Aids Awareness Campaign Ad

I know I have disappeared. It has been such a busy and stressful time, I have no excuses for you, like rescuing people from burning buildings, or creating such incredible large art pieces.. I am terrible, I know! Work has taken up so much of my time during the week, then I go to a village on the weekend to teach art, that I have such little amount of time to work on art. It doesnt mean I haven’t, because I have. I will write about that later. For now I want to share with you an ad I worked on as a makeup artist, as well as got stuck being an extra in it (if you look closely you will see me with a child), which was such incredible fun. A 12 hour day and standing on my feet  a lot of it, but it made me realize how much I miss working in the film making industry. Anyone out there listening to me, hook a girl up!

This video is in Arabic, but the gist of it is this guy (in the red shirt) has aids, and goes to a government office where the line is almost out the door and sneezes. A guy turns around, spots him, and tells the guy behind him how he saw him at the hospital and had aids. Causing a domino effect, where people are uneducated on how aids can spread, freaked out and ran off (I grabbed my child in horror!). When he gets to the counter, the government worker asks him what happened to the line and the guy says how they heard he had aids. The government worker shakes his hand and wishes him good health. The ad proceeds to explain how aids is not transmitted by sneezing and so on.

I hope you guys enjoy!

 

Dedicated To My Friends <3

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I get so energized and inspired by my creative friends.  Speaking to them about different projects, throwing ideas back and forth, neat things we’ve seen that others may be interested in, and anything that gets our juices flowing about art, music, films, and dream projects we wished we had the money to start. It truly is good to have friends who create such a safe environment where I feel not only like I can be myself, but that I can share silly ideas that may be disasters in real life with. People I trust and know will encourage me to do these crazy projects, knowing it will probably push me to doing something I would be too scared to do if not for their encouragement.

I guess this really isn’t about anything but the importance of surrounding one’s self with creative thinkers. People who not only think outside the box, but take that box and recreate it, design it, and build it into another form. This isn’t only for creative or artistic people; this is for anyone wanting to be a well-rounded person. I, for one, believe that surrounding yourself with people that light a fire inside of you, and encourage your passion to grow are people you need to be around.

I think this is mostly a thank you to everyone who has ever pushed me with my art work, encouraged me to keep at it, and who always seems excited to talk about my ideas with me. To the people who always had something to say wether negative or positive, and to the people who showed such enthusiasm when I talked about working on another piece.. You guys are who keep me going, who without you guys, I truly couldn’t do it. You all are my rock, and I love you guys! Thank you <3

Outside the Box

I loved this video about thinking outside the box, and how the process of thinking outside the box should be creative in itself! Some good advice in the video, even if it was supposed to be just funny! Enjoy! =)

Where the Hell is Matt?

I have a thing for projects that embrace a community, or the world. I feel like art can do so much for different countries by bringing them together to make people realize how all of us truly are the same. We all seek happiness, we all seek truth, and we all seek a purpose in this life. Why we don’t get along seems so simple to be honest. We are scared of change and we are terrified of what we dont understand.

Matt Harding is an 35 year old from Connecticut  who travelled the world vido taping himself dancing (it started when his friend suggested he do his “bad” dance when he was touring Asia). The video went viral and Stride gum asked him if he was interested in taking another trip around the world and recording it again. This all happened in 2006. In 2007, Matt went back to Stride gum suggesting letting people around the world dance (people had sent him videos of themselves dancing), and thus this video was produced.

Where The Hell is Matt stirs so many emotions in me that seem unexplainable. It is such a happy video, but makes me feel sad, and happy at the same time. Here we see people from all paths of life dancing for the joy of it. Here we see everyone come together for the joy of dance and it makes me wonder why we don’t see more of these projects traveling the world. Why isn’t there funding and support from people to try to bring different cultures together? We need more projects like this that have so many different layers to it. We need more people like Matt.

Are there other projects out there that do this kind of thing? I know of a few, but not many. I really do hope my project, Traveling Thoughts, can create such a stir in people and bring them all together.

Golden Gate Bridge 75th Fireworks Celebration

Happy 75th Golden Gate Bridge! One of the happiest times for me was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge with the windows down, the music pumping, and myself daydreaming up another art piece. There truly is no place like San Francisco… <3

 

To All Fellow Artists

A friend of mine, who is an incredible creative artist, sent me this video and I had to share with everyone on here and whoever else accidentally finds my blog. An incredible speech by Neil Gaiman where he addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012. If you are having a hard time finding inspiration, or simply feeling down about you work, this speech will inspire you beyond words.

To all my creative friends and fellow artists, keep on making good art!

My Top 10 Places for Finding a Creative Job, Inspiration, or a Community

I was thinking about how many designers and creative people I know who don’t know what websites to use to look for freelance work, full time work and so on and decided the best thing I could do to help (and easier then linking them every time they ask me) is to post a blog with the 10 top ones I like! Hopefully this helps you in finding work, inspiring you, and gives you a community you can go to when you need help or inspiration. Enjoy!

