The Only Way to Get to Brilliance is through Mediocrity

It's an age old fight between teacher and student... 

To push through mediocrity to get to brilliance.

The Berggruen Klee Collection, 1987

As a fine arts teacher, I am probably more aware of this constant struggle than the typical teacher of core content. To be honest, while teaching Economics, I was not concerned with pushing my students to forge their own path and to become the next great economist.  My interest was getting the students to pass the mandated tests, get their credit and to graduate. While not a noble goal, it was a necessary one.

However, the fine arts require teachers to strive for the noble goals. 

Being a mediocre artist, musician, singer, dancer or performer isn't enough. Being mediocre won't get you a college scholarship, a first place or even a job in the chosen field. The world is full of mediocre artists that failed to fulfill their potential who are now using their skills and talents in other career paths. And thank goodness for that, cause without creative, collaborative, out-of-the-box thinkers in all careers, we would be IN TROUBLE!! But that's a post for a different day...

by Zhang Xiaogang

Anyway, over the last week or so, I have had a number of conversations with students about the type of art they love creating.  If you know any emerging artists 22 years of age and younger, you can guess what is said.. 

I have to force myself to not roll my eyes. 

And since it's a new school year I have a whole new crop of art students. In fact, I have double the number of art 2 students than I have ever had. My classes are maxed out and twice during the day I run concurrent advanced classes while also teaching art 2.

With over 50 students that have chosen art to be their path to graduation via the state "endorsement" track, I am daily fighting with my Art 2-4 students to push past mediocrity and find their own brilliance.

And that's not an easy task.

But I use myself as an example. I don't hide my mediocrity from my students. Here is what I have learned about myself. These lessons were not easy and I don't list them now flippantly!

1. I am a mediocre actress.

I was cast as Juliet in college.  It wasn't due to talent or passion.. I fit the dress. This was probably one of the hardest lessons to learn. I LOVE theatre. I have two degrees in theatre... but this has not made me a brilliant actress. 

What I am brilliant at in theatre is Managing. I am hands-down one of the best stage or house managers around.  I learned that my gifts could be used and honed in this part of the theatre.


2.  I am a mediocre artist.

I love the visual arts. The enduring memories of my childhood revolve around the world of commercial art. I love to dabble in all art forms. 

I can mimic the best painters. 
I can copy to coolest contemporary artists. 

But that does not make me a brilliant painter or artist.

I love printmaking. I'll even say that I am good at printmaking.. but not brilliant.

But I am brilliant at motivating people to work hard
 and to manage their fear.

Everyday I work with students and push them beyond their comfort zone to do bigger and better work than they thought possible.

It's a fight. Every. Single. Day.

Mediocrity doesn't want to be replaced with the unknown.

Mediocrity likes being in charge. 

Mediocrity strives for the status quo.

But the only way to get to Brilliance is through Mediocrity.

Mediocrity isn't a bad thing. In fact, I believe it is a good and healthy thing.. as long as that is not the destination. For when Mediocrity is achieved, Brilliance is possible.

So welcome to that place that comes after mediocrity... it's gonna be an interesting journey.

Life

We all have crazy seasons in life. And not every day can be overwhelming. I've been trying to remind myself of these facts.

Life can NOT be just one insane moment and I need to stop and enjoy each day and be present within each moment.

It's easier to do this and remember this when I'm not under a ton of deadlines and stress. January and the first week of February are not those times.

But, in the midst of the chaos of life, I am making healthy choices and taking time to play (a little).

To recap the last month..

January has been a month of sickness in our house. All the girls have been sick. Lots of days of missed school and lots of doctor appointments. Even last night, Super Bowl Sunday, Maddie had a contrast MRI done at the hospital an hour a way from our house. What was supposed to take about two hours took FOUR! We are hoping that we get some answers for her constant pain. A relatively "simple" procedure for the rest of us is scary and unsettling for someone with kidney disease and severe allergies.

Professionally for me, January to early February is a tough time. So many deadlines! Results come in from the huge national contest as well as two major state contests are the same week. It's always a relief when these contests are completed.

In the midst of this, my diploma came in the mail!

That was a nice pick me up!

To keep sane in these weeks, I have really ramped up my activities. I know, it would be easier to just let it go and get more sleep, but then the stress would push me over the edge I am afraid!

So the little girls and I have been swimming a couple of times. I really want to improve my tri time and Lexi wants to join the swim team. So we are braving the cold indoor pool. It may be "heated" but it isn't warm!

We also went hiking one Saturday at Mineral Wells State Park and loved it! Lexi wants to learn how to rappel and we want to foster all outside activities! (I had some great pictures, but I got a new phone and even though we synced and all that jazz, I still lost a ton. ugh!)

Thankfully Doug got a picture of Kylie and me!

