these days are long and full. i've been waking up with the sun...
Showing posts with label visual diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visual diary. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
get out of jail free-squandered
monday, 09 february, 2008 kitty joe
i had to play the self card way too early in this project. i was hoping to save it for an emergency near the end of the semester. but i was a space cadet and forgot to ask the artist who came by the shop if i could photograph him, and just like that, he was gone!
yesterday i said goodbye to many old texts i'd been saving on my sim card. because a refurbished iphone may have fallen like stardust into my hands. i'm officially obsessed. desktop g5, macbook pro laptop and iphone, you've stollen my soul. ah, but for sweet reward. but backing to the nostalgic parting. there were announcements of my sister's engagement and pregnancy. encouragement from xavier when applying to college after over a decade off. excited reports from mieke after her first date with ezra and loud voicemails from rose and ginger thanking me for big birds. this soul i sold for apple.
i had to play the self card way too early in this project. i was hoping to save it for an emergency near the end of the semester. but i was a space cadet and forgot to ask the artist who came by the shop if i could photograph him, and just like that, he was gone! yesterday i said goodbye to many old texts i'd been saving on my sim card. because a refurbished iphone may have fallen like stardust into my hands. i'm officially obsessed. desktop g5, macbook pro laptop and iphone, you've stollen my soul. ah, but for sweet reward. but backing to the nostalgic parting. there were announcements of my sister's engagement and pregnancy. encouragement from xavier when applying to college after over a decade off. excited reports from mieke after her first date with ezra and loud voicemails from rose and ginger thanking me for big birds. this soul i sold for apple.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
"we should have been brother and sister!"
wednesday, 04 february 2009 jose
jose said it as we stood sandwiched between artful new yorkers at the highline ballroom. we were gossiping, and as usual, we were nodding our heads at each other saying things like, "i know exactly how you feel", and "i totally do the same thing".
and it's true. jose started out as my boss--the boss everyone but me feared. he respected me and the work i did and so he praised me and treated me gently, like a kitten--or a little sister. between visits we do a lot of "we HAVE to get together", until finally, one of us gets stuck with an extra ticket to a concert and we share. we've done this 6 or 7 times, it seems. sometimes spontaneity is the best and most successful plan in the overscheduled, fast paced world of new york city.
this night was cold. really cold. but i delighted in the luxury of getting a ride from home to the show and back again. in a car. i pretended i was rich folk and wore heels and a dress and just a jacket. no seven layers of tights and thermals and undersweaters and hats and double gloves and diaper scarves. i still died on that one block walk to the venue. after the show i sat in the car shivering and pre-setting my camera and the plan. okay jose: i'm gonna run out and get the focus. then i'm gonna wave to you and you run out and stand right there. and try not to scream. and at 9 degrees my fingers would barely move and i'm just lucky he's in the picture plane at all!
and we ran back to the car shaking and squealing and me screaming TURN THE HEATER ON!!!
p.s. would anyone care to join me in scratching their heads in wonder that next month we will celebrate jose's 50th birthday? what?
p.p.s. oh, is it valentine's day? what's that?
p.p.p.s. jose was day 1 of my assignment. the first.
jose said it as we stood sandwiched between artful new yorkers at the highline ballroom. we were gossiping, and as usual, we were nodding our heads at each other saying things like, "i know exactly how you feel", and "i totally do the same thing".and it's true. jose started out as my boss--the boss everyone but me feared. he respected me and the work i did and so he praised me and treated me gently, like a kitten--or a little sister. between visits we do a lot of "we HAVE to get together", until finally, one of us gets stuck with an extra ticket to a concert and we share. we've done this 6 or 7 times, it seems. sometimes spontaneity is the best and most successful plan in the overscheduled, fast paced world of new york city.
this night was cold. really cold. but i delighted in the luxury of getting a ride from home to the show and back again. in a car. i pretended i was rich folk and wore heels and a dress and just a jacket. no seven layers of tights and thermals and undersweaters and hats and double gloves and diaper scarves. i still died on that one block walk to the venue. after the show i sat in the car shivering and pre-setting my camera and the plan. okay jose: i'm gonna run out and get the focus. then i'm gonna wave to you and you run out and stand right there. and try not to scream. and at 9 degrees my fingers would barely move and i'm just lucky he's in the picture plane at all!and we ran back to the car shaking and squealing and me screaming TURN THE HEATER ON!!!
p.s. would anyone care to join me in scratching their heads in wonder that next month we will celebrate jose's 50th birthday? what?
p.p.s. oh, is it valentine's day? what's that?
