Austin

I am grad school shopping this week. Hitting Austin and Toronto, very different cities with very different programs. Austin was my fist stop and I am impressed. I came into the city with the head cold from hell and am coming out with a clear mind and good impression, I hope that my future plans with University of Austin come through. Austin has a north west feel, but with a man made water way. There is the feeling of Seattle when it first started growing. Strangers here are amazing too, I have never had so many random people say hello or compliment me. Maybe the city was on its best behavior for my visit, but I am crushing. It may not be the most metropolis, but there is culture down here and good salsa!
I hear Austin is not like any other place in Texas, so don't judge it by its cover. I know I did and was pleasantly surprised. Austin is the heart of the state in more ways than one.

I promised to give word of mouth about Big Bertha's. The best vintage in Austin. I found the ultimate Keith Haring top, black with strips of the barking dog fringing off of the shirt made in the 80's, and 2 other jackets. Not only did the owner give me a HUGE deal (pretty much giving away 2 items), he was also the best character I met in Austin.
It is work to get down to Bertha's, but worth the effort just to talk with the owner and to look among the vintage Victor and Rolf and Isaak Mizrahi. He weeds out all the tacky crap and only sells the good finds, which makes the hunt easy. Whether truth or fable, you will get a great story with your receipt.
I can see myself being part of the weirdness here, and adding to it in a positive way.

experimenting with fish eye holga

check out my flicker for more

Wow, am I missing some nature life, specifically in the north west. I am not living in any type of big city, but with out a car it is hard for me to get away from this flat boring land. I am craving mountains, camping and hiking. It was never a constant thing my whole life, but for awhile I had someone pulling me out into the wilderness at least two or three times a year, which I appreciated.
This would be the only reason for me to own a car, that and big grocery runs.
There are some pictures above to show what I miss the most, but those best moments in nature are hard to capture in a photo. Nature photography can be fun, but it is just so impossible to capture the not so common feeling of miniature and insignificance that you feel among the rising mountains or huge bodies of water. Ah! The nostalgia for a Seattle summer is just killing me.
The first pic is of is of Mt. Rainer taken in 2007(?). The other a sun set off of the Fremont Bridge in Seattle summer of '06.

I am really busy with school crap this week, but all the fashions going on right now are taking up my free moments. Though I may not be the most fashionable amongst my fashionista friends, I do love clothes and have always admired those with the confidence to fully express themselves through their wear, something I am always working towards.

So I leave you with a link to the Comme des Garcons show (because I love the colors, shapes, capes and construction of it all)

just a way of life

i find inspirational: **

holga

these are some recent holga shots i took through out of the sun roof of a car while driving through philly. i must have not ripped the tag off all the way when opening and rolling in the film, because when i opened the camera when finished i saw it laying there. i almost did not develop the roll but i am glad i did. these 2 came out nicely.
i am still experimenting with 120 medium sized film and the plastic holga was a great way to start, but i just bought a yashica-a twin lens! i still have my first roll to finish and will show the results when i get them developed.
i am so in love with film again and the square shape is just so much more pleasing to the eye, not to mention the great colors that come out!
keep checking my flicker account (link to right) for more photo fun!

Art CONSERVATION

I am sure some of my closest friends still do not understand what it is I am going to school for and why it prompted me to move all the way across the country from the comfortable north west. So here is some info about art conservation, what it means, what it is, and why I am so dedicated to it.

Art conservation is NOT restoration. The simple difference is that when a piece is restored it is restored to its original state, meaning that any foreign material is used to bring something back to its original pristine state. Sometimes, these foreign materials can do more harm than good. (It is just remaking an object with out the concern of preservation in mind.)
Conservation is making sure the object no longer deteriorates. This means that great amounts of research goes into an object before any type of treatment is done, even cleaning. Understanding the history of the object (what is made out of, why, where it has been, how and why it was damaged) is important to make educated decisions about what materials will be appropriate to use in its conservation treatment. All materials added to an object should be removable, so in the future it is possible to bring an object back to the state it was in before conservation treatment, if needed.

That is the simple explanation and I will not go further and bore you with the ethical issues or what preventative conservation is, but you may ask, or google it. This is a somewhat new field, and not many schools offer art conservation as a program, why I am all the way in Delaware. This is really one of the last jobs available that one would apprentice for, and why I already have 3 internships upon graduation.

I hope to go to grad school with a focus in paper and photography. Which are 2 different fields, but are similar in process treatments and chemistry. When most people think of art conservation they think of painting conservators like Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters 2. But paintings are full of chemicals that are so bad for the body that I have chosen to just not go that direction. There are SO many objects (not just paintings) that are apart of our cultural history that are soon going to be lost with out care. I became interested in this field while researching the destruction of the Kabul Museum in Afghanistan. There WAS some of the oldest pieces of history there and today it is still being used as a bunker in war. I came into the field wanting to help preserve history and culture, especially from one that was and still is being destroyed.

There will always be a need for paper conservators because of all the important documents that have to stick around and a photograph is so important because it can give a glimpse into a past world, and the chemicals used during these processes are not as harmful on my sensitive system. I won't be able to go to Afghanistan one day and help in all the rummage, but I can focus on other important articles of cultural history.

There is so much that I have left out, but now you are educated and can properly say my friend is going to school for art conservation NOT restoration, all the way in nowheresville Newark, Delawhere.

For more info links are to the right. Please ask me questions, I know more than I realize, I just do not know what people want to hear about.

In the beggining

I am the last person I ever thought would create a blog.
Maybe it is because I have ditched my person to person profiles and still crave the narcissistic urges we all have. I have no idea how I will keep this up, this is an experiment for me. To give my mind a place to go other than school, a place where I can show my amateur art projects, to put more information out there about health issues, to give my self a place to post internet findings and place for me to keep them.
This will become a mish-mash of things that interest me including art in all forms (but mostly photography and contemporary art), fashions, natural health, art conservation and minmal politics. Quite the mash, hope some thing keeps your interest.