Heroes

Today, actually if I want to be specific last night as I lay wide awake at 1AM, I finally figured out what I want to make his blog into: a journey of me becoming who I want to be. Those of you close to me know that I have the itch of all itches, THE thing I want to do with my life: be a makeup artist for flim/tv. Sounds insane, right? Who the hell wakes up one day and goes 'I need to be a makeup artist'? This chick, that's who. Who am I kidding, really? It's always been there, but I ignored the small voice telling me to head in that direction. Rather probably listened to the loud voice of my mother telling me not to. Telling me to be content. I have the beginning of the training I need, but want more schooling. As I contemplate which school to go to, how to save the money, and what I will do once I finish I've been thinking about my inspiration and my heroes throughout my life.

The farthest back I can remember is when I was 15 and encountered the first strong female TV character I can ever remember fan-girling: Kate Mulgew playing Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek Voyager.



If you're laughing at the trekkie, yuck it up. I embraced it wholeheartedly. As much as I avoid things Kate does these days she was a huge part of my high school life. Kathryn Janeway was independent, strong and powerful. She was the captain. People looked up to her, respected her and cared for her. She did everything she could to make sure her crew survived and never asked for anything in return. Much as I shipped her with Chakotay she belonged alone. She was meant to be alone and stand on her own two feet. The nerdy tomboy in me needed a role model like that when I was in high school where boys made fun of me and my friends were few. For what it's worth, thank you to Kate and the writers of Star Trek for giving me a strong female to look up to for the trying teenage years.

Around 19 I met Kate and moved on with my life. The new strong woman in my life wasn't far off from Mulgew, but the age difference certainly was. Kate Hepbun is the reason I decided to go by Cate when I was 19, in community college and still trying to figure out where my life was going (at that time).



Kate wasn't afraid to be a strong woman in a man's world. She wore slack when it was uncouth for women to do so. She made sure they paid her the same as they would pay any man. She wasn't afraid to do her own stunts, her own makeup or pose nude for photos that could one day come back to incriminate her in a town that was always looking for some dirt on everyone. She always knew who she was and wasn't afraid to be Kate Hepburn. I read her autobiography at least 5 times and every one of her movies that I have the pleasure of having on my shelf has been watched dozens of times. She knew what she wanted and she went out and got it in a time when women weren't the bread winners and expected to stay home after a certain point in their life and have babies. She was never content to be what everyone else thought she should be, she was who she wanted to be. Up until I went away to Penn State she was my hero. My mind changed because of my association of her with my ex-best friend. I grew up and still hold her very high on my list of top 5 strong women I admire.

I hit limbo when I went away to school and didn't really have that one strong woman I looked up to. Not as far as popular media goes anyway. My mother and I grew extremely close, not that we weren't close before, but my being away from home made us a lot closer. I called her daily and often cried into the phone as I made my way through theatre school. The work wasn't my problem, it was mainly people and my being homesick. Some people just aren't ready to leave home. At 20-21 I wasn't ready. It took me a long time to become as independent as I am now. I hop trains to NYC as often as I can. I can't be still and creatively I don't like to be bored. At this point in my life I didn't have that. I wanted to be safe and secure and I wasn't willing to take a risk. My mother's patience and wisdom got me through my 3 years at Penn State and I am thankful everyday for that. She is still my closest friend and I go to her for advice daily. The difference is that at 25 I'm ready to take some risks and make a leap.

My inspiration in person form right now is the lovely Stana Katic. She is my modern day Kate Hepburn.



She is one of the most beautiful people I know of and I don't just mean by looks. Internally she is stunning. She is creative is many more ways than just being an actress. I see paralelles between her and I that surprise me. I thought I had ADD with my creativity when I went from sewing to jewelry to photography to dance to my horses, etc. She has this same ADD. She shoots Castle for 9 months and then goes off and shoots three movies on hiatus or does a photo shoot with her favorite photographer to do something different creatively. More importantly she knows who she is and has always known she wanted to be an actress. I envy her that. If at 4 I had known I wanted to be a makeup artist I wouldn't have wasted the last few years of my life. However, looking back, it wasn't a waste. I found other parts of myself.

Stana's energy and attitude are what I think I admire the most. She is a true professional when on set, yet has some of the quirkiest hobbies. She truly cares for her fans. I've seen her repeatedly meet fans on the street or at events and ask them their name. She makes it personal. She makes every moment of her life count and I can only hope to do the same from this moment on. I'll be honest, I began watching Castle because of Nathan Fillion and my ties to Firefly, but recently I watched some interviews with Stana and was absolutely struck by her as a person. She is well spoken, generous, dedicated to her art and enjoys life. I look forward to not only season 4 of Castle, but to her future projects. Lord knows, she wont be idle!