p.p.p.s. jose was day 1 of my assignment. the first.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
connection
thursday, 05 february 2009
john was my teacher. he's a brilliant and humorous speaker. when the end of my semester came and he asked me to be his teaching assistant, i jumped at the chance, not because it pays well, but for the same reason his devoted people come back every semester, year after year, to sit in his classroom, complain as they do that it's too hot, too cold. just to hear him talk about art. he expands my mind and continues to facilitate my understanding of something that a few years ago seemed beyond my grasp. and he mixes his yale vocabulary with a goofiness that is so endearing.
incidentally, i've also done finances and photoshop work for his wife, tended to his plants in his glorious carroll gardens brownstone while he vacationed, and then there was the introduction to a now infamous artist to whom i've devoted my professional life in the past year. a pivot point.
here you see him with his handy, homemade--not quite perfect but makeshift pointer which replaced his holy grail perfect pointer of old. i also love the way his colorfully patterned, untucked shirts bear the awkward creases as if they've each come fresh out of a plastic package.
your favorite? hit the comments.
oh, but wait! john was my subject last thursday, so in the week that has elapsed, i had forgotten my inspiration, what i was going to say about him. i only remember that i forgot it (yes, i'm so helpful to myself). it was something about john being the person i communicate with the most via eye contact. he communicates timing to me with his eyes and i advance the slides. luckily, he has lovely eyes.
john was my teacher. he's a brilliant and humorous speaker. when the end of my semester came and he asked me to be his teaching assistant, i jumped at the chance, not because it pays well, but for the same reason his devoted people come back every semester, year after year, to sit in his classroom, complain as they do that it's too hot, too cold. just to hear him talk about art. he expands my mind and continues to facilitate my understanding of something that a few years ago seemed beyond my grasp. and he mixes his yale vocabulary with a goofiness that is so endearing.
incidentally, i've also done finances and photoshop work for his wife, tended to his plants in his glorious carroll gardens brownstone while he vacationed, and then there was the introduction to a now infamous artist to whom i've devoted my professional life in the past year. a pivot point.
here you see him with his handy, homemade--not quite perfect but makeshift pointer which replaced his holy grail perfect pointer of old. i also love the way his colorfully patterned, untucked shirts bear the awkward creases as if they've each come fresh out of a plastic package.
your favorite? hit the comments.oh, but wait! john was my subject last thursday, so in the week that has elapsed, i had forgotten my inspiration, what i was going to say about him. i only remember that i forgot it (yes, i'm so helpful to myself). it was something about john being the person i communicate with the most via eye contact. he communicates timing to me with his eyes and i advance the slides. luckily, he has lovely eyes.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
friend
friday, 06 february 2009 mieke
i bought these earrings in portland because the word 'friend' popped out of the lovely dewdrop magnified text. here in new york, where stable, down-to-earth friendships are tough to maintain, mieke has been my neighborhood yoga buddy, brunch companion, sous chef, co-party thrower, ear for gossipping, supplier of all things delicious and belgian, artistic supporter and sharer of an occaisional bottle of wine. in exchange, i found her a husband. and i will never give up those bragging rights.
these images should be enlarged for detailed viewing by clicking on them.
i bought these earrings in portland because the word 'friend' popped out of the lovely dewdrop magnified text. here in new york, where stable, down-to-earth friendships are tough to maintain, mieke has been my neighborhood yoga buddy, brunch companion, sous chef, co-party thrower, ear for gossipping, supplier of all things delicious and belgian, artistic supporter and sharer of an occaisional bottle of wine. in exchange, i found her a husband. and i will never give up those bragging rights.
these images should be enlarged for detailed viewing by clicking on them.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
the stuff of tattooing
found these retro medical jars at a brooklyn medical supply store collecting dust on the top abandoned shelf. took 'em to the shop for a steal.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
a day in the life of...
okay, so it's almost midnight and i'm freaking out because i just got home and see i'm doing this silly blog challenge where i have to post every single day in the month of november....because i have so much free time on my hands these days. i've always thought that i lost readers when my blog went idle, therefore i felt that a nice bi-product of marathon posting would be a reinvigorated readership. this hasn't seemed to happen. but anyhoo. i've made it this far and must prevail!
below i will share homework from three weeks ago, because i realize i've really slacked on that, and hello? easy blog post!
this assignment comes from my photographic self-portrait class. i was to take a photograph every two hours of the day. i thought this would be easy, but i actually found it quite challenging. in fact, i started many other days but was simply too busy to slow down long enough to carry on. finally, i chose a slower day. i feared making boring images. but come what may, here they are...
8am-ish. i rise. emre does not. emre is grumpy that i am taking pictures of the bed while he's still trying to sleep in it. i don't blame him, so i kind of honor his request that he not be in the pictures. but his arms are twisted up too lovely not to include in the composition.
10am-ish. been working from home. the morning light is lovely in the kitchen. my very orderly pile of pressing things to take care of waits messily beside my mobile office (laptop), as i procrastinate and update my blog. the once-fragrant lilies that haley and emir gave me for my birthday drop pollen on the table runner as they die.
