Month: March 2009

I wrote this as we were working on getting everything ready for our trip. By the time you read this, I’ll already be in Japan :)  See you in a couple weeks!

Getting ready for a trip has the ability to make you go temporarily crazy. Maybe this is just a ploy to make the plane trip seem not so bad. By the time you are on the plane in that tiny seat cramped next to the person next to you, you are so greatful that you have to shut off your technology and for the next however many hours, there is really nothing you can do about a lot of things and you cherish that peace. It has been a roller coaster this past week. I feel like every morning I wake up in a panic that I have forgotten something else needed for our trip. I’m sure there are many many people in this world for whom traveling to the other side of the earth is nothing. For whom getting to their destination is nothing more than a long road trip. I am not one of those people.
I love to travel! I love the excitement of being someplace new and having new things to eat, and new things to take pictures of. Where around every corner is something you have never seen before. For however many days I am in a new place I do my best to soak everything in, capture as much as humanly possible with my camera, and try not to forget anything. When I come home I feel renewed, and I feel like I am able to look at my surroundings in a new way. They feel fresh again.
That said, I am also a home-body. I love being where I know everything and everyone. Where I am comfortable, and have a routine. Where I can talk to my friends and family about anything at anytime.
That said, I’m on my way! A pretty great adventure awaits me! Check my Flickr page for picture updates! My plan is to upload all the digital pictures I take every night and post them there. The images I take with my film camera will have to wait a bit ;)

~Peace~

When I pledged to post in honor of Ada Lovelace DayAdaLovelaceDay09 I never realized it would be the day I was leaving on a two week long trip to Japan or that things could possibly get so crazy before leaving on a trip.  So sadly, this post will be much more general and short than I originally wanted it to be, but, I have a feeling that this will not be my only post on this topic…
My Ada Lovelace post goes out to a few of my favorite women artists, and a few that I have met briefly along the way.
To Julia Margaret Cameron who focused herself towards learning the technology of photography – learning the workings of the camera, learning the technology of the developing chemicals, and printing her images. She never gave up perfecting her techniques of coating glass for negatives, working on exposure settings, or creating her art. I give her so many props! With as much of a clutz as I feel I am sometimes, I can’t ever imagine using glass negatives!
To Diane Arbus – at times my muse. Another who perfected the technology of capturing her world with her camera, capturing the faces of the people she related to, and those of the people who fascinated her. She always brought her camera with her. I try to do the same.
To Georgia O’Keeffe who studied the technologies of painting and drawing and capturing her world with her favorite mediums. She has shown me that no project is too big.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Tomorrow evening is the reception for the Anoka Ramsey Community College Photo Alumni show.  I have four pieces in the show.  Two are pieces I have shown before.  Two are pieces I worked my butt off to finish in time to be displayed.  All four mean a lot to me and have many bits of my memories and my heart in them.  I know it sounds sappy, but it is true.  This is why I make art.  The reality is that I don’t sell much of it, and instead use my skills to do other work for people to make enough money to buy the supplies I need to make more art.  I make it because I have to.  There is something inside that calls on me to create and keep creating.  When I think I have flushed out one idea completely and can’t make anything more around it, a new idea comes and I keep going, making new things.  It is a circular process.  A long process.  A process that takes so much of my energy, my brain space, and my time.  And I love being a part of it!