I’m starting a new project—a series of creative collaborations. It’s called Pictychy (pronounced “pick-tick-ee”), and you can head on over to see what it’s all about or keep reading for a bit of the backstory.
A couple of years ago, my friend Shelli sent me a link to 3191: A Year of Mornings, wherein two friends who live 3,191 miles apart each took a picture every morning and shared them on a blog. (The blog is no longer available because it has been made into a book, but there are a few examples if you scroll down at that link.) I loved the idea—especially the collaborative aspect of it—and filed it away, wondering vaguely if someday I might find someone with whom to share a similar project.
Meanwhile, I continued to find (and get sucked into) inspiring photo projects. But the truth is I tend to lose interest fairly quickly either because I don’t have enough of a personal connection to motivate me to participate (adding images to get lost in Flickr pools generally isn’t for me) or because the scope is just too big. (Although I’ve been doing really well with taking a photo every day for my own Project 365, I really don’t want to commit to taking a self-portrait every week for a year or to do anything else for a year for that matter.)
Then one day it finally occurred to me that what I really wanted to do is everything—lots and lots of projects—but in small doses. I really like the idea of having a finite, doable project (think December Photo Project or Tulip Week). And adding to it a collaborative aspect, i.e., getting to share ideas and make art with my friends, is right up my alley.
I originally wanted to call it the Diptych Collective, but Wordpress was charging $17 a year for that domain name, so Pictychy it is. I am, of course, still figuring it out a bit as we go along, but I’m eager to get started and see what develops (ah, ha ha ha).
First up is a photowalk that Rebecca and I took a few years ago. I imagine that Pictychy will generally focus more on current/new projects, but it seemed appropriate to start with this one. Even though we didn’t plan on making it a collaboration as such, my memories of the day really resonate with the spirit of what I want the project to be about—friends “brought together to share different perspectives, tell shared stories, and encourage each other as photographers and artists.”
(You’ll also find the first in an ongoing project about color—I’d like these to be primarily collaborations, but this time I took both images in the diptych just to get things started.)
I’ll be adding a new image every day this week, so check back often (or, better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed).
We got out the paint this morning. And normally my blog entry about it would be something like this:
You know, a collage highlighting the kids having a blast and a few of the most impressive details—a too-full brush, sweet baby hands, ice cube tray full of paint (brilliant idea!).
Then I’d add a shot or three of the action and/or aftermath, just to punctuate how much fun we had and how cute the kids are.
And that would all be true. We did have a good time, mostly, and the kids surely are cute. But lest you think it’s all trips to the park and an ever-more-organized house around here, here’s what’s also true:
Neither one of the kids liked the fingerpaint. At all. Ian didn’t know what to do with it and apparently didn’t like the feel of it on his hands. Simon couldn’t stand the mess and kept asking for a napkin to clean off his hands and made several trips to the sink before finally settling in with the tempera paint and brushes (much better!). Jason has been on edge throughout the weekend because of an injured foot that has been causing him a lot of discomfort. And the paint was kinda globby.
Also, it took me a long time to get things set up.
No matter how cute the kid, drool and spit are hard to glamorize.
And since we gave both kids a bath afterward, it was temporarily House of Pain around here. They are both going through big bath-hating phases (at least I hope they’re phases).
Jason’s going to love this post. I’m having one of these days. Blame it on the rainy weather (love it), the (caffeinated) coffee I have in my system, that Simon was particularly good this morning while Ian snoozed, that I just finished a really good book (in three sittings in two days), and probably especially on the fact that I have a babysitter at home with the kids and am sitting in the library with my feet up, but I am feeling inspired and happy this morning.
**Important disclaimer: I have a constantly changing mental list of things I want to do and, realistically, it’s not to be confused with a to-do list. In other words, by writing these ideas down today I am not looking for accountability, I’m just blogging and dreaming a little.
In no particular order:
Rethink my blog and actually do something with it. I’d like to focus on a photoblog, since I take pictures (almost) every day and am trying to let my photography be a creative outlet.
Tag, geotag, and otherwise organize all our digital pictures, both on our computers and on Flickr.
Quilt. I’d like to find the quilt I started for our wedding and finish it and to finish the quilt I started making for Jason’s 29th birthday (2005). But most of all, I’d like to make a whole new quilt in this pattern (I haven’t decided yet if I’ll use scraps I have or get new fabric).