 

1) Creative Hotlist

Creative Hotlist is not only a job site for the creative community, but has a search engine and helps users find companies, individuals and resources for the creative marketplace, such as job opportunities, creative services, artists, designers, printers and more.

 

2) CrowdSpring

Extremely simple idea. A client posts a job where designers submit their work to if they are interested and the top 5 are awarded cash prizes. The client will also pick a winner who will be awarded the full prize and their work possibly being used. Whats nice about this website is the clients interact and give feedback to submitted work.

3) Behance Network

An online network to showcase and discover creative work. The idea is for clients to access online portfolios of creative work and contact whomever they are interested in on a global level. Behance also distributes work to other online galleries to maximize exposure for top talent.

4) DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd is a graphic design online marketplace where clients can access thousands of designers, freelancers and design studios from across the globe.

5) Smashing Magazine

Known as one of the most successful magazines for creative professionals, Smashing Magazine includes Smashing Jobs, a job board that helps you find the perfect person for your job opening.

6) The Creative Group

The Creative Group specializes in placing creative, advertising, marketing, web and public relations professionals in a variety of firms.

7) Coroflot

Started by designers and still run by designers, Coroflot is a website filled with the largest, most diverse and most established pool of professional creative portfolios in the world. Submit your portfolio without an invite, membership requirement, and application process. If looking for inspiration, the community is filled with incredible talent can help.

8) Design: related

Design: related is a community site filled with portfolios, inspiration and news tools that bring together creative people from the design and art world. Its a website for networking, sharing ideas and thoughts, posting an online portfolio and finding job opportunities.

9) AIGA Design Jobs

Most designers have heard of AIGA before. A great resource for finding the right job if you are an AIGA member.

10) Krop

Krop is one of the most well known websites to find graphic design jobs. Top agencies and design studios use this website to find creative people.

Pretty

I watched this today and had to share how powerful it is! Katie Makkai, a poetry slammer, defines the word “Pretty”. I believe that the word “pretty” truly is more of an opinion than anything else. How can you define what is pretty? Its all subjective.

Isn’t imperfections what make us unique? They are what make us all so pretty, so interesting and so different. At least, thats what I believe. What do you guys think? Should we be raising our children in seeing all of themselves as pretty? What kind of people would they turn out to be? Would we all be happier?

I wish woman around the world would would watch this, believe this, and live it.

Talent In The Middle East

I have had the privilege of getting to know an incredibly talented guy who grabbed my attention when he created the video Fifty People One Question – United Arab Emirates in spirit of the videos being done for the project Fifty People One Question, videos exploring human connections through people and place. He grabbed my attention because for a long time I had wanted to create such a video in Amman, Jordan and I found someone in the Middle East who had the same passion as mine and loved the unconventional.

Ahmad Samara was born on June 15th, 1986 in Tulkarem, Palestine. He actually graduated with a Bachelors degree in Accounting but has always been  in love with the Arts. He was interested in photography and so began taking photographs as a hobby. He wanted something that would challenge him further, so with the encouragement and help of his family and friends he started to make films through digital media.

Through his hard work and talent, Ahmad was chosen from a few talented people to attend the digital filmmaking workshop at the Royal Film Commission Jordan in 2008, in collaboration with the University of Southern California. Having been given this incredible opportunity, Samara was able to learn the different aspects of filmmaking including Directing, Writing, and Cinematography, including the technical aspects of advanced filmmaking.

With his love for filmmaking in his heart, and his new knowledge, Ahmad Samara wrote, directed, and produced his short film “Relief” in 2009, followed  by “Desire” in late September.

What really drew me to Ahmad was his passion for filmmaking. Speaking with him, you can see his eyes wild with excitement and how eager he is to learn more about the creative world. He has this dream of making films that he wants to be able to not only show to his country, but the world. He believes and is excited to one day open Samara Pictures where he will continue doing artistic and professional films for the world to see.

Check out his Youtube Channel!

Autism Video

I came across this video of a girl named Carly, who is autistic with incredible intelligence. Watching this video gave me mixed emotions. I was happy and hopeful to see what I believed to be true since teaching and working with a few autistic children. They are all like any other kid, their brains just seem to put more energy into one particular section in their brains then another. For example, I taught a kid who could draw you in a few seconds and notice the details in your skin, the folds in your shirt, the few hairs sticking straight up in your bangs. He was incredible, yet he couldnt get the confidence to be in a group, or to try new things. As though all the blood was flowing to the artistic side of his brain and not into the social side. Don’t get me wrong, I have not studied nor really looked into the science behind it, all my opinions come from working with a few sweet children.

Watching this video also scared me, and upset me because if this little girl could speak out about the pain, hurt, and the suffering she deals with every day, while having such loving and supportive parents, I can only imagine what other children who dont have that love and support are going through. I wanted to share this because I want to show others how every act of kindness, and every mean act does have consequences, and does affect someones life, even those who you seem to think can’t comprehend, or understand it. I want to show this video because people need to understand that every life is important, human, or animal. That everyone deserves a chance and that “normal” is different for each person and more of an opinion then an actual fact.

What do you guys think?