making more room

The other night I put aside all of the shoulds and todos, and I worked on something just because I wanted to. I followed by muse, my flow, my intution, my desire... whatever it might be called, and I made these:

It's funny to me that these came out the way they did. They were taken in the dead of winter in 2009, but processed in the summer of 2012, during one of Seattle longest stretches of no rain (40+ days) and I can see the influence of the sun. The whites are brighter, the black and blues crisper. They of course do say winter, but most of my winter influenced pictures are a lot more grungy, less contrasted, and murkier. It will be interesting to see if this is really the influence of the sun and if I go back to murky later as the mist, fog and clouds descend. Or, is this the natural evolution of my style that will persist? Time will tell. 

make room

In between product photography clients, I sometimes make room to do something I want to do, although I do feel like I'm loosing contact with that part of myself a little. Not a good thing. 

Thanks to Alma Loveland and Nichole's Classes I feel like I have a much stronger grasp of Illustrator, and I have been having a lot of fun with it:

This one I did for an assignment about making banners.

The rest are drawing I did a while back, scanned, manipulated in Adobe Illustrator CS5, and assigned several different colorways. These were fun. If I had it my way, I'd spend three straight days scanning drawings and playing in the wonderful world of Illustrator. 

Jen's Gems

Hello strangers. It's been far too long since I have communed here with you and I have missed you. I never really know ahead of time when a hiatus is needed. It just sort of happens. Kind of typical for me really. 

One of the things I've been doing lately is photographing the stunning work of Jennifer Leonard for her Etsy shop. 

Here are a few highlights. 

Her work is not only beautiful, and I don't really think my photos do it justice, but it is well made, of high quality materials and very solid. So, if you are interested in adding a little sparkle and color to your jewelry box, Jen's shop should not be overlooked. 

I need a break from my brain

a vacation from my mind

a reprieve from an unwelcome inheritance

an alternate route from the neural pathways I never chose but have been thrust upon me.

I'd like to anticipate without dread

I'd like to plan and look forward without fear

I'd like to feel good things, unencumbered by temperance.

Just for a day

I'd like to sing and work,

laying down all accessories

all shame and doubt

all hesitation

all censorship

I'd like to know me

in raw form.

I wonder who I'd be.

I'd like to feel completely;

air

water

vastness

hardness of stone

prick of grass

cold sluicing streams 

warm sunning

rivers washing detritus away.

I'd like to be of my body

self possessed

naked

accepting

clean.

I'd like to be pure

to be raw

to be rid of history,

naked and new

filled with love

and peace,

agression

and jealousy,

if the situation called for it

- not because my mother's

mother's mother's mother's mother

would have. 

I want to be a wolf woman,

a mama bear eating berries,

predator, prey, ruled by need

by survival, by ingenuity. 

I just want to breathe

unhampered by resignation,

unconscious of concrete,

unthinking,

unthinking...

unthinking...

unthinking...

Consuming words rather than images

On a rare occasion I feel like I get overloaded with imagery to the point that I become numb to sights that would have left me sighing and my heart thumping just a week ago. So, I'm trying to take a break, a vacation, from Pinterest, Etsy, Flickr, Blogs, etc. It's not easy. That's a lot of time and room in my brain to fill up. 


On the other hand, I have been craving words. Luckily for me, my husband prophetically gave me a book for mother's day which I'm trying hard not to devour in one giant gulp. It's called, If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland.   It first appeared on bookshelves in the late 1930s and has inspired generations and while it appears to speak to writing specifically, in truth it's about all kinds of creativity because it's all related.


I thought I would share a little from the first chapter.  (paraphrased except where indicated)

Everybody is original:

If one speaks from themselves and not who they should be, they are an original. This is important because self-trust is one of the most important ingredient in creativity.

Creative power and imagination is in everyone, as is the need to express and share it. But, it often disappears sometime in our growing up. How?