Between running, cycling, strength training, and swimming as well as a few random other things like hiking and rowing, I logged 35 activities in the month of January. And all but about 4 or 5 of those were logged at 5am!

So that wraps up my January. Tomorrow wraps up my 30 day Isagenix challenge. I can't wait to tell you about that!

2016 Resolution: Follow Through

My resolution for 2016 is to overcome one of my greatest struggles.

And what is my greatest struggle? Well..

I would say my short attention span, but I can focus on hard things or interesting things forever. Give me a thousand piece puzzle and I'm good for the day. 

But if it doesn't force me to engage, I move on. Even when I am so close to being finished with something that it doesn't make sense.

So really, I'd have to say that my greatest struggle is my inability to just finish off things.

As I have blogged about previously, I am a fantastic starter! I can get whipped up into a frenzy and live in a state of euphoria about something for days or even weeks, but once the adrenaline wears off, or I have figured out the process or whatever, I am done. Even when I'm not really done.

This works fine in the art classroom. My student's count on my energy as they are getting started. They need my starter projects so that they can see the process. The problem is, I don't finish the projects. At school I don't have time. My student's don't need my finished pieces. By the time I can get back to my starter clay piece, it's bone dry and often broken.  By the  time I can get back to my drawing/paintings, I often can't remember what my motivation/inspiration was in the first place! 

As you can imagine, I have lots and lots of starter projects at school.

I have even more at home. With no excuse. 

So this year, I am going to finish things.

My word for the year was going to be FINISH, but I know that my healthy journey can't be finished.. but I sure can follow through. I need to get a mindset of just following through with projects, ideas, training and eating.

Therefore, that is my mantra for 2016: Follow Through.

Here is a glimpse of a few of my unfinished projects...I included my girls in the picture as they have as many unfinished projects as I do!! What an example. ugh.

And I have gotten right to it. The girls finished their lingering paintings for the county art show (finally.. they only started these in July!) And I finished my first loom knit scarf today!

I am also going to refocus of healthy eating. I had been doing great, then I got the stress fracture in my left foot in October and had to shut down the workouts. With life and stress and me not eating right, I have gained 10 pounds. Bummer. But if I will just FOLLOW THROUGH and eat real food. not processed drive-thru crap, I'll be fine. Just gotta follow through.

So this is my year of nothing new except for possibly a house if we can ever get something found/worked out. But other than that, it's a year of finishing..not starting!

How is that for a resolution!! I know that there are a lot of you that need a resolution like this!!

Dwindling Summer

It's almost that time again.. another school year.

This year, Maddie is in 10th, Lexi is in 5th and Kylie is in 1st.

Oh my.

We went school supplies shopping last week. OUCH!

And even though it is summer, Lexi has to have her books. Thank goodness for the public library. I think she is closing in on 50 books read this summer!

I have very much enjoyed lazy mornings and fun running dates with Kylie.

She can run a mile and I figure for a 5 year old, that is pretty good!

I've been painting. I delivered these two paintings this week. They are hanging in my school's office next to the secretary. I love having "gallery" space!

And of course I've been working on my grad classes. I completed another 6 hours at the end of July and will start my final 12 of this degree in another week! I have learned so much and have so much yet to learn.

And I have painted some more. 

Have I said that I love summer? :) !! 

It's always sad for summer to fly by so quickly, but I've been back in my room working already and have a great year planned. I'm hoping to focus this year on doing fewer things. But doing the fewer things really well. 

And now..it's back to work full-time. 

Having too much fun to take time to blog!

We are in the wonderful busy time of the year called SUMMER!!!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I'm still getting up around 6am most days to workout, but heck, the first number isn't a 4, so that's really sleeping in late for me. :)

Over the last few weeks I have been vacationing a lot and scheduling in my classwork in between and all around the fun.

Over the July 4th weekend, we went on our 11th Annual Lakehouse Vacation. We had so very much fun! As my girls have gotten bigger, this has become more and more fun for me. When they were little, it was good, but a beat down as relocating little kids to a lakehouse for a few days with 20 people and not very many bedrooms/bathrooms was hard work! But now... it's just fun!

Here's to 11 years of perfectly normal behavior!!! #maxwelllakehouse #awkwardfamilyphotos

A photo posted by emilymclemore (@faithhopeandart) on Jul 4, 2015 at 5:29pm PDT

Doug and Maddie missed out on the trip as they had other commitments, but the little girls and I played hard!

Then we came home, washed clothes, regrouped, and went to Galveston Island. Our girls had never been to a real beach or the ocean/gulf, so we surprised them with a trip! It was fun!! They knew that we had to be in a city 3 hours away for a wedding on Friday, so we told them that we would just go early and play. On Wednesday morning, we loaded up and headed out. When we got to our destination city and were eating lunch, Doug said what if we just kept on going and went to the beach. The little girls were shocked. Maddie had figured it out the night before as we were packing.

