TV and I didn't have any friends or family ever mention it either.  We read the review and watched the trailer and it seemed like it would be a good movie.  It ended up being a movie I really enjoyed!  I like movies that have a purpose or teach you something.  This movie was taugh selflessness. It is defninitely worth seeing once.

On Monday, February 14, the actual Valentine's Day, we both had to work, but when I got home I was suprised to see a beatiful bouquet of roses and a card. It was so sweet of Trav to suprise me and it put a smile on my face. He really wanted to go to the Ke$ha concert and so I got us tickets to go. I tied them to a heart balloon that said "I Love You" and I gave him a card. I do have to say that it isn't the easiest thing to pick out a valentine gift for a guy. It was a good Valentine's Day and I'm glad that there is an extra holiday to CeLeBrAtE LoVe!