Author: Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Gina Munsey is a Mexico-born, Eastern Europe-raised missionary kid who ended up being a Californian by way of Florida outside of Nashville, Tennessee. She lives her days full of coffee and adventures while her 12-year-old learns Mandarin Chinese and Greek, her 3-year-old uses all the markers, and her artist-husband creates worlds from pixels and light. A blogger since the turn of the century (ouch!) she's an editor, co-op teacher, and writer who has only completed four chapters of her languishing manuscript. You can find Gina right here at oaxacaborn.com, or in the middle of [home]school surrounded by stacks and stacks of books.
Poetry & Words

WRITING & WORDS :: Life eats up words, sometimes.

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Words toss and tumble around in my head, and as I pick up Cheerios off the floor and tell the curious toddler to please stop banging her sippy cup on the furniture, I mentally line up the words and phrases.

But then, when it is finally still and quiet, I look at the clock and wonder where all the minutes have gone. I sit down to write, and discover I cannot remember any of the words my mind wrote hours before.

And then I realize it’s okay, because the words have been eaten up by life. Beautiful, vibrant, loud, wonderful life.

[Image taken on a rare cold day earlier this year.]

Monday's Pretty Things

Monday’s Pretty Things :: Red and White

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

I have a to-do list at least a mile long, but I’m stopping to drink a cup of deliciously smoky coffee a friend brought back from Kenya, and eat some chocolate cookies my mom mailed to me (she’s the best). Happy Monday!

cake bunting via steph and ben on etsy

Red cake bunting, via Ben and Steph on Etsy

Lait Corporel Extra Pur Figue - Compagnie De Provence - Anthropologie Compagnie De Provence Body Milk via Anthropologie

Sweet faced girls matryoshka via h-luv fabrications Sweet-faced matryoshka girls via H-luv Fabrications

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You might also enjoy these other editions of Monday’s Pretty Things:

Poetry & Words

WRITING & WORDS :: Recurring dreams of minor chords :: Rediscovering the reason I write

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much I need words, until the words of someone who knows how to paint and bend and pull letters into life reminds me. And it’s then, inside the pages of a master wordsmith, that I remember —

Remember that I’ve forgotten what it is to pick up a pen with no purpose other than to let the words untangle themselves. I’ve forgotten what it is to write with no other purpose than to set words free from the confines of my own mind. It used to only take the first scratch of pen against the paper fibers, and the words would begin to flow. As my fingers moved in fluid curves across the page, the words would run up and down the lines, and I would watch as they wrapped around the corners, into the margins, pressed up against the edges, free.

Once upon a time, I wrote as if no one would read it, wrote as if there were no such things as blogs and stats and page views. I wrote without second-guessing my words, wrote without considering my audience (there was none!), wrote without fear. And the words brought joy.

“Oh now the roots are reminiscing
Recurring dreams of minor chords
Metred time
Muted chimes find the beat

And in the pulse there lies conviction
A steady push and pull routine
The cymbals swell
High notes flail into reach.” -Maria Taylor, Song Beneath the Song

Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time to let the words free again.

“[Writing] is… a kind of leaving of notes for another to find, and a willingness to have them fall into the wrong hands.” –Matthew Hollis

I’m willing.

These are my notes.

Inspiration

Focus on the demographic? Or “…allow creative imagination its freedom…”?

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

I read the following in today’s Toast Travels newsletter. An excellent reminder to artists and entrepreneurs everywhere!

“On Radio 4’s Front Row earlier this week Andrew Stanton, the film-maker behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo and other such Pixar wonders, was asked by Mark Lawson whether the opening scene of WALL-E was too bleak and frightening for a film aimed at younger children. Lawson had barely finished his question before Stanton shot him down for making the ‘fundamentally wrong’ assumption that his films were made with any particular demographic group in mind. Why would that even be necessary? He continued ‘I never thought the Beatles were trying to guess my demographic, I never thought Picasso was trying to test who the audience might be?’ After several minutes in this vein, it was clear: Andrew Stanton’s only priority is to make films that he believes are good, regardless of what others might think. He has absolute faith that if they are good enough, the rest will follow.

This is refreshing. The world is all too full of research into “customer bases”, focus groups, talk of target demographics. So much better to allow the creative imagination its freedom, link that flight to a drive to produce something really good – and trust that quality will find its own constituency (or, if you must, market). In a world full of commercial pressure and seemingly set (and unimaginative) paths to success it’s so easy to deviate from such single-minded purpose. There’s a sort of gravity, as enterprises find success and expand, that pulls creativity towards mediocrity, risk towards security. This must be resisted!”

Handmade

Custom Striped Elephant Hat for Baby :: Or, The Blog Post which Took Months to Publish

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

I know some of you blogging whiz kids craft your posts weeks in advance and neatly schedule them so *poof!* a shiny new post magically appears every morning.

And then some of you scribble your post ideas on a piece of paper, write a grocery list on the other side of the paper and then accidentally toss the whole thing after shopping. (Right? Please tell me I’m not the only one?) Well, the idea for this particular post was lost on the back of that grocery list. It’s truly, truly, embarrassing.

So long ago that he’s probably outgrown it, I made a custom elephant hat for a sweet friend’s son. My design drew heavily from this painting which is on his bedroom wall.

Elephant painting in boy's nursery

Elephant Hat - Striped Boys Hat

The little man’s momma sent me the sweetest handwritten thank you card, and some adorable (ahem, handsome) photos of her son modeling the hat.
Elephant Hat Modeled by Little Boy
Elephant Hat Modeled by Little Boy I’m fairly confident the incredible squeezable-ness of his cheeks makes up for how long it took me to post this. ;-)