New Year's Resolutions

I hate resolutions. I have a feeling that many blog posts about resolutions for New Year's start out this way. What's the point of many a resolution when you know it's bound to fail. Why not just make a list of things that you'd like to get around to... or write down a couple of things you think you'd want to do if time and circumstance were on your side. Not as much pressure, right?

So here are a couple of things that I want to think about accomplishing at some point in the next year... in no particular order.

• Print images from my Salton Sea negative file
• Hang a show of my Salton Sea photographs in the fall
• Submit work to 5 shows (not at the Craft Studio)
• Sew- or at least use the sewing machine without fear of sewing my fingers together
• Cut down on buying plastics
• Work on number two
• Spend money more wisely
• Finish my wedding album (printing, arranging and gluing)
• Be a better manager at work
• Finding new recipes and foods that I like
• Be kind to my mother (she does a lot)
• Be patient with Sally (she's very little)
• Kiss Joe more (he deserves it)
• Move through space
• Take time for me
• Post more on this blog...

It's not that I don't like birthdays but in general birthdays don't like me.  There are so many random strange things that happen on my birthday that sweat pants, a nice comfy bed and a good book seem to be the only things that can't spoil the day.  Maybe I just get disappointed easily.  Maybe I am cursed for silly, ridiculous and completely random things to happen to me on my birthday.

This year the fiascos include:

• Wanting cupcakes from Uprise only to find that the cupcake of the day was peanut butter with maple brown sugar frosting. 
  
• Why it's a fiasco: I don't really love cupcakes in the first place (but the apple pie that I really want for my birthday will be served on Thanksgiving) and I loathe peanut butter 75% of the time.
  
• Receiving a balloon that said: Happy Birthday (on side one) birthday boy (on side two).  Mom didn't see side two when she bought the balloon.
  
• Why it's a fiasco: I'm not a boy.
  
• The Bean was still crying when I got back from dinner with Joe at 9pm.
• Why it's a fiasco: I went to go put her to sleep and by 10pm when I put her in the crib, I crawled into my bed without having my chocolate cream pie (brought home from the Old 63 Diner).  No candles, no singing... just snoring.
• The next morning I discovered that my pie was no longer in the refrigerator
• Why it's a fiasco: my mother mistakenly ate my birthday pie.

So there it is folks, no major disasters... just the usual random things that make me wish I stayed in bed with my book.

* the good things: Us Weekly, a peppermint patty, flowers, silly cards, lots of birthday wishes, and monkeys with hats!

"Don't go through life with your eyes closed, even though you may have chosen photography as your vocation. The machine may see for you, but its eye is dead. Your eye should furnish it with life. But don't believe that all open eyes see. Seeing needs practice- just like photography itself."

Alfred Stieglitz, Steiglitz on Photography, Aperture, 2000.

"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare."

Walker Evans

If I had more time in my day

If I had more time in my day I would...

1. learn how to sew and then sew things

2. go for a walk to the trail

3. take the dog to the dog park and then run after her when she runs away

4. let the bean use crayons and markers

5. find new recipes and cook them

6. learn the bean's crazy moon language

The What for today.

I guess the point of a blog is that you update it enough to have it be relevant to your life... 

Here's the what:

I'm watching Return of the Jedi on Spike.  

I love Star Wars.  

I get giddy when I hear: It's a TRAP! from Admiral Akbar.

Sally is asleep.

I woke up with a migraine and it never really went away.

I hosted a speaker for a training that no one in the department wanted to attend.

Our speaker rocked and even if no one else got anything out of it... I did.

I wanted to throw up but managed to force myself into a nap which, as usual, solved all of my migraine issues.

I just finished two hours of work from home so that I'm not sooo behind after tomorrow's all day training.

Becoming  a better person is priceless... just a little stressful when you have other deadlines.

California

Pictures from recent trip to California that I LOVE. There are lots more but this is what I've got for now...

A few more sketches

Here are a couple more sketches... I really want a Cypress tree tattooed on my right arm just above my elbow (but on the inside of my arm).

I'm trying to sketch or draw every day... it's not really happening every day... but I'm just trying to keep my brain engaged.

More watercolors

I can't get my brain out of making these little watercolors... It's kind of really bizarre. I'm not good and I don't care because I feel strangely proud of them. I don't know how to describe it except to say that I'm allowing myself to suck at this until I work with it enough to not feel like I suck so badly. I wonder what my dad would think about them... they are strangely similar in feeling to his sketches. The Bean found one of his sketch books and tried to eat the pages. Always a good sign... if a baby will eat your work, then you know you're doing something right.

So here are some of my recent watercolors.

Leaving work

I have to leave work now! It's almost 65 degrees outside and I can go home and walk with the Bean in our neighborhood up and down the hills...

But before I leave I wanted to write that I've been sketching... as seen in my desk sketch in an earlier post. I love it. Today I sketched for 2 hours during a really boring meeting. I sketched the auditorium where we were meeting and then I did doodle sketches but I doodled them in my new and special notebook that is all watercolor paper... I can now watercolor the sketches, see? It's brilliant.

I wish I had more time to make stuff and craft. I love that people think my job is sitting around and making stuff all day. I wish that were true. Instead I go to boring meetings, deal with many crazy people, answer weird and random emails, check facebook when I'm not supposed to, get chemistry all over my cute shoes, roll my eyes at certain people I work with... No where in there is there usually time to craft.

