WordPress vs. Blogger: Thoughts Anyone?

I'm currently spearheading an exciting project at the office: guiding our organization through a major website redesign. For a well-established, not-exactly-small non-profit with a limited budget, collating and meeting everyone's needs is harder than it looks!

I ended up deciding to use WordPress as a content management system and combine our website and blog into one pretty unit. Hopefully the new site will launch by late February.

It seems like this solution is going to work well for us, and it got me to thinking about Mix Tapes & Scribbles (I consider this sort of learning/experimenting a major perk of my job). I've been waiting for a Blogger iPhone app, but I think I've come to terms with the fact that it's never going to exist. WordPress not only has an app for convenient, manage-and-moderate-anywhere control, it would let me return to self-hosting as opposed to redirecting my domain to Blogger.

Disadvantages include having to maintain my own platform again (I did this before with Movable Type) and being tempted to get overambitious with customizations. Also, Google rules the data mining and indexing world, so having them host the blog does very well for search engine results.

In the end, switching to WordPress could give me a much more attractive, easier to manage home for Mix Tapes & Scribbles, but just like the Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux argument, there are no clear answers.

So I turn to you, Dear Readers, and ask: have you had any experience with Blogger, WordPress, or even switched between the two? Have you used the WordPress app on your iPhone/iPod/iPad? What do you have to share with me?

Life and Work: Finn Wild

I know I'm a couple days late (sorry!), but it's time for our next artist interview! This time we're checking in with Finn Wild. Finn has spent a lot of time living on the road and/or off the grid, which I think gives her a unique artistic perspective. Like me, she paints, writes, and photographs, choosing a medium to match the inspiration. I'm quite pleased to introduce her to you!

Side note: as many of you know, I'm a professional proofreader and self-proclaimed grammar snob. I have an ongoing feud with my best friend at work because we disagree on serial commas. However, Finn has a particular grammatical-visual writing style that I think is very important, so I've made sure to carefully preserve it here. Enjoy!

How do you describe yourself as an artist?

i'm a writer & a visual artist. i do nature-inspired abstract paintings & drawings. i make zines, i wrote a novel, i take photos. i like being creative in general, in everything i do.

How do you react to the terms "visionary artist" or "folk artist," which are two of the most common descriptors for artists without formal training? Do you like them as identifiers?

i could see how they'd be useful sometimes, but in general i don't like them. as soon as you add more qualifiers you lessen the amount of people you're simply calling an artist. you narrow the definition. & i think anyone can be an artist.

What are your art-making rituals? What keeps you dedicated and in shape?

i'm an incredibly lazy artist. i find it really hard to motivate myself. i go through cycles—sometimes all i do is paint & draw, sometimes all i do is write. i tend to create a lot of work really quickly & then not make anything again for weeks. my lack of output really bothers me, & is one of the reasons i often don't feel like a "real" artist—like one needs all these mountains of things to prove it.

i try to just drop everything when inspiration/motivation hits, & treasure those times.

What are you working on now?

i started a series of paintings & drawings based on the magnified cell structure of different types of wood, & from there began making up my own cell patterns. i'm also very in love with maps & geological layers right now, & have done a few things based on those images. i take photos almost every day. lately they've been of joshua tree national park & the surrounding desert towns 'cause that's where i am. i'm writing mostly for myself right now, working through the events of the last few months, which were really intense for me.

Tell us about your background/education.

i'm self-taught, for the most part. i couldn't afford to go to college after high school, & even now i don't think going to art school would be my first choice. i sometimes feel like i would be a better artist if i had more understanding of technique & mediums, but usually i think i'd rather just make stuff than worry about learning how to do it "correctly" first. i find beauty in what just happens, what naturally comes out of people, their innate creativity & first inspirations.

Where do you get inspiration when things get tough?

for visual art: nature. i take slow walks & look at things closely. then all i want to do is draw. also, looking at other people's work that i like. with writing, it's all about reading a lot.

What does your creative space look like? Where is it? Do you share it?

i've been traveling & living in temporary situations for a while now, so i don't have a dedicated creative space. this definitely hinders my art because ideally i like to have a place where everything can be spread out & always ready.