"...we let dry obligation take its place; because we don't respect it in ourselves and keep it alive by using it; and because we don't keep it alive in others by listening to them." p.11

"...the only way to love a person is by listening to them and seeing and believing...in the poet in them... by doing this, you keep...the poet alive and allow it flourish." p. 11

Critics undermine us because:

 "...all people who try to write [be creative] (and all people long to, which is natural and right) become anxious, timid, contracted become perfectionists, so terribly afraid that they may put something down that is not as good as Shakespeare." p.12

"It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones to get killed off. It is the brutal egoists that survive." p. 13

Her advice:

"...you must practice not perfunctorily, but with all your intelligence and love.... Work freely and rollickingly as though talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at the know-it-alls, jeers, critics, doubters." p. 14

I think what I like most about this book so far is that it is helping to confirm some very basic, deeply originating beliefs that have been part of me since the beginning of time, but which I call into doubt on occasion.  Those beliefs are that everyone is original, that we all have something to say, and that we are all creative beings who often forget that fact. 


Color me inspired. How about you?

shy and proud

I've been beaming inside for quite some time because Uppercase Magazine asked me for the use of 5 of my photographs in an article about how Seattle weather effects Seattle art. 

When I got that email, I had to keep reading it over and over, thinking that maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see and not a reality. But real it was, and as I was waking my husband up to share the excitement that started to sink in heavily. I love and respect Uppercase Magazine very much. I'm so honored to appear on their pages. So so so proud. So so so giddy even now. 

The mag came out in early April, and while I thought I'd be sharing the news here the minute it arrived in the mail, I've waited till now. Hense, the shy part. 

I dunno what it is. Maybe it's that I was raised with the idea firmly planted in my brain, that bragging is wrong. While I know it's not bragging to share this milestone with you, that it is in fact sharing and celebrating with my fellow creatives, I felt / feel vulnerable in baring this news. It's so important to me that maybe I'm a little bit afraid it will all fade away if I share it, like an elaborate daydream I created. Silly, I know. But that's where my head goes. 

Perhaps that kind of angst come with the territory when what you create feels like such a part of who you are. Perhaps, it's a necessary part of art making that a bit of one's own very being is put on display... and that those very private, very sensitive, so very important parts of ourselves are what we want to share and protect at the same time. I know this is nothing new, this struggle, this push and pull. I'm just kind of endlessly fascinated by it when it erupts in my own skin.

The most important thing to say here is that I am so grateful, so honored, so proud of being included, being chosen, being part of the party at a level that awes me. Thank you Uppercase. There are no words!!

accidental logos

 I wasn't meaning to make anything like a logo when I started down this path, but that's what it wanted to be. I doubt I would ever use them as such because they are a little (forgive my word usage) ballsy for BAC, but I like them nonetheless. Maybe BAC is going toward the ballsy. I don't know. She doesn't regularly consult with me. 

Monumental

I wish I had any kind of words for what happens to me when I see mountains. They are such a monumental symbol of all that I love about nature; both serene and deadly, unmoving and ever changing, home and stranger. I think I'd like to be one someday. 

In my head

I've been working on aspects of this piece for a while now...

As I was sending it to Flickr I began a description that ended up like this...

I have a crush on square crosses, especially the red ones. I think they harken back to a time when I loved to watch MASH as a child, and had complex, very serious thoughts about war. Such a thinker I was.
But, I also think I respond to the harmony of the shape itself... the symmetry, the balance, the simplicity and strength.
All that coupled with the idea of care (medical), in a time of insanity and cruelty (war) is an irresistible contradiction who's offspring is called hope... I can't resist that. 

I had no idea any of that was in my head. I love it when that happens.  

Thank you technology.

I haven't been visiting Flickr very often over the last year or so. No real reason really.. just part of the ebb and flow of my attention span. But today I uploaded a few things and poked around my contacts gallery for a bit. 

With fresh eyes, it suddenly hit me hard and clear, that this is nothing less than an abundant celebration of life. Whether it be tree, rock, child, cloth, graphic, paint, body, sky, light, dark, sad, happy... it's all such a pounding, throbbing, screaming declaration of love for life. 

Passion is what I love most about creative folks, and I'm astounded at their ability to communicate such deep, rich, profound emotion in pixels and light. 

My husband and I were recently discussing the relative merits of the online world for those of us who happen to be introverts (of which he and I are two ripe examples), and it helped to clarify for me why I get so uncomfortable when I hear folks lamenting the dangers of an "artificial" connection to others via the computer. My flickr contact gallery is a prime example of why I think the online, artistic, creative, community is so valuable. There I am inspired not only to own and nurture my own artistic development, but my development as a human being. 

