Morning fog a few days ago

The morning after at the Wilma

I had the utmost pleasure to stay in Athena's studio in the Wilma building on Friday night after the opening of my show, Wood Cuts. This is the morning after.

more from the show

Here's the show...

"Wood Cuts" show at the Catlayst

Here's my postcard for my upcoming show at the Catalyst Cafe in Missoula, Montana for the month of December. I'll be posting all the images here on my blog on Friday when the show opens.

The show revolves around recycling and reusing. I've created two collections of imagery that center around the concept of "wood cuts".

One collection involves old slide photographs of tree silhouettes that I have reversed in black and white to mimic the spareness and beauty of an actual wood cut print. The other collection is created by cutting and pasting. I've enjoyed cutting and pasting since I was a kid when I would glue macaroni to cardboard to make pictures for my mom. For this show at the Catalyst, I've taken old photographs and test prints that have been gathering dust in boxes for many years and cut them up and pasted them to create new visual landscapes. The process has been new and challenging for me. Each piece is unique and one of a kind.

Check back on Friday to see all the art if you can't make the opening at the Catalyst.

Looking back

New feelings and insights emerge when I go back to look at old photographs. It happened this morning as I was searching for a particular image and got waylaid by these pictures. The images are of my college roommate's children this past summer.

just can't stop looking

the ocean still calls me as i look out my window to snow covered grasses, trees and and mountains. i've been back for two days and i'm longing for the cold wind, rain and hard sand. what draws me to the ocean? for all my ruminating about it, i think that what speaks to me the most is how clear it seems: where water meets sky. somedays, they are so alike that its hard to feel the difference between the two and some days, they are as different as cold coffee and warm brownies.

distraction #2

self portrait inspiration - wet

i just spent four days with two of my favorite people, they (Athena and Eileen) are inspiring to watch as they create knock-out after knock-out of self portrait images. Here I am after returning from a really wet walk in the rain and a warm shower...

"Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view

the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a

voyage of seeing."
- Hiroshi Sugimoto

Thanks Eileen for turning me on to Sugimoto's seascapes.
His words capture what I feel every time I come to the ocean: ancestral and elemental with a sigh and sense of calm.

baby lucy, beach

distracted

twice in two days, i was heading down to my basement to work on my "wood cuts" work and i get pulled away, oh so very easily...
yesterday, i got caught up in jack's left over bee boxes sitting outside of his shop (will post those soon) and today i had an idea for another idea that has been swimming inside of me for a few months, centered around books...
i'm deciding to put this one up even though i'm feeling protective of it, its so new and because its so new, it feels private and exciting and still in its shiny paper wrapping...

apple head days #2 and #5

progressing nicely, its sitting on top of a corn cob holder punched in to a paper cup.

a few ideas for "wood cuts"

a few ideas from the series "wood cuts" for the december show at the Catalyst in Missoula...

apple head day one

how long has it been since you've made one?
my mom was big on doing craft projects on the weekends and i had some pretty artistic teachers in grade school. i just got back from a visit with my mom in upstate new york and it was apple season. we went for a drive in to the country to look at the leaves and stopped at Indian Ladder Farms where you can pick apples, get cider, get squash ( i counted over 20 varieties) and smack your lips over homemade donuts. for some reason i thought about making apple head dolls...i started today. unlike the healing brush in photoshop or creating a curves layer in photoshop on an image , you can't go back on a cut in to an apple, its a whole different way of working - immediate and permanent. i'll keep you posted on the progress.

random impressions of Bulgaria

Jack and I were most fortunate to do an extraordinary cycling trip with extraordinary friends, Gary and Karen about a month ago. We were on tandem cycles for three weeks. Here is an array of images from the experience.

Bogged down in blog thinking

Over the last few weeks, I've been bogged down thinking about the validity of my blog. I've had the big bat out over my head anyway as I'm preparing for a show in December in Missoula and I'm trying to do new work (cutting up old photographs and test prints to make something new). Art and yes fear, has raised its ugly head. I woke up this morning and realized that what this blog does is show me, me. My difficulty in committing, my struggle with self doubt, my self absorption, laziness and ok, something positive, my longing for beauty. So buck up, as my husband says and just get to work. Get some posts going and put it out there, visual journaling, with no lock on the cover of the diary.

