Calming storm

This morning is the kind of morning when I start mentally preparing myself to never sleep again.  It's 3am and it's still 80 degrees outside and somehow 86 in my bathroom and I have to go to work in a few hours. I'm cursing my non-a/c containing bedroom with my new comfy bed made from the fruit of organic cotton fields, the blood of trees and the outside flesh of bleating sheep... so no sleep, ever again....Yes! There's no such thing as being overly dramatic when it comes to sleep! All fans are on, clothing is minimized, just keep the windows fully open open and relax next to one, but no! No! The terrible smells and sounds. Construction vehicles "beep beep beep"ing out of time with one another as they dump asphalt and repave the 101 freeway just across the street for weeks on end.



Which is completely not how I wanted to write this post, but that is what is on my mind right now. Lost sleep & heat.



(best viewed w/ full screen)

Whiteouts during Burning Man are theoretically crappy at times, but when prepared, I think they are awesome and calming. They provide an opportunity to really just be trapped in the moment. Make sure to have water, goggles & some sort of nose covering, find a good spot and just wait and be enveloped by the visual experience of a wall of white with things gently coming into and out of view, the dust slightly pelting all your exposed skin, the piles and dunes gradually shifting around you. I wish I had made a longer video because I think this is becoming a default "calm yourself, M" video....

sighted

copics on 11" x 14" mixed media paper




...and unrelated, but kinda, I really visually enjoy this video from GusGus "Crossfade". The framing and composition and surreal, yet unaltered nature of many of the shots are pretty awesome.

Embrace pt1, 2014

embrace, Burning Man 2014


...and I just realized that the style of the people in this art piece remind me of ash coated Pompeii people.....

Burning Man 2014 - colored1

A taste of the photos I shot with a small point and shoot Nikon CoolPix I picked up this year for Burning Man....

yay stuck in line in the rain......

yay bikes!

yay birds! during the day people could climb on it's back and pedal to make the wings open

yay perfect moments at the temple!

yay for beautiful moments during the seemingly undesirable!

no such thing

copics and sakura pens on 11x14 mixed media paper.

A long a slow and tedious process working from the foreground background w/o sketching, abstract nature, done (maybe not), happy, bird reference guide, John Audubon excellent hunter. I don't know, make it up yourself. thanks for visiting this place (which place?)

Temple of Grace 2 -BM2014

Temple of Grace - Burning Man 2014

Trying to enjoy today while simultaneous dreading the end of it. Tomorrow I finally go back to work after 18 days off. I'm pretty sure this is the longest I've been away from work in over 10 years, or since I was in college (!!!!!!!!) As it turns out, I do in fact keep myself pretty occupied when I'm not going to work every day. I'm looking forward to seeing coworker type friends, but I'm not looking forward to the rigid schedules, combative language & situations & frantic, yet predictable behavior that comes with going back to work. The stress seemingly for the sole purpose of creating stress. I'm not looking forward to reinstating the filters on myself and my personality for daily existence. So instead I will think about being grateful for things I generally ignore or minimize, like it doesn't take me 20 minutes to take a trip to the bathroom in my tiny apartment, biking on a relatively peaceful Ventura Blvd this morning to get delicious fresh fruits and veggies including the strawberries I already shoved into my mouth and the arugula strawberry salad I'll have for lunch and my cute squishy rat.


Temple of Grace 1

Copically challanged

As a rather informally trained artist, my skills and knowledge are all over the place. A painting & drawing class and a few photography classes later, I know how to do way more than just those things and have spent an enormous amount of time since I finished my Bachelors of Science learning and practicing, but it's completely self-directed. When I worked a short walk from the library I was constantly checking out books and teaching myself new skills and getting irritated with the clerks at Dick Blick about qualifying for the student discount as I was a student, but in a way they refused to acknowledge. This is a long way of saying sometimes it takes me a while to get around to learning about things that seem like well known techniques/tools for the job. Copic Markers with their gigantic price tag and beautiful colors seem to be one of those things.

A few months ago somehow they appeared on my radar and around that time I started spotting them on super clearance at local stores along with some other alcohol markers, so I started collecting. And they sat. Until yesterday when I decided to pull them out and start playing (while listening to GusGus "Arabaian Horse" non-stop for hours)!

This one looks way better if you are a bit of a distance from it and let your eyes focus and unfocus...I like the general idea, but the execution could be better... I might try this one again at some point with different colors, larger paper & better/multiple straight edges...so you know, almost everything different.

I don't plan, I don't sketch, I just start drawing. It's a surprise to me to see what comes out of the end.

