A Haiku For A Snowy Morning

brushed-steel silver sky

pressing down toward the earth

squirrel curls up tight

Apparently a barely caffeinated brain + snowy mornings = haiku.  Who knew?

It's supposed to snow later today, great mountains of it, in Winter's last hurrah. (Okay, really, February's last attempt at pretending to be the harsh, fierce mistress we usually dread, but who got beaten up by March this year and has been crying in the corner ever since).  While it's not supposed to start until closer to lunch time, there are a few flakes already beginning to fall; small, white harbingers of the storm to come.  Today would be a good day to curl up on the couch with hot cocoa, blankets, and a good book (or notebook) and put in some serious creative time... alas, the day job beckons, and since I'm the only one in CS until Friday, playing hooky is sadly out of the question.

Meh, tomorrow I'll work from home (and avoid the ridiculousness that will be the commute in tomorrow's installment of the Great Snowpocalypse of 2012) and at least be able to do the "curl up with hot cocoa, blankets" part while I work from my laptop.

Wandering in Circles

tattered notebook leaves

flutter in confused circles

where am i going?

Administravia: Attempting To Formulate WTF It Is That I Do

So, I've run into a massive snag in writing up my business plan.  What, exactly, is it that I DO?

Ah, therein lies the rub.  I have no idea, myself.  I know what I would like to do, but I don't know how to get from here to there.  Also, there are actually two different things I want to do with my existence, and they rest very uneasily with one another (being that one is very much locked to one place, and the other requires being free-range and able to go off the grid as needed).

For the purposes here, though, I'm focusing on the idea of free-range artistry and photography.  Which brings with it two massive stumbling blocks:

*One, I currently lack not only the time and ability to be particularly mobile due to the time and physical constraints of the day job, but I've also got a serious lack of my own set of wheels.  (Though that last issue should be resolved within the coming month, so I'll be able to check that off the list.)

*Two, how to take the photography, art, writing, etc. that I love to do, and put it all together into a format that a.) people are willing to pay me for, and do so on a regular enough basis to enable me to self-sustain, and b.) is not a format that is likely to make me want to stab myself in the eye with a toasting fork within seconds.  (This includes galleries, selling to magazines, doing all of my own framing to sell individual prints for less than makes up for the amount of work I need to put into it, and a number of other traditional, mainstream methods of dealing with photography and just art in general.)

I dunno...  It's a dilemma that's been scraping at me for a while and I still haven't figured out the answer.  I know it's there somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it.  I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong place, or if I'm just not seeing it from the right angle, or what.  *sigh*

Japanese Aesthetics/Western World View

Sometimes I wonder if (supposing that the concept of reincarnation is accurate) I was Japanese in a past life or something, given the amount of times I find that there is some Japanese concept or principal (or hell, even food) that is so closely aligned with some quirk or oddity of mine that are only quirks or oddities if viewed through a Western lens.

Last night I was reminded of the concept of Wabi-sabi, or the beauty in imperfection and transience.

Yeah... I don't know anything about that one...

Granted, my variation on it is slightly different, given that I do come at the world from a Western culture, but much of it very much describes how I view the world and why I love the things that I love so very much.

It is the way the light shimmers, golden, on an old well-worn door at sunset.  The door stands solidly still, but it is old and worn, and impermanent; the warm rays of the sunlight will never touch it the same again.

It is the small simple pleasure of a cup of hot tea in a cherished old mug, curled up under a favorite blanket.

It is the smell of old books and the feel of their soft, brittle pages, carefully placed on the shelf to not damage them.

It is a single violet floating in a bowl of water.

It is a meal cook in a decades-old, well-seasoned cast iron pot.

It is the fragilely dyed imprint of a leaf on the sidewalk after a rain, soon to be faded and gone.

It is the faint hint of incense on the breeze, there, then gone.

It is seeing the beauty in the small, the simple, and the impermanent.  It is being in the moment enough to see these things and recognize their loveliness.  They are beautiful not so much because of any particular thing, but because they are so fragile and frail and so soon to be gone, never to be seen again.

It is these things that I am drawn to, that I love.  It is this that makes people say (when I suddenly veer off down a side alley or stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk) things like "Oh gods, she found something rusty again" in amused tones.

Simply put, it is watching the swift passage of Time and admiring the simple beauty of things more because they will so soon live only in memory.

*
*
*

I think I had a point when I started this, but I seem to have lost it.  I'm going to go find myself a cup of tea, I think, and maybe go play with paint, now...

Refilling the Well

The past week at the day job has been, well... let's just say that the week was fired by somewhere around, oh, Tuesday.  Just stupidly busy and stressful, on top of the usual fact that injury recovery is exhausting.  My neck is getting better, but it's also taking bi-weekly trips to the chiropractor and time spent with the glory that is the electro-stim thing that's been helping the muscle to release so my spine can try and curve again, and it's just taking a lot out of me.

Needless to say, the creative thoughts and ideas just don't happen when the only thing I want to do is sit and stare vacantly out the window.

Well now, that won't do, now will it?

So, I did the best I could... I let myself have the first half of the day to sit and stare and do absolutely nothing. When the boredom finally set in, I talked the boy into taking a field trip to Barnes & Noble, figuring I could at least go stare at pretty pictures and other people's interesting thoughts and ideas, if I had nothing of my own.

Glad I did!  I found an interesting book, called Image Art Workshop, which is already giving me some fantastic ideas for solving some of the problems I've been having with my own work.  I may get to them tonight, but since there was also a stop at a package store, there is currently a glass of krupnik on the table next to me making me nice and relaxed and happy.

Tomorrow, though... Oh, tomorrow, there will be work happening.  :)

Old Loves and New Toys

I've been toying with an idea for some of my photos. It involves a printer, book pages, and paint.  Of course, this meant that I had to learn a new skill.  (I do have a fondness for altered art and mixed media.)  So, today I played with paint....

The idea is to a faux burn around the edges  While fire is nice, it's, well, flammable... Too, burnt paper is far more fragile to work with, and not as easily controlled.  Since there is a house rule of "No burning down the house", I figure tempting fate is probably not a good idea.  I have no idea how I'm going to frame things just yet, but in the fine old tradition of altered media, I'm sure I'll find something.  ;)

Not too bad, for a first try.  Definitely needs a bit more practice, but I think I could like this idea.  

(I just like how this angle came out.)

I also wandered over to Home Despot and got myself a new toy.  A shiny, new Dremel of my very own.  Hooray power tools!  This means that I don't have to keep being frustrated that I can't find pendants, since I'll be able to make my own out of whatever I find that looks like it'll work.  (The main problem I've been having is not having a way to drill a simple little hole.  Problem solved!)

Yay productivity!  :D

The Small Details...

One of the main things I love doing, and what I generally try to do with my photography, is to notice the small

details... those everyday things that are always around us, but that most of us never pay any mind to.  The unseen.  The unnoticed.  The forgotten...

A quick side note about my photos; unless otherwise stated, all photos are available for purchase.  If you see something you like, let me know.  Sizes are 4x6 ($10), 5x7 ($15), and 8x10 ($25).  If interested, email me at melissa@podroznystudio.com.