The Secrets Of A Good Marriage

By:Ellie Kelsch

Growing up I've learnt about love,

I've been surrounded by it everyday.

I'm so glad you've both found it,

And it's why we're here today.

They say there's secrets to a good marriage,

That there are rules to obey,

But the most important rules of love,

Are what you two do everyday.

It's the ''hey babes'' in the morning,

It's how she makes his tea,

It's the way he smiles at her,

Such a sweet thing to see.

It's never being to old to hold hands,

Or to watch movies on the couch,

It's accepting all the flaws,

Even when the other's a grouch.

It's telling him he's not going grey,

It's the ''You look fine in those jeans''

It's ignoring the mid-life crisis,

and all her little ''scenes''.

It's facing the world as one,

And it's more than love at first sight,

It's together being a family,

Each and every day and night.

It's the way he looks into her eyes,

It's the way that she looks too,

It's why they stand before us,

and it's why they said ''I do''.

And now I stand here today,

On this important moment in life,

With two people very in love,

Now husband and wife.

Growing up, I've learnt about love,

and seeing it today proves it true,

You've both taught me so much,

And I'd be lucky to be half as happy as you.

I decided to choose this poem because I think it's very relevant to today's society. Nowadays people get into marriages that don't end up working out in the end. My parents are both still together after seventeen years, and very happy. Except almost everyone I know have divorced parents. You never see the 60 or 70 year anniversaries with couples, I know they were a lot more common 30 or so years ago. I always wonder why that is, why the divorce rate is so much higher now than it was back then. Maybe it has to do with the economy. I've heard before that money is the number one stress on couples. Or maybe it's that people don't get to know the person as well as they should before getting married to them. But I don't see any reason as to how that would be any different now then it was back then. My parents always tell me how lucky I am to have two parents who are really in love with one another. I usually take it for granted without realizing. Being around them all the time will probably end up rubbing off onto me and how I maybe handle a marriage some day. But that's too far in the future to think about right now. The thought alone of getting married is kind of scary to me.

Alexa Meade

I’ve seen YouTube videos on this artist before and just recently stumbled upon her again while looking for acrylic painting blogs. The woman who designs these masterpieces is named Alexa Meade and she takes painting to a whole new level. Alexa takes people and physically paints on top of them. She paints on them in a way that they look like they are actually the painting themselves. Its sort of a confusing thing to explain so I’ll include photographs bellow this post. It’s absolutely incredible looking and I’ve never seen anything like it. She lives in Washington DC and holds showcases to show off her work on occasion. When she has the showcases though she keeps the live, painted people as the pieces. But when recording her work or publishing it she typically takes photographs and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what’s an actual painting and what’s reality.

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/hyperrealistic-acrylic-body

In addition to this first blog that I found about Alexa Meade, I found an additional one by the same website. Although it was the same website I found one particular article titled, "Alexa Meade Submerges Her Subject in a Pool of Milk". It showed many images of a new sort of style she recently has tried. She would first paint the person as she typically does in her day to day pieces. Except this time (the title being pretty obvious) she literally submerges her subject into a pool of milk. Not that I would ever necessarily try this with my art work but I thought it was a really interesting way of looking at things. The fact that she took her typical style and just adding something small, which then created this whole new idea of art. 

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/alexa-meade-milk-art

Ai Weiwei

Over the summer, I was over my friend Harris’ house and we got into some sort of conversation regarding the wronging’s of society. He then asked if I had ever heard of this guy, “Ai Weiwei”.  I had never heard of him in my entire life, so he went on to the Internet and pulled up a documentary of him called, “Never Sorry”. We watched the entire film, and every second of it was incredible. 

Ai Weiwei is a political activist who peacefully protests for human rights and against ridiculous laws made by the Chinese government. He does this through his art and photography. Because he speaks out against the Chinese government he's constantly beaten by police, arrested, put under house arrest, having websites of his shut down and art studios of his destroyed.

Over five thousand students died in an earthquake in China (2009). Ai Weiwei gathered one backpack to represent each student, and wrote his or her name on it. He took over 9,000 backpacks and arranged them into a pattern on a city wall because the government refused to take responsibly for not taking proper precautions for the earthquake. If they had taken proper precautions, more lives would have been saved. Another example of Ai Weiwei’s art is not to long ago he photographed himself nude except used a stuffed animal as a “fig leaf”. He did this because it was artistically interesting but also to basically curse against the Chinese government for not providing enough human rights to their country. He was arrested after this as well.

