Radiant vs. reflective light

Shower, yoga and off to sitting. A small group (5) for sitting. Return home for breakfast. Millet and orange slices.

Much processing on the Bearded Iris and Vine image from yesterday to see if what conveys on the computer monitor can be presented in a print. Often, these images that looks so beautiful on the monitor do not translate well to the printed surface. After all, on the monitor, one is seeing light glowing from the screen. Paper reflects light, it cannot radiate light.

A resident of the State of Washington!

Thursday ~~~~





After reviewing the State of Washington driver’s guide in anticipation of taking a driving test, I drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles office to get a Washington State driver’s license. After waiting nearly an hour for my number to be called, when I got to the desk, I discovered I had everything I needed - but for my wallet (which contained my current driver’s license and means to pay for the license.) The clerk kindly processed everything that he could and gave a suggestion for a different office to return to complete the transaction tomorrow where I won't experience the same delays.

Met with Jenny and Jennifer from Sustainable Ballard for my interview. It seemed to go well - they repeatedly spoke as if I already had the job – but they also had at least two more candidates to interview, so I think it simply reflects their lack of experience in interviewing. They will make a decision in another week or so.

~~~

Prepared pea soup with a stock that began as the corn-cooking water at Travis's barbecue two weeks ago. The stock came out sweet and flavorful, making the soup seem lighter than pea soup usually is.

Guitar practice.


Friday ~~~

Were this the only thing accomplished today, I'd still be satisfied.


but there's more...




Effective today, Washington State is my official residence, having been issued a driver’s license. My California license was going to expire in the next two weeks, so this was a necessity. Now what were all those things I was postponing doing until I became a resident?

~~~

The lost data fiasco earlier this month wasn’t entirely as resolved as I thought it was. After running that data recovery program against the hard drive, it appeared that the files had been restored, albeit, with randomly assigned new filenames. But over the last week or so, as I’ve tried to weed through all these files to process and save them, Photoshop has been unable to open many - identifying them as corrupted. Today, in working with one I particularly wished to recover and discovering it unusable, I remembered another possibility. Though I had formatted the storage card from the camera, I’d left it aside until I was satisfied this whole problem was resolved. So I tried running the data recovery software against the storage card - and voila! – many of the files were still there and still useable – though once again, with randomly assigned filenames. Of course, now I have two sets of recovered files and it will still be weeks before I’ve reconstructed everything, but the overall situation is much improved.

Thank You!

A belated 'thank you' to Nancy for the chairs. Explanation: Nancy had offered me two adirondack chairs. I thought about it and realized that the chairs would get the most use over in the Travgor yard - especially with the upcoming Sunday barbecue.
I checked with Travis and he agreed. So on Saturday, Nancy and Larry and I tucked the chairs into the back of my Prius and I took 'em over to Travgor's. Travis cleaned them up and Sunday they were put to use. Nice and comfortable! Thanks Nancy!

Catching up on the weekend.

Lost Pedro (Travis, ChrisG & Howard) played at Folklife on Saturday. I carpooled over with Curt and Collin (who is visiting from Chicago.)

Curt and Collin surveying the crowd at Folklife

Lost Pedro playing the final slot at Folklife

On Sunday a barbecue at Travgor's. You would think that social events with a lot of musicians would result in a lot of jamming, but I've been here for a year and seen/heard precious little music that wasn't a rehearsal or performance. Sunday, the gang made up for that with a fabulous jam session.







That's MB above using an almond jar as a shaker. As the evening wore on, we went downstairs to Igor's drum studio and jammed a little more.


When it got down to the final stragglers, someone suggested watching 'V for Vendetta'. As I'd never seen it, I lingered. Glad I did.

A great weekend.

Black crow

(Entered this the other day but forgot to hit 'post'!)

Mesmerized by a large black crow today. I have the window seat at the café and he turned up pecking into the trashcan by the door. It was a discarded plastic bag with the remnants of someone’s lunch that was the bird’s prey. Several times he got very, very close to success when a café patron would interrupt progress. There is something fascinating about a creature using its instincts and skill on habitat designed for man, not bird.

