I came from wildfire and earthquake country. I can't begin to fathom hurricanes. But this……. I see the pictures, but imagining the truth is hard. I cannot wrap my mind around it, the destruction is so great. So immense. Amy has a really great entry on what is happening and links to more information. My heart is reeling.

Self-portrait tuesday started by the awesome red current. She has a sweet wedding photo up for this week. I did a little series of these photos when I was sad, which is when I take most of my self-portraits. (That's weird.) But what I really like about this photo is my hair. After I shaved my head I sort of let my hair take over. I just let it do really whatever it liked. And it was wild and willing to comply. The time this photo was taken it was soft and fuzzy and just getting a little bit of shape. I have a crazy spiral in the back off to the side and I think that is where the wildness comes from. So here you go, crazy hair and sad eyes:

One of the things I love most about California are the fields. The repetition of color and line. From a very early age would fly from my mother’s house to my father’s house (divorced when I was one) and I loved looking out over the valley and the patchwork of colors. Watching the earth rush past so slowly from the high vantage point.
I also loved when I would drive with my dad from the coast to the valley and watch the trees line up in the orchard out of the car window. How if you looked one way the trees looked like they would go on forever and then if you looked another way the space would shift down another lane. He would quiz me about what was planted in each of the fields and then explain why. Explain how the farmers watered such large fields. Explain why they would change what was being grown. I loved it. It was peaceful - the smells and sights of agriculture.

This is from a trip to California with the Boy. Look at how the field seems like it could go on forever.

So those amazing girls over at port2port are taking a vacation this week (but a work vacation not a fun vacation, not like the lucky Johanna!). But they started the ‘bring your pet to blog’ and I am getting sucked in. I am turning into one of those ladies that take millions of photos of their cat. Which is even more distressing because I would not call myself a cat person. I always wanted to get a dog (but the apartments in New York are way too small). The Boy on the other hand has a soft spot for cats. And now I love her, she is the sweetest thing in the world, plus she is beautiful.

Recently she has taken to chilling in the bathroom sink. I guess it is cool, and she can just curl up in the bowl, but I yesterday morning she was just laying in the sink and I had the work camera so I took some photos. She is a little photo whore. I think she understood what I was doing so she posed for me! No really she kept on tilting her head giving me coy eyes. She knows what the camera is and she works it!

Our building is pre-war so that means a funky bathroom. Over the years, the super has fixed things in the bathroom and replaced the original tiles with white ones. The originals are these swirly green tiles. Now I love green (hello green girl) but my problem is that the replacements are so haphazard. So the bathroom is half green swirl and half white, but with no rhyme or reason. Not until I took a look at this photo did I begin to soften to the old tiles. They match Trixie’s eye perfectly. Take a look:

Also does anyone have any tricks for getting warm water, when you have a separate hot and cold facets?

I have been thinking for a while how that for an art site, by blog doesn't have lots of pictures. mav called me on it yesterday, so here we go. More photos. More pictures of my stuff, even if it is half finished. I have two in progress robots, and another two robots that are just piles of fabric. My main problem is that I don't have a digital camera (work does though and I borrow it all the time - hence the photo above). I know in this day and age, but I could never get around to getting one. I love my camera, and the Holga is amazing. I love proper film, but the digital takes great things as well. My excuse for the Holga is that I got some pictures printed and they were crap. I know that I can do a better job, but I just need to go down and print them at ABC No Rio. I haven't been in a dark room for like ten years and I am a little nervous (maybe a lot). But it has been on my mind! I am trying to remember how it goes, printing. Plus I have to get supplies and I am more than poor right now, so I am saving up for paper and the like. I want to print over full frame, so I need to file out a negative holder. See how many excuses I have! Baby steps and everything, but I will do it. I look at the envelope of negatives everyday. I promise I will make an effort to get all my supplies so I don't have anything else standing in my way (besides myself of course). The photo above was taken with a digital photo. There is this amazing building on Thirteenth Street and this wild flowing plant grows all over it. Its like a secret building, I feel like one day you'll have to crawl under to get to the door, like the prince in sleeping beauty. Very magical. **Hey aiko did you get a job?**

Oh the perfect New York night. The kind you hear about. The friend with an amazing garden, candles, dinner from the grill, lots of wine and laughter. It was amazing.
I think it was just what I needed, to be surrounded by people doing wonderful and amazing things.
I saw some twinkling stars, just a couple but they were beautiful.

