home, hurricanes, and college once again September 4, 2008

I have been back home in louisiana for a couple of weeks now.  I enjoyed a week or so just hanging with family and friends, looking for jobs, getting ready for school, etc.  school started aug 25th.  i really enjoy all of my classes and am excited about my last semester of undergrad in visual arts at UL.  at the end of our first week of school there was talk of not having school the next week due to an impending hurricane, Gustav, that was in the gulf.  well… it came. was a category 4 in the gulf, hit la at a cat 2, thankfully! i went to my sister and her husbands house in baton rouge and watched the winds blow. it was very strange being

i was ready for the hurricane! kinda...

in la again during a major hurricane. the last one that i was arround for was in 1995, 13 years ago… so i was only 10, but i do remember it.

huge bank sign, on the ground after the storm

it was the strangest thing to buy canned goods and food and water, batteries, gas, anything you might need after the storm hit because up to the day it hit, the weather was sunny and warm, no hint of a storm at all.  it felt like a joke was being played on us and we were going to be made out as idiots.  i began to feel some of what noah must have felt. god telling him to build a HUGE boat? (what was that?) for rain… what’s that? all they had ever seen was sunshine… a flood? What?  so i kind of felt like what he might have felt in some degree.  thankfully there was not too much rain, so minimal flooding in our area, but in baton rouge, millions of people lost power and they are saying there are some people who will not be getting it back until maybe up to four weeks!  crazy. we take so many things for granted. the winds were 90 mph in baton rouge and SO many HUGE old oak trees were just pushed right over.

playing cards with my sis.. we loved this headlamp! (she usually looks much better than this:)

the grass looked like carpet just pullled up. roots and all. and many trees snapped in half, some fell on houses, crushing them and killing people. so many roads were closed. it was so strange to have  no… lights, air conditioning, internet, power of any kind to charge phones or laptops or anything like, no hot water… we sat around and played cards and watched the shingles fly off of the roof hoping and praying no large trees would fall and no major damage would be done.  thankfully all of my family was fine. my sis’s house only had a little roof damage and we had some branches in the yard at my dad’s house.  so.. Gustav did not harm us. praise jesus.  so.. i head back to school tmw.  i wasnt even ready for a break as we had only been in it for a week!, so i’m mostly ready to go back.. i hope these last three days of not being in school did not put us back too far. i will be working on my senior thesis art project.. basically at the end of the semester i have to have 10-20 pieces that about 2-5 will be selected from to put in a gallery along wiht all my fellow graduating art major classmates.  its pretty exciting and a big deal, so your prayers for inspiration, patience, and dedication during this semester would be greatly appreciated!  ill include a couple of pics of some pieces i was working on last semester which is in the vein of what i will be doing this semester.

peace

dominique

everyone, including my profs loved this one. it was my first one of this kind of print, called a photo emulsion etch