Flurry

The snow showers last night produced a flurry of compositions...

breath on cold glass


making tea



baby lucy on the couch

Two more lost

These little lives were from a few weeks ago.
I got to the point where I would grab my camera first thing each morning and run outside to see what had died over night in the water bowl. This seemed bizarre and in some ways wrong.
I had lost the reverence and reflection that I felt when I first discovered the dragonfly in the first image of the series. When there was nothing in the water bowl, I was disappointed.
The process seemed to have become just about me and getting "the next image"; this made me kind of sick to my stomach.
I haven't stopped checking the bowl but now at least I've started questioning my motives and intent.

Lucy's water bowl #3, one death one alive

I photographed again this morning and as I touched the water, the little moth moved. He, she, had gotten itself upside down in the water dish and the wings were weighted down with water. I moved him on to my finger and put him on the rocks by Lucy's dish to dry in the sun.

grey day

grey day, silver light

From Bill Jay, who passed away this year

"Photographers have already photographed everything too many times, except cheese..."

Tungsten light on stainless steel

I've finally had a chance to sit down and start working these images for the Small Lives hand-made book for the Charlottesville/Albemerle SPCA in Virginia. I can't get enough of this light for these animals...

Another death

Another death in Lucy's water bowl.

What happens? Do they fly in too fast? Do they drink so much that they are too heavy to take off again? Do they become so satisfied from the water on these hot summer days that they don't want to leave? Or do they just die?

Small Death

From Lucy's outdoor water bowl yesterday

reflections

i read a lot. my favorite t-shirt right now is from my friend anne, it's black (best) and says "reading is sexy".

i'm reading another book by Elizabeth Strout called "Abide by Me", i got hooked on her after I read, Olive Kitteridge, her Pulitzer Prize winning novel (check it out)

this is the sentence of the morning: "the intimacy of marriage can be endlessly tranfigured by grace"
it fits

what do i keep close to me?

on my wall right now, as i work on my computer:
- a red tail hawk feather
- my big project list for the next two months
- words i need to be reminded of
- ideas when i wanted to be just like maggie taylor
- a drawing of a turkey that my dad did for me in 2005, he would make one every thanksgiving
- art4all decal
- dentist reminder
- postcards that i cut from an old calendar by nick bantock (griffin & sabine guy)
- winter photographs that i still like
- three prints from digital files that i have lost
- misfit industries postcard
- application for an artist residency
- two wire bird shapes i made
- two "zine" books i made for class last year
- a note from my life coach "you are right on schedule" with a tree and a shining sun
- a card from my step daughter "life is about who you love"
- athena's christmas card
- eileen with a suitcase and paint can
- a note from marcy
- a photo from almost home, animal adoption center
- a list of books i want to make and why

i am grateful for all the gifts on my board

no staying power

It has been well over a month since my last post in May. There were times when I felt excited about creating a new post and times when I got cranky, like a tired three year old, and I just didn't want to do it.

I've been on the road since June 13th and really, just got home yesterday. It was work and family and friends and kick ass fireworks at this amazing artist in residence center in U Cross Wyoming.

I'm ready to work now. But I went a-looking at my photographs tonight and I realized, I just don't have good staying power. The first day of the family reunion in upstate New York on Lake George was a constant high - every thing was new and totally, yeah, totally, amazing. Photographing my nieces and nephews wrapped in towels and wet and cold was thrilling. My sister gave me the finger as I continued to photograph her beautiful skin and wet clingy hair. It felt like coming home, to blood family and to my camera. The next few days sucked, it was all forced and dull. I get so tired of these roller coaster times of filling the square with beauty and then in response it seems, boring, labored compositions. I know I'm in it for the long ride, but some days I just get tired.

Back on the horse and just do the work - good things to live by.