What do I regret the most? Deciding to do both on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of cardstock vs. something huge with more space. I used to be super intimidated by a large empty sheet of paper, but this past year I want to make things bigger. I barely get through some ideas and I'm out of space. Definitely also looking to better round out my Copic collection because somehow I don't even have a red & have way too few greens and Copics are behaving as a marker of my dreams. Outlines were done with my beloved Sakura pens.

Weeee. And today we shall go to pick up more fixer so I can continue to develop film!

sekib

campmates, bikemates - Burning Man 2014

Yesterday I went out for my first bike ride since getting back to LA. And as usual, it's a mindfuck. The huge number of cars and lack of other bicyclists slams me with a feeling of foreigness. My favorite time to bike is first thing in the morning, partially because of the weather, the quietness, the birds, the light & photo opportunities, but also the emptiness of the streets. Some mornings on my way to the farmers market, I actually have Ventura Blvd. to myself. I suppose that was one of my mistakes yesterday in that I went out in the afternoon, to find streets filled with cars. I felt distant and removed from the people and yet more fully integrated with my surroundings at the same time. There's paved streets, semi-shaded places, more moderate temperatures and no dust storms, yet I am biking alone.  I like having time alone, but I enjoy having more people around me to casually interact with, especially when biking. During the school year if I go to work at a certain time, I always know I'm going to at least say hi to a woman & her kids while they're walking to school. When we're stuck at a light, we chat a bit more. Those are just the squishy aspects... my rambling on the actual logical parts of biking could go on for a while.... Sigh.

Temple of Grace - BM 2014

Temple of Grace, Burning Man 2014

wanderer

We got home from Burning Man last night... this year was definitely it's own experience that beat me up in new and exciting ways (tm). Some have asked how I was just getting back since it was shut down ( it was, but just temporarily & for us meant sitting in line within view of Will Call for 12 hours.) I battled with my body and injuries and pain and introverted nature and  ended up spending way more time in camp than I had wanted as a result, but it is what it is. I managed to make it out to shoot some pictures though, so I'm happy with that. I had made up some specific photo shooting goals and at least partially achieved them as well. I don't go back to work until next week, so I'm still trying to ride the wave of random productivity in the meantime - I stayed up late last night and developed some of my film from the Holga and this morning I was working on scanning negatives and hopefully will develop more this afternoon. Go, go, go!

One morning at Burning Man I just couldn't really force myself to even be around other people, so hid for a while and painted. It wasn't until I just scanned the resulting painting that I realized what way I wanted to orient it. Distraction by abstraction!

Burning Man 2013 ... colorized

It's hard to believe that we leave for Burning Man in a week! A week! Parts of planning seem to get easier each time, but this also means the chance to spent time getting new things done. I had some tiny books printed up with some of my photos from last year so I could take them along and share them. I've worked on repairs, spruced up old clothes with new ideas and have a feeling of responsibility as the result of taking a person with my extra ticket who has never been before. I've spent more time on the phone and with random people in my apartment than I can really remember period. I feel myself stretching out of my comfort zone again, and it's good.

Last year....

....and that was just through Wednesday!!

burning man 2013 - simplicity

Definitely in full on planning mode for Burning Man. So much has happened with it this past week and as usual, luckily, I have the extra energy that seems to magically appear once I seriously start planning and preparing for Burning Man.

Burning Man 2013 - Arty Bits

More from Burning Man 2013.

I was talking with someone today who was describing the experiences that scents can bring back, memories that sometimes you didn't even know you had. Burning Man has a great deal of those for me. I can't smell bacon, especially the strong smell that comes from cooking way more than a few slices that you get from a restaurant early in the morning, without near instantly going back to Burning Man. When combined with a clear morning with perfect temperatures and the special morning light, that's one of those things that once you experience, you really can't erase. Suddenly my shirt is splattered with the grease that comes from cooking 8lbs of bacons on a camping stove and I'm not biking to work, but instead into the open playa to go experience wonderful art for a while.

Coyote Light

So I have been not so great about posting recently, but it doesn't mean I haven't been busy! Some of the biggest distractions have been making cards and working on stop motion collage paper things. At some point, they should make an appearance, but for now I just have a photo from Burning Man last year. It's getting to be that time of the year again and although I have tickets and vacation time, I'm still trying to figure out what to do about this year. I know I would love to go again, which is always in the back of my mind, but there are always details and specifics to get worked out. In the meantime, I was reminded of how much fun I had shooting film in my Holga at Burning Man last year and that I still haven't posted all my photos from last year!