Esprit de L'Escalier

Learning to love film

I just finished an intensive eight week beginning photography course at the Chicago Photography Center. It was the equivalent of a semester of photo I in a condensed schedule and at a much lower cost and has to be one of the best things I've ever done in this city.

I did the film portion of the class and we met for lecture once a week for several hours and then had darkroom lab another night a week for several hours. I grew to really like and respect my fellow students for their different perspectives and their eyes. We learned all the basics of photography, about aperture, shutter speed, motion, depth of field.

The best part of the curriculum, though, was the three weeks we spent discussing the psychology between photographer and subject and how one gives oneself license to take photos. This class made me uncomfortable in that acute way when you know you're learning something. The discomfort from stepping outside your zone and pushing your boundaries.

Richard Stromberg, my teacher, though, is the best reason to take this class. He is the personality and brains behind the CPC. He is a photojournalist who has been taking pictures since his late teens and has great stories too, like taking photos in the middle of the riot when Martin Luther King, Jr. marched in Gage Park to dangling over the edge of the Hancock Building for an unobstructed shot. He is a great teacher for the same reason he is a photographer: he is truly interested in people and their stories. His eye is wonderful and he gives constructive, honest critiques of the students' photos.

I loved this class, even though I hated most of the photos I took for it. I was too nervous with the camera and assignments and plan on doing them over again for practice. I loved working in the darkroom and developing the film at home. It's time consuming, but a chance to focus and clear my mind. I wish I could start Photo II this week, but the next seven weeks are full of unknowns and I unsure if I can commit the time or not. I want to, though. I want to improve and learn more. Plus the community built around the CPC is something I've been looking for the entire time I've lived in the city.

Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park

I spent the very warm Sunday wandering Oak Park, searching out beautiful homes (some built by Frank Lloyd Wright, see photo above) with my old adivsor/mentor from work. She's moving to Maryland next week, which is great for her, but sad for me. She's one of my mother figures (I like to adopt mothers and aunts) and I'll miss her presence. It was a little too bright for really great photos, but we had a nice day, even though we were a little overheated by the end.

The photo below is my new favorite house. If my friend's memory serves her correctly, the top floor originally housed a ballroom. My inner twelve year old swoons at the thought of late 19th century balls. How great is it? Even its garage had a huge vaulted roof. And a greenhouse on one side.

Etsy Love

I have been saying that I would write about Etsy for a couple of weeks and haven't gotten around to it yet. I have had a hard time knowing how to start. I've known about Etsy since fall of 2005 but didn't really start buying anything from it until the beginning of last year. Since then I've bought a lot of things, from necklaces for myself and others, a plethora of magnets, cards, prints, more and more prints, bags, t-shirts, and have bookmarked many more.

I love that you can read about the people who make everything. You can often visit their blog and get a feeling for who they are. You can ask them to make special things just for you (by messaging them and asking) or bookmark items that you can come back and salivate over later.

I love that you can search by category, color, geographic location, and by word. Everyday is a different group of selected items, which is perfect for browsing. Every week has a featured seller, with interview. At the very bottom you can see the latest items uploaded onto the site.

You can see some items I bookmarked here. I tend to just bookmark the sellers instead, though, and you can see my list here. The best way to start exploring Etsy is to find someone you like and look at their favorites. I bookmark a lot, because I never know when something might be perfect for someone. I'm always on the lookout for the perfect gift.

Below is a picture from my cubicle. There are lots of little things I've bought on Etsy (or the internet in general) that color my walls and keep me sane. I encourage the Etsy-uninitiated to start browsing and building bookmark lists. It's a fun way to shop, and it's good to know my money is going directly to the producer.

The moofin, etc.

This week has been somewhat non-stop and tonight was going to be just going to the pet store and recuping. It turned into errands and dinner and drinks with my brother, which is good since we haven't seen each other since the holidays. I spent a bunch of money on the little moofin. He got a new bed, a bigger litter box, a couple of toys, etc. (Sharon, he went straight for the bed, but then he went straight for a toy when I set that down. The new litter box is so far the most fun. He loves to dig.)

Frank has a plethora of nicknames. There are several variations of "muffin", from "moofin" to "muffinsky." "Moofin" comes straight from the Swedish Chef, when he makes donuts.