I love the library. I can have a love affair with books, far beyond what my pocket book will allow.
I don’t feel guilty if I don’t like the book, I can just stop reading without consequences. I only want to love my books, especially if I own it. The library gives me that chance. The chance to know if the love affair can last, or if it is just some flash in the pan. My happiest moments as a child were going to the library after school or on the weekends. Sitting in the dark quite nook of the young adults section and picking out books to read. It was a haven. The place in the world where no one could get to me, where I could escape.
I love being drawn into the world created by an author. To spend my day sitting in bed caught up in the life of someone else’s words. I love sentences that create an image in my mind.
The Boy is a reader, and actually the first guy that I dated that was really into books (maybe that’s why I married him). Before him most of the guys I dated were jocks. I know I am a weird anomaly of jock and art. Although not much athletic happening lately. The last athletic thing I did was learning to ride horses. I know riding horses in the city is pretty out there, but it can happen. (You can even ride horses in Central Park.) Actually I learned at Claremont Riding Academy. I went to a summer riding camp when I was a girl, but when I moved to NYC I was up for trying new things. (I sort of forced myself to do new things) And riding horses was one of them. I even worked at the stables for a while in exchange for lessons. It was a great deal & full of some crazy rich people. Like the little rich girls you see on television that think money can by them anything, they ALL take riding lessons. And they do think that money can buy them anything. (one of the girls would use her riding crop on her instructor and then told her that she was take her to court, because the instructor stopped the lesson) It was wild too see what happened in that stable office. And working behind the desk I had a ringside seat.
I haven’t been riding in awhile. I stopped working at the stables and the lessons where way out of my price range, but there is another stable and I have been meaning to check them out and get back into riding. Riding is one thing that makes me live in the moment. You can’t be thinking about anything but what is happening between you and that horse. Wow, I forgot how much I loved it.

Do you ever have one of those days were everything is off?
I got to work in the morning a little before nine like I always do and there was a client waiting at the door as I was coming in. She wanted to look at some backdrops, but didn’t call to warn us, so everything on the floor was wet because we were trying to get five backdrops shipped out to LA & Chicago by that afternoon. The fans were already on, so we just had to wait and the client picked out about five different backdrops to look at. Three of her backdrops where at the bottom of the piles. One, I was looking for the wrong number for at least fifteen minutes.
Then when lunch came, while everyone else was eating I was in the back of the studio packaging up the drops ready to get shipped and by the time I was finished so was everyone else.
Sarah had to go to the doctor and Johanna is on vacation (LUcky), so while I was gessoing more fabric (six backdrops have to go out on Monday) tons of people called on the phone. When I finished no one called and then while I was doing the second coat it was ringing off the hook again.
As I was leaving a client called that I had talked to at least ten (way more than necessary) times the day before wanting to take care of some pricing issues. (Which really isn’t what I do if it is custom work, so I told her we’d call her back in the morning. - she, the client was not happy with the idea).
Then when I got home because I was feeling especially low I realized that I only have a couple of people that live in the city that I could call friends. Most of my friends (and family) live in California (where I am originally from). After that all I could do was crawl into bed and call it a really early night.

Today has to be better. If anything its Friday.

