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EUREKA!

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Four paintings: Epsilon, Beta, Mu, Nu
11″ x 17″ mixed media on paper

Since I no longer have central vision accuracy, I need a new approach to making art. I began this series of paintings layering gesso, watercolor washes, oil stains, varnishes, markers, gauche and acrylics on top of printed graphics. This was done with the goal that the viewer would “read” the layering history and ‘feel’ the contrasting textures, as they explored the intuitive compositions. Though I infuse the work with my intent, each viewer brings their own interpretation. 

 BRAVO! They talked to me. Observed in situ, I was very satisfied with the results. That is until I photographed them for my book and website. Reduced to a flat image, their sensuousness was lost. This was a serious concern as print and screen are  primary modes for exhibiting my efforts. This affects all future INSIGHTs. The Medium is the Message.

Then, about two months ago, I discovered a solution… of sorts. Instead of photographing the work with traditional balanced lighting, I found that using a stronger light on the right, cast shadows that emphasized the three dimensionality. EUREKA! I started adding shallow objects, wire, string, thread and, as Summer arrived, pieces of nature. This is an important improvement. Maybe only a slight one, but I am grateful. It seems Evolve and Adapt is a theme for my limitations.

INSIGHT: the movie

Experimenting with some interview footage


This might be a trailer. Or reel of Casting Call Outtakes. I have recorded most of my ophthalmologists sessions. They been a great help to me in understanding Stargardts Disease. But entertaining or educational? You be the judge.

NOW! (so be it)

1. Every Saturday,Vera drums with Tiyumba.
First is the drumming class, then she stays to lend support for the dancers.
I took my camera last week to get new images. for the upcoming June Benefit. Silent Auction.
< Left is a video of just one routine led by the incomparable Fatawu who founded Tiyumba twenty years ago.

2. How can I describe the experience of being there?
Time spent with this community is magical and spiritual. 
Let’s pause and silently dwell on the intersection of those two.

(INSIGHT: Currently, my efforts are making art expressing that.)

3. Yesterday, I worked  many hours making this clip. Creating expression was  a joy.
Today, I wonder if my additions only subtract from the NOW.
The dance and drums radiate.
Transcend.

4. Three hours ago I watched a program on Walt Whitman and am NOW still feeling  
I sing the Body Electric
Transcendent.


Mother and Sliders

081704-10am1200 The page Mother is a gallery of images of, well, you know who–Emily. When talking with my friend Roslyn last week, she mentioned that she was taking a new drawing class and asked me some questions about line drawing. I told her I had once done some drawings with pencils of  multi-colored lead. Also some with bright or florescent ink pens. I sent her a few lo-res files I had but was very unhappy with the scans. The color just did not pop as I thought it should. I took another look at the Photoshop files and  felt I could improve on them. I think I did.

I like these drawings. And it was a good chance to connect with mom. It will be ten years since she passed in June of 2005. That seems like a long time. But then… that is another blog post. I see the last drawings were done in January. I can feel her decline. Just looking at the images brings her and those moments back. They were all done in the Bethesda Homes for assisted living in Aberdeen. Drawing, water color and photography were a great way to pass the time with her in those last years. My sister and I alternated going to visit. I was driving to see mom on the morning of September 11, 2001.

This also gave me the opportunity to test sliders –the coding which makes fancy web slideshows– not New England sandwiches. First is Word Press Slider Plugin which I discovered while making some graphics for A Way to Garden. There are many slider plugins. Finding the best one will be an on going search. This one has many features my previous plugin did not. Coding the page to be responsive has been successful so far and given me a good test for managing retina images. I will post updates here as I explore other changes.

UPDATE: 01.29.15 Checking with WPMU, I found Meta Slider has great ratings. I will take it for a test.