Frank is getting some presents because I'm feeling like a neglectful mother. He's going to be left alone this weekend for about 36 hours and I want to make sure he has things to occupy his time. My roommate and I are headed to my parents annual Burns Night party this weekend. Today is in fact Robbie Burns' birthday, see my post last year for some more info on the famous Scottish poet. Anyone in the central Ohio area that wants to drink a lot of whisky and read some poetry on Saturday should drop me a line...

The polaroid above is one I took this weekend in DC. It's a Juan Muñoz sculpture outside of the Hirschhorn, where I worked one summer in the giftshop. I love it and its artist. I saw a wonderful show of his there a couple of years ago, but he sadly died unexpectedly just before the show opened.

Random bits

Today was gray and I've been tired all week. I fell into a deep food coma après le déjeuner and convinced my friend Sharon we needed to take a quick walk to the Prairie Avenue Bookstore and B&N for magazines. To get more oxygen in our veins. Plus I wanted the new issue of Dwell, but they were out. (The fabulous Ashley G and her boyfriend Drew are apparently quoted in an article about Etsy. Plus it's my current favorite magazine.) I did pick up a Fast Company and a new (to me) Sara Paretsky. I'm heading to DC this weekend for my friend Ginny's birthday, and to see my old roommate Mary and my cousin and his wife. (I also get to meet the lovely e. of Stories About Wolves! Yay for bloggy friends!) I needed some reading material for the plane and the metro. My trips to DC always consist of me running around town with my backpack, jumping from person to person. It's always nice to visit, but I'm always a little tired when I return.

Yesterday I had an email from some discount travel service advertising $204 fares to Europe. Then today I read that the Tate Modern is doing an exhibit this summer on Salvador Dalí and film. I'd love to see that. I loved his trippy dream sequences in Hitchcock's Spellbound. Though, at this moment, I can't see me working out a trip to London this summer. As much as I might want to go.

My fortune cookie today said, "Call an old friend today." I should do that before the day ends.

Part of my soundtrack today:
"Concrete Sky" by Beth Orton
"Jackson" by Lucinda Williams
"Leavin'" by Shelby Lynne
"Good Woman" by Cat Power

The polaroid above is one I took at the end of July. After I bought my camera I took it downtown and took some test shots around work. This is one of the Indian statues that bookend Congress Parkway. I always loved them as a kid. I took some polaroids into the lab at school to scan. I'll probably continue posting my good ones.

Thoughts on art

Today I found myself at the DePaul library researching Russian Suprematism, an art movement of which, up to recently, I was unaware. (I am working on a short report on this for my Principles of Graphic Design class. We are going to be creating posters of different art movements. I thought the simple geometric shapes would lend themselves to posters.)

I found the books on Kazimir Malevich, the movement's founder, a the shelf, near a collection of books on Edvard Munch. I saw the book that accompanied the retrospective I saw at the MoMA in March. I pulled the book from the shelf and plopped to the ground and started skimming and flipping my way through the book. My surprise at his work jumped back to my mind as I browsed through his colorful, expressionist paintings. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that show.

I realized later, thinking about sitting on the floor surrounded by art books, that if I could have been a lady of leisure, I would have liked to study modern art. I could have been like the Cone sisters of Baltimore, who amassed a who collection of Matisse pieces. In my next life I wouldn't mind being the one who studies art.

Beautiful polaroid prints

I went out of town on Friday to visit my parents and go to my father's side of the family's Christmas gathering. Before I left on Thursday a package arrived. (Lots of packages have been arriving lately; all of my gifts coming in.) This one was for me, though, and I had been excited to receive it.

It was a package of a couple of prints and a poster from Maditi's Etsy shop.

Maditi's photographs are ethereal and beautiful. She manages to capture light and color in such a perfect way. I look forward to new photos on her Flickr site. Take a glimpse at her polaroid set — which I find inspiring. Seriously, look what she can do with a polaroid camera. Her photographs have a spareness and a simplicity and I love them. Her holga sets are also wonderous, almost like out of a faery tale.

Below is the poster of many of her polaroid prints hanging in my cubicle. It is perfect for the spot, which was looking very blah, and which my cubemate had told me needing sprucing up. Thanks Maditi for sharing your beautiful work!

Port2Port on design*sponge podcast

I have been lurking around some design and crafty blogs since plunging headfirst into the blogosphere. I love seeing what people are creating. It makes me want to learn more and explore color and texture and different crafts. Of late, I've been making time to read Mav's blog Port2Port. She has her own letterpress (you can buy her stuff over on Etsy), and her daily writing has been really inspirational to me. Plus, through her comments I have found lots of other cool women and blogs to lurk around.

