Pearls

Pearls

We know it's time for James to leave for work when we hear the sprinklers go on. And every morning when he leaves, I see the droplets of water on the plants outside glistening silvery in the early morning light. (He starts work early.) They look a little bit like pearls, don't you think?

Who knew that photography could feel terrifyingly revealing?

I have a secret.

It's been a long time since I've had the urge to go out with my camera. A long time. Sure, this blog is full of pictures, but those are taken with my phone and somehow don't count in my mind as pursuing photography. I've felt a fair amount of guilt over this lack of interest in taking pictures the way I used to. I've taken my camera out with me because I felt I ought to - after all, I saved up to buy a DSLR, I spent 4 years at college (overseas, no less) to make my photography dreams a reality, I've spent time and money entering exhibitions or putting my own together, printing images, framing, and now...that love has just been...gone.

I've wondered, too many times to count, if I ever had any talent to begin with, or if the decent pictures I've done have been just beginners luck. (Really, who among us hasn't had those kinds of thoughts?) I guess I've just been in a rut with no idea how to get out. What inspired me during college (weekend journeys to the English countryside) is no longer possible (geographically speaking), and I don't have the luxury of just being able to take off on a trip (work and responsibilities really put a kink in that one). So I guess I've been searching for new inspiration.

At long last, I felt the call yesterday to grab my camera and just go. I forced all those little voices saying "not good enough" into a corner and resolved to ignore them. My whole entire goal for today was go get up early and head out to Peters Canyon with my camera and tripod and walk and walk and take pictures - not even a lot of pictures, just a handful. If most of them are awful, who cares, just take them anyway, and hopefully there will be ONE that is sort of okay. ONE that I can be happy with.

I came back with 4 that I like. I don't know if they're any good or not, but it's a start. And it seems like maybe a new style might be trying to emerge, perhaps influenced by all those pictures snapped with my camera these last couple of years.

Ladybug

Stream

Twig

Bridge

Maybe, if you're an artist or seeking your creative path, some of this rings true with you. Maybe not. This is all just terrifying revealing.

By the way, a two-hour walk looking at trees, leaves and streams can definitely cure what ails you! 

We Three Art Lovers

I had a few days off over New Year's, so what did I do with my break from the gallery? Went to an art museum with James and a good friend. Maybe it seems weird that I'm surrounded by art all day every day and then I choose to spend my day off surrounded by art, but I don't think it does. I couldn't imagine a more relaxing day.

Our trio drove to The Getty with the aim to spend the entire day looking at art and having a leisurely lunch at The Restaurant. Mission accomplished, my friends, mission accomplished.

A relatively clear day in Los Angeles

Late afternoon at The Getty

The first exhibit we took in was Canterbury and St. Albans: Treasures from Church and Cloister. A series of stained and painted glass windows have been de-installed from Canterbury Cathedral in England and displayed temporarily in this show. The windows are hung backlit in a darkened room so you can get the full force of color and design, and they're also hung much lower than they are when installed at their home in the cathedral so you can see the detail. Only one of these windows has ever been seen outside of the cathedral before. When you look at all the tiny pieces of glass and realize that they have survived intact from the 1100's, it's hard to imagine undertaking the task of removing them and transporting them from one country to another across an ocean!

Jared, from the Ancestors of Christ Windows, Canterbury Cathedral, England 1178-1180 (Getty postcard)

 The second part of the exhibit was made up of pages from the St. Albans Psalter that had been temporarily unbound and displayed in cases. The details in these illuminated manuscripts were really incredible, and the colors were still so bright and vivid, even after hundreds and hundreds of years.

The Fall, illuminated manuscript from St. Albans, England, about 1130 (Getty postcard)

 This show in only on until February 2nd, so go and see it while you can!

No day out at The Getty would be complete without spending a little bit of time outside.  The outdoors is just as inviting as the indoors, and the hilltop setting practically begs you to admire the views of Los Angeles from above. Plus, being LA, there is pretty much perpetual sunshine.

James and Ryan

Me, Myself and Ryan

If you hurry, you might just catch Abelardo Morell: The Universe Next Door (on until January 5th). If you're into photography, you'll probably like his work. If photography's not your thing, maybe skip it, because you probably won't like his work. I happen to be into photography, and I liked Morell's work very much. Some of his photographs involved turning whole rooms into a camera obscura and photographing the room's interior, complete with projected imagery from the camera obscura.  The results are disorienting, with your eye trying to make sense of what it's observing.

