Jes Lee

Long weekends and lots of film

IMG_1742

I spent this past long weekend hanging out with Mr. Fictitious Nonsense and doing all sorts of things around our little city that we always say we will do, but don’t always manage to. In a round-about-way, these are the things that are inspiring me now. The day-to-day, the ordinary you don’t always look at, think about, or slow down for.

Friday we biked to our favorite brew pub for dinner. We go there quite often, but this is the first time we biked together. It was a lovely ride. You see your surroundings, the streets you drive on every day, the neighborhood you drive through all the time, a bit differently on a bike. I am really enjoying that now, and really enjoying biking as many places as I can. I love my car, but I am getting very tuned in to biking. Biking makes it easier to stop and snap a few photos on the way as well ;)

Saturday we stopped at a coffee shop, walked through the farmer’s market in the rain and bought a few fabulous things. I love farmer’s market season! We went out to brunch, and went to the Walker Art Center. There are sadly many times I miss an exhibit I want to see there. That is not a good thing – we are members, we don’t have to pay the admission fee, and we are so close! We made it to see the Lifelike exhibit (just before the last day!) and I happened to find my new camera (yay birthday present!) in the gift shop! I have played with this little guy a lot this weekend. There will be photos posted soon! We also went to a little soiree party, celebrating two very good friends getting married. It was a lovely party! It gave us a chance to visit people we don’t get to see often enough, and sit in the park in a picnic shelter watching the rain. It was lovely!

Sunday was a working day, but Mr. FN and I still managed to have lunch together, and a late dinner, while watching the storms. The storms and rain have been crazy here lately. I finished off the night reading a new poetry book I picked up at Pocket Lab Reading Series a couple of weeks ago. Mortal Geography by Alexandra Teague. It is amazing! I need to read it again. I am carrying it with me in my bag, to read bits of it again when I have a chance.

Monday we biked again. This time through the neighborhoods to do some thrift store shopping. Though I did have a relatively minor wipe out on my bike, it was still a wonderful ride. We are really lucky around here to have so many parks, and it always amazes me how often you can go out on your bike here with a specific destination in mind and have part of your path go through one of the local parks. It is a gorgeous place to live because of that.

I have taken a lot of photos, little snapshots of random life bits. I have even been going back to more 35mm film lately (a bit because of my new camera) which has been a good little change. It is good to change things up every so often. I will hopefully have some new work and new pieces to share soon. For now, I am gathering and constructing. There are days I worry, when I think of shows coming up a little too fast, of schedules and studio days filling up with other things, I worry the gathering and constructing will take me too long and I won’t have anything to show. But I can’t worry too much. I can’t rush this. I can only keep working!

Day by day.