“Love art in yourself, not yourself in art.”- Konstantin Stanislavski

http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=3130

Eleven shows total…you best come see it

In other news, I’ve been able to work on two different films during my free time. One for Jack Utrata called Sunday Night. It didn’t take too long to film the scene I’m in and it was fun to just rack up some more film experience since I don’t have too much yet. It’s a very cute film. Here’s the video:

The other film I worked on I was behind the scenes. I designed and did the make up for another of Joe Brown’s films. The film is The Watchful Spector and it is sort of a thriller short. The make up work I did was a challenge because it was the first time I had the opportunity to apply the techniques I learned in my stage make-up class and I had to alter them a bit to make them more appropriate for film. I worked with fake blood/food coloring a lot. My fingers were pink as an Easter egg for the next week but so far looking at the trailer, it was completely worth it. I also got to design what it was going to look like and make sure that it fit to Joe’s vision. Check out the trailer:

I’ll post the full film when it is available.

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A407743

For example, I was sitting with one of my closest friends tonight and just talking about life and college. She is interested in science and had taken a class this semester that explained some of the amazing things the brain can do and how it works. She told me a story about a man she had read about whom, after some sort of accident, had certain parts of his brain malfunction. Apparently, he still had the ability to see and recognize his parents, but something in his brain was telling him that they were impostors. She explained to me that the first signal the brain was receiving was still correct, so the ability to recognize someone was the first step. The second step, though, the one that connects that recognized thing to the emotional portion of the brain, was malfunctioning and telling him that his mother was not in fact his mother. For my friend, the way his brain was working, or not working in this case, was the fascinating part. For me, though, I immediately wondered and worried about the parents of this young man and how they dealt with their son recognizing them but accusing them of not really being the parents he knew. I had this empathetic instinct and began letting my mind wander to what those people were feeling. This was when I realized that for me, it was another human story that I wanted to dive into, as if it was a play. It’s just like something my acting professor said, that there are a lot of stories and lives out there that we would never want to live, but we would want to play that part. I just thought it was amazing that my friend and I both took interest in this story but in completely different ways and she was able to give me another perspective on it.

I am so grateful to have the friends that I do because each of them inspires me to think differently and they really open my eyes to all the knowledge out there that maybe I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise. Thanks guys.

In the National Gallery specifically, there was one painting that I just did not want to walk away from. It was called The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche. Pictured here:

I think what grabbed me most was the contrast between light and dark. Especially since the woman about to be executed is not the evil, dark charactered but the one featured in more angelic light. The story it portrays is that of Lady Jane Grey who was the grand-niece of Henry VIII in England. She was queen for nine days and was then charged with treason and executed. When I saw this painting in person, it took my breath away and, more importantly, it came to life for me. I could feel the story because of the emotion portrayed on each of the faces; the ladies in waiting won’t look at what is going to happen, the executioner looks regretful for the act he about to commit, and the second man, the lieutenant helps the young girl to her position as though he was her father. She looks so lost and it makes me think that perhaps the artist was putting a twist on the story, that perhaps she was not guilty of treason but in fact was just blinded by being queen and so young that she should not be executed for her actions. When I saw the painting, I wished it was a play and I wanted to play her. She seems to be calmly accepting her fate and as tragic as the scene is, it is beautiful. If you want more information, there’s a brief passage on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execution_of_Lady_Jane_Grey), but either way, if you are in London anytime soon you should make an effort to go see all the paintings in the National Gallery, and especially this one.

Elon, North Carolina October 23, 2009

Mr. Rilke, perhaps your advice is the sort that can be interpreted however the reader wishes to do so, but your correspondence with Mr. Kappus spoke to me in so many much needed ways. Your letters were filled with eloquence and clarity and to me they were about love. I do not just mean the love between two people who have fallen for each other. In your letters, you spoke of different forms of love; the love of a person and their art, the love between a person and their God and the love a person should have for solitude because of the appreciation that can develop for the atmosphere around them. It amazes me that you wrote these letters over a hundred years ago, and yet it feels that you could have written them to me.

Your advice to this young poet reached me as a young thespian because you were not specific to poetry you simply spoke of art. You said, “a work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity,” and that we as artists must realize that if we don’t wake up every day with the need to create our art, then we shouldn’t be doing it at all. It reminds me of what many speakers here at Elon have said to us, “If you can do anything else, do it. This business is hard.” I have spent so many years of my life wanting to be an actor, but never realized how much I needed it until last year, when I was not acting anymore. I let people tell me that I wasn’t good enough, and let fear take over and just stopped. It was one of the worst years of my life. The moment I began acting again, it felt like the pieces of my life fell right back into place.

As I have recently begun to learn the art of acting and study it, I found a lot of truth in your telling Mr. Kappus to be inspired by “the images from [his] dreams, and the objects of [his] memory.” In trying to find truth in acting I have found that I need to rely so much on my ability to imagine and daydream. You also said, “To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity; that alone is living the artist’s life: in understanding as in creating.” Everything about this passage reminded me of acting class; this is to me the definition of fully relating to everything in our lives. In acting class it is about fully relating to the crafting and doing of the activity, but it also must apply to all things we do, otherwise, why live?

I found that you mentioned God both directly and indirectly in your letters. You asked Mr. Kappus to see how we build up a God that is great and that can be everything we need; “As the bees bring in the honey, so do we fetch the sweetest out of everything and build Him.” You also mentioned just believing and trusting, which to me has a lot to do with faith in something higher and bigger than us. You said, “believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance and trust that in this love there is a strength and a blessing, out beyond which you do not have to step in order to go very far.” This trust is the faith we all must have that something else out there in the universe is taking care of things and will make sure that we get the love we deserve and for me recently, that is God.

The final thing that I would like to thank you for is talking about loving solitude. You told Mr. Kappus, “Therefore, dear sir, love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you.” I had never thought to love being alone because society and social norms tell us to want to be in love and be with someone else. When it comes down to it though, we are both always with people and always alone; I have people that love me and I surround myself with them but I also am always by myself in my head with my thoughts. I have never thought to love being single but because of you, I am learning. You reminded me of how very young I am. You said, “You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.” I have so many questions and because of you, writing over a hundred years ago, to another young artist, I am now learning how to live them and love them.

I will never know who you were trying to reach with your letters, aside from Mr. Kappus of course, but I know that you taught me more about love than anyone else has so far in the course of my young life. All my thanks, Mr. Rilke, I only hope I can really live my life with your wisdom and advice in mind.

Sincerely,

Amy Lee McNabb

If you’re interested in reading this book yourself (which you should be) it is Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. The cover of the version I read is:

I hope you take the time to read it, especially if you’re an artist, of any kind.

I played Berdine, the best friend of the main character Chicklet. All of the characters in the show were essentially archetypes that would be featured in a typical 1950′s beach movies where everything is taken in stride and with a smile or an overdramatic gasp. Berdine is the archetype of the nerd. She loves existentialism (which I had to do some research about) and philosophy and reading and, of course, her best friend, too. The great thing about the play is that each character is an archetype but they all have little nuances that make them real. Each actor had to take the time to find that humanizing characteristic for their part but that’s what made it fun. For Berdine, she might be a nerd but when it comes down to it she is also an unbelievably loyal friend and quite a dreamer. I think the dreamer part was what appealed to me most about her. I can relate very well to someone with dreams of being more than they are now.

Here’s the video that the Pendulum put together on the show:

And the link to the online article about it:

http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=2661

I absolutely loved doing this show.