Honoring Art

This past year I have received some amazing art from my friends, and over the winter I decided to honor them by having them framed (by my new favorite people at Taws Can Do in Philadelphia).

This photograph was taken by Jaja, who exhibited it and then sold it at a gallery! But this one is all mine. I decided to make it all girly with a gold frame and pink mat. I think the framing reflects the romanticism in the photo quite well.





This piece I purchased from Nicole (her etsy shop is called blue bicicletta). Fall is my favorite season and I love the imagery in this poem. I wanted to give it the muted colors of autumn leaves and birds, so I chose semi-subtle mats of orange and teal. I probably should have gone with a patterned mat instead.





And this one is my favorite! It's from Nicole's natural patterns alphabet series (I also have beehive). I love how the speckled frame looks like an egg and the patterned mat just emphasizes the intricate detail of the nest (nido means nest in Italian). Click on the image to see more detail.



I'm lucky to have such talented and generous friends!

The Corners of My Home

We're in a state of transition here on Osage Ave; two of our housemates recently moved out (three if you include Wild Bill), and two will be moving in over the course of the next month. The house is in disarray and there are boxes and newly empty walls all over.

This recent post from Soulemama allowed me to take a breath, look around my home, and appreciate the parts of it that are still making me happy.

I also joined the Corners of My Home group on flickr, which provides some very nice procrastination fodder.

*** Favorite stuffed animals (Beanie, Flat Cat, a wild thing, and the Phanatic), pictures, a self-portrait I took in college, nick-nacks. ***

*** A favorite spot in the front room, with a bird's nest that was a gift from my mom ***

*** Winter on the south side of the house - on the right is my pineapple sage which makes me very very happy. ***

***Nick-nack corner with my jewelry box from Poland, ring holder (my first engagement gift), striped rock from Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and art from blue bicicletta. ***

*** My favorite bread-rising place ***

***Part of my sweetie's studio.***

***Bedside table full of things that make me happy.***

*** Furniture from my grandmother, a print from my time in Hawai'i, Steelers fanstuff.***

Leaving the Desert and the Dawn

As my time in California comes to an end, so does my part-time job doing field work at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada. The past three days were spent watching the sun rise over my little rare plants, trying to cram in the last bit of data collection before the field season is over.

O the sun comes up-up-up in the opening

sky(the all the
any merry pretty each

birds sing birds sing
gay-be-gay because today's today)the
romp cries i and the me purrs

you an the gentle
who-horns says-does moo-woo
(the prance with the
three white its stimpstamps)

the grintgrunt wugglewiggle
champychumpchomps yes
the speckled strut begins to scretch and
scratch-scrutch

and scritch( while
the no-she-yes-he fluffies tittle
tattle did-he-does-she)& the

ree ray rye roh
rowster shouts

rarOO

- e. e. cummings

Photographing the Swamp

Last weekend M took me to an organic farm B and B in NJ for my birthday (does this boy know me, or what?).

Good morning sheep, chickens, and goat!


The next morning we went for a walk in the Great Swamp, the perfect place to work on my landscape photography.



I've been trying to work with my frame to lead the eye through an otherwise chaotic subject matter. The swamp is a great place for this because it's entirely made up of tangled leaves, branches, and puddles.









And we saw a whole mess of turtles. A bale of them, if you will.

It's a Jungle Out There

For my birthday I took myself to the botanical conservatory on campus to look at plants. Neeeeeeeeerd. I'm never satisfied with the pictures I take in gardens and conservatories; they're always either too boring or too messy to look at (artistically speaking, I could look at pictures of plants all day, no matter how they are framed). This time, however, I tried extra hard, and here's what came of it:









Besides the super close-ups, I took the opportunity to work on my still life and composition. When I took photography in college I always struggled to make order out of chaos. Some photographers (like a favorite, Lee Friedlander) can take a place that is full of crazy lines and angles, and frame it so you can see a way through, your eye is led into it and around in a deliberate manner. I would like to be able to do that, so here are some of my attempts:











When I started taking photos, I thought I could document the world. And it took me a few years to realize that as soon as you place a frame around the world, your photo becomes its own animal and that ideal is unattainable. Lee Friedlander said (of landscapes, but I think it's true of my new understanding of photography), "no matter how well you manage as a photographer, you will only ever give a hint as to how good the real thing is." This is my new mantra.

On a seperate note, I also have a lot of trouble taking photos of cities and I would like to tackle that at some point as well. Jaja, it seems, has no trouble with that. Look and learn, people.

Oia by the Sea-a

This is what I thought/hoped/dreamed that Greece would be like. I loved Athens, but when I got to the city of Oia (Ee-a) on the Island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea, my hopes for the vacation were realized. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I've put them in a series, let me know what you think.




(photo inspired by my SistA)