Santa Maria della Salute in Palazzo Bedroom. Venice, Italy, 2006 by Abelardo Morell

The above was one of my favorite images from the exhibit. I'm also a fan because I know that the images weren't created with the use of Photoshop or other similar digital programs. And at this point, you might be asking yourself, "What is a camera obscura?" And here, courtesy of Wikipedia, is your answer:

"The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside, where it is reproduced, rotated 180 degrees (thus upside-down), but with color and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation." Basically, how your camera lens works, only a bit larger, and with your camera, the image is recorded onto film or as a digital file. 

Abelardo Morell also used this sort of process to take out into the landscape to create his "Tent Camera" series. This time, the camera obscura image appears on the ground, and that is what's photographed. These images were some of my favorites from the entire day - I loved how the ground added texture to the image of the landscape, and how the landscape became a part of the ground and vice versa. So thank you, Getty, Art Institute of Chicago and High Museum of Art in Atlanta for putting together this exhibition!

Tent-Camera Image on Ground: View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Yates, by Abelardo Morell

We three art lovers spent the rest of the day in a happy haze of paintings, photography, and delicious food. If you're in or around Los Angeles, definitely plan to visit The Getty, and plan for an entire day because there is just so much to see, including these crazy trees and funky water features:

Crazy trees

Getty Water

Happy New Year! May 2014 be a year filled with happiness and adventure for all!

Look What I Found at the Orange County Fair!

The Road Through Bodie, photograph by Jennifer Geisert - that's me!

I entered the Orange County Fair again this year, and I won a second place for my photograph "The Road Through Bodie"! Yeeeeaaahhh!!!!

Bodie is a really amazing ghost town in northern California that's now a state park kept in "arrested decay." I first visited it when I was about 13 or 14, and the landscape has always stayed with me. When I started using the TTV photography technique, I thought it would be perfectly suited to capture images of Bodie, and I had the opportunity to do just that last October. (My family is great for putting up with my photo-obsessiveness!) What I love about the viewfinder images is that current images are made to look old - there's just something about the twist of perception that I'm really drawn to.

So, if you're in Orange County, check out the visual arts section at the OC Fair! There are some really fabulous photographs, and you might just find something you can't live without. And, if you get the chance, visit Bodie and see how great it is for yourself!

What's the Best Thing That's Ever Happened?

Have you ever wondered what vertigo feels like? I can't say that I have, but I can now tell you from experience that it's not really fun. It feels like the room is spinning and you can't focus on anything, and sometimes it feels like you're going to throw up and you're exhausted because you've been trying desperately to keep your balance and not fall over or fall off your chair. If you have it really badly, you will throw up. A lot, apparently. (Thankfully I haven't experienced the joy of severe vertigo. Yay for my inner ears!)

So, that's been exciting, as have the "excersises" my doctor gave me to help my inner ears regain their equilibrium. But here's what else that's been excitng around here:



James had a birthday!! I found him a really yummy Oreo birthday cake and almost set it on fire with Happy Birthday candles.



Birthday boy



James wanted to see the Endeavour space shuttle at the science museum for his b-day.



Endeavour was awesome.



Would you like to buy an Endeavour shuttle of your very own? It will only cost you about $2 billion. Meer pocket change!



Many photographs were taken



It was amazing to think that we were looking at something that had been to space and back.

 And then the next weekend...


My lovely/crazy friend made James masks

 

This is the best thing that's ever happened.



Wait....maybe this is the best thing that's ever happened.

 Also, remember that exhibition I was sort of begging you to attend?


I won an honorable mention for my photograph!



No, the photo is not upside down.

 It's been a busy couple of weeks over here! What have you been up to?

Artwork, aka Please Don't Steal My Car

I'm usually really bad at letting people know that I have artwork on view while the show is still going on, but hey, I'm slightly better than normal this evening. SO! If you're in southern California, go see the Orange County Fair and find my artwork! It's on until August 12th, so you still have a little time to check this out:



The Writer



Lighter Than Air - I won an honorable mention!

 The photograph is in the Non-Traditional Color prints section, and the fabric collage is in the Professional Graphics (??) section. (I give two "??" because the thought of me doing anything graphics related is somewhat rediculous.) Lighter Than Air was at the Scenes of Tustin exhibition at Chemers Gallery earlier in the year. You'd think I really knew how to quilt, wouldn't you?

In other news, I kitted my car out with a MasterLock (same thing as The Club, except not bright red). My neighbor's car got broken into last night, and since the only thing of value in my car is my car itself, I'd rather it not be stollen, thank you very much. I'll probably forget I've gotten one, get in my car tomorrow to go to work, and go "OMG, what the hell?? Oh yeah..." Seriously though....please don't steal my car.