Those wonderful girls over at port2port started this little group - bring your pet to blog. The Boy and I are relatively new pet owners. You could say we adopted her. Or even better she found us. Basically on a stormy snowing day (ah the snow - coolness - sweaters - I don't even love the winters, but the idea of not always being sweaty seems so far away!) back in March someone left a box in the outer lobby of our old building. (In the city you have two doors to get into the building. Usually the first set of doors is open to everyone and it is where the mailboxes are, and then you have a key to the next door to let you securely into the building) Taped inside that box was two - TWO kittens! How could they dare! When I came home that evening they were in our lobby just sort of chilling. I only saw one of the kittens and thought someone had accidentally let her out. So, I brought her up to our apartment and the Boy said the super had someone picking them up soon. So I though all right and brought the little one back downstairs even though it killed me. That was one cute kitten, but it wasn't Trixie. The next day as I left I looked around for the kittens and they were gone and I was glad that someone came to take them. Around noon the Boy called and said we were the proud owners of a new kitten. I guess the super's friend never came, but people did like I did and took the kittens into their apartments. One lady had taken in the Trixie, but couldn't keep her, and the Boy had told himself that if he saw any of the kittens he would take them in. (I was pretty destroyed the night before - I could not fathom taping up a box of kittens and just leaving it in some building! I was pretty much a mess of tears the whole night. I even went to take the trash down to see if they were gone a couple of hours later and they were, so I figured they had been picked up.) He called me because we had no pet stores near by and we need supplies. Food, litter, litter box, food bowl, and some toys…so Sarah let me go early and I went and bought a gaggle of stuff for the new kitten. Now Trixie is amazing. You can just be NEAR her and she purrs like crazy. She is very polite and wouldn't go up on the bed or couch until she got invited, once she is invited she'll come up when you ask (or when she is taking a nap). I love her! So again with no further ado this is Trixie in the morning peering up:

I created a new website design and I was hoping for some feed back. It there are any broken links, does it make sense? Also I am using layers and I am not sure how to make it so that you don't see each one loading. Any advice on how to stop this? Aiko, I am working on your site. We have to talk about how you would like the title bar to look. Look for her blog coming soon (we'll as soon as I get my act together!)

five idiosyncrasies… (lisa tagged me!) one: I hate to make the bed. If the boy leaves before I do in the morning it stays totally crumply. More than making the bed with sheets on is putting fresh sheets on the bed. I have gone for about a week without making the bed. Oh I had clean sheets, they were even on the bed, but I just spread out one of my blankets, put on a pillowcase and grabbed the other blanket for warmth. two: I watch horrible television. The smuttier it is, the more I watch. Right now I have two such show, both on the abc family channel – wildfire (which I really really love) & beautiful people (this just started, but the funniest thing is the green screen shots are soo bad. There is no way they could be in New York City. really funny) Not only do I watch bad shows, I have the TV on all the time. It comes from being a latch-key kid. I would turn on the tv as soon as I walk in the door, I still do. three: When I photograph things I like not to be observed. The boy says I “thief the pictures”. I take pictures on the sly. It is especially easy when I shoot with my regular camera because I have a 70 – 300 zoom lens. I could be a spy. four: I never said I was angry to anything or anyone until about a month ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been angry but I never ever used anger to label it. five: I love to give presents, but I always forget the card. Which might not be that strange unless you know that I used to have a card company on the side called crabbcards. (still deciding the fate, since I took the summer off) I would love to hear Martha’s and Johanna’s idiosyncrasies (no pressure though)

After an email from Lisa I came to work and thought about what I was going to post today. And then I remembered these wonderful tear sheets from an old cheerleading magazine. When I started working at Oliphant things weren't super organized, and I couldn't deal. Stuffed in a portfolio case were tons of magazines from the early 80's until now. That is 20 years of dust and paper with samples of backdrops that had been rented. No one had organized them, but just keep adding to this mess of paper. It was all crumply and folded with no rhyme or reason. The case would just opened up and papers would come tumbling out. Finally I had enough and bought a bunch of portfolios with sleeves and started organizing. It was wild. I found some crazy images from the 80's. And some really great images. I am more attracted to the cheesiness so in honor of my 'conversation' with Lisa take a look at this (I think it might work - what should my colors be?): The one good thing about the 80's were the models. They looked like real people. (Look at that hair though!) I mean these girls don't look like there 12. They look so much older than models nowadays. It is sort of refreshing, but what is UP with the hotdog? Both of these photographs used backdrop #138. Fun in the city. Tonight I am heading over to Brooklyn to check out Johanna's art at Last Exit. I am really excited to see her images up. Aiko (aka KC) is going to be starting a blog about her life in San Francisco being a teacher and planning a wedding. Aiko is funnier than all get out! We've been friends since brownies. (If you need any dirt on me she the go-to gal!) But, I am inspired by the friendship coming to life (for the readers at least- its already there with mav & arc) with port2port. Look for it soon.