How has the decision to live on the road affected your art work, in terms of both output and focus/subject matter?

i do less painting when i'm traveling, but i take more photos & have more to write about. i'm very inspired by plants & rocks & natural patterns, & traveling has introduced me to so many different regions with new & exciting vegetation & terrain. you can definitely look through my sketchbook & tell what region of the country i was in at the time.

whenever i'm traveling i feel incredibly inspired to make art, but feel like i don't have the time or space to do it. Then, when i'm still somewhere, i realize that that inspiration was keeping my creative life going, & even though i might have the time & space finally, i feel less motivated.

Despite the relative isolation inherent in your lifestyle, you still emphasize the importance of looking at others' work, reading a lot, etc. I've been told a lot that "you can't create art in a vacuum" and these outside influences are vital to successful art. How do you feel about this?

i'm not sure that you have to be exposed to a lot of art in order to make it, but i find it helpful. i'd also

be really curious to see what art i would make in a vacuum, though. sometimes i wish i knew what i would create without so much influence, & without thinking about the audience or finished product.

What was the darkest time for your work? How’d you get out of it?

the first couple years after high school i hardly made any visual art at all. my art teacher was very into having us copy photographs. she only encouraged us/allowed us to make very photorealistic art, which is when i found out i had some talent, & i made some decent things. after school I didn't really have the motivation or desire to sit for long periods of time simply copying an already existing image. i thought i wasn't a creative person & could only copy things, & even being good at that didn't seem very interesting or special to me.

one of my friends always carried around a little sketchbook with her, & i looked through it often. she makes really great abstract art. so then, just because i liked the idea of carrying a sketchbook around with me, i bought one & started doodling in it. it was the first time i liked images i was inventing. so i started making art again, & started loving more abstract stuff, & found my own style.

What are your current goals? Where do you see your work going in the future? Do you think you’ll try to support yourself with your craft at some point, and if so, how?

i want to focus more on painting. i want to try to keep myself motivated—i want to paint a lot, a lot, a lot. enough that i can try to start selling some work. i want to keep making zines. i'm not sure that i could ever support myself entirely with art, but i would like to get my work out there more & at least try selling things.

i also want to start weaving rugs again, which is something i did for years when i was younger, & hopefully sell them. & take more film pictures.

i thought this answer would be more focused—just paint!—but i'm not a very focused person. i want to keep making all kinds of art, & crafts, & write. i just want to do more of it, all the time.

How Do I Measure a Year?

Just like I promised, I gave my manuscript away to another reader on December 1. The other day this reader said, "I always envy writers because they can invent such engaging scenes, images, and details. How do you come up with all that?"

If friends or lovers were to ask me, "what do you think of when you think of me? What details?" I would come up with rich little vignettes, full of sensory experiences, this time real and not imagined. I remember by scent, touch, the particular slope of the outside corners of eyes. I remember tiny gestures of love long forgotten by anyone but me.

What I remember less are pictures. For example, winter in Pennsylvania is less a memory of pale gold mowed fields against purple December skies. It's the thick quiet-sound of night with nothing but trees surrounding me. It's wood smoke carrying on cold air that crackles in my lungs.

But sometimes we want to show others what we see. Words paint most of my pictures, but photographs can tell a story not so much about what's there in front of eyes and lenses, but what our hearts and minds can see. I hope that any photograph I take of winter in Pennsylvania will say wood smoke, will say night pulling against your eardrums.

Sometimes I talk too much. Photographs provide a place for thoughts to linger, where we don't need to craft layers of explanation.

I never felt this about photography more than when I worked on this series of nighttime photos:

Even wandering my own house, absorbing brand-new warmth after days with no heat, I'm still enamored with my ability to see.

Naturally, completely unembellished, this is how I see.

I know it should look this way, but I'll always know the flattened and
semi-mysterious,hazy-shape-and-color truth.

These are the dust and shadows I study when I'm trying to find my next
sentence.

What do you remember? Are there sounds in that space? Words? Pictures? What do you remember about a defining moment in a relationship?

Disaster Station

Some weeks are great for goal-setting, relaxing, or doing lots of things you intended to do.

Other weeks are none of the above.

Sometimes, your longest and most tiring days are bunched up at the beginning of the week, you don't go to bed at a reasonable hour, and you're positively bombarded with every crisis imaginable at work. Then, on top of that, the new World of Warcraft expansion is released the same week as your class ends, so you can't play with your friends because you have a ton of writing to do. Oh, and to top it all off, your furnace dies, saddling you with a huge unexpected cost and a heat-free house when it's windy and below freezing outside.