One Random Photo

New Jersey

Picture from the road. I wish I could have gotten out of the car and wandered around photographing to my little heart's content, but for now I'll have to be satisfied with this one snapped with my camera phone as we drove through New Jersey on the way to Newark Airport.

The Fruits of my Labors

Remember this?

Work in Progress

It turned into this:


Lighter Than Air, fabric, thread & paint

It's my rendition of our local Marine Corps Air Station LTA Base in Tustin, done for the "Scenes of Tustin" exhibition at Chemers Gallery. I used a vintage photograph as my starting point for this one, although it makes for a much better story if I tell people I chartered a helicopter and hung out the side with my camera to get the ariel shot...There are these two huge wooden blimp hangers there, and I've always loved them, so when this exhibition came around again (it's an annual show with the Tustin Art League), I decided to just do it and see what happened. It's a big departure from my usual artwork, which is photography, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out or if anyone would even like it, but surprisingly, people did! I'd like to do another one of something else once the inspiration strikes. I basically took an old photo, drew it bigger, made a pattern out of it, and hand-stitched a lot of fabric onto a stretched and painted piece of fabric.
Also, I went to Peters Canyon and wandered around with James and my camera and took this photo:

Boundary, digital photograph

This is much more typical of me as an artist. I like to photograph things that look a little lonely, for some reason. I like this fencepost, although I did overhear one person say "Well, I certainly wouldn't hang this in my living room!" but who cares. You can't please everyone!


Show Layout

 *Unfortunetelly I am waaaay behind the 8-ball and "Scenes of Tustin" is already finished. Hopefully next year I'll be a bit more organized in my personal life. I do think that any organizational skills I have are put to use at work and then I have nothing left by the time I get home.  




Catching Up

Remember way back when, when I told you I had some news about the OC Fair? Well, I was bad and never followed that one up. I'm only human.

So even though it seems like the fair is loooong gone, and you've no chance to see it in person*, here's my news:

The Greenhouse, copyright Jennifer Geisert

My photo won a blue ribbon! Hooray!!
Judging this year must have been tremendously difficult. Over 4,000 photographs were entered, and only about 900 or so were selected for exhibition. Of those 900 photos they were split into Amateur and Professional, and from there they were split even further into classes and categories. Among this years judges were Jeff Alu, assistant director at the Orance County Center for Contemporary Art, Susan Spiritus of the Susan Spiritus Gallery of Fine Art Photography, and several professional photographers and educators.

I'm particularly fond of the piece I entered as it shows my friend Eleanor's back garden in London. Obviously it makes me think of the evening I took the picture this past May, when I stayed with her for a few days and we ate our dinner outside in the sunset, but it also reminds me of all the times I've spent with her. We'd get together most Sundays for coffee and cakes at our favorite local place, Cafe Mozart (sadly it's no longer there), and sometimes we'd take her dog Ruggles for walks on Hampstead Heath and end up at the Bull and Last pub. We've had BBQs in her garden and celebrated Guy Fawkes day with bonfires and fireworks with friends and family.

Amazing how just one image can stir so many memories, isn't it?

*Even though you can't see this anywhere in person at the moment, you can see it on my website. Hope you enjoy!

Photo Geek-dom

San Francisco Art Institute

In case you didn't know, I am a bit of a photo geek. Photography was my favorite class in high school. I did a summer photography program at the San Francisco Art Institute between junior and senior year. I even majored in photography in college. It started with developing black and white film and prints in the darkroom. Gradually I moved on to the color darkroom. Finally, after college finished and I moved home and no longer had darkroom access, I started to work digitally.

It's been a long time since I developed a roll of film. (Remember those?) It's also been a long time since I've written a zine. Furthering my re-visitation of that teenager I used to be, here's a poem* I published in Boldly Going Nowhere, the zine I produced over a period of 2 years.

"Ode to the Empty Film Canister

Oh, my empty film canister!
How I adore you!
Your curved surfaces
Gleam
Like motor oil on pavement
Slick
With rain.
Such perfection in your contours!
Such perfection is fit only for the gods.
So much possibility lies within you!
You could be a change holder,
The pennies and dimes would
Stack
Inside you
Like ancient
Corinthian
Columns,
Leaning Towers
Of Pisa.
You could carry the jewels
Of the one who owns you,
Keeping them safe
From predators.
Oh my empty film canister!
Such splendor in
Your
Heavenly
Figure!
Such rarities found only one place on this earth,
The place of your birth,
The
Kodak
Factory."
-Boldly Going Nowhere, Issue #1, circa 1999

*Part of me suspects this is actually an exercise from my AP English class, which would be further indication of my geekyness.