Inspirational!

I saw these wonderful photostrips by photographer Jen Gotch posted on another blog this morning and completely fell in love! I adore the little stories she creates with the images, and the way she uses color and tone. The little low-res version I posted above really doesn't do them justice, so you should definitely go check out her site!!

Ars Gratia Artis

So, a funny thing has happened. Funny ironic, not funny ha-ha. When I started this blog, I also started blog-hopping, finding new and interesting people, seeking out inspiration and direction. And boy, did I find it! There are some amazing artists and artisans out there, each of whom seems to have fully developed her own style and created something wonderful out of her creative impulses.

And since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, whenever I see something so lovely I can't help but think, "I wish I could do that!" But, of course, I can't. No one can do your own thing so well as you can, after all.




And somehow, in the midst of being inspired by the wonderful paths taken by other photographers and artists, I've completely lost sight of my own path. I've started to catch myself thinking things like, "What's the point of doing any of this, anyway? What does it matter?"

And that's a scary thing. I have always been a believer in ars gratia artis, art for its own sake. And now, to be thinking that there's no point in it? That way, there lie monsters!



I think I forgot about one of those fundamental truths by which I've chosen to live my life, as set forth in this Buddhist koan: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."




In other words, once you have embarked upon your own path, be it to happiness, enlightenment, or any other end goal...do not accept guidance from outsiders, even ones who have already reached their own goals. The path another took can never be the exact same path you will take, and everything you need to know is already within you. Following in the steps of another will never take you to the correct destination but will merely end with you lost in the dark woods.




So, rather than looking at all of these wonderful artists as being like Buddhas...those who have already found their paths...and therefore as inspiration for starting my own personal journey, I have become too distracted by the particulars of their paths and have been blinded to the particulars of my own.



I need to try and recapture the innocent joy I once took in my own photography, in showing others the unique and quixotic way that I look at the world. With spring finally showing signs of sticking around, there is no better time to seek rejuvenation, after all.

It's where you take them to.

Yes. This. A thousand times, this! So entirely, wonderfully true.


Reblogged from bees knees, who reblogged from crayola yellow.

When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be?

Well, since I started this blog, I've become a real collector of blogs, but not much of a creator of my own. I've discovered and become a follower of many, many other blogs, in many, many categories....


...There are recipe blogs filled with delicious photos of food and recipes I like to think I'll try one day.

...There are photography blogs in which the author posts his/her own photos and photography blogs in which the author posts his/her favorite photos from others.

...There are shopping blogs in which the authors post their favorite finds from around the 'net...some of these blogs are all about bargain hunting, others not so much. ;-)

...There are fashion blogs featuring the individual style of the authors, and fashion blogs featuring the diverse style of people seen on the street.

...There are blogs from Etsy sellers who post mostly about what's going on in their own shops, and blogs from Etsy sellers who post their favorite finds from other Etsy shops.

...There are blogs in which the authors share inspiring images and text from around the 'net, and blogs in which the authors share inspiring images and text from around their own lives.

...There are blogs that are mostly personal journals, and there are blogs that are mostly marketing tools and there are even group blogs. There are blogs that are only one thing from my little list. There are blogs that are many things from my little list.


And then there is my blog. So far, my blog has been a little of this and a little of that. I don't have any regular weekly features like some blogs do. I don't continually scour the web and save inspiring images to post here later. I've posted what's on my mind to post. I've posted about my shop, about my life, about my photography, about other sellers, even about fashion and about books.

I haven't really found an recognizable identity for the blog, yet, I guess. I mean, I did originally start it when I started my Etsy shop, as an adjunct to that. But one thing perusing the hundreds of wonderful blogs out there has taught me is that a blog can be more than just a marketing tool, and perhaps even should be. It can be a little piece of a lot of aspects of one's life, a place filled with all the things you love. So maybe it doesn't matter much that my little blog hasn't figured out who she's going to be yet. She can try on different outfits and different hats, and settle into her own identity the way we all do! Que sera, sera!

Quitters never win?

Okay, dear blogosphere, I have a wee confession to make: I'm a starter, not a finisher. I've never really been a finisher. When I was little, I dropped out of watercolor classes, sculpture classes, about 3 different flavors of dance, gymnastics, and voice lessons. The only class I never dropped, in fact, was swimming...and that only because my mother wouldn't let me, citing it as a much more practical class than the others. After all, if I can't paint a watercolor of a pretty bowl of fruit, there are unlikely to be any adverse consequences, whereas if I cannot swim and fall into the ocean some day...well, you can understand her point.