If the government shuts down a website he just creates another one. After his art studios are destroyed he creates more. Whenever the police beat him he takes pictures of it on his cell phone and posts it to the Internet. At one point policemen beat him so harshly over the head that he had to have emergency brain surgery. But he continues to risk his life to rebel against the government through his art.  Nothing stops him from standing up for what he believes in, and he’s encouraged by most of the Chinese population for his work. 

"She lived happily for seven years"

 http://www.thenation.com/article/169636/ai-weiwei-and-art-protest#

Favorite People, Hash Tags & Blogs That I Follow

http://chloepaintspictures.wordpress.com
Chloe Early was one of my main inspirations for my art concentration pieces. She uses a lot of bright colors and is relatively abstract with her work, which are two techniques I use.

http://atavus.tumblr.com

This was also a blog that has inspired my art work. It's not one specific artist, it's just a bunch of different pieces of artwork that are really unordinary. (They get better as you scroll down a bit) 

http://www.iheartmyart.com/page/2
This is another art blog that a really enjoy, its both photographs and paintings. This blog doesn't really inspire much of my art work for school but I really enjoy looking through it.

http://mucksnipe.tumblr.com
This blog is all artwork created by a man named Aaron Smith. Similar to Chloe Early's work he uses many bright colors with portraits of people. I found this blog just recently, much after I started my artwork and it kind of reminded me of mine in the since that he uses such bright colors.

Introductory Art Blog Post

Hi, my name is Taylor Stevens and I’m currently a senior attending North Broward Prep. I’ve been going here since middle school and been involved in the art programs ever since. I’m currently involved in an AP art class with Mrs. Weiss. I really love her and the class. By the end of the year we have to create 12 pieces all with a common thread. In the start of the year, I went around campus and asked 100 people the question, “If you could have anything by the end of today, what would it be?” I video taped all the responses and picked the twelve most interesting ones. I’m doing one piece per person from the selected twelve. I use a lot of bright colors, and all my pieces are cut into circles, with a layer of painted plastic on top. I really look forward to art class because its something I really enjoy. I love bright colors and painting people so it’s a good combination for me and I never get bored of it. I think with each piece I do for her class I improve more and more. I don’t know if its something I would want to do later on in life but its fun for right now. 

This is the only picture I have of any of my artwork from this year, 

It was one of my most recent projects and wasn't 100% complete when i took this 

It was of Sebastian Ascano 

The Things I Carry

After unloading my backpack I found,

• My wallet - with money, gift cards, credit card, license and school ID
• Iphone 
• Headphones 
• Pens, Pencils 
• Makeup 
• Gum
• My car keys - with my house keys and a Panera Bread card attached 
• Scientific calculator 
• Notebook
• Computer 
• Giant eraser

Iphone 

My phone is definitely one of the things I can never leave my house without. I'm not big into downloading apps or surfing the web on my phone but I always have a conversation going with someone through text. I also have things to do and appointments to attend left and right, which are all logged into my phone. I have SAT prep about twice a week, along with working for my dad, clubs to attend, yoga classes, tests to take, and doctors appointments to make. I have them all plugged into my phone with the times and places, along with a reminder that rings about an hour before hand. So without my phone I would be forgetting just about everything I need to do. I'm also terrible with directions, I don't know the names of most roads. As lazy as it sounds, I can easily plug an address into my phone and get there with no problem. Without my phone, I would never know where I was driving. 

My Wallet 

My wallet by itself is actually something I forget all the time, which is a problem. I either leave it in my car, in my backpack or in my room. It has a lot of important stuff in it though such as my license. Now that I think of it I think I tend to leave my license at home more then my wallet. I'm really indecisive about clothing that I buy, and I buy clothes all the time, which means I am making returns - all the time. Most stores don't allow me to make the return unless I have my license, so without it I end up driving to the mall for nothing. It's also practical of course incase I were to get pulled over or something. My school ID is also in my wallet, which allows me to go out for lunch when I leave campus. Other then leaving campus for lunch I don't use it very much because I don't like the school food here. It's all really unhealthy and gross to me so I typically bring my own food. Besides my school ID and license, the obvious things such as money is always useful. 

Headphones 

Headphones are another thing I always have to have with me. I have terrible ADD, so when we have in class assignments listening to music blocks out all the mindless noise in the background. It helps me focus a lot better, and it also sometimes puts me in a good mood. Its almost impossible for me to work on art work without listening to music. Not only do I have art class and a study hall, but I'm in the art room until about 5 o'clock everyday working on my projects so headphones are a huge priority for me.