Blue Skies

fluffy
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

Last weekend's attempt to make it up to Cleveland for the Burning River Roller Girls semi-finals was pretty much epic fail. I wasn't feeling well, but we trekked up to Columbus to have lunch at Schmidt's Sausage Haus anyway. I didn't even make it through five bites of creme puff. If you've ever had their creme puffs, you know that's a travesty.

The day was pretty, though. That was a nice counterpoint to feeling icky and missing out on some really great German cuisine.

The candy shop next door to Schmidt's had Savannah Candy Company praline mix. Sometimes things just show up where you least expect them. One of the most memorable things about Sav is that shop on River Street and those pralines. Reminders of my time there are everywhere.


Paco was happy to give me kisses when we got home. What's better than snuggling a puppy in bed while you're recovering from illness? Not a whole lot.

The summer class is progressing beautifully. It's an amusing, educational, and only rarely facepalm inducing experience. Good crits on novel excerpts, and entertaining writing from some fellow grad students.

I'll be editing the Licking River Review in the upcoming academic year, so get those submissions ready, peeps. It's blue skies from here.

Mya & Nate's 4th Birthday Party : June 5

Icing Face
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

The focus on this isn't the greatest, but I couldn't pass up this photo of Nate's very serious icing face. Birthday cake is srs business, just like hunting Easter eggs (as you can see from several blog posts back).

I don't know how he managed it, but there's icing in his ear. The combo of colors on his face indicates he partook of his own cake (blue Batman), and his cousin's cake (pink princess). He's a cake man for sure.

While Nate and Mya were playing in the yard, Tony was crawling like a madmad (miniature) for parts unknown (aka the fence's edge). He paused to have his portrait made, because that's what badass babies do. I can say, "I knew him when..."



Not to be outdone, this little girl dropped by the fruit bowl every two and a half minutes to stealthily clean out all the blueberries. She had absolutely no interest in the many other fruit. I respect a girl who knows what she wants, and goes right for it!



I baked a cake for the party, with the decorating help of my lovely assistant Farmboy. We used a homemade marshmallow fondant, which is a pretty simple recipe. It's also easy to make if you don't mind kneading powdered sugar into stiff, sticky icing for about 20 minutes. I'm sure it would be more of a joy to work with given a few cutters, punches, and proper tools. (As everything usually is. The right tools go a long way.) At about 1:30 in the morning, we called it quits on making icing grass.

I hope the cake was delicious, because it was definitely made with love... and some frustration/joy that comes of trying something for the first time on a deadline. I would say the 4th birthday was a success. Sugar highs and giggles all around.

Mya, Nate, & Paco

I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I think Mya and Nate decided someone should be on a leash since neither of the dogs was. Paco's in the background completely ignoring them. Too much ground to run around on, not enough time for pestering little kids!

Memorial Day Weekend

Kids in the Sand, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

Memorial Day, for my fam, was a day all about hanging out by the newly filled above ground pool (which ended up being uneven), watching the pups run around, since we just got the gate in (also uneven!), eating delicious grilled and baked ribs (BBQ and teriyaki everywhere), and swimmin'! Some genius also gave the kids squirt guns, and there was the inevitable result.

Here you see Mya, Dylan, and Nate (my great niece and nephews!) and my niece Brittani coming over to chat with her kids, or confiscate a squirt gun, or something like that.

Later in the day, Dylan built a most excellent mountain of sand with a tunnel through the bottom, but Paco (one of the pups) decided he would play the part of a demolition crew. He walked over and crushed it with the swipe of a paw... with the inevitable result.

Our fence is complete, after a few issues with the construction. Tracy, my sister's fiance, came over to redo the posts that the first crew botched. George & I took over slatting, and we finished the fence in record time, with just a little sunburn to show for it. The painting has yet to be completed (it's a delicious espresso bean brown by Behr), but it looks pretty good aside.

Mom planted some wisteria bushes, which are just lovely. They'll take a while to grow to their full glory, but there's nothing like sitting under the fall of those beautiful purple flowers in the summer. I can't wait!

The icky orange (back of the house) paint will be replaced with a colorful mural as soon as I finish a design, between work for a glorious summer writing workshop, and my own novel's progression. Just the step of putting up this privacy fence seems to have opened up a whole world of possibilities for our home. I think we're all intent on making it a much more beautiful place to live.

The kids sure seem to be enjoying it!