Continue my decluttering rampage, which has been neglected lately for lack of time but not for lack of desire.
Learn (again) to knit. I do have a specific project in mind from this book. (I checked his book out of the library because out of 30 projects, there are at least 11 that I could see myself actually doing and, of those, 3 or 4 that I really will do—you know, probably.)
Read. A lot.
Set up a sewing room in the basement.
Paint and otherwise finish decorating and/or furnishing our living room and dining room.
Make a bunch of these shirts for the boys out of Jason’s old band shirts (this project has been approved pending Jason wearing each shirt one last time).
Even though I blurted these out in no particular order, I can see how they will have to line up in a logical progression (e.g., finish decluttering so I can set up a room so I can sew). And, truth be told, I’m finishing this post in the few more minutes I can squeeze from the Simon just woke up from his nap and is groggy time before he starts in with the chorus “Mama done! Mama done!” and trying to close the computer on my hands, so already my idealism is taking a hit. Nothing gets crossed off the list today. I’m off to play blocks.
Several years ago, I came to the conclusion that I really didn’t like jazz. I used to want to like it, but eventually I gave up even really wanting to. Sure, I enjoy sitting on the lawn with friends at Lincoln’s Jazz in June once or twice a summer, but beyond that the musical genre just hasn’t been for me.
Enter Elmo.
I really have no idea where he even learned the name—I can promise it wasn’t from me or Jason—but Simon has a genuine affection for “Melmo!” The little red monster was probably one of my least favorite Sesame Street characters—I don’t know why really except that I did find his baby voice and his referring to himself in the third person annoying. I tried to stave off the Melmo love as long as I could, but Simon is nothing if not relentless, so I found some short Elmo videos online that I can tolerate. Okay, okay, full disclosure: the truth is that after watching these videos again and again and again (and again and again . . . ), they have grown on me to the point where I actually find them quite funny and charming. We pretty much stick to this playlist, but there are a fewotherones that we watch now and again.
Whenever Simon gets to pick “doo Melmo” (two Elmos), I secretly hope he picks the one with Kermit the Frog because it brings back good memories of the Sesame Street News skits I watched as a kid or the one of Grover delivering a singing telegram for its genuinely funny lines (e.g., “You can’t shove singing and dancing under the door; they are artistic!”) or the one with Jamie Foxx because the fox’s vocabulary cracks me up. He most often picks the one with Natalie Portman, perhaps because it’s long (I love Portman’s playfulness in that one). Lately, I’ve been liking the one with jazz musician Diane Schuur—it’s a catchy little number, doobe doobe doowah.
So here I am saying that I like both jazz and Elmo—in small to medium doses, at least. File it under Things You Never Thought Would Be True and Then You Had Kids.
Last week Jason was asked to go on a semi-last-minute business trip to Minneapolis. He said he’d talk it over with me and get back to them. I’ve lost track of the exact timeline, but whatever day this came up was day 2 of both boys being sick. So did I think I would be up for three nights and four days of the boys by myself? Um, No to the Way to the Jose. (Even on my best days that’s not appealing. I know I’m wimpy that way. I can live with that.) So instead of Jason just not going, I proposed that the family tag along, and he went for it! So next week we’re headed up to visit Joie. Yay!
This also means that we have about seven hours plus stops in the car. I think it’s unrealistic to hope to get a quiet book done (I did get supplies, though), but I do have two projects that I’m pretty sure I can complete before we leave. I forget where I got the idea (clicking from this blog to that one), so I am sorry to say I can’t give credit where it’s due. The plan is to make two books—a letters book and a numbers book—by taking pictures of things that are familiar to Simon. The numbers book is pretty straightforward—1 bottle of bubbles, 2 boots, 3 trains, and so on.
The letters book is a little harder. I am finding that the things that fill our days are clustered on a few letters: B, for example, is for bubbles and beans and Baby and bus and boots and bowl; D is for Daddy and Dude and dinosaurs and dirt and dump truck; S is for slides and swings and snake and Simon. I could go on. But what about Q? Quilt is all I’ve got. And X? X is for xnothing-Simon-is-familiar with.
I’ve also decided to take pictures of all the letters and numbers themselves, but I’m not going to knock myself out. Hard to find ones may just get drawn with sidewalk chalk.
