Art.

I love art.  I love art that inspires me.  I love art that makes me think.  I love art that makes me question myself.  I love art that makes me question my ideals and expectations.  I love art that challenges what I am.  I love art.

I have always seen and been able to appreciate art that does these things to me, and I've always wanted to be able to create art that does the same for others.  I think that I've finally accomplished such a feat!  It took a moment of inner conflict in my own life to be able to create something that might challenge others to think and question themselves.

Here is that work.

The rest of this portfolio can be seen on my Artists Wanted profile, which can be found here.  If this work challenges you, makes you think, or causes you to question your own life, click "Collect Me" to give this portfolio a chance to be seen by the world.

Help my vision be seen.

Serena McRae

Serena McRae

Click this, then vote for me by "Collecting" me, then maybe I'll have a chance for my beloved artwork to be seen in Times Square!  I was inspired with this vision of the idea of identity and race, and I would love for the world to see it!

This is what I wrote about my images:

"Who are we on the inside? Who are we on the outside? Where do we come from, and how does that define us? How could our perceptions of race change, when our inner identity is shifted by new knowledge? These are the questions I asked myself when my family history revealed that I was not genetically made by the culture I had always identified myself with. I was suddenly physically comparing myself to a whole different ethnic group of women. I found myself wondering if I wanted to continue to cling to the culture I knew, or if I wanted to learn more about where my family originally came from.

This portfolio is my expression of the inner search that I experienced at this time in my life. Who we are is who we are, but perceptions and ideas are painted onto us, sometimes by others, and sometimes by ourselves. Sometimes this causes individuals to feel separate from others, and sometimes it allows us to embrace each other. Race and culture cause a beautiful intermingling of people, beliefs and ways of life. Who are you?"

Oldies!

So there's these times in my photographic life where I would say, "Hey peeps! Let me take your pictures, so I can have a blast, and practice my skillz and be awl awesome and stuff fo' realz!"  And then I take their pictures, and never ever ever ever ever ever ever do anything else.  I sit on an emotional treasure trove for someone else, and totally forget about it!  Sometimes I forget about it for a whole year!!!!!!!  And it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll never ever see those images, until they use my greatest weakness against me, free baby stuff!!!  My good, good friend (in fact, one of my favorite friends) recently told me, "I have three bags and a box of baby stuff for you, and I am holding them ransom until I get my pictures!"  So what did I do?  The easiest thing ever, and dug into my archive (there was some serious sifting, due to a whole YEARS worth of pictures), and now she finally has the pictures she's been waiting waayyy too long to have.  Not to mention they were her pregnancy pictures, and she should have gotten them like a week after I took them...  At least before the baby was a year old!  So there's my rant to myself.  And here's my favorite image of the big sister:

Color.

Today was a very big day for this pregnant nester.  Today we painted the accent wall in the nursery!!!
It took a while to choose colors, but eventually we made up our minds.... sort of.  We just decided to pick ALL of our favorites!

Colors are just so delicious.  We looked around the room and picked our favorite items, my dandelion wall art I created some time ago, some picture frames, and the blankets I've been crocheting for the baby (on my morning sick days), and then we used those items to pick matching shades.

Of course, before we did anything, I had to come up with a plan!  That's where my love of Prismacolor came into play.  We looked up the paint samples from Lowe's and figured out how much paint we would need.  Each sample is only $3, so this was proving to be a plan to fit our budget!  Hooray!

From the sketch we figured out how many squares we wanted.  I left my number-savvy husband to figure out the measurements, and then we taped off the squares!  This went super fast with two people.

These paint colors were so delicious I could just eat them!

Indiana kept us company during the whole painting party.

After the proper amounts of coat, the wall was almost finished!

And here's the final product!  We spent $28.00 at Lowe's, 45 minutes of prep, and just about two hours painting, and now we have a SUPER fun accent wall.  We can't help but smile every time we go into this room now!  A little bit of time and COLOR can do SO MUCH for a room!  My strongest word of advice to ANYONE wanting to bring some life into a room: DO NOT BE AFRAID OF COLOR!