A few of the fam.. and others

Jacque's graduation

My stepdaughter Jacque graduated from college in Portland last week. I can't believe I'm old enough to have a college graduate as a daughter. It doesn't seem possible. She is super smart, fun, grounded and free with her love of the world. I was chief photographer for all the graduation events and felt such contentment taking photographs of Jacque and her pals, her pals and their parents, Jacque and the family, the list goes on. But what moved me the most during the weekend was the baccalaureate ceremony the day before graduation. The chapel at Lewis and Clark college is beautiful. The ceremony included a Hindu prayer, singing, boisterous reggae dance and music and words full of good tidings for these young people in the future world.

Almost Home Artist Book

I just finished creating a limited edition artist book for the Nelson County Almost Home animal shelter. They are having their annual fundraiser on Saturday night and they will be auctioning off the first copy of the edition and then hopefully I'll get some orders for more copies of the book. The proceeds go directly back to Almost Home for the animals. I loved the meditative quality of stitching the binding, sewing photographs one on top of the next. It demanded patience and focus and awareness of pulling the waxed linen thread just so, I loved doing it. And then I got to scratch and burnish the aluminum sheet for the back cover - I could have spent all day watching the swirls and marks appear.

volumes

I was inspired by a photograph on the Hey Hot Shot blog of a "contender" for the contest, Mary Ellen Bartley on books - it was beautiful. So I spent just a few minutes looking at the shelf with some of the books that I read as a kid. Thanks to my Mom, she saved so many of them. The covers are a bit torn and the pages are a bit yellow, but I traveled far and wide in those stories. Here are two views from the top.

Video hell revealed

It was a lot of work, thank goodness, as now I understand why movies can move and inspire us. The video was created to make people cry and open up their check books at the Missoula Humane Society's annual fund raising event and award ceremony, the Ken Shughart award. Of course, there's a zillion things I would still change to make it better, but I actually feel pretty good about it, as my first. It did well, after the video, the next live auction item brought in $19,500 - cool, as its all for the animals.
*Athena - you rock!

growing

A few things came to light this week. I've realized that I'm a great starter. I like to generate the ideas, run out and get stuff for the ideas (paint, seeds, books) and jump right in and start. And then I wallow... I let stuff sit and fester...I procrastinate and put stuff on the eternal "list" and just can't get going. And then when the frustration of not finishing eats at me enough, I jump back in and try and get done as quick as possible, without much thought, just so I can get on to the next thing.

I tried something different this morning. I've been wanting to grow some fresh herbs in this south facing window next to our table for awhile. I got the seeds, the cute little peat pots in a tray (the starter kit, since I've never started seeds indoors), watered the peat pots until they grew and got moist. The cute little peat pots have been sitting and starting to probably rot for two weeks. The frustration came to a head this morning. I didn't rush. I put on some music, sat down, was patient and planted the seeds. Basil seeds are tiny! And you're supposed to put 2-3 seeds per peat pot. Normally, I'd be in such a hurry to get done that I wouldn't concentrate on how many seeds went in the pots, I'd just stuff them in there. But, I actually got a pair of tweezers and planted the seeds right, tamped them gently down, covered them with a thin warm layer of soft peat and put them by a window for some indirect light until they germinate.

It felt good to do something well and thoughtful all the way through.

Visiting Mom in Florida

My mom went to Florida for a vacation earlier this month. My dad died last year so the trip was a big deal. My sister and her family went for the first week to help my mom and Jack and I were there for the second week. It didn't feel like a "week in Florida". The weather was strange: very cold and windy every day. I was glad that I brought my fleece coat and I only went swimming in the ocean once, the first night that we arrived. I love the ocean - it feeds me on some base, elemental level.
Then there was taking care of Mom. Its been really hard for her since my dad died, they were married for 54 years. She's changed in this year and her mind is going a bit; she's in the early stages of Alzheimers. We walked every morning on the sidewalk and she watched a lot of tv.
I had my Holga with me and shot a few rolls of film. I like going back to film. I like the deliberateness and the mechanics of "loading the camera". I like to wait for the results and I like to decide which frames to scan. I like the spotting in the computer and you can't beat the look of the Holga images. It's comforting to take the time and make the time to do all this. I just have three images for now as I'm still deciding which others to scan.
When I looked at these three images this morning, I noticed how muted the colors were, the single element in the middle of all the space and it felt like they weren't about "florida" but more about my mom: alone and fading but still there.