Oh, wait. It looks like the adults were enjoying it too. Ribface.
Some of our guests were messier than others, but all enthusiastically showed their ribface pride, even Dylan's friend!

Slatted Fence

fence progress, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

The fence progresses, as you can see from the photo. We're doing an inside-outside alternating slat pattern thing. Mostly.

There are a couple of sections that are wonky. I think the late-in-the-day drilling got to a couple of the guys who helped out on this thing.

Here's hoping it survives its first thunderstorm (now), and the high wind we had a few minutes ago. Fingers crossed!

We put up our drills for the day when the tornado warning sirens sounded. (That's always a good time to take a little break.)

Green Eyebrows

lucy in process, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

Back in the studio today prepping some ATC bases for art. Ang West is hosting a Broken Hearted swap over on iATCs. Deadline date is June 15, 2011. I smell some watercolor and layering of text/handwriting coming on.

Gotta get over to the art supply store and pick up some Golden acrylic medium for some transfers. I'm a little worried about walking into that store, because there's so much cool stuff to browse. At least the selection is relatively small... it could be a huge DB store and then I'd be in trouble.

In the mean time, editing chapters of a novel written at odd hours during the night is an experience. The mass of text seems to get out of hand pretty fast, like a squid wriggling around intent on escape. The only thing we agree on today is that shrimp are delicious.

Some mail is headed out to the PO ASAP: Toy Camera Zine to Heather in Scotland, FAV 2011 to: Jenn in Iowa, Lucy in Florida, Maralena in Michigan, Carla in California, Pat in Nebraska, and Clara in Missouri.

Summer Adventure

Dandelion, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

When I was a kid, my favorite thing about the beginning of Summer was always the dandelion explosion all over the street. Though I was never into princesses and wedding fantasies, I did dig on making wishes on shooting stars and clouds of fluffy seeds.

I walked out of the house one day last month and noticed this little guy glowing in a shaft of light that split through the boughs of a pine in the front yard. I picked it after the photo was taken, and you bet your ass I made a wish.

The most important thing, that I think it's too easy to lose as we grow older, is a sense of wonder and play. With that in mind, I signed up for a workshop next month with Radha Chandrashekaran, a (currently) local printmaker (from Southern India) who uses various methods to make beautifully colorful, layered prints. She uses things like relief printing on fabric, medium transfers, silk screen, painting over, hand altering, and basically the "whatever it takes" or "whatever works" approach to art making. It seems very intuitive, which is how I love to work, and the results are lovely.

If you're local, and you'd like to take the workshop, message me and I'll give you the details. I think there are still a few spots open, and the price is good for a good block of hours of studio time. June 25.

It's lovely to hear her speak about her process and ideas, and she seems to collect techniques with as much abandon as I do. You'd enjoy the workshop, I'm sure! I can't wait to see how my more exacting and disciplined printmaker friends take to the very loose processes. (Particularly the etchers...)

Check out her work: http://radartist.com/.

In other news, the fence is progressing, albeit slowly. We may actually have a fenced in yard, after years of talking about it, and room for the puppies to frolic and play. Not to mention a small above ground pool. And a grill. Can you say work hard, play hard?

Maybe I'll institute a "float in the pool for an hour" after each chapter revised or finished in the novel...

Momo's Usual Expression

Momo's Usual Expression, a photo by nicciwashere on Flickr.

The pups aren't amused by all the activity in the back yard, and the strangers walking around with concrete and shovels and chainsaws and wood bits. The fence is in progress, and a day will soon come when we're all out there with cordless drills setting planks. Momo, in particular, wants to know what the eff is going on, yo. He'll be pleasantly surprised by the result, and all the free running around time he'll have in the fenced yard. He is going to love it to bits.

In other news, the Fine Art Valentines 2011 are about to go into the mail. There were the usual delays. Something about the mail art community today seems to be running on laid back time, where people sign up but don't send, or send, but not for weeks after the deadline. Luckily, this time, I was too busy to have to bounce back packages unopened. My grad classes took my entire attention span, but it worked out ok. I have a few pieces fit for publication, and I'm still rockin' the 4.0. Now if only I knew what I wanted to do after the MA. MFA or PhD?

In terms of art, I've been playing with some spray paint and stencils. I carved a few stencils for a 2D class in high school, and I find it at once meditative and trying, depending on the intricacy of the lines. It's certainly not the kind of thing I'd be into for any extended period of time, because I'm more of a broad strokes person. Sometimes I just want to paint a big canvas. Luckily, I have one of those waiting for me in the studio right now.

