To achieve this effect in the art, I told Roxanne that would need to "gloom up" the outside of the shelter to make the inside seem warmer and more inviting. Roxanne thought that might be the saddest description of her wedding, ever. But first, the lines. The table arrangement inside the shelter was a bit tricky. If you notice in the photograph above, the angle is such that each of the tables offers only a sliver of color; hardly enough space to show candles, vases of flowers, and contrasting table runners. Also, when you remove all the people, you're left with large empty aisles between the three clusters of tables. So, I made the tables bigger and changed the angle a bit. Also, many of the paper lanterns are hidden behind other paper lanterns, and the twinkle lights are all but invisible, so I draped the lights down a bit lower, and moved some lanterns to more visible locations.
A couple of years ago, a friend commissioned me to make some Christmas stockings for her family. She wanted them all to be different, but similar, with vertical vintage-y stripes. I think I did pretty well. I ended up with enough supplies left over to make two more without names to sell to whomever. A couple of my friends saw the extras, and told me someday they were going to commission a pair of stockings for themselves. Each time they saw those extra stockings, they renewed their vow to someday buy stockings from me. In the mean time, the original buyer acquired another nephew and needed one more stocking. I applied the name to one of the extra stockings and sent it along. I now had one lonely stocking waiting for a home.
So, I still had that lonely extra stocking waiting for a home. It sat at a craft bazaar hoping to be sold when another pair of friends of mine saw it and decided they needed stockings. Always in the pairs, these stocking needs... I guess they are socks, right?
It's hard to say where or when inspiration will strike. I find myself trying hard to rationalize my inspiration when it's for something exceptionally silly. Take my Birds in Heels, for example. For some reason, birds wearing bright red high heels struck me as funny at one point, and I had to do something about it. And now this... I can't even really say how this came about, but it turned into a cat with a hopelessly touristy fashion sense, setting out to see the world. He visits all the gift shops. He can't leave until he has a photo of himself in front of wherever he is. He's not very original with his poses. He has lots of frequent flier miles. He never steals hotel towels, but he just can't resist those little bottles of shampoo. Maybe you'll see him hanging around your favorite monument someday. Have a good photograph of somewhere you think Claude the traveling cat ought to visit? Send it to me, and Claude just might fancy a trip. He'll send you a postcard when he gets there. I took this photo standing on the back of a cable car in San Francisco. I love how it turned out, especially the golden glow of the buildings. Having grown up in the Bay Area, doing touristy things is a rare treat that only comes with out-of-town guests. We must have looked touristy indeed, with our cameras hanging around our necks. At least we didn't have the stricken "I thought this was supposed to be sunny California" looks on our faces as we shivered in shorts and newly purchased sweatshirts, which is the easy way to tell the real tourists. A great quotation (erroneously attributed to Mark Twain) states, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Though the quotation is false, the sentiment is real. San Francisco is frequently foggy, cold, damp, and windy - even in summer. On the brighter side, in the dead of winter (when this photograph was taken), San Francisco is at its worst only foggy, cold, damp, and windy. If you are prepared for the worst summer weather San Francisco can dish out, you are also prepared for its worst winter weather. Find this photo on Etsy, Handmade Spark, or right here. I have been intrigued by photography printed on canvas for quite some time. Art on canvas seems inherently more permanent than art on paper, even archival quality photographic paper. But having spent the last 20 years attempting to eliminate all vestiges of graininess from my photographs, it's hard willingly to have one printed on a textured surface. This canvas would also represent the largest format on which one of my photographs had ever been printed. The hardest part for me was definitely choosing which photograph to use. I wanted to use a photograph with a high resolution, so the print size was not an issue. I also wanted a photograph with lots of intricate detail, so I could see exactly how details fared on the canvas substrate. And, of course, I had to want that photograph on my wall for a while. Almost as soon as I made my final decision to use the above photograph, I began to regret it. I have no problem with a giant crustacean on my wall, but I have roommates... I delayed hanging the image until I gauged their reactions. I figured it could have gone one of two ways: "Ooh! That is so cool!" or "Good grief, what is that?" Luckily, it was the former. My box from Zaza Gallery arrived far sooner than I expected it; a pleasant surprise. I immediately opened the package and began inspecting the canvas closely. The detail was remarkable. Each grain of sand and bump on the crab's back was crisp and in focus, despite being printed on a textured surface. The craftsmanship of the frame itself was top-notch as well. The corners were neatly folded, and the borders of the image were mirrored as they wrapped around the wooden frame, giving the illusion of the image continuing around the edge, without any loss of visibility of the image borders from the front. All in all, I am quite pleased with my first canvas, and I shall return to Zaza Gallery for my future canvas printing needs. |
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