One design blog that I adore is design*sponge, and Grace, who runs the place, is now doing podcasts with different artists. She has interviews with Lotta Jansdotter, Jill Bliss and Amy Ruppel. This week she has an interview with Mav! It's great to hear both of their voices. Isn't it funny how your brain always fills in gaps on its own? It's nice to have the correct voices to go along with their words. Anyhow, check it out.

Art and some trees

I splurged on this print today by Margaret Rankin. I've been eyeing it for weeks now at her Etsy shop, Magprint. I love the bare branches and swirling snowflakes. I probably don't need to be reminded of the cold in Chicago winters, but I loved it from the first time I saw it on her shop. I decided to splurge because my 25th birthday is coming up and I just received a very nice birthday card and check from my grandparents (thanks again!). Art seems a good way to spend the money. I'm going to have to get it framed.

Last year I bought this little painting at a Madison art fair last summer with my birthday money. (My *very* convincing friend Mary twisted my arm.) It's by a painter named Andy Fletcher from Waukesha. He had these much larger paintings that were mostly highly charged sky, like before a storm, with small farms beneath the clouds. Unfortunately for me, they were priced considerably more than my birthday check. But this painting makes me think of my family's farm in Wisconsin, and it looks so nice and friendly on my bookshelf. Especially next to the hammy camel.

Today I received this necklace in the mail. It's from Tracy Antonik's Etsy shop, Photoglassworks. She's recently started working with other artists on Etsy, as well as some others, to create some really beautiful pieces of jewelry. This necklace is based on one of Margaret Rankin's prints (yeah, apparently I like her work). I bought this necklace because it reminds me of this tree. It's a bit bigger than I expected, and I'm going to put it on a black cord instead of the ball chain, but I like it.

Check out those Etsy shops and wander around that site a while. I guarantee you'll find something you'll want. It's nice to support handmade crafts, even if I'm at my desk instead of a craft fair. There is a greater ability to lurk and build favorite lists and cruise through the shops you love. Actually, it's a very dangerous place... Make sure you hide your wallet before you go!

I think I have a weird crush on Edvard Munch

I went to see the Edvard Munch exhibit at the MoMA when I was in New York a couple of weekends ago. To be honest, I had never given him very much thought to him before, besides The Scream. I was actually sort of shocked at his work. He was really tortured and I was surprised to see such raw emotion and provocative images. (Maybe I'm a prude? Maybe I'm being biased towards his era-- is it something about how each generation thinks they invent sex?) There was one painting called The Day After (1894-95) that depicts a woman lying on a bed, looking passed out with her arms and legs akimbo and her blouse partially off. Am I wrong to be a little shocked at the raw and somewhat dismissive sexual content of the painting? (I'm only shocked given the time it was painted.) She almost looks dead. There was another painting called The Inheritance that depicts a mother coughing up blood all over her baby. His mother died of tuberculosis, as did his favorite sister. I think he blamed his mother for his sister's death. The baby in the painting looks almost alien, though. It's striking and creepy. He was so unhappy and seems to have dwelt on his pains profusely. I was drawn to him, though, and couldn't resist buying a postcard of the self-portrait above. He looks sort of dangerous in his austere beauty, like you know he's going to hurt you but you can't help yourself. He's hanging in my cube among some sunnier postcards.

My favorite thing at the MoMA, though, was a new acquistion by an English artist (who won the Turner prize in 2003) named Grayson Perry. It was an etching titled A Map of an Englishman. It is made to look like an antique map of an island, but the points of interest and towns and cities are all states of being and consciousness. There are fortifications called "Sex" and "Love"-- Sex is peppered with villages named after body image issues and humiliation. There is an auxillary island called "Dreams." I wish that I had written more of the towns down-- things like "Pissed" and "Chick Flick" and my favorite burg "Argh." There is even a region called "Cliche." It was a huge crowd pleaser as well, and there were perpetually a group in front of it, peering at its inkiness.

I also checked out the exhibit called "On Site: New Architecture in Spain" and really, really loved it. There were models of these really cool, modern, creative and colorful buildings that are sprouting up all over Spain. It makes me want to go on an extended trip through Spain, hunting down these new architectural feats.