Dad & I: Do the albums lie?

[Original photos of my dad and I in the kitchen from 1989-1993, sorry about the dust flakes!]

I've been flipping through old photo albums and my baby book and I have found a trend with the photos that I appear with my dad in: They are predominantly in the kitchen. Obviously as a baby I didn't determine where in the house I went, so by logic, wherever I was located was where someone else put me. So, basically, my dad must have spent a lot of time in the kitchen. That's where he did (and still does) the following activities: reads the paper, does his book work, eats his meals, and many times watches the weather or news in the living room from. This is where he cools down under the ceiling fan and grabs a glass of ice water during the summer, and where he sheds his layers and warms up from a long night of snowplowing in the winter. If we had room to put a bed in there, I'm pretty sure he'd sleep in the kitchen, too. This isn't some big revelation, I've known it all my life. But what makes me wonder, then, is why the pictures of us are mostly in this one room? My guess is that when he's outside around the farm, it's impossible to catch him when he's still. He's always on the go, and he always has been. Even now I know that I've got one opportunity to catch my dad if I need to ask him a question. Do it while he's eating --so a window of about 10 min, and I'm lucky if the phone hasn't rang for him in that amount of time -- but not while he's reading the paper, which 99% of the time he does while eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce --it's his staple food. Dad always has first dibs on reading the paper, because he has to see and announce the obits before anyone else. "Well, it looks like I'm not dead yet," he'll say when his name and photo don't appear under the death notices. Did I mention my dad is sarcastic? Well he is, to the max, and to communicate on his level, you have to be too. With as stressed out as he gets, I think humor is the thing that keeps him going the most. But during a summer like this one where we have been mowing lawn consistently from all of the rain and humidity and he is backed up months on other projects, I can tell that his energizer battery is starting to drain. While my sister and I were working with him this past weekend he walked back to the truck after trimming, head down, completely drenched in sweat, the thick veins in his arms literally pulsating, and he looked up and from underneath his baseball cap he forced a smile and said, "I think I'm getting too old for this girls." So, what do you say to that? We all know that he works himself too hard, doesn't sleep enough, and intakes way more than the daily nutritional allowance in dough-nuts and soda. Yet you can't tell him to slow down or take it easy, because he feels like he's being nagged on and won't listen. Instead we give him a hard time and joke about it saying, "Come on, old man, let's go." I know it will elicit a smile and a slow, deep rumble of "Watch it..." to follow as he playfully shakes a fist at us. So, then, back to the root of the question: Why does my dad work like this - uncontrollably, as if some unknown force keeps pushing him to test his limits? And why did these photos of us, and even of just him, slowly start to change and fade away? That's something that I've got a lead on, but I'm waiting for it to all come together before I make my next post. Hint: I have to go look for our old family videos (and our VCR), too.

Videos

These videos are very inspiring to me. Before there was art for me, there was dance, so I use dance to still inspire me. I can't have one without the other. These routines recently seen on SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. These two bring tears to my eyes, and what I would like people to feel when seeing my art...Not necessarily tears, but something...I think one of the worst things, is when people don't feel something at all for art. Enjoy... I am not a contemporary dancer at all, and used to hate it, but oddly enough they are that kind of dancing that just expresses something universal to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm6MidMyFe8

{Everyones needs someone to fix, and to be fixed, themselves}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub9h5LNW7dY

{Expressing Fear and learning to overcome it}

An invitation to see what you can't see

Still figuring- as an art, not math

Use it

While I have been wallowing in lack of motivation as of late; yes I admit it, I have been driving a lot. Driving allows me time to process those bizarre thoughts that eventually turn into a circus of scrambled small ideas that combine and become sort of whole due to this run on of ideas. I love when you drive and you realize that you have finally reached your destination, but you don't really remember any of the actions you took to get there. I, anyway sometimes daydream my way toward my destination. When the music is off and all there is to distract me is the road and the whipping of wind through the cracked windows, then is when I can truly dream. These ideas start as seedlings, something similar to the tickling of my foot that pushes my body to react with both a burst of great joy and panic that causes my body to withdraw from the action almost immediately. The withdrawing from the action represents my hesitation to pursue my ideas for photos and in the same token I am enveloped in the joy of thinking about where that one idea could take me.

During this warped time I usually dream about the equipment I could use if I had access to it and I ramble through the if this and if that's. But all that there is, is me and my will to do what I want. I have no right to limit my potential because I only have access to certain equipment. While I was bitter about this before I am learning to embrace it. I have very little financial freedom right now to spend on art. I have my smaller digital camera and access to the internet via Mary when I can use it (thanks mares). But why should this limit me? I would much rather learn to appreciate what I do have right now rather than dream up of what I could be using for equipment, etc. I have no stash of cameras on shelves or in cases. I work in a shoe store fitting way overpriced shoes to smelly feet. But I have what I have and I am where I am. If there is anything I can suggest for this post it is learn to use what you do have and appreciate it because not everyone has access to the same equipment that you may have, or access to the same people, jobs, etc. After a brief talk with Shane, I realize that there is only misuse of equipment. Every camera can take a photo, how do you take yours? YOur camera is your eye. Our eyes can see whatever they want to, so can our equipment. My digital camera allows me very little leeway as to if a shot will work or not but it also allows me to enter into more intimate realms than with a 35mm even. I still have my drive to take photos. Not even a smelly troll can take that away.

This summer has been humbling in terms of my art go. But an interesting quote from Bicycle Diaries often fills my mind:

"Maybe in a sense we are unique: the huge numbers of available combinations of traits, propensities, body types and experiences that make up each of us is unimaginably large. Our variety is immense, but still it must be restricted within certain boundaries or we wouldn't be able to recognize ourselves as types at all. What we are is somehow simultaneously "infinite," but always similarly shaped. Almost infinite variety within severely restricted limitations...Is anyone native to anywhere? I think, in most cases, not. And maybe, somehow, that might be where the answer lies."

Geir Moseid

I am intrigued by this guy. Like, Sarah Kaufman, I really appreciate his use of light and color. The color is so neutral in this pictures, but it really brings out the beauty in the skin and on the curvature of the bodies.

I think finding spaces, which Jacki was always really good at, and THEN seeing what could be placed in it, I always wanted to expand on. Sam is starting to do that I feel, and I believe it really works better then setting up the scene without being exposed to the surroundings first. Doing senior pictures these days, I have really opened my eyes up to places because of having to provide new ideas for kids to be posed in and new locations their friends won't have in their senior, wallet pictures.

I need to sit down with Jacki and discuss how she see those spaces...I also would love to brainstorm with anyone that has ideas for me...I need to get out of this dry spell. It's starting to get frustrating...

The Farm

New photos from around our farm (just cropped no touchups, unfortunately). Also, I'm starting to flip through family albums from the 60's to the present, and I'm seeing some really subtle changes in my family (funky hair-dos/hair loss aside). Thanks for that tip, Shane. More to come on that topic next week :)