You should know that Rebecca’s blog, View from the Prairie Box (and her professional portfolio coming soon), is worth checking out anytime. I just can’t get enough of the last couple of days, though, because she’s been featuring photos of my kiddo (I haven’t commented on her posts, but I look at them obsessively and am giddy and amazed that he’s MINE, MINE, MINE!). As you can see for yourself, Rebecca did such a great job capturing the squeeziness that is Ian (as well as a few heartbreakers of Simon and Ian together). I have way too many favorites to pick just a few. Anyway, check out the pics . . . and here are a couple more (I could go on and on):
My drive home from Fremont yesterday afternoon* got me to thinking about the many, many photo ops that get away. These are the shots that I’m pretty sure would get me published in National Geographic or at least Nebraskaland if I could just get them right.
There are, of course, any number of reasons I don’t get the “perfect” shots (don’t have my camera with me at all, not the right lighting, don’t have the right lens, don’t know what setting is best to use, not tall enough to get the best angle, not fast enough and the moment has passed, etc., etc.), but I don’t mean this to be an excuse-filled musing. I take plenty of shots that I’m pretty proud of—and plenty more that are just okay. No, what I got to thinking about yesterday are the shots that either aren’t actually capturable or that do just get away.
On my drive home yesterday, I looked to my right and caught just a glimpse of what I imagine would have been a pretty amazing shot. The sun was coming through the corn at just the right angle, and it looked so beautiful. I kept looking for a place to pull over and try to catch it, but I would have had to back up to where I first saw it—never again was the corn both close enough to the road and tall enough to create just that effect. I don’t know even if I had stopped to try to get the shot if it would have turned out like I pictured it—and I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make: I have that photo in my mind but not in my camera.
Right now is actually a good example as well: I’m sitting in the green chair in Simon’s room, and he’s sprawled out on the bed deep in napland. The shadows on the wall above his bed are quite interesting (I’ve been looking at them for several minutes trying to figure out exactly what part of the curtains are making those shapes); the lighting is that of an overcast sky seeping in through thin fabric, and everything is kind of an afternoony blue. And the thing is that even if someone who knew exactly what she was doing (lighting, lens, settings, etc.) were here, I really don’t think she could get the photo just the way I am seeing it—the hubbub would wake up the Bub, for one thing, and the moment would be gone. And I’m sure that in a few hours or days I’ll forget this lovely moment too (but I’m here now!).
I always have a couple of ideas brewing as far as shots I’d like to get. My current obsession is to get a shot of the baseball field in the park across the street. But, of course, not just any shot, the shot I have in my head. I really don’t know if the light would ever hit the field in the way that I’m thinking, and who knows, if it does, it might be in December, when the quality of light is far different than a late summer evening. (And to be honest, I haven’t even ventured out at the time when I picture the light being just right, but I will eventually I’m sure.)
Memory can be a tricky thing, and sometimes it seems that the shots that get away become exaggerated in the coolness-that-might-have-been. Still, I think it is good to have a few (or several) in that the shots that get away somehow motivate me to go after the ones I might still get.
* I happen to think that Highway 77 between Lincoln and Fremont (where my parents and sister live) is one of the prettiest drives in Nebraska, especially in the summertime. I love the blues and greens of the sky and fields and often wish I could stop about every hundred yards or so to take a picture of the horizon. There’s been quite a bit of construction on the road this year, so we’ve been having to find alternate routes after Wahoo (or before Wahoo when we’re on the way home) to avoid waiting in line for the one-lane stretches. One of my favorite alternate routes involves an eleven-mile gravel road, and that’s the way I chose to come home yesterday.
So this morning I discovered that Simon had begun to install an uncommissioned mural. As precious as the artist is, the piece was just not what we had in mind for the dining room (thank goodness for magic erasers).
Simon was more than happy to demonstrate his technique for the camera.
He did not, however, appreciate being given an alternative canvas . . .
and banged his head in protest, claiming that Mama was trying to restrain his creative spirit.
One of the first decisions Jason and I made about “when we have kids” is that we would have a Totoro-themed nursery (his idea). Finishing the nursey was truly a collaborative effort by Simon’s grandparents, and we couldn’t be more happy with how it turned out. Grandpa Carlson painted the walls. Grandma Carlson made the curtains. Grandma Morehead made the bedding. And the wall hangings were a team effort—Grandma Carlson made the pattern, Grandpa Morehead cut the wood (and spearheaded the installation), and Grandma Morehead painted them. They each did such an amazing job, and I am so thankful to have such a special room for our little guy.
