Carnegie's Community Sourced Art Portfolio

This past spring, I agreed to be one of the artists chosen for inclusion in The Carnegie's first CSA portfolio. The idea is that the selected artists make pieces that will fit into a 11x17" box and collectors from the community purchase the portfolio sight unseen for a really reasonable $350 and get (in this case) 9 pieces of art. There are 50 portfolios in the offering so it's a really great way to get collectors who have never seen or never purchased your work to begin to grow their collection. This has been done in Minneapolis, Cincinnati and other arts conscious cities. I loved the idea and agreed to put work in the portfolio. The portfolio is curated by Carnegie's Matt Distel.

An artist can do 50 distinctly original pieces or one piece 50 times. I chose to do 2 pieces 25 times each and sign them as part of this portfolio. The date for delivery is July 1st,  I believe. I was going to post my pieces here but that would be a little premature. So come back in July to see what I offered in the portfolio.

I was asked if it was a bad deal for artists and replied NO since, it's an opportunity to have my work in 50 new collections with little effort on my part and I see it as a way to have people who might not know my work to become familiar with some of it. I was happy to be a part of this first portfolio and hope at another time to be a part of other ones.

Mine are all printed and delivered. I was anxious to get it done not knowing what this summer has in store for us.

Since I cannot show what I put in, I can show work from the same series that is not in the portfolio.

Here's what I have been working on....

Which group do you like more? The singles or the doubles with the added word and drawing?

Lost & Found Ellora Caves

Metta: Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

Metta: Varanasi Ghats

Hall of a thousand columns, Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

Pilgrims, Meenaskshi Temple, Madurai

Tourists, Taj Mahal

Silk Weaver, Varanasi

Been gone so long....

Blogging is not one of the things that comes first to my mind and it seems to have fallen off the radar for me for the past two years. Once school begins, it seems there are way too many other things that perk to the top of the critical list and blogging falls away.

However, this is my last summer before my last year of teaching. I will retire at the end of the next academic year having completed 41 years of teaching full time in higher ed. My first 18 were in Denver at Metropolitan State where I was the only full time photo person but shared my darkrooms with two other schools who also had photo teachers. The last 22 have been at Northern Kentucky University where I was chair, then back up to the faculty in photography.

As each school year ends, I usually fill the first few weeks with updating my class websites, thinking up new research assignments and thinking about what needs improving while I still remember. This summer, I did it differently, I quickly began working in the studio on re-editing work I had never used from travels abroad. The intense time in the studio refreshed me to open my head again.

The big question that my pal Barry Andersen and I discussed but came to no conclusion was: Are pictures from travels that don't clearly fit into a project ever more than travel pictures? Can they have a new life, can they become a new portfolio of images that can fit into your larger body of work? Whew, that's heavy and still unclear. My hope is that they will make some sense when you look full circle at one's career of imagemaking.

So, I have been out of school for just over a month now. Not all days are productive in the studio and some days I do other things. Today, we will have lunch with Melanie Spencer Warner and her husband then I will go to school for a software meeting. Melanie graduated around 2000 and has been a very successful journalist since then using her other degree for the writing and her photo degree for the images she includes. She also continues to make her personal work which is lovely and can be seen on her blog.

And let the new semester begin...

Power to open your heart

Power of astrology

Power to wash away the sins

Each year as we begin the Spring Semester, we hang a show of faculty artwork. This gives our students and visitors the opportunity to see that we are not only great teachers but working artists, as well. Since we don't always show near campus, our students might not get the opportunity to see that we practice what we teach. The above work is from a series about objects of power and protection that I have been working on for about a year. Earlier in the series, I worked with amulets from other cultures that were used by them to offer protection and magical powers. The later work is from my own background and is less serious or stern. Having grown up as a Catholic, there were many superstitions and power objects in my life. Here is one of the earlier images:

This kind of work is not new to me. I have worked with objects of superstition over and over throughout my artistic life. I collect these objects and rather trust my instincts on which ones have more power for me. 

As we begin the new semester and journey it will take us on, I hope my own students will consider what gives them power and protection and use those things to help them do their best work and make breakthrough images. 

Here we go.....

End of the Semester Craziness

So today is the first day back after Thanksgiving. Students are just realizing that the end of the semester is upon us and that all the casual time management is coming home to haunt them. They have begun to be forgetful due to lack of sleep. One of Matt's students left his Nikon DSLR in the classroom on the desk and went off. Luckily, I realized none of my students were sitting in that place so none of them left it, so I retrieved it and gave it to Matt to identify which student it belonged to. Then one of mine left his hard drive after printing. Hope it gets better as the week proceeds or we are in for a bad time.

 ThinkTank makes pretty nice camera bags in all sizes and of incredible quality. They are a favorite of one of my colleagues who has a bundle of them. I have been a Domke bag girl for years but am trying out these. My pals tell me I will love them. I want a bag that lets me grab my camera while walking and then slip it back in the bag without having to set the bag down again. I want a bag that makes my life easier rather than more difficult. 

If you are like that too, follow this link to ThinkTank and see what you think. They each come with a raincoat for the bag, they are soft sided so they fit to your body. And if you buy from this link, you will be given a choice of a free gift. Students who have studied with me, alum of NKU, and colleagues can get the student discount from a link off http://www.nku.edu/~photo, but the rest of us can get the gift and purchase from clicking on the camera bag above. 

Peter Pan and Me

Each year at this time, I want to find a Peter Pan costume and sing his song "I won't grow up, I don't wanna go to school...." But once I get into class that first time, I am fine. It is a bit of stage fright. I am always remembering that what happens in classes can change people's lives. It's a lot of responsibility to have on our shoulders.

But here we go, off on another year's adventure in learning and life. I guess I will only hum Peter's song in the morning as I am getting ready to face the beginning of another academic year. You'd think, that after all these years, I would be used to it. This will be the beginning of my 38th year of teaching photo in higher ed and the my 19th year at NKU.

I spent my summer working on art, visiting with great friends in photo and former students, learning new software, and being a construction worker in our yard.

See you all and let's see if we can make this a great year.