Follow Your Dreams.

This sounds rather simple, and the truth: IT IS.  Today we all are running around at nine million miles an hour constantly doing things we think are SO important and meaningful, when in reality if we stopped, slowed down and focused on one thing at a time we would be able to see the bigger picture.


"The essence of leadership is being able to see the ice burg before it hits the Titanic." Huffington says in this talk.

She's right!  By constantly pushing our bodies to the brink every day we begin to literally walk around like the living dead.  Being a zombi gets you nowhere accept blown apart by Bruce Campbell's Boom-stick.

Not to mention dreams.  Living in constant reality does not give the body time dream and dreams are extremely important.  Through dreams humans are able to grasp beyond everyday  life and imagine the unimaginable.  People learn what they are to live for, what they want to strive for and most importantly they learn who they want to become.  I believe Arianna Huffington merely scratched the surface with this issue.  It is only through our dreams that we are able to conceptualize what we want our world to become.

I feel there is no better way to end my 30 days than on a note about dreams.  I have so many for this blog, and for my own future.  Without a doubt this challenge has enriched my experiences and given me entirely new perspectives on things I never would have heard about otherwise.  I am proud to say that I have completed this challenge and look forward to passing the blog off to the next student.

Best wishes! And don't forget to Dream big!

Chelsey L. Hughes

Ladies, We've Come a Long Way

Ladies, today we may complain about the way the media portrays us, but I want you to look at how far we have actually come.  Today honestly people do recognize that while super-models out there do exists, in all actuality the "real woman" is the celebrated one.

Not so in the 1950's



Yes... this is an actual ad for "Eat, Eat, Eating" TAPEWORMS to be thin... ummm I'll take the diet pills any day!  (Just kidding).  But seriously, part of the text reads, "Friends for the fair form."

Next up...

Spousal abuse.  ... just for "not store testing the coffee".


Yes part of this actually reads, "A man marries a woman because he loves her.  So instead of blaming him if married love begins to cool, she should question herself."... ladies... seriously.  I we have come a LONG way.


So this is where that cliche' comes from.





and last but not least


Yes... thank you women's rights movement for giving me the chance to do something other than make a sandwich.  Seriously though, before today I never realized how differently women have been portrayed in the media over the past 60 years.  I realize there are still problems today and there may always be, but again at least I'm not being told to eat a tape worm :D

Sexy Sucker Punch

"From the very first frames of the film, "Sucker Punch" rejects reality," says film reviewer Drew McWeeny. The opening literally allows the audience to walk on to Director Zack Snyders stage and into the life of Baby Doll (Emily Browning's) worst day ever.  In a movie about freeing yourself from the chains of your own personal misfortune never have I enjoyed a ride more.  


This film is a perfect lesson to artists and designers everywhere.  It seems to be that ever shot, every costume, every cheesed up slogan and run down insane asylum room was specifically chosen.  Often I would wonder... "Did they go too far?  What's the point? I mean a dragon?  A pink bunny?"  Then I realized "Hell.  No."  This movie is the very definition of "Bad Ass".  Everything used in this film DOES have a purpose.  Looks, sounds, emotions all tie in together to create climax and pitfalls at ever turn.  Most reviews of this film have been poor and I am starting to wonder... did they even watch it?  This film is about breaking all the rules thus with that choice, making completely new ones. From naming the brunet "Blondie" to the opening number with Echo's version of Cher's "Sweet Dreams" ever frame that is shown hits like a perfectly timed music video. 


The characters in this film do have lots of lose ends, but that's part of their charm.  I don't know who walks into a facility for the mentally insane and thinks they're going to be able to understand the intricacies of those who are found there.  Like the two sisters "Rocket" and "Sweet Pea" who somehow end up behind the walls after Rocket ran away from home.  Also, in the image to the left Rocket is standing among a toy train set with a needle (which I have no clue what that's alluding to) along with her outfit.  It's the not knowing that makes this film.  I also love the lack of actual names given to the characters, it's nice to see something different. The film feels so much like a graphic novel that just sprung off the page but the story was never written previously (unlike Snyder's previous films "300" and "Watchmen").  


Another aspect in this movie: sexuality.  It's everywhere.  The costumes especially, but these chicks are just down right hot, independent women who know how to get the job done.  Ladies you're crazy if you wouldn't want to be them, men you're lying if you say you don't want them.   


Yes, this movie does take some effort to watch.  Rolling along the lines of Christopher Nolan's Inception by allowing the "theatre of the mind" to take over.  The story line dwells within three different realities.  The best part: realities within realities leaves the story open for so much interpretation.  Does death ever really even happen? How do you know when you're actually alive? 


No matter what you think of this film, get it or not you can not deny it is hands down a feast for the senses.  

Geisha, Human Embodiment of Art.

With the tsunami in Japan today I felt paying homage to country founded on tradition and art would be the least I could do.

THE GEISHA


When you look up a definition for these women they come off sounding like early Japanese prostitutes, but that is not at all what they were.  Nowhere in the world (as far as I know) has a group of women ever tried to so hard to be the very essence, living breathing and walking of art.  From the way they painted their faces, to their hair and clothing, there are simply no words.

I find it amazing that this was their profession: art.  All of their lives they were doing nothing but living as art.  To me, that sound like a very difficult standard to live up to.  Traditions, and ceremonies driving their existence.

Watch and learn, do you have what it takes to be a Geisha?

The Art of Being Woman

This week The Marshall Artists Series gives to the campus of Marshall University, along with city of Huntington their Spring International Film Festival.  I have worked this festival for three years now and I can safely say this has by far been my favorite.  Watching the films is always like taking a two hour trip around the world, away from my own home and into the eyes and lives of someone else's.  

That being said, a few days ago I saw a film that I know will stick with me for a very long time.

A Mid-August Lunch, from Italy tells the story of a man who lives with his mother and basically, in order to pay rent this man has to baby sit his mother and her three cohorts for one night.  What I find most intriguing about this film is how simple and honest it is.  Here are three women near the end of their days who would never let you tell them them that.  I love this film for so many reason but perhaps the best one being, it's a lesson on how to age gracefully; DONT.

For one night audiences are invited to taste the lives of four people and never know anything about their before or after, merely their present.  The film allows you to see all a person holds dear in an instant  and know that good times must be cherished, because they cannot last forever.  Although, it is never polite to end them too quickly.

Honestly, after leaving the beautifully ornate Keith-Albee all I could do was smile and feel blessed that I had the opportunity to meet such vibrant  women

If you haven't already gotten a chance to see this film, find a way.  To you, though, I offer this, don't go waiting to be entertained.  Instead, understand that you have been invited to take a trip to Italy and join three exuberant ladies for A Mid-August Lunch.

Good Design's Women's Issues Poster Design Winners Announced

Last week Good Design held a contest asking for posters that would voice world wide women's issues.  The winners in my opinion are more "children's rights" than "women's issues" but non-the-less they are the winners and do speak volumes on their subjects to which they give voice. One of the up-sides to advertising being the power to give voice to the voiceless, and that is an encouraging thought.   Check them out:

Andy Chen, on Childhood Marriage: 



Karmen Lizzul, on Childhood Obesity



and the last by Kim Rene Teige, on Human Trafficking



My real wonder is why aren't more students entering things like this?  (Nudge, Nudge, Cough, Cough, GO FOR IT!  What do you have to lose?)