So, I'm now an excellent swimmer, but I can't paint, sculpt, sing, turn a cartwheel, or dance to anything but the really loud stuff they play in clubs. For most of my life, in fact, my sole hobby, if you can call it that, is reading. And now, as a Readers' Advisory librarian, reading has become my career as well. That tends to make it slightly less attractive as a leisure activity, of course, because now there is stress attached to it. Instead of looking at the long list of books I haven't read with the quiet pleasure of anticipation, I now look at that list with the frantic tension of too much work and too little time.

To partly combat this, I do allow myself to focus mainly on books that I enjoy anyway, under the guise of being an "expert" in the genre, ha. But I also find that as much as I do still love reading, I need other hobbies for those times when I just can't face picking up another book.

For a while, I was playing with jewelry making. I'd discovered the wonders of precious metal clay and was having a lot of fun incorporating sea glass and other found materials into silver jewelry. Then, two things happened. #1, I got a new job with more hours and suddenly had a lot less time to sit around playing with silver clay; and #2, my husband and I got a cat, and I could no longer leave in-progress projects laying around to dry, but had to pack up everything every single time I was done for the day. Eventually, and especially when you take my "starter" inclincations into consideration, it became too much of a hassle to do that, and the PMC stuff just stayed packed away. Many months later, I decided to try just using beads and wire and such, thinking it might be easier to sustain than the more complicated process of using precious metal clay, and had a spurt of activity buying beads, creating jewelry, uploading them to Etsy, etc etc etc. I had inspiration out the yin-yang and enthusiasm up to here.

And then, that too became too much. I didn't have to worry about drying times or a hot kiln, but I still had to pack everything away and pull everything out every time, and it was less leisure than it was hassle.

Finally, I begin to understand Virginia Woolf's insistence that one needs a room of one's own in which to be creative. Not, as she would have it, because I need to be away from men and from domestic concerns, but because it is simply so much more convenient to have a room that can be closed off from meddling cats and left in various stages of disarray as projects progress at their own speeds.

My husband referred to me the other day as "the creative one" in our happy little partnership, and perhaps that is true, as far as it goes. I know that often I am bursting with ideas and inspiration...but I seldom have the time, energy, or general wherewithal to complete them. I'd love to work more on jewelry, go back to the PMC, incorporate it with the many little bags of beads I now have floating about. But until or unless I have a real workstation dedicated to such things, I'm not sure how possible that will be.

I'm lucky to live in the age of digital photography, I suppose. If I needed a darkroom of my own, I'm certain that there is no way I'd have been able to sustain my photographic affections this long. (Where would I put it? In the bathroom??) Now, all I need is a camera, a laptop, and a comfie spot on the couch...with perhaps a steaming cup of tea by one hand, and a slice of banana bread by the other.

And one day, who knows? Maybe we'll finally have room to create a work area for all of those projects that aren't so neatly contained as digital photography. But in the meantime, I have my camera, I have a stack of books, and I have a large collection of mugs. Starter, finisher, quitter, winner...what I have will be good enough for now.

Recapturing the wonder

In the course of trying to sort of rejuvenate my own photographic impulses and get back to that stage where taking pictures was exciting and every new shot was a magical surprise, one thing I've been doing lately is seeking out new contacts on Flickr, new blogs to read, new sources of inspiration. Not because I want to do exactly what anyone else is doing, of course, but because that sort of excitement can be catching!

And across the board, with all of the new Flickr contacts I've found whose work is exuberant and eye-catching, one element seems to hold true: Photography is just another part of their lives, not a project, not a task. They pick up their cameras whenever they see something lovely, not just when a brilliant idea strikes, and not because they have to. When I first started toting around my little point-n-shoot, a gift from the man who's since become my husband, that's how I was, too. I'd whip the camera out at the drop of a hat.

But somewhere along the way, photography, while still a passion, has also become a task. Somewhere between my first 365 Days project and the 365 Coupled project my husband and I are currently embarked upon, photography boiled down to a photo-a-day...to homework, basically. And while I've learned and improved in huge leaps and bounds over the last few years of photo projects and of forcing myself to pick up the camera at least once every day, I also miss those little moments of wonder when I spot something interesting in the course of my life and take a photo of it so everyone can share. They come few and far between these days.

I doubt I'll ever fully recapture the early days of wonder, just as one can never really recapture the innocent joys of childhood, ha. But it bears remembering, doesn't it, that something which is a passion in your life should be a fully integrated part of your life, not homework, not something you have to force yourself to do.

And so, I am going to try to emulate those photographers and bloggers who take out their camera whenever they feel the urge, who document even the smallest lovely details of their lives. In other words...Before I enjoy my cupcakes, I will stop to shoot the sprinkles!

Great advice!

Okay, so I came to this in a fairly convoluted sort of way. Someone on the Etsy forums posted a link to a blog containing some words of wisdom for photographers. That blogger, however, had found the words on yet another blog. And THAT blogger was quoting yet another photographer. But regardless of who said what, ha, it bears repeating! So, with all credit to photographer Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai, the original author of the words below, I'm reposting here for anyone who might run across my little corner of the blogosphere.