What, that's not how your week happened? Oh, I must be talking about mine!

The end of an era: after over 40 years in operation, my trusty
furnace closes its doors.

Though this hasn't been the greatest week for pondering creative goals, learning a new song on the piano, or getting out my paintbrushes again, it hasn't been without its victories. In fact, I'm exhibiting a hitherto-unforeseen ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel: things won't be crazy forever. They'll be crazy until Sunday night. And on Monday, I can start anew, sans class and sans this week.

After my major project success on Saturday, I was interested to see what would happen when I went to work on Monday morning. As luck would have it, no obvious miracles happened. Life was far more hectic than I expected, and I certainly didn't demolish my entire outstanding task list. However, I managed not to fall behind or panic about how I would get things done. My email inbox stayed under control, I communicated with everyone promptly, and I think I had a far better attitude than I may have expected under the circumstances. So yay for that!

In other news, winter always inspires knitting projects. This time, I decided to take a stab at making my own wrist warmer pattern, making me a bona fide knitted garment designer! I've never been good at lighting stuff to show cable stitching, but here's what I've got so far:

In a few days I should be able to show off the final product on my hand, complete with a little sleeve for my thumb (that part was tough to figure out!).

Entering the Matrix

Nearly four months ago, I moved the furniture around on the second floor of my house to create a bright, orderly, sunny, inviting new office. I'm typing there now, sipping coffee and gazing at the winter morning sun reflecting pale and clean off of telephone wires and buildings.

This was a great move, except for one thing: when I created my office, I left behind another room. A room with too many furniture pieces, a room where we discarded everything we weren't sure what to do with. Every time I entered this room to clean it up, my thoughts seemed to disperse, fleeing in every direction as an overwhelmed feeling washed over me and I shut the door again. I literally pretended this room did not exist in my house for four months.

Yesterday morning I stood in the living room with a pill in my hand. I felt a little like Neo in the Matrix, on the precipice and able to choose between two worlds. I tried to remember what I'd told my rational self: if I had a chemical imbalance anywhere else in my body, I would have no moral objection to medicating it. I had completed a rough draft of a novel, and not finishing it would be devastating. I wasn't getting what I want out of life. Oh and hello, I had been living minus one room in my house for months.

So, with some trepidation over how I would feel, I took it—ritalin.

I make mention of ADD as it relates to work and creativity on this blog fairly often, but I don't get nitty gritty about what my life is like. Honestly, it's a little upsetting. But at some point recently, I realized that being strong-willed and high-functioning might not get me everywhere I want to go. I had long ago accepted that life was just going to be harder for me. I could have some of the same successes others had, maybe even more, but I would have to work far harder. And outside academia, where I had the benefit of not needing to try to succeed, I was losing some key battles. Most importantly, I was tired of existing at a baseline of anxiety and panic mixed with persistent lethargy—it is one of the most uncomfortable feelings I can imagine.

So what happened? Internally, I felt calm and quiet when I needed it, plus an exhausting sense of focus (I say exhausting because I never work on anything continuously for that long, and I was beyond tired by the time I was done). The curtain call finally came for that clamoring need to do 10 things at once, and somehow when I opened the door to that room I felt okay. I understood that some things needed to be thrown away, some taken downstairs to the tool chest, some put in the storage room, and others given away. After a couple hours of work I looked at the floor and was dismayed at how much I still had to do—until I realized I had sorted everything into bags according to where they needed to go in the house.

My husband came in to help me untangle a huge ball of yarn. I watched him work on it until he told me to start winding it into a new ball and realized that usually, watching him work on a task like that would have made me feel like I was about to climb up the walls. I would have gotten impatient, yelled at him for taking too long, tried to rush the process by grabbing at a piece of the yarn, and eventually frustrated him enough that he would walk out of the room, leaving me to work alone. This time we worked as a team. I stayed calm and grounded and in control.

By 2:00, I had earned the prize I'd been waiting for: a trip to Target to shop for an area rug for my new room. Not only that, I had found a significant amount of cash laying around as I was cleaning—enough to cover the cost of the rug, two 16x20 photo frames, and some new Christmas decorations!

