updates from the studio

Dear Readers,

I love you all. I really do. Just knowing you are out there, eagerly awaiting my posts (at least, this is how I envision it!), makes me oh-so-happy...and yet, lately, a little sad. Sad because I have not been delivering those posts to you with my regular enthusiasm.

The reason is the same as it has been for awhile now: school. Sometimes it feels like a tired excuse, but it really is the truth. I've had to let go of some things temporarily in order to be able to keep up with school as I creep closer and closer to the finish line. Although I'm not graduating until June, my thesis exhibit work is due in 39 days! That is so soon! Aside from putting so much energy into making the body of work I'll be partially exhibiting, I've also been writing the written thesis, keeping up with the four (Yes...four...I'm a crazy lady!) classes I'm taking, and teaching one class.

I've put regular blogging on hold until April 4--the day I turn in my thesis work, but I'll be around periodically to check in. I thank you for your patience during this time and hope you will continue reading once I do return for good! I have so many ideas running through my head of things I would like to post about here, and things I would like to make that aren't part of my thesis work, and exactly how I am going to expand my Etsy shop this summer...so many ideas and goals that I am really excited about! I just have to keep on keeping on with school right now and put these ideas on the back burner for a few months longer.

For now...just a few peeks inside my studio:

First of all, I'll give you one image. Just one! From my thesis body of work. I don't want to give away all my surprises but I will have you know this is one of my favorites so far, so feel lucky:

It's called Color of the Year. It's based on...the Pantone color of the year, tangerine tango. Yes, I am a color geek! And yes, that is my hand, and I did paint my fingernails as close to tangerine tango as I could manage to find (Pantone should make nail polishes...!?). This image isn't just about the color, but I'll wait to go into more detail about content.

I've been shooting my images with a 4"x5" camera! I'm in love. The sample you just saw above is digital--my film is still waiting for me to process it. Just FYI.

A peek at my random studio items...paint that I used for the Pantone color photograph, a super sweet vintage darkroom timer I recently acquired, only part of my growing vase collection, 12 days of Christmas glass that I was actually drinking from at that moment, film, etc.

And a recent thrift store find (even while busy, I go every Friday morning--it's my special treat!)...a camera bag for $1.91. I have another one just like it that is much smaller that can only hold a 35 mm point and shoot camera (it could hold a digital point and shoot if I had one). This one could hold two point and shoots, my Holga, or my Fuji Instax...

...as modeled here. This is the perfect case for the Instax because the other two sections of the case would be ideal for holding extra film cartridges and developed Instax pictures! I love finding inexpensive vintage camera cases in good condition, because I am trying to expand my collection to fit a variety of needs. It's not always the best option to be lugging around my large camera bag. These small, hard cases, are also great for storage and keeping my cameras dust-free. After my thesis is done I want to spend a lot of time organizing my home studio and coming up with better storage options overall...I am excited to get more use out of my space once I no longer have a studio at school.

That's it for now! Thanks for reading, and I promise I won't be gone forever!

Kristen

where does a week go?

Oh, blog friends...where does a week go? I am so looking forward to graduating in a few months (also simultaneously dreading it, for other reasons). The plus side of things: I am learning so, so much, and always moving forward. Downside: I rarely have time to relax, and must do work for school seven days a week! Yikes!

On Saturday, I learned the historic photographic process of wet plate collodion! It was really awesome to learn. At my school, every year the art department awards two post-MFA fellowships to selected artists who have completed their MFA in the past few years. The post-MFA fellows get to teach a few classes and make their work in our facilities for one year. This year one of the post-MFA fellows, Heather, is in the photo area! She specializes in historic processes such as wet plate collodion, and is doing a wet plate collodion workshop in two weeks. I volunteered to help at the workshop, so I got trained on the process a little early with the other volunteers (three fellow grad students).

It's difficult to explain in a few sentences what wet plate collodion is, especially with a wide audience of readers with varying photo knowledge, so if you are interested to know, take a look at the Wikipedia article here. We learned how to mix the chemistry, coat the plates, take and develop the image, and varnish the plate! All in one day. It was a magical, mad science photo time. I took some snapshots of us working but I used a 35 mm camera and haven't developed them yet...sorry! I'm a little behind on everything at the moment, so snapshot development gets pushed to the bottom of my list. I'll post them soon. Also, the whole day was spent mostly just learning the process, and I only made images on two plates, which I then ruined while learning to varnish them. So I'll also post my wet plate collodion images after the workshop. I have some awesome ideas!

