Jes Lee

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Remember

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Some days it is easy to forget the reason why you decided to do something in the first place. If you are lucky, you remember that reason before the event is over. I guess I was one of those lucky ones today!

Mr. FN and I had a chance to go see the Back to the 50’s car show today. It was his first time seeing it, and we had a ton of fun! There will be many photos coming soon (when I manage to finish off a couple of rolls of film!)

Tomorrow is a long day-job type day. When I think about the next project I want to accomplish, I often worry about these long days, wondering how I will fit one more thing into them. But I know somehow it will work out. If I’m lucky tomorrow, I’ll have a chance to go buy a few supplies for this next project. It is always a great day when you can sneak in a little visit to your favorite art supply store….or just your favorite store ;)

 

Screen printing!!!

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I spent the evening (5 hours to be exact!) screen printing with Laura Brown at Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Screen printing is one of those things that I have always wanted to try, but have always been a bit afraid to just jump into. Mostly because you need screens and emulsion and ink and those things add up to be a lot in ‘buy-your-own-supplies’ land when you just want to see if you like it or not. The members of the Artist Co-op at MCBA were offered a free workshop awhile back so we could get a feel for the screen printing process and the studio space and hopefully get a few more of us interested in the medium. I got a little taste of it, but never felt like I had the skill to really work on it on my own. Laura Brown was lucky enough to participate in this amazing residency program where she learned a lot more about screen printing and was willing to share some of her knowledge with me in a trade we worked out. It was amazing! Not only do I have a pretty cool set of prints drying in the racks at MCBA right now (4 freaking colors I might add!!) but I totally feel like I could go back tomorrow or next week and create another set of awesome prints. We thought about stopping after two colors, but because my dear Mr. FN was willing to go out and bring us back pizza and beverages, we kept working for 5 hours and finished the whole run of prints. The best way to learn a new medium is just by doing it, and by doing an entire project all at once. Just stick with it. That process is now engrained in me! I am so excited to try it again.

I have said before that a lot of my summer will be spent experimenting. I am working in the darkroom more again, planning to work more with toning darkroom prints, and after tonight I am planning how screen printing could enter into all of this. Another layer. I can’t wait to get started!

As soon as I have my prints back from the drying racks, I will post a better image of them. For now, here is this! This image came from a photograph I took in Japan when we were there in 2009. I separated the colors by hand, tracing each color onto a different piece of paper, and used that to expose the screens. Then each color was printed one on top of the other, creating some over laps and some little bits that are off, but those variations are part of the process and I love them!

In the drying rack!

A little up close – the best prints were a bit buried on the rack. You will see a photo of an awesome one soon! Also, we spent a lot of time mixing the perfect pink for the mouth :)

The photo this came from! This was a billboard in Dotombori, Japan – not far from Osaka.

Until next time!

 

 

a day

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A day with an early start.

There are very few things that will get me out of bed before 7am. Even fewer things will get me out of bed before 6:30am. One of those things is my dad hosting the annual Back-to-the-50s registration breakfast at the restaurant.

So by 10am this morning I had already waitressed for 1 1/2 hours, taken almost 3 rolls of film full of photos of old cars, and gone shopping with my mom. Around 12:45 I made myself more coffee and a breakfast smoothie to try to trick my brain into believing I hadn’t been awake for that long…it didn’t work…

I did manage to create a new box for my book series, scanned in some film, uploaded a few photos to Flickr, applied to a film festival, finished a project for a friend, and got an image started for an epic screen printing workshop session tomorrow night. I am amazed at everything I managed to get done today! Really, I am amazed at this entire week. I feel better after doing this, and I have learned a lot about my distraction level and how I work best. I think this will help a lot this summer.

On we go! I’m very grateful for another good, productive day and I am very ready to head to bed and read. Goodnight world!

 

 

Some days are quiet

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Today was a day-job work day.

I biked to work despite the threats of rain and storms, and somehow missed getting caught in anything during both my ride to work and back home.

It is challenging to get a lot of artwork work done on these days. I’m wore out by the time I get home and I’m ready to just crash. But I realize that what I end up doing is really more similar to “studying” instead of “practicing”. What I mean by that:

Tonight I have not touched any photos, film, processed anything, scanned any images in, nothing. I have, however gotten my Adobe programs set up on my new laptop so they will work (this is actually quite a bit of work. Adobe doesn’t make it easy to switch computers!). Biking lets my mind wander a bit more than driving does. Today on my bike ride I continued thinking about the next project I want to work on, and I think I am a little bit farther in figuring out what exactly it will be. I have been working on that for a while now, but today I feel closer. I have also been reading and reading always has the potential of helping with creative ideas and putting us in the right “zone”.

So today has been a study day, and honestly, it was a good one.