Unfortunately, I don't have 'before' photos. I should have taken some, but if you've seen Clean House, you know what a room looks like when the furniture is thrown in every which way and a lot of random possessions are discarded in the space. I couldn't walk across the room without tripping or stepping on something. And by dinnertime, the room looked like this:

Sometimes people refuse to believe I have a problem. I think this is because my primary motivator is fear of failure. Things really get accomplished when my stress levels about them reach a breaking point. That's why I'm great on a team, I get the important stuff done at work, and I always got good grades.

However, I've always been hiding something: the incomplete personal projects, the closed-off room in my house, etc. And the worst thing about having ADD as an adult is this: no matter how successful you are where it really counts, you still don't feel like a successful person. You still feel like there's something wrong with you, or like you may never achieve your dreams or be as successful as those around you. It becomes almost impossible to relax because there are always things looming at the edge of your mind, even though you aren't doing a thing about them.

The act of actually finishing a project really gave me a boost in self-confidence. And while there's no magic bullet—medication doesn't make you feel like a regular person, your mind and body are both aware that something external is making you productive—there are tools we can fall back on. In this case, I used a tool that allowed my mind to understand a complex task and take it on. The decision to enter this experiment pitted me against my own stubbornness and willpower, which is why it took me years to get here. I'm sure I'll continue to have thoughts on it (which I will share, of course), but hopefully I'll have more to report than just making my space more inviting: things like completed manuscripts, more days at the piano, a nice little art corner in the basement.

If you've had any similar experiences, I'd love to hear them! I know the issue of medication and attention disorders is a contentious one, especially among adults, but I also know a lot of people close to me have had their own struggles and successes. Feel free to share your story as well!

Life and Work: Matt Agnello

It's kind of hard to believe two weeks have gone by already, but here we are again! This dose of life and work comes from friend and fellow artist Matt Agnello.

I can still remember visiting Matt in Boston when we were in college—I spent some time on the floor of his apartment putting together a handmade book of photography, and we accompanied him out on a nighttime shoot for the opening sequence to a Boston University TV show.

Speaking of college, I ask about education in these interviews for a reason: we fine arts folks end up in some interesting places. This really caught my eye in today's interview:

I think more often than not your education is tangential to what you end up doing. For me, that’s certainly true. But the basic concepts I learned about in my film classes can be applied anywhere. You learn about dramatic systems, how people react to stimuli, meaning that’s created visually instead of through prose. All of those translate to any creative or dramatic medium. It’s like learning a programming language. Once you know one, you know them all. You just need to learn a new dialect the next time around.

As you know, I don't use my degree directly at my day job, but I sure do feel like it gave me the skills I need to survive. But that's for another day. Coming up soon: contentious life decisions, turning over new leaves, and rediscovering self-awareness. But for now, enjoy a peek into another creative life! (Click the link below the video to continue reading).


As an aside, you should really check out some of Matt's work on Vimeo. It's three years old, but I've always been partial to this delightful little short film:


The Cranemaker from Matt Agnello on Vimeo.

Productive in All the Wrong Places

Yesterday I resolved to wrap a few things up at work, then head home so I had some extra time to pack for our Thanksgiving travels. While I cleaned up my desk at the office I occasionally stopped to add to my list of things to pack: manuscript, next week's class readings, notebook, camera...

Surely I didn't want to forget anything.

Then I realized, I always pack these things, but I come home disappointed with how little I've gotten done. Holiday travelling is far from a golden opportunity for productivity. It's a time when we do lots of driving, visiting, and more visiting. So this Thanksgiving, I'm packing my manuscript, but I'm just going to concentrate on enjoying the time off as much as I can.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday Surprises

What a busy Friday! I don't know about you, but my office provided no shortage of chaos this morning. Fortunately, everything settled down and when the mail came, I had a surprise! 16 exposures of monochrome film for Polaroid fun this weekend.

Hope you had some nice surprises today, too!

Rumors are true: whenever I use my phone to take pictures for the the
blog, I insist on stylizing them.

Life and Work: Elena Volkova

As promised in entries past, I'm launching a new feature on the blog: one that expands my narrative to include other artists who aren't supporting themselves with their art, who have struggled, who need to make choices every day about how to juggle life with creative work. There are a lot of artists out there producing fascinating work, and I'd like to carve out a space for unique conversation about how we do it.

Our journey starts, appropriately, in Baltimore. I stumbled across a writeup for one of Elena Volkova's photography installations and loved the humor and subversion inherent in her concept. Here we learn a little bit more about her creative life.