12ish. time to leave the house. my favorite thing about working from home--pajamas until noon! i catch myself in the bathroom mirror as i brush my teeth. this scene is actually slightly unusual, as i usually am anywhere but the bathroom as i'm brushing my teeth.
2ish. afternoon light streams into the boss's drawing studio. the drafting table is supported by an old clawfoot bathtub. the chairs have all been used for notetaking. seashells to be made into mosaics litter the floor in mysterious plotted patterns. my desk is on the other side of the studio, with a window looking through the brooklyn ship terminal into the downtown manhattan skyline.
4pm-ish. i've left work early because it's emre's birthday. i point the camera up the brooklyn sky.
6pm-ish. i've met up with the birthday boy and we're running errands. the reflection as we pass 'soft spot' our neighborhood bar, is lovely. emre, appropriately, stands in the 'soft spot' of the frame, that is, the place that's fallen out of focus, as well as bearing the name of the bar. you could take the pun further and say that he occupies the 'soft spot' of my heart.
8pm-ish. we walk together hand in hand.
10pm-ish. dinner at planeat thailand. i stare at the totally awesome 'fountain', which consists of a row boat hanging from the ceiling. many holes puncture the bottom of the boat, through which water falls in streams. some of this water falls into tin cups which hang from the boat's oars, rigged with counterbalances. once the cups of water become heavier than the weights, gravity flips them over, thus moving the oars as though the boat is paddling through the air above. and the whole thing starts over. i've been mesmerized for ten years.
midnight-ish. i stand on the subway platform. the yellow edges of the tracks are a warning not to fall in. they are punctuated with raised dots which massage my feet when i walk on them after a long day of trekking.
below i will share homework from three weeks ago, because i realize i've really slacked on that, and hello? easy blog post!
this assignment comes from my photographic self-portrait class. i was to take a photograph every two hours of the day. i thought this would be easy, but i actually found it quite challenging. in fact, i started many other days but was simply too busy to slow down long enough to carry on. finally, i chose a slower day. i feared making boring images. but come what may, here they are...
8am-ish. i rise. emre does not. emre is grumpy that i am taking pictures of the bed while he's still trying to sleep in it. i don't blame him, so i kind of honor his request that he not be in the pictures. but his arms are twisted up too lovely not to include in the composition.
10am-ish. been working from home. the morning light is lovely in the kitchen. my very orderly pile of pressing things to take care of waits messily beside my mobile office (laptop), as i procrastinate and update my blog. the once-fragrant lilies that haley and emir gave me for my birthday drop pollen on the table runner as they die.
12ish. time to leave the house. my favorite thing about working from home--pajamas until noon! i catch myself in the bathroom mirror as i brush my teeth. this scene is actually slightly unusual, as i usually am anywhere but the bathroom as i'm brushing my teeth.
2ish. afternoon light streams into the boss's drawing studio. the drafting table is supported by an old clawfoot bathtub. the chairs have all been used for notetaking. seashells to be made into mosaics litter the floor in mysterious plotted patterns. my desk is on the other side of the studio, with a window looking through the brooklyn ship terminal into the downtown manhattan skyline.
4pm-ish. i've left work early because it's emre's birthday. i point the camera up the brooklyn sky.
6pm-ish. i've met up with the birthday boy and we're running errands. the reflection as we pass 'soft spot' our neighborhood bar, is lovely. emre, appropriately, stands in the 'soft spot' of the frame, that is, the place that's fallen out of focus, as well as bearing the name of the bar. you could take the pun further and say that he occupies the 'soft spot' of my heart.
8pm-ish. we walk together hand in hand.
10pm-ish. dinner at planeat thailand. i stare at the totally awesome 'fountain', which consists of a row boat hanging from the ceiling. many holes puncture the bottom of the boat, through which water falls in streams. some of this water falls into tin cups which hang from the boat's oars, rigged with counterbalances. once the cups of water become heavier than the weights, gravity flips them over, thus moving the oars as though the boat is paddling through the air above. and the whole thing starts over. i've been mesmerized for ten years.
midnight-ish. i stand on the subway platform. the yellow edges of the tracks are a warning not to fall in. they are punctuated with raised dots which massage my feet when i walk on them after a long day of trekking.