Yesterday, I spent half the day cleaning my apartment and half the day doing a take-home essay test. I feel relieved to have both of those things done! My apartment was definitely suffering since I've been telling myself not to worry about it and just to focus on school. It feels so nice and clean now! I am thinking of painting a few rooms new colors soon and I may post pictures here and ask for your opinions. I'm ready for a new look! To anyone else going through a stressful time...if your living space isn't as clean as you usually keep it, do not blame yourself! It will be okay. Just avoid having people over for a few weeks, and focus on your work! I don't feel like we get this permission from many people/places, so I just want to throw that out there for those of you who need it. I felt really guilty that my apartment was so messy when I was so busy, and I think I should have just cut myself some slack! Yes, I function better when my home is clean...but everyone has limits!

Take home essay test...took me a little over 5 hours, and ended up being 7 pages of writing (6-10 was the required length)! Oh my goodness. Did I mention how I can't wait to graduate!? Let me clarify here...I love learning. LOVE IT. I wouldn't still be in school if I didn't. I would just like to have a little more free time on my hands. The class I was writing for is an art history course on the history of video art...it's very interesting! lately we have been learning about guerilla television, which I find very intriguing because I am interested in learning about counter-cultural movements. Check out some footage from this video we watched from this group from the 1970s called the Videofreex:




The Videofreex were an artist collective based out of a small town called Lanesville, New York, where they ran the first pirate television station (for six years!), since Lanesville couldn't pick up any regular channels. Pretty ingenious!

Okay, that's all I have for today...I'm currently dreaming of summer when I'll have time to sew and garden and make things and sit outside in the sun...it will be so wonderful! Until then, school school school! Going out with a bang. That's how it should be.

p.s. Welcome new readers from the Comment Love Challenge!!! Leave me a comment and I will check out your blog!

p.p.s. Millie-cat says, "Get off the computer and play with me, already!"

...and she follows that up with an I-mean-it look!

meet my bronica

This is my Bronica SQ, manufactured in 1980. I bought it in February. It is completely manual and uses 120 medium format film which, if you are not familiar, produces negatives which are 2 1/4 inches tall, and in this case, also 2 1/4 inches wide, since this camera makes square images. Here are a few I took several weeks ago:

These are scans of the film, but I am in the process of c-printing all of the good ones. That means enlarging them in a color darkroom! It is THE most fun photographic process I have ever learned. I love it.

I also developed this film myself! Developing color film is different than b&w and I've just recently learned.

Do you still shoot film? What's your film camera of choice?

saying goodbye to the tomatoes

Today I made this picture for a local autumn-leaf themed photo contest. My arrangement of the leaves was inspired by an "art experiment" I recently took part in for one of my fellow grad students. I decided to do tomato leaves because I figured that everyone else in the contest would send in pretty pictures of orange and red and yellow leaves (and I also figured there would not be many staged photos like this). This fall for me has been much more centered around my garden (although I appreciate the changing leaves too). Last year I did not get to enjoy my garden in fall, because I moved away from it at the beginning of September. This is my first time to have fall tomatoes, and I wanted to show the transformation of the tomato leaves. I am feeling a resistance to let the garden die, as that means winter is on its way, and I just don't feel quite ready for snow and cold yet.

the meditative qualities of film processing

One of my favorite methods of relaxation...or maybe I should say meditation...is film processing. You have to slow down for it, and really pay attention to the materials and the clock, or you'll mess up your film. It's also gratifying to get all the way from shooting the photograph to having the negatives in your hands without going to a professional lab. This weekend I spent some time processing film and making black and white enlargements. I know a lot of people see it as outdated these days, but I wouldn't recommend any other way of learning photography.

p.s. Check out that hazardous material...an old crossword puzzle and lots of film backing paper (found in medium format film). Looks super hazardous to me!

I wish I could knit

My friend Mallory is really good at knitting. When I look through photographs of what she has knitted, I always feel so inspired, but then I remember that I am terrible with yarn. I have taught myself to knit and crochet more times than I can count, but I give up easily. When I took a fiber arts course, we were required to learn to crochet for one project and make something sculptural. It was such a challenge! I made bottles out of yarn. That is the only yarn project I have ever completed, though. I would really like to have the mad yarn skills that Mallory has one day!

Sometimes, we trade things, and Mallory knits me something awesome, like this rain cloud. But with the monster above, it was a complete surprise! Surprises from friends are the best. The pattern for the monster came from this book:

And you can read more about the yarn Mallory used and where to get it right here on her Ravelry page. I think it is such a cute monster! He's on display in my living room currently.

Do you knit or crochet? Do you have any tips for beginners? I can handle the basic stitches, but am no good at keeping my rows even or following a pattern. If there are any resources or techniques out there that could be of some help, I would love to be acquainted with them!