How do you describe yourself as an artist?
My goal as an artist is to create an experience. Using photography, I create site-specific installations that bring viewers "in the moment" and invite them to ponder the surrounding overlooked details in the environment. I follow the post-minimalist tradition in my practice, where the work is stripped down only to the essential elements; nothing extra. I am interested in the idea of creating art out of "nothing"—uneventful, familiar, mundane, everyday situations on the periphery of our lives.

What are you working on now?

I have two practices: photography and drawing. Drawing is my passion and my studio practice. I use photography to create site-specific installations. I’m currently working on a series of large format drawings of fortunes (from fortune cookies). For several years, I have been making various drawings of paper, where I'm exploring the same idea of "nothingness.” I asked my friends to send me most their most precious fortunes—the ones they consider particularly insightful—and make graphite drawings of them using a grid.

Tell us about your background/education. What made you choose to get a BFA/MFA, and was it an investment you had any trouble explaining to your family at first?

I have a BFA from MICA, where I studied photography. I fell in love with photography when I took a Basic Photo class at a local community college. After a few years working as an art teacher, I started looking at low-residency MFA programs and found an amazing professor that I really wanted to study under. Four years later, I got my MFA in Studio Arts, also from MICA.

What are your art-making rituals? What keeps you dedicated and in shape?

I have a tendency to produce a body of work when I have a show lined up. This keeps me in focus, and working constantly. Luckily, there is always something happening, and I am busy working. At the same time, I really value this "down" time when I’m not actively producing work because it allows me to think, to read, and to figure out where I'm going next. I try to keep up with my drawing practice, but it’s not at all regimented.  

Where do you get inspiration when things get tough?

A few years ago, I realized that it's tough to be a photographer who wants to produce large-scale work: it is very costly, galleries are reluctant to show it, there are problems with storage space, etc. I started making drawings because I needed a practice that would keep me working no matter what. I also think that drawing is a process-oriented medium, and photography (for me) is product-oriented. When things get tough, I come back to drawing. 

Tell us about your creative space.

I have a studio in the basement of my house, which I share with a filmmaker. We’re both interested in many other art practices, like ceramics and printmaking, so we have sort of a heaven of computers, art supplies, photo gear, pigments, ceramic glazes, clay, etc. It’s very cozy. We really love being in the space and working there. 

What's your most precious memento or piece of gear?

I used to work with this one medium format Yashica camera; it was so old that the lens had moisture trap and all images were coming out blurry with crazy light flares, and had dream-like quality. It was my favorite, but now I use only digital equipment.

What was the darkest time for your work? How’d you get out of it?

The darkest time for me is when I have too much going on. Every day, I have to juggle between parenting, my teaching jobs, housekeeping, and art making. I love all those things equally, but at times, things get overwhelming. The only way to get out of this is to wait until this period is over.  I usually do a lot of work in the summer, and I always know that some sort of break is coming soon. 

What are your current goals? Where do you see your work going in the future? You've done some traveling for your art and received a few awards and fellowships—do you see yourself eventually supporting yourself with your craft or do you want to keep teaching in Baltimore?

I don't see a possibility of being able to support myself and my family making art. The type of work I do rarely appeals to collectors, and I truly believe that art does not have to be a commodity. I found that many artists who depend solely on gallery representation have to compromise their practice to suit the art market; and I certainly don't want this to happen to me. Teaching is a great option for artists, not only because it is a noble profession, but also, because it offers some form of academic support and freedom. My ultimate goal is to teach college full time and continue to make art.

Elena currently has a show up at Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, DC through December 4. If you're in the area, check it out!

Emulsion Lifts & Afternoon Doldrums

Sometimes, after the productivity, caffeination, and general good cheer of the morning wear off, a girl needs something to cheer her up in the afternoon.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a frequent sufferer of the 2:30 slump.

Today, I had a conversation about cameras with a friend who always brightens my day. I recently received a vintage Polaroid camera that might need some repair, but a little shopping on the Impossible Project website motivated me to give it a whirl.

I'd love to try some fancy and fun techniques like emulsion lifts, but first I want to see if I can get that camera working and produce some gorgeous pictures like these (from the Impossible Project website):

Facebook Fast at Mid-Month

Near the beginning of the month, I embarked on a Facebook Fast. I call it that because, similar to how you don't actually stop eating for a fast (just drink gross stuff like broth or wheatgrass), I haven't given up Facebook for the month. I can't. I get paid to do just the opposite.