Today is a day for grilling out, and going to visit a friend in the hospital. T is doing a lot better, thanks to her care, and strength of will. Jess and T are still my favorite couple, and seeing them go through this has only strengthened their position as awesome women.

Momo says stay off my lawn, and he loves you. xox

To Fence or Not to Fence

Back Yard in Spring
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

The back yard is looking pretty lush after the month of rains and a little trimming up of old, dead trees. It could use a bit of a mow, like the neighbor's yards. Our hill is very steep compared to their lots. It's a pain in the booty to push a mower up and down. Not so bad if you go side to side...

We hope to put in a fence for the puppies this summer, so they can run around without having to worry about leashes or leads. Paco bounds around like a 55 pound bunny, and Momo streaks around at a gallop. They're pretty hilarious when they chase each other.

Now to gather friends who have fence building experience...

Toy Camera minizine

toy camera minizine - revamp
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

Toy Camera is a 1/4 size (minizine) dedicated to the toy camera, specifically the Holga. Toy cameras are gloriously imperfect things. I own several kinds, but the Holga is by far my favorite. (Plus, it's medium format!)

This little zine is photocopied on cardstock (multiple color covers), and white linen text weight paper. Each copy is hand sewn with varying thread colors.

Inside are 30 pages of information on the Holga, color cast, film types, focus, aperture, keeping a photo sketchbook, various Holga modifications, and 24 photo prompts and projects to keep photographers inspired and making images.

The zine is available for $6 on etsy (anongrrl.etsy.com), and makes a great gift for a photographer, particularly when paired with a Holga (can be found online for about $20 from various websites). All of the photo projects will work for non-Holga cameras as well. <3

Before a Storm

front yard before the storm
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

April was a giant string of storms and rain here in Southern Ohio. I'm not sure if we hit a record number of inches of rain fall (ever, including Aprils past), but I wouldn't be surprised. I don't remember it raining for that many days in a row... not even when I lived in Savannah.

The edges of this photo are a little extra dark, thanks to the pinhole setting of the camera, but the sky really looked like that, and the light was much dimmer than usual at 4:15(ish) on a Spring weekday.

The yard is beautiful, and though the lilacs have bloomed and gone already, they were fragrant and lovely for a couple of weeks. The tigerlily in the back yard is about to blossom, and the the dogwoods have been going strong for weeks.

I look forward to this every year.

Easter Sunday

My sister hosted Easter dinner this year. The kids were too busy zooming around in the mud to have their photos taken. Plastic eggs with change and candy are way more important. Way.

Nate took a 20 second breather (pictured above), and his cousin Mya showed me her spoils (she had the most eggs until she started winging them back into the grass). She doesn't dig on sweet tarts, you see. She has a good arm, though. I think Mya was in it for the cash and chocolate.


Very proud of her eggy gains.


Hunting eggs is very serious business.

First Model

I began to photograph Danielle when she was about 8 years old, and I was in Introduction to Photography at NKU. She, her friends, and my other nieces became my primary models for the next couple of years.

Regrettably, I stopped photographing her for most of her teen years. I missed a lot of changes in my break from photography, but with the new camera, I'm really looking forward to a revitalization of my passion for images.

Danielle is 18 this year, and has begun a collection of tattoos.

I hope to work in portraits again, to go back to the form of photography I loved so much as an undergrad.

I plan to continue the work I started as an undergrad with bodies, and I'm looking at doing a series on the way our bodies change over time, and the way scars mark us.

Pinholes

Momo & Paco : Pinhole Mode
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

Shot with a Lumix LX5 in pinhole mode.

Momo likes to twitch his nose and spin away from the camera, and Paco likes to get bossy and grin. Their personalities are so different most of the time—Momo's the snuggler, and Paco's the shy one who only bosses when you don't let him into the room with you. Or when he wants food. This is his "put that away and take me inside and feed me, woman" face.

The Lumix pinhole mode seems to shoot flat images in open shade. I'll have to try it in other lighting conditions. This image has some level work done in iPhoto. (Deepened shadows and mid range for higher contrast. I brought the whites up a hair.) The wide format is going to take some getting used to. I'm still in Holga square mode in my head...

but it's good to have a camera again.

Lumix

Spike is doing well a few weeks after his surgery (what we've come to call the "mister sister" event). He's perked up, getting into trouble, knocking things over, and teasing the dogs. Business as usual. His fur's even started growing back in.