The café stop is a break from preparing and mailing the Palo Alto gallery shipment of prints. Unfortunately, each of the prints in the shipment needed a second printing as the first printing revealed something that had not been detected in the earlier, smaller versions. In once case I was forced to go back to the raw file to retrieve image detail that had been lost in the processing of the image. Glad to have that detail still available!


~~~

Choco rang and suggested we walk. She took me to Ravenna Park – and what a wonderful find! Ferns and iris and whatnot. Cool and subdued under a high canopy of trees. Places of quiet like this - in the middle of an urban environment – are essential. I hope to make this a frequent destination.

Inspired by Choco’s garden, on arriving home I set about to plant the seeds I’ve been hording. Salad greens, melons, herbs, and cherry tomatoes were tucked into the little seeds trays I’ve been saving. Now for patient care.

Solo Piano Phase

Travis sent a link with this video (from top-40.org)

Reich invented his original "phasing" technology in the beginning of 1960's. He was using two copies of the same tape loop, playing simultaneously on different machines, and over time, the slight differences in the speed of the tape machines causes a flanging effect and then rhythmic separation to occur. Originally, phasing was only a studio experimental technique for tape loops, but in 1967 Steve composed a Piano Phase, a piece of music for two pianos. It was his first attempt at applying the phasing to live performance.

Two pianists are playing a rapid twelve-note melodic figure over and over again in unison. As one player precisely keeps the tempo, the other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure. Typically, two pianists play the Piano Phase without breaks at any stage for fifteen, twenty minutes or so.

But on the October 2006, Peter Aidu performed this composition with an absolutely unique technique. While playing on two pianos, with a left hand on one instrument and the right hand playing separately on the second piano, he was recreating the sounding of two performers!

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard

Robert Ballard shares his enthusiasm for ocean exploration...

I am cooking (photographically speaking)

Quiet rain this morning.

~~~

The rain slowed to the barest of drizzle. So – camera in hand – I set out to make use of the flat, simple light of an overcast sky. I barely arrived at my destination when the sun came out. This necessitated a return home to get the tool I’ve been planning to try under sunny skies – a diffusion umbrella. I must have been an entertaining sight to the passing motorists, contorting myself to hold the camera and umbrella in just the right places, while the wind did its best to blur my subjects and turn me into Mary Poppins. I worked until it was time to go home and attend to the bread dough I’d begun last night.






The afternoon brought more clouds. At this point, the data recovery tool I’d purchased was dominating the iMac as it churned away recovering my lost files - so to make use of the time, I went out again with the camera until it was time to get the bread in the oven.





Since the TTA team moved to Fremont Abbey, I have not been happy with any of the images that I've taken of Jax in that space. This is true of Howard as well. This seems to partly be the result of the lighting, and in Jax's case, the distracting 'stuff' behind her. So, last night I began to try and understand this. Unfortunately, I'd brought the wrong lens for the task, having left the macro lens on the camera. So unless I was going to photograph Jax's left nostril with the detail of a bearded iris, that lens wasn't really going to to useful. Still, I made a few...

Jaxie giving Mary Beth guidance on the seating experiment.

a rehearsal image

File transfer gone awry

Last night, in transferring files over to a newly acquired external hard drive, something went terribly wrong and nearly all of the images I have made on my SF trip and since were lost. I quickly researched options for restoring the data and learned a few things. Data recovery tools are available for $230. The demo of the product informs me that there are hundred of files on the hard drive that are restorable. But it does not identify them in any way that allows me to determine if the files I need are among those still available for restore.