My desk

There are work days when I feel like I just can't get any work done. I blog (ahem!), I check facebook, I check my personal email... I really couldn't get any work done when my favorite person would stop by and chat with me in my office (but that, I loved).

So yesterday morning I decided not to do those other things and instead I wasted time by sketching my desk. I literally drew my desk and the jumbled cluster EFF that it is... I ask you, could you work with all of that crap all over your desk? I love the website: wherewedowhatwedo.com because it's pictures of people's work spaces. I love looking at that stuff... I collect books about artist's studios as well so that I can peer into their creative environment. Do people work better in hermetically sealed order? Or do they work better in a giant mess of paper, coffee cups, and stuffed creatures?

I suppose there is an in between... maybe that's where I'm supposed to exist. I can't seem to be uber productive in my chaotic explosion of a desk but I also can't imagine having a desk that is completely austere.

Anyway, here is a scan of the little drawing I did of my desk while I should have been working on work stuff. I added a little color with some watercolor pencils, which are kind of super awesome- you can color in with them and then use water later to make it look like a watercolor... Enough of me. Off to work!

Tribune article featuring me...

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/apr/05/kelsey-hammond/

This is the article from the Columbia Tribune ... I'm a nice artist! Who knew?

I think journalist did a good job on the story... she conflated some of my experiences but the story she wrote is a good snapshot (if you will!) of my work and why I'm doing what I do. I'm wondering if my boss is going to read the part about me making artworks during the week... while I was on the clock. Oops. In all honesty, I did do a lot of other work for the studio that week, so there.

I wish the picture of me making polaroid transfers wasn't so goofy, but then would it really be me? I'm kind of a goofy gal.

Teaching tonight!

I get to teach tonight and I'm so excited... the first day of class is always sort of weird. I talk too fast and try to be a little too impressive... I say too many weird things to get a laugh and then lose my students attention because I'm totally boring. Really? Who cares about grain and all the different layers to a negative except crazy zoners like me... I just love talking about photography and taking pictures so I force them to learn things that I really think are interesting...

For instance (you knew that was coming)
Did you know that faster speed films have more grains (to pick up more light) and so if you're shooting a 400 speed film you will see the grain much more easily than you will a 100 speed film?

And (I swear this is the last one... for now)
Did you know that you will usually get a better image if you overexpose your film a little bit? It's true, the film industry wants to sell their faster speed films to you and yes, you will get an image... but if you rate your 400 speed film at 320, you will, most likely, get a more easily printed negative?

I know... it's awesome.

I'll save focal length for another post (can't wait!)

-photonerdinesstotheNthdegree

Bean pictures

Look at this bean! She crawls, she gets ALL of her toys out and she just doesn't stop moving...

Trouble! The bean has found where we keep the extra wipes. And she's sooooo happy about it. How can I be mad when she looks this adorable and happy. And maybe she'll use the wipes to clean the dog bed that she's sitting in... it's kind of gross after all.

Joe put her in this onesie... I love it... The dog face! The stripes! The fact that everyone thinks she's a boy when she wears it! When did dogs become a boy's favorite animal? I'm a girl and I love dogs. I guess it's that whole "Man's Best Friend" bull. Well, our little bean is doing her best to represent 9 month old girls who love dogs. Go bean go!!

Time

I was interviewed by the Tribune today about my artwork for their Niche Artist spot in Sundays paper... I love talking about being an artist because it reminds me that I am, in fact, an artist... even if I don't have time to make any artwork.

I don't have time to make work... this is what plagues me. I want to spend days taking photographs, making photographs, cutting them up and re-forming them. I want to take drawing classes with Lon or anyone at this point to keep my hand working and my eyes seeing... it's so hard to find the time... How easy is it to audit a class? Maybe I should do that... someday.

And if I don't find the time does that mean I'm not an artist? I am compelled to make things- that's what makes me an artist. But the things that I make aren't necessarily associated with my work. I spent two hours on Shutterfly making a scrapbook of the photos I took while traveling in London with Joe and Sally. It's not very creative- the pages are made for me already, I just click and drag the digital images onto the pages and then I receive a scrapbook in the mail... p.s. it's way easier than actually scrapbooking something- which I REALLY don't have time for. But I made something... I thought about how the photos would look next to one another and that was about it. Somehow I spent 2 hours working on this...

And, why do we spend so much time at work? I want to work to live not live to work. I want to have enough time to do the things I love... like being in a darkroom all day. I want to be able to do that and still have time to see my daughter crawl and pull herself up to stand. Ugh... I just want more time. I never have time to call my friends, to go to the gym, to have a date with my husband, to take the dog on a really long walk, to exercise, to read-uninterrupted- for more than 20 minutes. I hope it will get easier when Sally is older and when Joe is done with school.

Getting back to being an artist... I am one. So there. Ooh. Now, I need to go and make something to prove it.

shutterfly

I'm waiting for Shutterfly to upload my photographs so that I can order prints or send along a link to my friends and family who tell me I'm a terrible parent for not sending out pictures of my child... I say that I'm a parent with no time... and that Shutterfly takes forever to upload pictures.

Why would anyone want to read my drivel?

Seriously, I don't have anything interesting to say... I think I'll mostly post pictures of stuff. Like the Flat Stanley project... I'm currently taking pictures of Flat Stanley for first grader, Olivia Thompson. He sure gets around...