Return to Geddes, SD

me mom cornBennett-sisters600My mother grew up with four sisters and a brother on a farm near Geddes, South Dakota. We spent many holidays and vacations on that farm with Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Lois, Uncle Mel and cousin Wally. Aunt Mary and Uncle Albert lived nine miles north in Geddes. Their daughter, cousin Betty and her husband, Babe, are there now. I had not been back since my mother’s funeral in 2005. I should say, I had not been back physically because my memories take me back quite often. America in the 1950’s was a very special time. Childhood makes everything rosier. My rosy memories were not milking cows, collecting eggs, riding horses to count cattle, opening gates or pitching hay. I was not cut out to be a farmer. My cousin Wally was. He and his son Jay, still run the family farm, aka “The Farm.”

ruby-wally600thefarm-bybessie600What is special about The Farm, aside from the people, is the place. It is very productive farm land that becomes more rolling as you near the Missouri River. The farm is about five miles from the river, where we fished, swam, boated and where I learned to water ski. In South Dakota you really experience nature (yes, hunting) and the seasons. When growing up there, that all seemed inevitable, but now that I have lived in a New York City apartment for thirty years, I know it is not.

My mother’s generation is all gone. I am the youngest of my cousins. In the spring, Ruby–the wife of my cousin Wally–was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was a shock. She was in her 70’s, but this was much too soon. Ruby was so vibrant. She made this world a better place.

It was time to return. I wanted to see everyone again and see how the place that loomed so large in my memories had changed or remained as I remembered.

When I was in college, I had learned that the time to visit was over Memorial Day weekend. Geddes, like most small towns, continues to come together on this holiday and honor those who have served in the U. S. military. It is a tradition that just doesn’t exist in larger towns. I have done this about four times. Families gather. The women provide food at the school or community center. People return, like myself, from all over America. It is very Norman Rockwell. Lots of memories. Or as we say in SoDak, a great time to “swap lies.”

Unexpectedly, the best part of this trip was meeting the next generation–my cousins’ children, grandchildren and their families. I have the skeptical eye of one from Gotham, but I feel a real connection to this place and these people. It might be that everyone has those feelings about their childhood home and roots, but that is grist for another blog post.

I didn’t do any drawing. I took photos and video. I have been using my iPod Touch for making photos and video. It is a style I want to develop. Fast and impromptu. I wouldn’t say this has been all that successful. The time was so short– four days. And connecting with my family was more important. But I do want to share and express it. But how?

This page using  Flickr Albums is my first solution. This is because you can embed both photo and video in the Flickr albums. But I don’t think this solution will stick. Check back. I will post notice here of my other attempts.

 

Backup Your Website on Bluehost

Database diagramI have my prejudices. I like to use WordPress to build websites and I like to host those sites on Bluehost. WordPress uses a database to store most of the website information. I use a plugin to backup that database information once a week. This is a safety measure and it is important to backup the database whenever you upgrade WordPress. If something were to go wrong, like a digital hiccup, the database backup would be there to rebuild your pages and posts.

Now I should point out that in four years of building more than one hundred sites, this has never happened to me. (Thank you Deity of Your Choice! Mine is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.) But what if the hosting server were to malfunction in some horrible way? This has come up in discussions we have had at the New York WordPress MeetUp Group I belong to. Buried in the fine print (which I rarely read) of almost all the hosting plans for small sites, it says that they are not responsible. They, being most web hosts. Again, this has never happened to me, but when someone tells you about how it happened to them, it is very scary as you think of all the hours it would take to rebuild a site. It would be a nightmare on those sites where I have the design on my computer, the client has the photos on his/her computer and we have to use the database to retrieve the blog and page text.

Blue Host Site BackupFear not! This Spring Bluehost remedied that by offering a site backup service called Site Backup Pro. It sounded very promising so I first searched to see what opinions others had with Site Backup and found this excellent article by Don Campbell: Backup and Restore Your Website with Bluehost. It even includes a video tutorial by Don.

I was convinced. I signed up and am recommending it to all my clients. Hopefully we will never need to use it, but $13/year is a bargain for this insurance.