Shot with the new Lumix on auto settings in a yellow room with tungsten bulbs. It could use a color balance when I get the software loaded onto the new computer. Or I could just suck it up and read the manual to learn all the menu functions and do that in camera.

I'm loving this little point and shoot so far. Spike's got his eye on it too. He likes things with dangly straps.

T

devotion.jpg
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere
In 2005, I met a lot of good people. One of the most giving I know has been in critical care for a couple of weeks. She's been stable for about a week, and has a few hard surgeries ahead of her. Her body is changing every day from the trauma of surgery and recovery in tiny little steps. She is surrounded by loved ones, and people who can't be there think of her and her partner. I'm thinking of them now. I decided to post a photo of them (my favorite in the series) so that you can think of them too.

Thinking about her has made me consider bodies and how we live in them. How they change with us and we with them. How people I know have survived treatments, scars, trauma, love, decades, and how they're marked.

I think this is a subject worthy of picking up again. I'd like to continue this series. I hope to photograph T again, and for that to happen, she has to recover, which is just a pretty great thing in itself. In hoping to photograph her again, I get to hope for her full recovery, without always bringing up her current situation. I want to focus on the positive, no photo puns intended. I hope you will too. Positive energy welcome, be that in the form if lit candles, prayer, smiles, or ass pinches. (Not mine, please.)

One Way Do Not Enter

oneway
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

It's a beautiful day in Mt. Adams (all over the city, really), because the sun's out, the sky's blue, and all of the flowering trees are in bloom. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, so the little tornadoes of white flower petals swirling across the blacktop might not mesmerize anyone else, but I found them just as interesting as the artwork inside the museum.

21C artworks are on display at the moment. The contemporary works are reportedly on loan to the museum until the new facility (hotel, restaurant?) opens here. There's one in Louisville (http://www.21chotel.com/hotel/default.aspx). What's cooler than a hotel with loads of contemporary art? A hotel with a giant water slide, sure. But contemporary art comes in at a close second.

Our assignment for today was to visit the museum (thanks for the docent tour!) and ponder the art, then write an ekphrastic poem. (That is a poem after a work of art, the experience of viewing a work of art, etc.) No poems yet, but I did take some photos inside and out.

I was most amused by the ONE WAY DO NOT ENTER sign in front of the art museum. (So much so that I feel a poem coming on...)

Helpful tips for museum visitors: No monopods OR tripods in the galleries. Woops. I guess someone must have whacked a piece of art at some point... aaand you're not supposed to snap images of work outside of the permanent collection. >.> Also, no fondling or licking the art.

If you go, be sure to check out fat Batman, the creepy breathing piece, the small gallery behind the FAME neon sign (blinding, ouch), and read the art info next to the giant encaustic (wax painting) of Obama's head. It's from a series of works made from Wall Street Journal thumbnail images, but done huge. That's the piece I really wanted to touch, but a docent was watching me, sooo. I behaved.

Mostly.

Did anyone else think the assemblage of re-purposed bottle bits (3rd floor) looked a lot like a drape from a Klimt painting?

Related links:
Cincinnati Art Museum: the museum's website & visitor information.
More on Ekphrastic foo: to Wikipedia, son!
21C Louisville: a hotel/art gallery in KY.

sun stain

sun stain
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

the roomie's Nikon Coolpix L3 isn't the greatest little camera in the world, but it gets the job done every now and then. =) the light was so beautiful yesterday, i pulled it out to take a few snaps...

and then i learned to do diptychs in Adobe's Lightroom (thanks to Jay: http://www.jaywatson.com/blog/tag/diptych/).

it took about 90 photos to get a couple snaps of the puppies that are more or less in focus. they're not big on sitting still. those snaps will pop up later.

<3

Reflection in Pink House

Reflection in Pink House
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

found this pic from Savannah while cleaning off an old point-and-shoot digital camera. the house across the way was pink. yes, that is a house. someone painted it that color by choice. lovely view of a wall, don't you think?

our neighbor liked to walk around naked a lot, so working in my studio midday could be extra entertaining (our windows faced each other from there). nobody was willing to spring for blinds. rent, in Sav, is outrageous. we don't need no stinkin' blinds.

mixed media hands

mixed media creative hand - wear your heart
Originally uploaded by nicciwashere

a hand made from cardstock, layers of tape, gesso, acrylic paint, watercolors (transparent), prismacolor pencils, & india ink (dip pen).
life size hand.

from a series of 10.