Wings of the City

Wings of the City 

The angelic sculptures currently located outside the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts (BMFA) will soon take off and fly away to make its stop at a different city. 

Wings of the City is a collection of nine large-scale bronze sculptures by, Mexican sculpture and painter, Jorge Marin. These fascinating sculptures are taking off to continue their tour of the United States, their next stop being Discovery Park in Houston, Texas. The exhibit in Brownsville initiated on December 13, 2013 and ends on August 15, 2014. 

The exhibit also includes a set of wings that allow people to pose in front of them for photographs. (That's me!)

A few shots of some of the sculptures

These sculptures will soon leave the city this month and the BMFA encourages the public to take a visit and appreciate them before they leave to Houston. Personally, I will be paying them a visit and maybe take a few more photographs of these intriguing pieces of art.

Read More

An Old Draft From My Documents Folder

Life Is Short?

Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘life is too short’? It is usually accompanied with something like ‘life is too short to be anything but happy’ or ‘life is too short to not make the best of it’. Sometimes people will say ‘life is too short to be moping around’ or ‘to be living in the past’. Anyway you get the point. However, if you really stop and think about what these people are saying, you might realize that this phrase is a complete lie. Life is not short, not in the slightest. In fact, life is the longest thing that any of us will ever experience. We live through life until we die and that’s it. That’s as far as we’ll go. So why do people choose to say that life is short? I like to believe that the reason might be because most of us live life following the rules of society. We want to attain what society claims to be right and important and we become so invested in doing so that we do not think of our own goals and what really is important to us. A lot of the times I believe people realize this when it’s a little too late. We open our eyes when we become near to death, to the finish line of life. So we then acknowledge that we wasted all this time trying to figure out how to fit in, how to be that person that society considers acceptable that we forget that the important thing is to be ourselves. To find happiness within ourselves and with what we love is what we all really want but we are just too afraid to let that part of ourselves free and public for the world to see. We might be afraid that people will judge us or put us down. Therefore, we live life the way others wants us to live it. By the time we figure out the truth that at the end of our lives nothing we did will matter, we will feel that life is too short. All that effort in trying to fit in with the norms of society will not even become noticed when we’re gone, so now that we know this we feel like we need to hurry and do all of those things we really wanted to do before our life is over. However, this still doesn't mean that life is short. I think what would be more appropriate is to say that life is unpredictable. Throughout our life we encounter twist and turns and while you may be having the best time of your so far living life, in an instant things can change like the flip of a coin. Lives end, people die and at any giving moment we can end up not seeing another day. So I believe that we must live our lives to the fullest and make the best of it. We must do what makes us happy and not what society thinks will make us happy. We must appreciate the beauty of the world, the good things we encounter and learn from the bad. Learn to see other people’s perspectives and understand that we are all human. Not because life is short but because it is unpredictable.

-          Evelyn Olivares (7-3-2014)

Read More

Brownsville, Texas

Wow today was sure a hot day! I believe we were at 98 degrees Fahrenheit, since it was a bit cloudy. However, it might as well been 100 degrees because that's exactly how it felt!

So here I am again. My second day of being a blogger. Like I said on my first post I don't really understand any of this or what the rules are. Therefore, I just blog about randoms stuff. A bunch of 'whatevs'. And today I will post a couple of shots I took of my hometown, Brownsville, Texas. All of these are quite recent from this year; I like to explore, especially downtown.

Alleyway Mural

I found this mural, which is only half of it in the picture, while walking around some segundas (second hand stores) close to the old bus station in downtown.

Capitol Theater & El Jardin Hotel

This here was a night shot that I took after taking a small detour from going to my night class at the University of Texas at Brownsville, just a few blocks away. Both buildings in the picture are in poor condition now and empty but were said to be very popular back in the day. 

P.S. After I got to class I found out that it was canceled and I actually knew about it but had completely forgotten about it. Whoops. 

"On the border by the sea"

Brownsville is located right across the border from Mexico, our 'sister city' being Matamoros. We can easily just cross a bridge and we're in Matamoros. Mexicans try to cross the border to the U.S. countless of times and this border is no exception. The cross was maybe left by a relative after Mr. Conrado Ramirez probably attempted but failed to cross the border. Many lives have been lost in this river, called the Rio Grande, that divides these two countries. Many more of these crosses can be found in memory of those lives lost. My mom has told me that long ago she would swim across this river to and from Mexico. Of course the security wasn't as tough as it is today. In one of those trips, while she was swimming back, she said that she almost drowned because of the strong whirlpools found in the river. In fact, the river is also known as el rio bravo (the savage river).

In the second picture you can see the steel bars of the border wall that runs along the border between Mexico and the U.S. along with a glimpse of the Gateway International Bridge. Also known as el puente nuevo (new bridge).

Elizabeth St. Downtown Area

The building on the right is the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse built in a Second Renaissance Revival style. On the left is the old Majestic Theater built in the 1930's in an Art Deco style. Next to the theater used to be a Burger King and my mom, my brother, and me used to go get breakfast there quite often since we only lived a couple of blocks away.

U.S. Post Office and Courthouse

Closer shot of the post office while taking a small walk on a nice sunny day in Brownsville, Texas.

These were a few shots taken and edited by me as well. I'm no photographer but I do enjoy taking photographs every once in a while. I guess its another of my hobbies. This hobby hasn't gone forgotten, yet, though. Anyway, I would like to state that I love my city and even though a lot of the people that live here don't appreciate it, I'll always cherish this place and it's interesting people. Toodles.

P.S. If you'd like to use any of these photos, by all means go for it but please give credit. Thanks, Eve.

Read More

Joining the blogging world

Well, well, lets get started!

Hello there! Evelyn here, blogging!... Apparently.  It seems that 'blogging' has become quite popular in this internet era of ours. Either that or I am just very late on what is currently cool. Hmm or maybe it's not cool at all and is in fact completely lame.

Anyway, cool or not cool, I've decided to join in! I must say, I have no idea how this works or what the point of doing this is but I'm quite excited to begin this web log thing. Now I tend to be that type of person that starts a new hobby but never quite goes through with it. For example, I bought a ukulele a couple of months ago and was thrilled about the idea of carrying the cute little instrument with me everywhere and just break into a song in the middle of the street, creating a crowd of amused people. Unfortunately, that did not happen. What really happened was, I learned a few cords, watched some Youtube videos and semi-learned how to play 'Let It Go'. Yes, that song from Frozen which many find annoying but I happen to love! (Leave me alone now, no judging) Anyway, I recorded myself singing and playing in a very mediocre way because, quite frankly, I have a terrible singing voice and apparently am also a very bad ukulele player. After I recorded myself I decided to post it on my Instagram. After a few more posts I guess I got bored or gave up but I haven't picked up the uke in quite some time.

The point of this is that I move on from hobby to different hobby very often and quickly. Therefore, I don't know for how long this blog thing will go on. However, as of now I am pretty much enjoying it so I guess we'll see.

Read More