Pretty pictures can be a pitfall of unrealistic expectation for one's life, since life is utterly messy and pretty pictures are not. But, if one can firmly plant one's feet to the ground and realize that pretty pictures are the lens through which to view the world, we find we choices. Divorce, loss, finances, stress can all be real and difficult, and noticing the way light passes through a glass or water, or how beautiful even a weed can be doesn't change that difficulty. It does, however, give us a wider context, a focus on what is right along what is wrong in our lives. Without the online creative community, without Flickr, Etsy, Pinterest, etc., I for one would be missing so much beauty and so many reminders to find the beauty in the "real" world. 

So, thank you technology, for making my life richer, deeper, wider, more passionate, more rooted in the world around me, in the earth and dirt and nature that gradually gave rise to you. Thank you, in all your artificiality, for bringing me closer to the natural, the actual, the literal... for being the lens through which I discovered a world, outside your magic screen, that I never would have known existed.... and a me that I thought quite impossible. Thanks computer, and everyone who ever contributed to you.

I think we will be alright. I think we know how to stay human no matter how much technology we surround ourselves with. I think we know, in our cells, what's most important... and those who don't, probably never would have... regardless of what happens to sit on their desk. 

Crushing hard...

...on my CS5 software (Adobe Creative Suite, mostly Illustrator and Photoshop)

mas logo

This could become habit forming....

logo

I've been playing around with the idea of a bac logo for a few weeks now and I have the first prototypes finished.

What do you think?

Vanilla Cookie Sandwhiches with Chocolate Ganache

These things are in my house right now!!! How I am suppose to go about my days and ignore the fact that they desperately want me to eat them, I do not know. 

You can buy them at Sugar + Spice on Etsy. A crumb or two fell into my mouth, accidently, as I was shooting them, and I can tell you......"YUM!" 

new lessons

One of the most important things I'm learning right now about product photography has nothing at all to do with styling or shooting, but with the way my mind works. I get excited when I'm getting ready to shoot. I whip out the product and props and start manically throwing stuff together and clicking away. This can be an effective approach to painting or any other more directly expressive art form. But, as I'm finding, tis not all that productive for what I'm doing now. Thought is key. Deliberation and consideration are necessary. These are not things at which I excel, at least where creativity is concerned. But really, what is life if not a process of learning. And learning the tether that kind of controlled chaos, while still responding the golden nugets of inspiration that lay within, could have great side effects in the rest of my life. It might be nice not to be as intense as all that so often, so long as it doesn't mean I have to give up coffee. 

                         

This blog post (from averie cooks about a workshop done by 

Diane Cu) has helped me get to this new lesson. Talk about golden nugets of wisdom. 

The other important thing I learned there.... 

Practice!....practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice and then practice some more. 

rainy beauty

Yesterday's sudden and very dark downpour at 10am was a much needed opportunity to absorb some rainy beauty. So glad I allowed myself to notice it. 

I miss...

...taking pictures of whatever I happen to notice, just for the sheer joy of it. Soon, I will be getting back to that. 

bright battle

I've been shooting some very challenging products the last few days. They are comprised, often, of very bright colors. And those that are more subdued tend to be pink. I'm NOT a bright colors person. I, very often, am not a spring colors person. I Love gray. I Love teal, seafoam, navy, deep sea green. Pink and red almost don't exist in my mind. 


But I like a creative challenge (although my husband wouldn't have known it from my pouty and downright surly attitude lately = frustration over not getting the looks right for these bright tones). But, as things are coming together and I'm seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, I find myself forming a truce of sorts with brights. It's been a full emersion experience, a sink or swim with bright colors experiment, but I begrudgingly opening myself to the possibilities of widening my range of tolerance. (Did you notice all the hesitant qualifiers in that sentence.)

 I'm growing !!!... although by very small steps, evidenced by the (subtle) ever so slightly brighter green ribbon I was falling for today.

fantasy

Sometimes I like to fantasize that my images could end up on book covers. How amazing would that be? If it were a popular book, it would be like the world's largest showing of one photograph. Yep, I have a rich fantasy life. =0) 

 

 

Titles, authors and comments on these "book covers" are also imaginary. 

I've no in as of yet with book publishers or the folks that find cover art for them. BUT... there is very good, very exciting news on the horizon for my humble photographs. I don't want to say what it is until its in hard copy, but if you haven't guessed it yet, I can say it has something to do with my photos being seen by the masses in print. I'm so freaking excited that I cannot even stand myself. A couple of weeks and I should be able to share the joy with you all. CAN'T WAIT!!!