Spring semester & my anthropologie internship

Hello everybody! I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful spring weather. On days like this I give myself an extra pat on the back for surviving winter. Especially for getting through the five inches of snow we received in March. I am reminded that God's grace is sweet and He makes all things new! Campus has finally come back to life and all is well. I don't know how incoming freshman could come on a visit today and not be convinced that this is the #HottestCollegeInAmerica.

Right now I am finishing up my thesis project and it will be ready to be installed by Tuesday of next week. I am doing a series of six paintings that are 11" x 14" on thick canvas. They are something I hope to put wherever I am living next year in Lynchburg, VA...I'll get to that in a second :) For fine arts student we have a thesis project that we work on throughout our senior year that will be shown in DAAP Works, as well as a thesis paper due. On top of that we have to submit a DVD of photos from the beginning of the year and explain our process that we used to come up with our actual thesis project. I am in the home stretch and I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

While I was in Louisville for the men's basketball tournament I received a call from Anthropologie and they asked me if I was interested in being their new visual display spring intern. Of course I said yes and they said I would start the following week! I had interviewed toward the end of January so I had thought they had found someone else, when really they were just waiting to get the green light from corporate. I am about to start my fourth week and I have already learned so much. Right now we're about to install our Earth Day window display. My days have been spent painting hundreds of sheets of newspaper various shades of green, folding them, and then hot gluing them to create giant banana leaves. The Anthropologie at Kenwood is one of the biggest Anthro stores in the country. Because we have such large windows everything has to be bigger than what we think. The higher the ceilings, the harder it becomes to hang things, as well as fill that space. My boss, Hiliary, is the Visual Coordinator for the store and she has been an amazing teacher to learn from. Most importantly she's very patient with me :) There is so much prep work that goes into creating their amazing displays and I am quickly realizing how much effort it takes to take the idea from paper to real life. I will be sure to post pictures after the final product is done!

My plans for next year...Back in October I had kind of been thinking about going to Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. My parents, aunt and uncle had all graduated from LU and had nothing but great things to say about it. But didn't understand how great it was until I visited for myself. Liberty is the largest Christian university in the country and that was very appealing to me. They're division I in all sports, also very important to me. I went on a visit and fell in love with the environment that they offered. It is one of those things where you can tell someone how great it is, but until you see it in person it's hard to realize what an impact they are making. The way they preach the Gospel in a non cheesy way is unlike something I've ever seen. They genuinely love God's Word but also have big picture goals. The campus is really growing and I am very excited to be a part of it! I'll be studying fashion merchandising while I am there. 

Well that is about it! By this point you have survived Monday, congrats!! 

This is where our rain forest inspired- Earth Day display will be going. 

These smaller leaves were dyed and dipped in wax for a display inside the store.

This was my first major project- a paper clay chandelier. The first one I made was going great until the balloon underneath it popped! So what you're seeing is my second attempt.