Tomorrow is an early morning. The Back to the 50’s car show starts tomorrow and I will be up very early to help at work and take photos of the old cars and stuff like that. And then eventually I will make it back home and continue with my artwork week and everything will be as it should. In the mean time, I am looking forward to this weekend, but seriously dreading getting up before 7am.

On we go.

 

Darkroom day

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Today, day 2 of my forced residency-style-stay-off-of-social-media-during-the-day-week I spent a large part of the day in my darkroom. It was wonderful! I managed to get my first roll of film from my new little Yashica 635 developed (Kodak TriX) and the film came out beautiful! This little camera is pretty mint! I also managed to get a few prints done of one of the images which will give me something to practice toning later. It has been awhile since I have done print toning…but I found that I have a bottle of metallic toner…unopened! Has anyone tried this before? I do need to get more blue though…

*I would post a photo here of the prints I did today BUT our network at home has sucked today and it is taking waaaaay too long to upload. Check out my Instagram or Twitter feed if you can. It will be up there soon as my 365 photo for today!*

Which brings me to a bit of a strange topic. I am realizing that I have camera preferences. I’m sure there are many of you saying “so??” but it seems like sort of a big deal to me. In many ways I feel bad saying it! I have found over the last two days of film developing and scanning that for medium format film especially I prefer the images from my two main cameras (my Hasselblad 501c/m and my Mamiya C330), my Holga, and now my Yashica 635 over the Kodak Brownies I have played with. I know I am not really making a fair comparison here at all, and I’m honestly not trying to compare. I just notice that I get much fewer usable images from the Brownies than I do from the others. Perhaps because the Brownies have a much slower set shutter speed? I just don’t have a ton of luck with them. I still have one more new-to-me Brownie to try, and I am definitely not giving up on the others, it is just an observation of my work this week. (Side note: I am still totally on board with the idea started by a few of my Twitter friends that Kodak should release a new Brownie type camera! This doesn’t change that!)

I think a major reason I am not a big fan of non-slr or tlr cameras, is that I am a very bad judge of distance. (Just ask anyone who has gone on vacation with me! I am famous for saying “oh, that isn’t that far, we can walk!” *an hour later* “Yeah, I really didn’t think it was that far!”) Therefore I have a really hard time figuring out how far I need to be standing back from an object for it to be in focus when I only have measurements to rely on and I can’t actually see that said object is truly in focus or not. I am practicing and trying to get better at this. I have been shooting a lot with my Lomo LCA which you also have to set distance and not just focus with. I have had fairly good results with that one, but I’m still having some issues. Does anyone have a rule-of-thumb or any good tips on judging distances for photos?

Tomorrow is a waitressing-day-job type of day for me. I do intend on uploading some new images to Flickr tomorrow night though. I’m also hoping to ride my bike into work tomorrow, and since I always have at least one camera with me, that could always lead to a small photo outing!

For now though, I’m off to bed.

Wow what a day!

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Today I tried something. I kept myself offline. You know what? It worked! I got a ton of work done today, and because of that I get an almost free day tomorrow to do some much needed work in my darkroom. Seriously, you would think it wouldn’t take me almost 30 years to figure this stuff out, but I guess it does.

So this is my week of work! I am staying off of my chat program and dear old Twitter and Facebook during the day this week (though I may give myself a break on Wednesday since I’ll be working my day job most of the day anyway!) – I am excited to see what I will accomplish! So far I have gotten a lot of photo processing done, as well as finishing up a few jobs for MCBA. It feels so good to finally get a few things off of my plate and be able to do a bit of creative work again! I did catch myself writing snarky little one sentence updates in my notebook today though…I think I missed Twitter a bit much! Ha!

Moving on. My dear Mr. FN is working his way towards a husband-of-the-year award! Really. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post he made me a collapsible light box. I had a chance to try it out today while I was taking photos at MCBA. Woah! That makes such a difference! It is amazing! We are going to work on some finishing touches together (muslin instead of tissue paper, clamps instead of tape, etc.) but it already works like a charm!

– my little set up at MCBA today –

He also thoroughly spoiled me tonight by taking me out and purchasing a new little laptop! The decision was made after figuring out that my little-engine-that-could laptop was at least 5 years old (along with a few odd problems he couldn’t figure out). So off we went to get my new little side kick I’m typing this on! It is so speedy!! I wasn’t going to buy a new laptop until my old one truly kicked the bucket, so this was a shocker today! Now to get it all set up….

And on we go. I miss hanging out with friends online all day (you know who you are!), but I love everything I am accomplishing this week. My experiment has so far been a success! I’ll be back to chatting next week though ;)

Stay tuned! Hopefully tomorrow there will be a darkroom photo update!

Also, film developed! I’m so glad I had a chance to drop this off at West Photo today to be developed. Now to get it scanned in and posted….

