Jes
Hearts
I had planned on blogging today. Really I did. It is my mom’s birthday and it seemed like it would be a good day to blog about all of the amazing stuff that has been happening.
Waking up to the news reports and photos of horrible earthquakes and tsunami’s in my favorite country kind of changed things. It makes all the bad stuff seem so insignificant, and the good stuff seem even more amazing and so very fragile all at the same time.
March has been an up and down month already. Many birthdays (happy birthday mom and dad and Jeanne!), cool art things, weird life things, sad anniversaries, and unexpected deaths. Makes me wonder what the rest of the month might have in store.
So, for now, I’m going to ponder this month, this day especially, and watch the snow that keeps changing from sleet to snow and back again (I’m still not completely sick of the snow! Really! I know everyone else is, so I’m mostly just keeping that to myself). There will be more posted soon, I promise.
Until next time,
~Peace~
Fragments
The last few days…the past week really…seems like just a bunch of fragments, a broken series.
I keep recording. It will all make sense someday!
~peace~
Challenges
We need to keep challenging ourselves, stretching our boundaries, changing what we are doing so we can continue to grow as human beings.
My challenge this year was presented by my friend Kathryn Kysar, who asked me to create poetry videos to accompany her new book.
I accepted.
It has been a challenge learning the video editing software all over again, and figuring out where my creative tendencies fit into this new (for me) medium.
But I am up for the challenge.
This is version two of the first video. It is still a bit of a work in progress, but it is enough that I can post it here.
Until next time,
~Peace~
Nothing beats
the feeling of actually getting somewhere on a project.
It makes you feel like anything is possible! More details to come soon.
25 things
25 things you probably don’t know about me
(This was a Facebook thing awhile ago. I didn’t do it then, mostly because I have a hate/kind-of-like relationship with Facebook and the various things on there. But I decided to post something like this here.)
6. I want to be a writer as well as a visual artist. 7. I adore the Harry Potter books. 8. I love playing board games and card games. 9. I hate competitions. I especially hate when people make everyday life things into competitions. 10. I’m usually quite shy in large groups of people. 11. I have a very hard time concentrating on what I should be working on during the day when I have friends to talk to online. 12. I love when it snows 13. I love skiing – downhill skiing is a little like flying 14. I started out riding my bike more as trasportation because of the oil spill last summer, but I found that I really enjoy riding my bike. 15. I love my volkswagen beetle and I really miss driving it! (I hate when people tell me my car looks like it is sporting Vikings colors.) 16. Lacross and the Roller Derby are really the only sports I don’t hate. (Though I admit I am a bit curious about the new player from Japan that just joined the MN Twins…) 17. I think one of the worst thing in the world is having to pretend you are happy and make other people happy when you aren’t feeling well. 18. The supplies for my artwork are extremely expensive, and I sometimes feel guilty about spending the money on them, but that doesn’t really stop me. 19. I’m thinking about artwork pretty much all the time. 20. I am very easily intimidated. It takes a lot, but I usually get over it. 21. I love handwriting, and I still keep a handwritten journal. 22. I love hugs. 23. I’m really very nervous about the project I’m currently working on.
24. I am usually a very happy, upbeat person, but sometimes, I just need someone else to be upbeat for me. 25. My granny started me collecting Russian dolls when I was little. My collection is growing.
New things and the prairie
I have been working hard lately. There are a lot of big projects coming up, all of them quite fun, though, as usual, it does mean some things get neglected in the proces.
Today, I actually took a bit of time off from working on projects for other people, and started a new compilation for a project I am working on for myself. I don’t know if it is finished yet, or how this will all pan out, but It is a start on a new journey.
Prairie restoration site, Theological Seminary, New Brighton, Minnesota
When my friend first asked me to work on videos for her poems, I found many poems that were full of imagery from the prairie. Knowing I would need some images for that, I talked to my uncle who happens to work for the DNR. He pointed me to a number of prarie restoration projects that are going on not far from the cities. One of them was practically in my back yard. The more I talked to him, the more I became fascinated with these places. Almost a perfect mix of analog, land, growth, returning places to what they had naturally been, mixed with digital, tracking growth, predators, controlled burning, life cycles…
It has been taking over my mind lately. I see my Digital Dreams of Life series stretching towards this. Everything needs a new direction sometimes. I think this is where I’m going.