Friday, November 14, 2008
a welcome welcome
allow me to assault you with a photo perhaps worse than a cell phone would take, snapped while coming up the subway platform stairs, juggling many bags and being regarded suspiciously. but the photo quality doesn't matter here. what matters is that you are looking at a trigger to my most exciting moment this week. this week and beyond. see, election night was exciting. but when i watched obama give his acceptance speech, i was still in that whole 'pinch me this can't be real' phase. it couldn't actually be happening. then the joy didn't have much time to sink in before the unexpected sting of the passing of prop 8.
so i'm walking up the subway stairs after a long day, schlepping the aforementioned and customary bags of stuff i need for the myriad of activities i engage in on any given day. i see the usual scene as my head clears the top of the stairs. turnstiles and the token booth with its uniformed workers. i've seen this same scene many times a day for 12 years. but this day something different catches my eye. a rip in the usual visual program grabs my attention.
someone in the subway booth has posted a full page newspaper photograph of obama on the wall behind. it's not a campaign photo, it's a victory photo. on the bottom it reads, "president barack obama". when i see this i'm taken completely off guard. i realize i still haven't accepted that i don't have to wake up from this good dream. eight years of seeing portraits of a big eared idiot who i'm ashamed to identify as the leader of my country fly out the window. i feel lighter. shame is lifted, and pride takes its place. i'm so damn proud of my country for making this happen. i start to cry. here i am in the subway having that moment that i was too conditioned against believing could happen on election night. embarrassed, i wipe a tear away and shake my head. "i just can't believe...." the man beside me grins and says, "you gottta take that picture!" and i'm too flustered to even focus the lens.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
for me? really?
last night emir and haley (emre's brother and sister-in-law) stayed over. since they live in the not so close reaches of new jersey, this has become an almost weekly tradition that i love, whose days are numbered, because, drumroll please....at the beginning of november they will heed our call and move into an adorable garden apartment in greenpoint. when i say garden apartment, i really mean it. you walk through the street side building and out to the garden to get to their little 'granny' apartment. so cute. if i didn't love them (and my oft-plagued apartment) so much i'd be so green with envy as to consider hating them. to thank them for taking care of our excruciatingly finicky old cat while we were in turkey, emre made kuru fasilye (a white bean dish) and i made borek (spinach pie). we used all turkish ingredients that somebody who shall remain nameless who is so painfully law abiding that she was sweating bullets like she was maria full of grace or something, smuggled through customs. what officer? fifteen pounds of white cheese? no, i definitely did not pack that!
after dinner i played a slide show of the bazillion pictures i took in istanbul. damn that gorgeous skyline of glorious domes and pointy minarets that resist perfect essential capture yet INSIST you shoot shoot shoot more more more photos while desperately trying!
emre teetered off to bed. and when i say teetered i actually mean groaned, rubbed his bloodshot eyes and collapsed. while the jetlag devastated me on the turkey side, emre's getting it on this end.
and then, midway through the slide show, emir disappeared into the other room. perhaps it was my own jetlag, but i was completely clueless to the fact that he was lighting candles on a cake. i can't remember being so taken by surprise. forgive me if you've surprised me and i'm forgetting, but really, when was a birthday cake a surprise? though this trip to turkey was a beautiful big birthday gift, perhaps because i was out of the country, my birthday passed pretty uneventfully, with shopping at the grand bazaar for little turkish trinkets for christmas gifts and a bowl of soup under the galata bridge. (spoiler alert: you may receive a little turkish trinket from me in the near future). pretty nice. but pretty unceremoniously did the ultimate ex-hovy's selfish holiday slip by.
so the cake. it did take me by surprise. all these words to explain how happy the above sight in my kitchen made me this morning...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
200 ways to waste your day or spackleshot's 200th post
p.s. the mystery colors in the kitchen mat came right out in the wash...
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
moonrise over seabright
one of those breath-catches-in-your-throat moments, sitting in the still warm sand and turning my head toward the ocean waves to see this. even my lovely new 105mm couldn't do it justice to...do click on the photo to enlarge. this one is really worth it.it reminded me of the harvest moons that would come at the beginning of october. my dad made me feel like they were a special dedication to me for my libra birthday and would always call me out to the horse pasture to see them. so i did the same, rousing all sun-exhausted beach revelers to stand up and see. this moon in july, no fires anywhere, was quite beautifully shocking.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
you know you're turkish (or just my boyfriend) when....
you can differentiate between black, white, red, green and yellow ground pepper in a dish.
and you have a strong opinion about it.
and you have a strong opinion about it.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
memories of eastern oregon
and camping on windy mountains with jenilee.and making evening salads using the hotel nightstand as a cutting board.
and drinking wine on the porch at sunset in a ghost town.
and watching jeni fall in love with the arcade fire.
and eating burritos for breakfast, lunch and dinner all through new mexico. (oops, different trip!)
and watching jeni pour hot sauce into her journal.
and feeling the rain fall in my hair while soaking in hot springs.
and buying rainboots at wal-mart.
and watching the storm roll over the mountains and canyons of washington state.
and hiding in sufjan's tent after being pummeled with 20 minutes of bruising hail.
and meeting that schmoe who surely didn't deserve her love and attention.
and getting makovers at MAC.
and wishing i could be 20 people at once, able to be this close to so many amazing people, all the time.
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