Today I am feeling in a much better place with upcoming shows and projects that are due way too soon. I’m trying to keep on top of them all. I don’t want this to turn into another crazy busy summer that disappears before I have a chance to enjoy it. I’m finally off to bed. Good night dear friends! I’ll update more tomorrow evening.

 

Late night storms…

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…and long work days. Sundays will be the difficult part of any 365 project as I spend most of my day at my day job. But I have a bit to work that part out. On the plus side I did get to hang out with my dad at work on Father’s day!

My sweet Mr. FN made me a collapsible light-box today! I’m sure there are many of you that have no clue what I’m talking about, but I am so excited for it! It should make taking book photos much easier! I’ll get a chance to try it out at MCBA tomorrow afternoon.

I have a lot of work time planned this week, and I’m looking forward to it. The work I am doing for MCBA needs to get done asap, so much of the beginning of my week will be spent working on that. I do have plans to get into my darkroom though and get film developed and some printing done as well.

A bumpy weekend is ending, and a new week is beginning. It has a new chance to be a wonderful week. I’m hopeful.

 

Clarity

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Yesterday was rough. But in the end I finished the day and went to bed with the idea that the next day is new and has a chance to be better.

Today started out a bit rough (complete with a night full of nightmares of photo processing…seriously. That is a new one!). But I kept at it, and kept going, and in the end, it ended better than yesterday. And that is great! And now I’m ready to go to bed soon with the thought that tomorrow is another new day and has a new chance to be better. The cycle continues.

Through everything today, I feel like I am ending with more clarity than I had in the beginning. I had a chance today to go to the Rock The Garden concert and it was great and fun and in the end I left with a few things:

1. listening to Dessa sing reminded me why I used to spend so much money on albums and going to concerts. I truly adore listening to her and today didn’t disappoint. Ironically, this is only the second time I have listened to her live. The first was when she and Aby Wolf opened for Ani DiFranco a while back. From Ani to Doomtree.

2. the Walker is awesome. It is one of the few art museums that Mr. FN and I keep up a membership too. Honestly, I would love to be members of more, but there is unfortunately not an endless supply on money coming in, and choices need to be made. But we always pick them, and they always have awesome shows to see (Cindy Sherman is coming!!!) and host amazing music concerts. And I’m not just saying this because I won a t-shirt and poster while playing Rock The Garden Bingo today! (Thanks again Walker!)

3. I am betting that any concert I go to around here (which hopefully will be a bit more often again) Erik Hess will be there photographing and I’ll get to chat with him for at least a bit!

4. Somehow these things have given me a sense of clarity and a stronger idea of where my next project is going. I’m not telling anymore than that yet.

An obligatory crummy cell phone photo of the Rock the Garden stage from way too far away to make it look more than teeny – Doomtree is on there!

It has been a long day though, but not in a bad way. It is time for me to curl up in bed with a book and fall asleep. It helps that I did get a new book in the mail today from Milkweed Editions. I won it from them during Northern Spark for tweeting a photo of myself at an event after midnight (which honestly is really easy to do when you are working an event all night long!). I’m anxious to start reading this book though! I promise to post a little about it when I’m done!

Until next time!

~Peace~

Long day

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Today was a very long day filled with loads of work and loads of craziness, and lots of fixing things for people (which is kind of my job in a way).

I made it though, maybe a little bruised, but I’m still in one piece.

I managed to finish a large photo job tonight. There are more to come, but I am finished for the weekend. Tomorrow I can hopefully head out with my camera for just a bit.

I have been thinking that next week I need a little “retreat” week. I don’t know exactly what that will entail, or how much of the week it will extend to. But I do know I need a bit of time away from social media – at least during the day (I plan to update my blog in the evening) and stay off of my chat program for a while. I just need a bit of time for myself to create. I am already working that time in around two jobs and some family obligations. I need to be able to focus more during the time that I do have. I think it will be good though.

I’m finally off to bed. Thankfully, this very long day can now be over.

Good night.

 

My way

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If I could have it my way today I would be walking barefoot through the neighborhood streets in the rain with a camera (probably two or three) being part of the storm.

But instead I am curled up on the couch with my laptop next to a wide open window, listening and working away. Maybe there will be some storm artwork made today anyway. At least the bunny doesn’t seem to mind this set up.

Funny little note on the topic of laptops. Of course Apple has released new laptops, and of course there have been loads of discussions here about getting me a new laptop. The latest decision? To try upgrading my laptop one last time. I love my beat-up kind-of-clunky laptop. Probably most of all because Mr. FN bought it for me and it was delivered one day when I was really sick and I haven’t forgotten how amazing that day felt then. Sometimes sentimentality trumps everything.

Updates on the Flickr stream coming today! Nothing up as of the time of this post, but it will be later, so check back.