In the mean time – Yes! Videos! My friend Kathryn Kysar will have a new book of poems being released March 19th. We are working together to create videos of her poetry, which will be posted on the website for the book, as well as here. It is an exciting project. Video is can be an unforgiving, frustrating medium, but it can be beautiful when layered and finessed just right. It is taking me awhile to catch on, but I keep working. In the mean time, there are some still images that pertain to this project in this gallery. Mostly portraits right now, I will be posting some of the still images I am using in the videos.
I am also starting a little prairie gallery just for all of the prairie images I’m working with.
It has been a busy winter. Around here, that seems like a good thing. It doesn’t leave for much time to relax, but it does leave a lot less time to mope around with the winter blues. Just this last week, I was at a kareoke bar for the first time ever, went to visit friends at their studios during First Thursday, saw a screening of some of Jay Rosenblatt’s films at the Walker, and checked out a couple of great local date night places. The date night time did a lot to get me out of my winter funk, and all of the great artwork I have seen at the galleries and at the studios of my friends lately has done a lot to inspire me and get me working again. We all need pick-me-ups like that sometimes.
While I wish that these days of “so freezing cold you don’t dare take a camera outside for fear it will freeze to your face” would be over, today I am so grateful for the sunshine!
Until next time,
~Peace~
New obsessions:
~ the prairie
~ prairie restoration projects
~ instant film (ok, not really new, but I have recently had a bit more luck with it, which is re-newing my interest/obsession)
~ videography
~ creativity journals
~ paper calendars
~ book arts (again, not really new, but I’m starting a pretty awesome book arts program at MCBA in a few weeks)
~ cooking as many things as possible in my rice cooker
Dazed
The blog has been a little bit quiet lately.
After an epically fun New Year’s Eve, I have spent most of this new year in quiet contemplation about what 2011 has in store.
Ok, really, I’ve been sick, and only getting to around 1/2 of the things on my to-do list, and honestly, writing a blog post just kept getting shoved to the bottom. I’m still a bit under the weather, but things are perking up around here.
In exciting news, I was invited to be part of the Minnesota Center for Book Art‘s Parts of a Whole: New Work by MCBA’s Artist Community! I am honored to be considered part of their Artist Community! The opening reception will be Friday, February 18th. I hope you can make it! More details will be sent out on that as they come. I’m expecting it to be a wonderful show. MCBA has so many talented, amazing artists, and I can only imagine how amazing this show will be!
I will be displaying my piece Population Density in that show. After choosing it, I was honestly a little worried. This is a quieter piece that some of my compilations. It is more analog. I can’t say what made me choose it. I did get a lot of good feed back on that piece when I had it at the Book Arts Festival at MCBA this winter, so I know it will get a good reception. But as to what made me decide to put that in instead of a compilation? I don’t know. Maybe just the desire to feel like the black and whites fit into my series better than they maybe do. Maybe just wanting to show I can do more than play in Photoshop? Either way, I hope people like it! It is one of my favorite images.
Moving on to other things.
I won a new camera at John’s company’s Holiday party! It is a Canon Rebel T2i! Woo hoo! It is shiny! I am very excited about the video capabilities of it most of all right now. I have the privilege of working with a very good friend on a video project this spring, and I am planning on using this new camera for most of the video recording. It has been awhile since I have worked in the video world (ok, since college really), but I have always enjoyed it, and I can’t think of anything better than working on a project with another creative friend. So, here we go! Jump with both feet!
The 365 cell phone photo project kind of fell by the wayside when I got sick. I’m thinking of starting over with a new 365 project starting in February. Not sure what it will be though. Details will be posted here when I have them!
In the mean time, I am trying to get into a creative groove – one where I spend more time creating and less time organizing things in my studio. Where I am actually making things. That will come, I’m sure, once I start feeling just a bit better and having a bit more energy. Maybe tomorrow will be that day.
Until next time,
~Peace~