But I don't get paid to use it at home, so I decided to find out how banishing it from my house would affect my life.

I don't spend hours on Facebook, but I do end up there whenever I get distracted or am not sure what to do next. For a person with ADD, this happens a lot. Without Facebook, two things have happened: first, when I don't know what to do next I'm forced to spend a few seconds considering how I want to spend my time. This has made me more intentional about what I do.

Secondly, when I want to share something, I can't just throw it up on my Facebook wall. I have to decide whether I want to share it on twitter, the blog, or in a personal email to a friend. I have replied to some long-overdue emails and, even more surprisingly, returned two phone calls (anyone who knows me knows I don't do telephone conversations). After all that, I wrote a letter.

Our society seems to be gravitating toward a default practice of universal sharing. I'll be the first to admit my Facebook page is important. I put a lot of effort into making sure it represents me in just the way I want. But at the end of the day, those personal emails to friends, those phone calls, those handwritten letters—those are the real substance of human connection. Facebook is like pop music: fun to indulge in and maybe even necessary, but not something to put at the foundation of our existence.

Sometimes, though, we need to remove extraneous factors to figure out what should be at the foundation of our existence.

A Video, and Something Unexpected

I may have an office job (albeit in an office that looks and often feels like someone's house), but every once in a while I give thanks for my background and formal education in the arts. It's easy to assume we wouldn't mix well with the business world, but I have a bias for the BFA-holding members of our staff. In many ways, I think that degree unlocks as many secrets to career success as one in business.

Last night, my job gave something back.

My education taught me how to take critique, when to defend, and never to assume a piece is "done" just because I can see the whole thing in front of my eyes. Yesterday morning I thought I had a finished product. Instead, my colleagues got into an argument in my office at 10:30 and ended up telling me to reshoot the first portion, take it home, work it in, and re-render the video. All before the tech run-through for our biggest event of the year at 5:00.

No sweat, right? We managed to get it in a few takes, and I had time to fit it in and do some last-minute editing in time to help everyone else get ready at 3:00.

After going through hell for that video, seeing it projected at the front of the room might have made me cry if it weren't for the guy at the mixing board asking me if I thought the audio sounded good. Suddenly I felt nervous, nervous in the way I used to get before a performance when we had just a few minutes to warm up before the doors opened. We'd cut off in the middle of a phrase and it would be time to get backstage and hope I'd nail the tough parts.

At the end of the evening it felt the same: applause, house lights going up, and a sea of mingling conversation. A few people—always the important ones—finding me in the crowd to tell me it was great.

I don't know if I have the right words for how much I miss that feeling, or how glad I was to realize this was another way I could have it again. Suffice it to say it's the only thing I've ever loved going through weeks of hell for.

But enough sentimental stuff. I know you really just read to the end so you could see the video.



If you'd rather watch in HD just like the computer gods intended, click here.

Where My Hours Have Gone...

This morning as I sat in a meeting I noticed something: my eye was twitching. Everyone's eyes get twitchy, but this kept up all day. In fact, today may be the twitchiest day my eyes have ever had.

Why? Well, I suspect it's because this is all I've been looking at lately. Fortunately, I just polished up what I think could be the final version of my video—a product of over 30 hours of work and 90 minutes of footage. I have to keep it under wraps until it shows at our big event for work tomorrow, but after that you can be sure it'll find its way onto the pages of this blog.

Wish me luck!

October in Review + November Goals

October came and went in a more hasty and stressful way than I would have liked, inspiring me to set some different goals for November. During October, I hoped to:

• Do some substantial writing/editing on at least 15 days and get my manuscript ready for my second round of beta readers by November 1. EPIC FAIL! I think I probably got down and worked for my goal time of 20+ minutes five days out of the month. Again, life got crazy promptly on the second day of the month, so I'm going to write this one off.
• Finish a short story, which I did and submitted to the City Paper's annual short fiction contest. Yay me!
• Read a script or see a play, both of which I did and loved. I saw Natural Selection at Single Carrot Theatre and read the screenplay for Cruel Intentions. Greatness all around.
• Clean out the basement. One might say I didn't even try...
• Get back to the piano, which I'm actually pretty sad about neglecting. Given my skill level, I feel like I feel like I need a piano companion who can help me out sometimes and keep me motivated.
• Take some footage I can be proud of for a work-related video. I think this is off to a good start and hopefully headed for a good end. I put together a solid draft and feel like I took my boss' critique like a pro...which I am, so this lands squarely in the success column.