Later, I learned that at least the family photos I made are still on the iBook – so a backup of those exist. But there are at least three images made in the last week that I thought were good enough to include in the new portfolio. The question is – do I gamble $230 to find out if I can get them back.

~~~

Back with the endodontist today. This was by far the most significant procedure of all – surgery on the gum line behind the left lower molar. I’m worn out. Dr. O administered an additional shot of anesthesia after the procedure, so I’m still hopelessly numb.

Iris walk

Out with camera in hand this morning to work with the bearded iris I noticed a few houses south of Curt’s place. Unsuccessful. Another approach suggests itself.





First real day in the garden. Weeding and weeding and weeding and all I have done is reveal the remaining weeds! It could take days to clean up this little patch of yard I’m claiming. Extended my weeding beyond this patch into the landlord’s gardens – just because it felt necessary. The south side of the house, where she had said she intends to plant vegetables (and directly outside my living room windows, and I mean DIRECTLY as my windows are at soil level) has gone untouched and is full of 4-5 foot high weeds. It is mid-May and the soil is overdue for preparations. I didn’t pull them as there wasn’t enough room in the yard-waste bin. In my mind’s eye, I recall the seed packets that wait for me in the utility room and decide to reserve a small area of the ‘lawn’ for my vegetables.

Soon I will head over to Travgor’s to turn the compost bin. From there a visit to Fremont Abbey to dismantle the stage.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

In the spirit of William Kentridge - applied to the urban landscape. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche)


fantoche from blu on Vimeo.

genuine regret

Here’s a milestone first – last night I experienced genuine regret that I did not find time for guitar practice.

~~~

Began the day with sitting practice for two – the smallest showing since this practice began. Walked to the post office and back. Since the Ilford paper was still on the Behemoth, I printed a prototype Tuning the Air banner to hang on the North wall of Fremont Abbey.

The Houston gallery reports that they have found the missing prints. So that relationship comes to a conclusion of sorts. The Palo Alto gallery called today and over the course of the conversation mentions that the art buyer with the pending purchase of prints has requested that I sign two of the horizontal images as verticals. I replied that I needed his (the gallery director’s) help in getting the art buyer to understand that this isn’t wallpaper they are buying. While I understand the importance of a sale, these images are not intended as verticals. Later I receive an email from the gallery director that concedes this. Whew!

Filling in the missing blues in my portfolio

Last night I delivered IgorA’s birthday gift from Douglas, Lance and I. Igor promptly made us tea in his new tea glasses. I made sure we had sugar cubes on hand to get the full effect. It was wonderful.


BillR shared his thoughts on visualization with a few of us last night. I appreciate him and his tenacity. He is a living reminder. I miss his journal.

~~~~

Drizzly skies this morning, so photo-making was hampered.








The day eventually became sunny and warm, but my plans kept me indoors as I had several batches of cookies to bake and prepare for shipping. Every time I undertake this sort of baking extravaganza, I lament the lack of proper packing materials for baked goods. And every time I find a way to ‘make-do’. But the trial and error results in a greater expenditure of time than was originally planned for. This has resulted in something of a chaotic evening.

Mark Bittman on food choices

visual coherence

The optimist in me planted a cherry tomato plant the day before departing to the Bay Area. Today, I notice the plant has its first flowers.


I don’t usually purchase salad greens in these sort of containers, but the market had a very good price on them, so I picked one up. Getting in the car, I notice a bonus in the package: a ladybug. Once home, I released her into the garden.

Someone recently remarked that my images were ‘wildly sexual’ and even speculated that making these images might explain my lack of a sex life. I don’t see this in my images myself. (And I replied that I’d really rather have a sex life.) Today, when I went out to make images while taking a walk up Phinney Ridge, I tried to pay attention to what happens.

The first thing that happens is that I am drawn to something. It might be color or form or texture or a quality of light – but something calls to me. Studying it - often with the camera - I look for a way to make a visual coherence from the thing. It is this making a coherence with color and form and texture and light that is my work. This will take place within the framework of whatever is guiding my work at the time. For example, right now the ‘dark gardens’ imagery is marked by a very narrow depth of field and a tendency to expose the image in a way that suggests dusk, even though these images are made under a bright, morning sky.