So after lunch, we loaded up and drove another 3 hours to Galveston.  It made for a LONG DAY. But totally worth it.

They LOVED the beach and the waves.

 

I enjoyed running along the seawall and doing handstands on the beach. :)

Galveston! Love. #handstand #healthymama #fitmom

A photo posted by emilymclemore (@faithhopeandart) on Jul 10, 2015 at 7:16am PDT

And if the beach wasn't enough, we played at the condo pool till exhaustion or hunger took over.

From Galveston, we drove back northwest three hours for a wedding. Kylie was the flower girl. The rehearsal was ROUGH! Kylie was not sure about this process. But Saturday dawned and a well-rested, full-tummied kid was ready for the day.

We even had time to visit Texas A&M for Maddie. I hadn't given it much thought..it was just a look see. Then as we were walking around the campus, she got mistaken for a senior on a real visit by a couple of male student workers in the library, and well.. this mom got a little teary!

And then it was time to get ready for the wedding. Kylie went from rambunctious kid to  

DIVA FLOWER GIRL!! She was adorable!!

Look at this girl.

My beautiful flower girl! #flowergirl

A photo posted by emilymclemore (@faithhopeandart) on Jul 11, 2015 at 5:01pm PDT

The reception was in at a vineyard. I couldn't pass up the chance to get some pictures!

We arrived home Sunday afternoon and went every different direction Monday morning.

And this week we even met with the builder for our house!! WOOHOO!! I really can't believe it. After talking about it for 15 years, we are actually getting ready to build a forever house.

Busy times. 

I wouldn't trade these moments for anything.

(Oh yeah.. and how are my classes? Well, I have a week and a half left of this semester, so let's just say I'm going to be busy. But six more hours will be finished! I'll have 18 graduate hours completed in eight months. wow. And only four classes remain. I can do this!)

I'm not hiding anymore, and it has nothing to do with being "modest"

When I look in the mirror all I see is the fat, the extra pounds that I need to shed. I see the yo-yo diets. I see the donuts and candy bars consumed. I see the failures.

But when I look at this picture of myself, I see strength.I see hard work. I see commitment. I see the willingness to struggle time and time again. I see success. 

I see the person I want to be. Maybe that's all it takes, turning yourself upside down to see the real you.

I still can't believe I took a picture of myself in sports bra and posted it on the Internet for all to see!!! That is so not who I am. Or maybe I should say, who I was.

But I am committed to showing my daughters that they can be strong women and that their bodies are not to be shamed.

No, I don't want them running around immodestly, but I absolutely refuse to teach my girls that they have to be hidden. When we teach our daughters that they have to hide their bodies, they also learn that they have to hide their personalities, their feelings and their dreams. 

When we teach our daughter's that they have to hide their bodies, we teach them that their bodies are not worth fighting for. We teach them that their pain must be silent. We teach them that their struggles must be hidden.

Hidden means not discussed, not considered, not acknowledged.

And I am determined to break that cycle.

So I am modeling for my daughter's strength. I am teaching them to have honest discussions about their bodies, good and bad. I am showing my daughter's how to make healthy choices, and telling them why it matters. 

I am modeling for them determination, courage and sacrifice.

Because more than anything, I don't want my daughters to feel like they have to live hidden lives. Be it scars or triumphs, I want them to truly live.

Does that mean more pictures of me in my sports bra? Probably not. But maybe.. cause I'm not hiding anymore.

Oh My! The Good, The Crazy, and The Eating Adventure

Okay, I realize that by now you all know that I live in fast forward and take on way, way too many commitments. My normal mode is half crazed and that's okay, it keeps me busy. But this past week and this current week have me way, way beyond my normal crazy. And it's all my own fault.

To begin.. last Thursday and Friday we set up the district art show. I'm pretty sure we have close to 5000 pieces in it this year.

Saturday I judged a bi-district one act play contest. I had a blast, but didn't get home till midnight.

Sunday, I wrote a paper for one of my grad classes.

Monday I started working on the Area one act play contest that I am managing this week. In fact, I really started answering questions from them on Saturday night!

Today, I got everything ready for the reception for the art show, worked on the contest, taught my classes, attended the reception, went to a softball ceremony where students honored teachers that made an impact in their lives (how cool was that!)  and came home and wrote a paper over school district purchasing procedures.

So now I am ready to show off pictures from tonight!

 

And here we are.. the tired district art teachers!

And here is Kylie.. pointing to her fish with a cookie in her mouth!

For the rest of the week, I am going to get artwork ready for a contest, work on the area contest, do my job and at some point write an in-depth case analysis for my organizational change course.  I am hoping to chill in 2020.