Finally, I wanted to mention my new photo shop! I have tried to sell photos on Etsy in the past but I do not feel that is the best market for them (in most cases). I've set up a new little shop where I'll be selling prints from some of my newest fine art photos at least until I'm done with grad school. Get them while you can! I even have a set of c-prints for sale which I printed in the color darkroom!

instant garden

A peek into the garden via my Fuji Instax mini (not to imply that gardening is instant!). I never noticed that my back gate seems to be forming a "K" until I took this picture. Fitting.

my spring garden, pt. 2

Three weeks ago, anticipating the oncoming death of the batteries in my trusty 35 mm camera, I purchased a new set when I found them on sale. A few days ago, the batteries died, and the new set is nowhere to be found, nor can I remember where I put them (School has been stressing me out lately! I never lose things!). I prefer to shoot my snapshots in 35 mm, but lucky for you, my readers, I defaulted to my digital camera, so this entry was photographed only a few minutes ago!

Being a grad student in photography, we have endless discussions about film vs. digital. We theorize about this and we also discuss the practicalities. Most of us have a bias one way or the other. I have a bias towards film. I'm not opposed to digital cameras, and I do use them often, but there are many things I like about film. This quarter, I'm in a c-printing class, or color darkroom, so I have to shoot with film. The hands-on nature of c-printing is something I love. There are arguments made that you can either spend hours in the darkroom or hours in front of the computer, and for me, I'd rather spend hours in the darkroom. If you are reading this and consider yourself a photography lover, whether as a hobby or a profession, what materials do you prefer to photograph with?

And now, on to the pictures! I've posted a few photos of my garden, but today I thought I would give a proper walk-through and show off all of my plants.

Thinned out seedlings from my potted thumbelina zinnias. I feel bad about thinning, but really, it's worse to leave them in and allow the plants to be overcrowded.


Giant double zinnias and multicolored sunflowers along the edge of my building.

Four pepper plants of various varieties. Bell peppers, sweet peppers, hot peppers.

Nine tomato plants! I want some serious tomatoes.

The tomato plants are getting huge. Eight varieties, nine plants.

Two eggplants. Black beauty and white gretel.


Salad greens. Lettuces and spinach. The spinach is starting to bolt, so I need to hurry up and pick most of it.

Red cabbage.

Swiss chard.

Peas that got a late start...but are doing well so far! Crossing fingers.

Herb container. Basil, thyme, dill, chives.

More thumbelina zinnias. I'm obsessed.

Cilantro.

Red raspberries.

New addition: lime mint plant! Was on sale at my favorite local grocer.


Chocolate mint! Still alive from last year's farmers' market in Arkansas. I now have multiple containers of it.

Thumbelina zinnias, pre-thinning (refer to the first photo).

recent work

Still working on a title...
Each image is a 30"x40" c-print!
This is what I spent my weekend on.
Critique tomorrow!
See them bigger: 1 2 3 4

the wallflowers

New photograph. The Wallflowers.
More to come. I've been so busy!

new work, pt 1

6"x6", silver gelatin prints, 2010.

My next few posts are going to be about new work I've done since beginning grad school. I've been holding out on sharing it, but I feel now is a good time to start.

These first three are from a class I took last quarter called Alternative Camera Systems. We explored the use of plastic cameras and pinhole cameras. These images are from my final project, a documentary on roadside farm markets in central Ohio. The series (as of now) includes 12 images total, so I'll post more soon. I'm going to be continuing the project, but I'm not sure if I'll keep using a Holga to shoot them.

I've always been a 35 mm kind of girl, but using the Holga opened my eyes to medium format. It sounds silly to say, as if I didn't already know how much better medium format would be. I did, but I was adverse to the change. It costs more to shoot medium format and I don't own a medium format camera (besides the Holga). I've been convinced and now I'm in the market for something more substantial. I've been doing my research and I have a few cameras in mind (my budget will afford me something vintage--yes, let's use that charming adjective--maybe when I'm rich and famous I'll get an automatic Hassy) so before long I'm hoping you'll be reading an entry here about my new camera.

p.s. That first image is available as my swap print this week at my project Swap with Me 2011. Somebody be the first swapper! I'm ready to get this project off the ground.

the beginnings of grad school

Dear friends,

I apologize for being away for the past little while. It seems life in grad school moves at a slightly faster pace than normal (and considering its normal speed, who knew that was possible?).

Here are two pictures from my studio after I had just moved in. It's filling up rather quickly now, with various objects (like terrariums I am making and photographing with homemade pinhole cameras) and photographs. The top photo above was taken right after I taught my first class a month ago...that's right...I'm teaching...a college class!? I know, it's a crazy thought! It's actually pretty fun. I have 25 students and my class is Intro to Photography.

I'll try to keep up with posts more. Here's to fall!

Kristen

july, july

From my third visit to Tara's farm. Amazing.