Here's hoping that I wont be idle either! Stay tuned.

Procrastination At Its Finest

So basically I got this blog to do just that: blog in the new year. And what do I do? wait till almost February to even type three words. As my weak ankles and throbbing toes thankfully got put back into boots from their tight ghillie cages two Wednesdays ago as I finished my first day back to dance in three years I thought (cue light bulb) gee I should blog about this. The night before as I jammed out to Ryan Star at Webster Music Hall with my ladies I thought (cue light bulb) I should blog about this. Yet here I am, more than a week after said events finally sitting down and blogging. Just so we all know, I perfected procrastination in college and apparently didn't leave it there.

Since I was so lax about everything how about I go back to Ryan and dance, then we'll move on to the Poconos and the spring clothing line, deal? Deal.

On a ridiculously gloomy day January 18th I boarded a train bound for NY after the possibility that I might not make it to Trenton due to crap roads. After a quick dinner in Penn and opening an epic gift from my dear Bri (Castle script FTW) we along with Bri's fam swept onto the sub to head to Webster hall to hear three openers (yes, THREE. Who the hell has three openers?) before Ryan even set foot on the stage. However, let me tell you how amazing it was to finally see this god of music live. I knew I liked his music and loved jamming to it, but a night with my ladies standing in the massive crowd of idiots sending death glares at the cows on stage taking pictures was epic. I lost my grip on my good girl side when he sang 'Start A Fire' and yet closed my eyes and felt tears form when he sang 'Breathe'. I can't think of any better people to have been there with or share it with. My dear Bri, thank you for letting me play with your camera seeing as Vera couldn't make the trip *grumble*. We followed this awesome show with a sprint to our respective trains considering my ladies had work in the AM.

Now, on to dance. Oh, Irish dance how I have MISSED YOU!! I forgot almost everything before I walked in the door, but 20 minutes in my hips turned out, my feet crossed and my ankles screamed ZOMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US!!! I settled back into this group of people I have avoided for so long so easily it makes me kick myself. Why did I wait so long to do something I love? I staid for the figures class, grumbling as it began. For years figures has been my least favorite thing because of the attitudes that get involved with this school. Eight people throw in opinions and someone gets mad which turns into Joanne getting pissed. It was never fun. However we happened to be practicing the parade routine and my darling Marcia is my partner! I had a ton of fun as we collectively came up with half the routine. I left sweaty, happy and sore and loved every second of it. I can't wait to go back.Y'all should watch the Phila St. Paddy's parade and watch for Crossroads Irish Dancers. I'll DVR it for those not in the area ... you'll be forced to watch it like bad home movies. It'll be awesome!

Moving on, we now hit the Spring Cutie Patootie line. Tracy and I met three Sundays ago to go over the new line and OMG so cute. I can't wait to see the proofs once it is all made. There is a lot more patterning involved for me which means more work, but more original designs and more of my "stamp" on things. I have until Feb 20th to have it all done to have it shot before we have a trunk show. I am so beyond excited for this! I can't wait to walk down the street and see a baby wearing one of Tracy's designs and say to whomever I'm walking with "that adorable child is wearing Cutie Patootie". Some day. Some day soon.

And now that I'm all caught up with the past .......

Today .... oh today was awesome! I had been hunting around for some time for classes on metalworking. I'm to the point where I'm bored with working with just simple findings and gems from the craft store, so was on the look out for something more. I stumbled onto UofArts website and found what I had been looking for. Continuing education classes geared toward Adult with schedules. Perfect. And they have everything from jewelry to web design to photography classes. I signed up for a PMC (precious metal clay) class as soon as I could. Today at 10 AM we were still battling Phila traffic and I being me was stressing about getting there on time. Yea, I'm retarded like that. I finally had my mom dump me off in front of a UofArts building, ran inside and asked for the hall I needed. It was it. Thank God. I was 10 minutes late, but hadn't missed much of the demo. When I say this stuff is awesomely expensive let me tell you why. You get a half inch thick piece of clay the size of a half dollar for $45. Yep. And since I paid for the class the price has gone up to $55. Yikes. However, when you roll the clay out it has a fabric-like feeling and drapes SO gorgeously. My initial piece was a copy of the vervain necklace Stefan gives Elena in VD. I even set a red cubic in it. So pretty. From there I stamped, made bales, punched holes and finally burnished my finished pieces to make some pretties!

I'm already thinking about signing up for the ring making class in March. This stuff is SO addictive and would make such awesome one-of-a-kind gifts! Now to buy a kiln ... or a torch ... and a tumbler ... and burnishing stuff ... yikes.