Christmas Art Presentation

Whew. Last night I gave an art history presentation on the life of Christ in art through the ages for my Relief Society's Christmas meeting (formerly known as Enrichment). I still can't believe I did it and that it's over. It was about a 45? 50? minute presentation, but mixed in with the art stuff were verses of scriptures read by my friend Ganelle, our RS president.

I'm having a hard time today because I still feel like I should be locked in the den studying and researching the images. It was a lot of work. I'm not going to lie and say it was a breeze (at first I had about 140 images, but I narrowed it down to about 90 and I didn't talk about all of them lest you think I bored my poor Relief Society to death), but I can honestly say I really enjoyed the time I spent preparing. It felt like I was back at BYU studying for a test or writing a paper and it was wonderful. I love art. I really really do. I especially love finding connections in art. I did this one part where I compared images of Christ's birth and it is so neat to see how that tradition has changed through time. There are some really neat recent nativity paintings. I did the same thing with images of "The Madonna and Child" and "Christ with the Children" and it was awesome (for me at least). Also I got to talk about "3 Magi in a Taco" so I was totally stoked about that! (This is the one pictured above - its real name is "The Magi Asleep" by Gislebertus, a 12th centurey stone carver.) Does anyone say totally stoked anymore? And I got a laser pointer! I actually got to talk about art with a laser pointer. Ha ha! Cross that one off the bucket list! But yeah, I did feel a little like I was going to pass out the whole time that I was talking. And I shook like a leaf and you could tell because my shaking made the laser pointer shake too. Most of all though it was amazing to prepare all these images of Christ's life during this Christmas season. I've been finding images of Christ and looking at images of Christ so much and it has centered and focused my thoughts on the Savior. It was a great experience. So even though I was a big shivering ball of anxiety I am so glad I had the opportunity to do this presentation. Now I guess I have to start cleaning my house and feeding my family again. Ah well, locking myself in the den was fun while it lasted. :)