So in all of this, how is Eat to Live going? Well, I lost 3.5 pounds last week. I was on a roll until Thursday and then Saturday, I was a stuck at the competition, so my eating choices were not "on target." But I have felt FANTASTIC! AMAZING! and better. Even in the midst of more stress than I can remember and having my allergies go crazy. 

This week, I am hoping to continue the trend of healthy choices. I have come so very far! I am eating very little meat, LOTS AND LOTS of VEGGIES and FRUITS, beans everyday and drinking water. I have not been perfect, nor do I anticipate being able to make perfect choices 100%  of the time. My goal is to hit the 85-90% of the time mark.

The most amazing thing about this whole Eat To Live thing is that I'm SLEEPING! I am not a sleeper. I'm a take an hour or two (easy) to fall asleep kinda person and then I wake up four times during the night and finally get up at 5am because it is a relief that it's finally a "normal" time to get up. Well, last week, in the midst of the insanity and stress that would normally keep me up and sleeping even more poorly, I SLEPT at night! In fact, twice last week I slept ALL NIGHT! From 10:30pm to 5am!  That is HUGE! And for me, worth giving up sugar and fats!

I'll keep you posted, but I am loving this new eating adventure. I think I'm gonna love my waistline even more!

Looking at Life from a Different Perspective

I'm working on a new painting of Kylie.  Here it is below.

Yes, I am currently painting it upside down.  There are a couple of reasons for this..

The biggest reason is that I was frustrated with it and mad at the paint, so I flipped it upside down to change my perspective (and my attitude!)

Why? Because I was moving right along with my painting and enjoying the process when the paint on the face started bubbling and being weird. 

See. So I scraped off the worst of it.. 

And that led to this.

A mostly scraped off creepy painting!

Ugh!! And very frustrating!!

So I flipped it over and decided to start again.  I knew that if I embraced the canvas as it was, the colors would provide a wonderful depth to the piece that I would like.  I just had to look past the current issues.

So I got some new paint out and got to work.

A little fresh paint and clean paintbrush can totally change an attitude!

And why do I go through the process? 

Cause this little girl is watching me.  I want her to know that paint (or life for that matter...) sometimes doesn't do what you planned. That sure, we can just give up and throw the canvas away, or we can scrape off the crud, turn the situation around and keep going!
  

And when you have this face for inspiration... how can you give up? Kylie took this for me because she saw that I was going to work on her eyes and she wanted me to see their color! 

Oh how I love her!

But does it feed my soul?

I've been pondering life a lot lately. This is causing me to wake up early... like today.. 3:17am. The good thing about waking up early is that there is no excuse to not work out. The bad thing is that by 5pm I'm done.

Anyway... back to life pondering.

The fundamental question that I keep coming back to as I question who I am and what I want to be is "does it feed my soul?" This is a hard question for someone like me that is interested in everything and who jumps into every new encounter with both feet before checking to see how deep the water is and if the alligator has his mouth open!

What I am learning, albeit, very slowly, is to stop and ask myself if this is going to feed my soul or am I going to burn out quickly. I have a graveyard full of burned out projects, ideas, activities and dreams. I get frustrated with Lexi for not sticking with things, but I am the same way. It's a part of our personalities. We want to try new things, figure them out, and move on to the next new challenge.

But moving from one challenge to the next is draining. I crave challenging tasks, but I can't do them constantly. I have to do something that refuels me. That's why I love painting, puzzles and playing the piano.

I also crave family time. I gotta have my quality time with Doug and the girls.

So all this to say, what do I do?

I don't know.

But while I'm figuring out life, I sure am thankful that I get to ponder life with my loves!

A very busy, but very good life!



We are so busy. With Kylie starting Kindergarten, this just added to the insanity!

 

Here is what we have been up to.

 

Kylie has been painting on her easel that she got for her birthday from her grandparents. She LOVES it!

 

And we are working on sight words and readers. Kylie loves school and Lexi is really enjoying playing school with her and being the teacher!

 

 

We also have a soccer girl. Two practices a week and Saturday games are going to be interesting!

 

Lexi is busy with volleyball. She is a great passer. I'd provide pictures, but she won't let me take them and I'm too busy being the coach!

 

But I did get a picture of her tshirt quilt that I made for her. No, picture of her with it. I'm soo documenting the efforts I make to take pictures cause one day when she complains that there aren't any pictures of HER doing things, I will point her to my blog and say I TRIED!!

 

 

And Maddie is staying crazy busy with colorguard practice. They performed at the first football game last Friday and she did FANTASTIC!! It was soo much fun watching her do something that she is not only good at but obviously loves!

 

Doug and I are doing well. Just trying to keep our heads above water!! I've got a painting in the works and a triathlon in a couple of weeks.