I have recently been called upon to plan all sorts of random church events. And what do random church events require? Random church flyers (oh, the never-ending charms of lay ministry). As such, I have had to use Photoshop A LOT. It seems I have a natural eye for design and layout but BOY HOWDY am I lacking in technical skill. As a teenager, I taught myself Photoshop so I could resize photos and add text (with shadows!) and... well... that's about it. Brian has taught me a bit more, but DUDE. It takes me ninety years to create the simplest thing. Here are a few of my creations.

For they saw and beheld with great sorrow that the people of the church began to be lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and to set their hearts upon riches and upon the vain things of the world, that they began to be scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure.

Alma 4:8

Some good news: your resident audio artist is officially heading back to school! Time for me to take on the video arts! I'm still a documentary gal, just changing up the medium. Some might ask: why on earth would you go back to school when you already have a Master of Arts?! Well, fair question. I have an MA, but I don't have an MFA! A Master of Fine Arts gives me the credentials necessary for professorships (it is a terminal degree in the creative realm). I am not 100% certain I want to be a professor, but I like having options. I start the MFA in Media Art program at Emerson College in September. I will be working full-time and attending the program full-time, so it should be... interesting?

Due to the MFA application process and work being insane (currently managing advising/registration in the Visual and Media Arts department), I have nothing of my own creation to share his week. But because I love you and your sonic appetites, I decided to share something otherwise fascinating: the sound of interstellar space!

This is a bit old (September 2013), but it is new to me. Courtesy of NASA's Voyager I. From one of my favorite websites, I Fucking Love Science: "The sounds were recorded using an onboard plasma wave instrument, which detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas... the waves detected by the instrument antennae were simply amplified and played through a speaker." YES! Listen via NASA's video below.

Other sounds of space:

• Space Audio (University of Iowa)
  
• Black Hole Sound Waves (NASA)
  
• Spooky Space "Sounds" (NASA)
  

THE SUNDAY SOUND: March 30, The Sound of Space.
"How can space have sound? Sound travels in waves, just like light or heat does, but unlike in those mediums, sound travels in space by making molecules vibrate." - I Fucking Love Science

And now my personal highlights from the Museo Nacional del Prado. My favorite collection at the Prado was Francisco de Goya's Black Paintings. A few from that series are featured below: Two Old Men Eating Soup, Witches' Sabbath, and Saturn Devouring His Son. I saw more original art in my two weeks in Paris and Spain than I had in my entire life previous. I want to think being around all those masterpieces infused me with creative magic. Remains to be seen.

As fantastic luck would have it, we were in Madrid during the Salvador Dalí exhibit at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. The Reina Sofía museum is known for a variety of works, and houses Picasso's Guernica (and yes, it was breathtaking to behold).

I saw so many pieces for the first time, and I was truly moved beyond explanation. It was so hard to resist taking photos, but after the third museum attendant snapped at me, I felt compelled to stop giving Americans a bad name and resigned myself to taking copious notes. Thanks to the internet, I was able to arrange this mini-gallery of my absolute favorites. My favorites from the Museo del Prado coming soon!

If God had wanted me otherwise, he would have created me otherwise.

Johanne von Goethe

As I said in my previous post chronicling the gorgeous sounds of Paris, seeing Notre Dame changed my life. I saw it for the first time late at night, shortly after Brian and I arrived in France. It took my breath away and I cried. Cried! (The tears may have been facilitated by my extreme sleep deprivation, hunger, and the discovery that the promised air conditioning unit in our hotel room was "temporarily" out of order. But, it was at least partly the breathtaking beauty of this structure.)

By an amazing stroke of luck (fate!), we were also able to attend an 8am mass held in the choir loft. We were one of maybe a dozen patrons and were able to walk all through the building, including right up to the altar, in complete silence. Essentially, we had the place to ourselves. I may have already shared this story. It left me forever changed.

Today's sonic snack: my recording of the bells of Notre Dame striking two in the afternoon. I recorded this on our last day in Paris, shortly before we departed for Spain. We sat on the benches facing the front of the cathedral, stuffed full of crepes, and waited for the bells to chime so I could document their beauty. Enjoy.

THE SUNDAY SOUND: February 16, The Bells of Notre Dame.
Wanna hear the best Disney soundtrack of all time? Check out The Bells of Notre Dame. Best. Disney. Ever.

I made an audio documentary called Sealed a few years back as part of my Master of Arts degree. It chronicled the divorce of my parents and the effect it had on me and my siblings. It was the most cathartic creative project of my life so far.

The original was a little over 22 minutes, cut from roughly a dozen hours of recorded material. I am now applying for my MFA and have to select work for my creative portfolio submission. Since I can submit no more than 15 minutes, I was determined to get Sealed down to 10 minutes or less to keep room for other work. Editor friends, you know shaving a full 12 minutes off a finished piece is a FEAT. BUT I DID IT.

Running time: 9:55. Listen below!

The MFA is a terminal degree in my field (in other words, the credential I need to seek tenure-track professorships). My MA degree shaves 24 credits off the program, so if I get accepted... I will be able to graduate in five semesters. BAM.

THE SUNDAY SOUND: January 26, Sealed, the condensed cut.
Original cut and my research on the effects of divorce on children available here.