Much like the annual performance review I just had at work, reflecting on my goals reminds me that even though not everything was a success, and indeed there were some epic fails, I can still claim some reasonable accomplishments.

In November, I'm going to put my usual word and day counting on hold in favor of some more lifestyle-oriented outlook. I chose not to do NaNoWriMo this month, but I want to focus hard on feeding my creative energy and achieving a state of constant awareness/mindfulness when it comes to art-making. In that light, here are my plans:

• The Facebook Fast. Sometimes I consider deleting my Facebook account, but then I remember two things: first, it's way convenient and I'm awful at keeping in touch. Second, I'm a social media professional. That said, I'm going to break the Facebook-at-home habit for a month and only use it at work. Ironic, right? Really, I'll just be maintaining our fan page and making sure to peek at my notifications.
• Get my novel ready for real. If this isn't done on December 1, I promise the universe I will just print it and give it to my second round of readers.
• Find that piano friend, sing, and play my piano.
• Do something, no matter how small, that engages my creativity every single day.
• Launch the new feature I've been planning for this blog!
• Write about these things all month.

And there you have it: pretty simple. Happy November!

Life is a Strategy Game, Too

Occasionally, I make reference to the fact that I play World of Warcraft. I generally use it as an example—something purely recreational, something I could cut out of my life in order to leave more time for art-making.

Not today though. Today I want to talk about my proclivity for gaming in the context of doing creative work. Don't worry, I'll keep it simple so you won't need to turn in your membership card to the Cool Kids Club at the end of this post.

For those not in the nerd universe, World of Warcraft is an online, multi-player game with more than 12 million subscribers as of this writing. Players create a character and enter into a virtual world where they can interact with various beings/creatures, complete a wide range of missions, join social groups with other players, and progress through a plot and leveling system sort of similar to Dungeons and Dragons.

The game has no end, really—to keep their loyal following addicted and paying their subscription fees, the game developers need to change the playing field from time to time.

Recently they introduced a new system for consuming your character's energy and converting it into abilities and attacks. Players now generate a secondary resource when their character performs certain actions, and consuming that secondary resource provides access to extra abilities.

I've been thinking a lot about this change to my game play, and I've concluded that it really jives with me. It encourages higher-level strategy and decision-making because you need to work out what ability is most appropriate for any given situation (lest you run out of resources before your task is complete), both in terms of short-term gains and long-term investment.

Sound familiar? We're all working with a very finite resource: time. Waking hours. Energy. We need to choose carefully what we do each day so we don't eat through all our time and conclude our evenings feeling exhausted but not having gotten what we needed out of life.

At the same time, we need to know what replenishes our stores in a more profound sense than just sleeping off a long day. We can't just pound away at our hardest, most productive work without a break. We'll burn out. I have to fight the urge to feel guilty every time I watch a movie or fire up a game on my computer. After all, shouldn't I be devoting every spare moment to my novel?

Despite my knee-jerk reaction, the answer is no. To spend creative energy, I have to generate it first. And sometimes unwinding and having a good time loosens my mind, lets me forget about the six stressful things happening at the office, and puts me in a frame of mind where I'm ready to sit down and work. It generates creative energy in the background so I have something to draw from later.

The more I play strategy games, the more I realize I never really stop playing. Life is all strategy, like the old adage says: don't work hard, work smart. We all start out with a unique set of resources, but it's how we invest them that makes all the difference in the world. And sometimes that investment means slipping replenishing activities into the rotation to make sure we have the creative energy to burn when it really matters.

Where Photos and Life Intersect

Sometimes I like to be on the fringes of life's major events, volunteering to take photos so I don't have to figure out how to involve myself directly. An art degree can be an introvert's best friend.

Other times, documenting an experience with photos feels intrusive. I put my camera away and just watch, trusting my eyes and my heart to preserve the only record. Such was the case as I cared for my cat in the last few weeks of her life.

Sometimes we go through a harrowing time with our partners and the world feels completely closed off, our hearts fusing together and throwing up a shield that mutes the rest of the world for a little while. I never could have predicted how hard today would be. This morning, less than an hour before we left for the doctor to have our cat put to sleep, I turned to my husband and said, "I want a picture of her just like that, with the sun behind her."