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- Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward.

- Know your stuff. Luck is a nice thing, but a terrifying thing to rely on. It’s like money; you only have it when you don’t need it.

- Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a consensus.

- Say no. Say it often. It may be difficult, but you owe it to yourself and your clients. Turn down jobs that don’t fit you, say no to overbooking yourself. You are no good to anyone when you’re stressed and anxious.

- Learn to say “I’m a photographer” out loud with a straight face. If you can’t say it and believe it, you can’t expect anyone else to, either.

- You cannot specialize in everything.

- Know your style before you hang out your shingle. If you don’t, your clients will dictate your style to you. That makes you nothing more than a picture taker. Changing your style later will force you to start all over again, and that’s tough.

- Accept critique, but don’t apply it blindly. Just because someone said it does not make it so. Critiques are opinions, nothing more. Consider the advice, consider the perspective of the advice giver, consider your style and what you want to convey in your work. Implement only what makes sense to implement. That doesn’t not make you ungrateful, it makes you independent.

- Leave room for yourself to grow and evolve. It may seem like a good idea to call your business “Precious Chubby Tootsies”….but what happens when you decide you love to photograph seniors? Or boudoir?

- Remember that if your work looks like everyone else’s, there’s no reason for a client to book you instead of someone else. Unless you’re cheaper. And nobody wants to be known as “the cheaper photographer”.

- Gimmicks and merchandise will come and go, but honest photography is never outdated.

- It’s easier to focus on buying that next piece of equipment than it is to accept that you should be able to create great work with what you’ve got. Buying stuff is a convenient and expensive distraction. Spend money on equipment ONLY when you’ve outgrown your current equipment and you’re being limited by it.

- Learn that people photography is about people, not about photography. Great portraits are a side effect of a strong human connection.

- Never forget why you started taking pictures in the first place. Excellent technique is a great tool, but a terrible end product. The best thing your technique can do is not call attention to itself.

- Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does.

- Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons, and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacence.

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I particularly need to remember the fifth one down. I've always had trouble declaring myself to be a photographer out loud, to strangers. When people see my camera 'round my neck and ask, "Oh, are you a photographer?" something in me shrinks away from boldly answering, "Yes, yes I am!" I tend to hem and haw and mutter something about a hobby. But no. I AM a photographer, darn it! Loud and proud! :-D

Fashion can be bought; Style, one must possess!

I don't recall now where I ran across the review for "The Little Black Book of Style" by Nina Garcia, but I picked it up a little while ago and just finished reading it last night. I loved the show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and still love "What Not to Wear" (American version, not BBC!) because of their emphasis on finding a way to be yourself, to be an individual and unique, but still look good. The Fab Five in particular were good at just adding some polish to the straight guys, without taking away what made them unique fellows or trying to shove them all into one ill-fitting uniform mold. From the reviews, "The Little Black Book of Style" seemed to have much the same tone as those shows.

And I was not disappointed! Ms. Garcia is not the most polished or eloquent writer I've ever run across, but she has some great points to make about what it means to be stylish. She bashes wanna-bes who always have the latest/greatest "it bag" and who drape themselves in trends, and sings the praises of those women who know how to mix classics and basics with vintage, ethnic, or otherwise unique pieces...something I always try to do, but doubt I always succeed, ha.

But there were a couple of points she made which I think apply to many more areas of your life than just what's in your closet. One is that if it doesn't fit or doesn't make you happy and you only still have it around for nostalgic or other reasons, get rid of it! We're all guilty of that, I think. The "Oh, it was SO expensive when I bought it that I just CAN'T get rid of it!" pair of shoes that pinches your feet so you never wear, or the "This was my favorite shirt in high school and has so many memories!" that no longer buttons and has a coffee stain on the front anyway. And all those things do are take up space and make you unhappy. So why not pare them away and replace them with things that make you feel fabulous? Why not get rid of that crappy job, that toxic "friend," that pile of unfinished projects that you know will never become finished ones?

And the other point was that you can be your own muse, but also look for inspiration in others, without contradiction. I think we all do that to some extent, too. I click around on Etsy and Flickr, looking at all the wonderful and amazing things, wishing I could have been the one to do that, or that, or, wow, look at THAT! But I didn't, and I can't, really. You can't walk through the same river twice, and you can't take the same photograph or make the same necklace as someone else, even if you use the same camera or the same materials. Every creative gesture, whether it is what you put on your body or how you see the world through a camera lens, is necessarily influenced by your own mind and personality. So you can look at what other people have done and you can take inspiration from their efforts, but always remember that being yourself is not only acceptable; it's the ideal!

I enjoyed the book enough that I think I'll take a look at Garcia's other title, "The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own."