Happy Thanksgiving and More Sketches

27. November 2014

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We celebrated Thanksgiving early here, together with Lydia and her family, because we don't have time on a Thursday. I spent most of the day cooking (with inspiration and recipes taken from the wonderful Oh She Glows) To get a feel for the experience, cooking and eating included, watch this video that Lydia and I filmed together. She did a wonderful job of editing it and expressing how we celebrated our "American" holiday. 

Below is a picture of me and my host mom on, Daniela, on our Thanksgiving evening. I want to take a moment here to express how deep my gratitude is to have her as a central part of my exchange experience. She is the best and most supportive German mom and friend, who is somehow always willing to take a moment to talk to me about whatever is going on. Her honesty keeps me aware and thoughtful.

I started a new sketchbook a little over a week ago, and have set right to the task of filling it with images drawn from the world around me. I won't let the cold weather stop me, even if it does mean that my watercolors start to freeze while in use...

The houses down the street from my school. There is something so distinctive about the buildings here that I'm attracted to.

Landschaftspark-Nord. An old industrial factory was closed down and turned into a public park about thirty years ago. Interesting how plants are slowly invading the space...

Oh, and we were in the newspaper!

Translated, the article is called "An American Adventure in Ruhrpott," which is a name for the area we live in. From left to right in the picture: Susanne (Lydia's host mom), Lydia, me, Ghandi (our French Bulldog), and Daniela, my host mom.

The article was featured in the Duisburg section of the WAZ, a major west-German newspaper. On the cover of the section you can see in the upper left where our article is, but, if you look a little lower on the left side...

"Zitat des Tages" means "Quote of the Day," and it's from me! Translation: "I have learned to laugh at myself and my mistakes." Abigail West (19), exchange student from the USA, on the pitfalls of the German language.

Needless to say, things are going pretty well.

Forest Vibes

17. November 2014

November Fruchtstand. Charcoal

I've been drawing a lot lately. I highly recommend drawing as a solution to whatever mental block or difficulty you might be facing. It helps me think. I'd like to say I'm getting back in touch with my creative self, but that creates the wrong image, as if it had gone somewhere. I think I've just spent a lot of time putting emphasis on other things, and now I have time to really refocus on drawing and art (and photography and videography, in which I have dabbled a little bit with Lydia, who shot the video from which I took the bottom two stills).

A bit of honesty: the rapidly shortening days have me stuttering a little. I'm not ready for the sun to be setting at 4:30, and I know I still have over a month of shorter days to come before the solstice. BUT I am not about to let that get me down! Sunlight may be a bit precious around here, because it rains a lot too, but when the sun shines, it has a beautiful glow that lifts the spirits. We've been really lucky to have several weekends of beautiful sunny weather, and I've used it to go outside and look around and think.

There is a lot of nature around here, not too far with a bike or a bus or my two feet. The air in the woods is refreshing and clarifying.

Go draw! Go outside! Breathe in the fresh air! That's what I've been doing, and I feel like it's a good direction.

Perspectives

3. November 2014

Above, you see the same small bunch of cut flowers, drawn with two different approaches.

I share this for several reasons. One, as I progress farther into this year and experience, I find myself often questioning the previous definitions I had of myself. Many of the parameters I used to characterize myself before aren't there now, because the culture is different and I can't express myself so easily through language when I meet new people. Art and creative processes, however, have been something that has really stuck with me. Through drawing I have been able to connect more quickly with a number of people. (I'm also starting sit down and just practice drawing more often, it's nice to have time to do that)

These two drawings also kind of express my feelings about learning a new language. How much information is actually necessary to understand the gist of what someone is saying? It's amazing how much I can understand when people speak, even though there are so many words I don't exactly know. Reading is more challenging, but, armed with a highlighter, I can usually manage to extract the most important parts of a text and get the meaning, with minimal translation.

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Here are a few pictures from the last two weeks or so. Emily, a good friend from language camp, was here for a weekend! We packed our time together pretty full, but it was so much fun and I really enjoyed getting to see her.

Emily, Lydia, and I, practicing one of our life philosophies, 

which is that it's never too cold for ice cream.

Am Innenhafen. (Duisburg is Europe's largest inland port!)

Mmm....If you didn't already know how I feel about breakfast here...

Halloween! It isn't really technically celebrated here, but enough people dress up and go out. This is Elena, a friend from school, and I on Halloween at another friend's house. I hope you can see her colored contacts, they were so gruselig