And so it was: for the first time since the whole thing began, I wanted to take just one photograph. And in the end, I feel like it sums up exactly how I saw Katie at that moment. When it works, that's what photography does: it takes what your heart and mind are seeing and places it in front of someone else's eyes.

Imminent Ends and Beginnings

Today I realized 2010 is almost over.

I'm not traumatized per se, especially because the end of the year brings Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, and then New Year's quickly followed by our annual Vermont ski vacation. Plus, by this point I'm over 2010 anyway. I'm more than ready to be a year older and start planning a new set of adventures.

However, I also have to face my list of creative goals for the year. So far I've crossed off seven of my 17 goals, which isn't terrible, but I also need to be realistic about my outlook for the next two months: I'll have a class to contend with for most of that time, I'll be away for a week and a half surrounding Christmas and New Year's, I have a five-minute video to produce for work before November 9, and my cat is terminally ill. I have plenty of distractions to keep me busy.

More and more, I've been assessing my goals against the backdrop of doing NaNoWriMo this year. Granted, winning again in 2011 is on my list of goals, but doing so would come at the cost of many others. I may not get to declutter the house, learn a song well on the piano, or fill three notebooks. Maybe most importantly, I may not finish the next draft of my current novel, and I'm absolutely committed to getting that done.

Hard as it may be, I might need to prioritize my other goals, plenty of which include writing. In fact, I may even resolve to do something creative every day in November, as a reminder that even though I'm not writing a novel, the month should still be dedicated to meeting my goals and getting things done.

More than the year being nearly over, the important realization here is how much of life is about choices and managing a finite number of resources. But that's another post—maybe even one involving video game metaphors. For now, I need to spend the last week of October regrouping and figuring out how to make the end of 2010 the best it can be!

Portraits in Clothing

When I saw a post about an upcoming opening on the Bmore Art blog, my first thought was "huh, that's a sort of interesting abstract painting. I wonder if the artist just used the tube of paint right on the canvas."

Then I looked closer at the image. Then I read more of the post. Turns out, Derrick Melander creates his work from second-hand clothing. The resulting sculptural pieces weigh anywhere from 500 pounds to two tons.

I think Melander's work is fascinating not just because of the narrative inherent in secondhand clothing. Each piece has a mature, well-executed concept that can keep you thinking about it on and off for days. Like the piece pictured here, for example. Here's an excerpt from Melander's website:

In a former nun's quarters, I filled a doorway with second-hand clothing, walling off an interior space. Garments reclaimed from previous projects were randomly ordered, resulting in distinct value layers (which you can see if you squint a bit). More than any other work I have created, this piece reminds me of a geological cross-section.

I named this piece silence to address my mixed feelings about religion. On the one hand, I am regularly discriminated against by various religious leaders and individuals for being gay. On the other hand, I was raised a Christian. I've been the benefactor of Christian generosity (the space granted for this show for example). In the context of this heavily symbolic space, silence refers to self-oppression, to a spiritual vow of silence and also to the fact that these works absorb sound.

Melander has a show up at University of Maryland College Park's Stamp Gallery until December 11. I definitely think it will be worth the trip to check it out.

Changing Place

Last week, I got a text message from a neighbor and friend asking if I'd like to keep her company on her porch. She was writing a research paper, so I grabbed my laptop and headed over to join her. Our neighborhood is full of brick rowhomes with fantastic covered porches, perfect for writing or enjoying wine and cheese. In fact, the porch is one of my favorite features in (or out) of the house.

Little did I know, this would kick off several similar gatherings, some on my porch, some on hers. For the first time in months, I was spending significant time editing my manuscript with what seemed like hardly any effort to sit down and get focused.

Sometimes, changing your venue can work wonders for your creative process. For months, I've focused on making my creative space somewhere I feel great about. Sometimes, getting out of that space and writing with a friend, at a coffee shop, or on the porch can yield just as much productivity and good work.

Word Count vs. Inspiration

Sometimes (well, many times) I set goals that are just a bit lofty. I nearly always fall short of them, and then I feel compelled to ask myself why: am I not working hard enough? Am I not dedicated enough? Do I not have what it takes? Or do I just need to tone down my perfectionism and high standards?

Hint: the answer is usually that last one, the one about unreasonable standards...

This month, though, one of my goals turned out to be way too easy. I wanted to make sure I read a script or saw a play, and guess what? I burned through Cruel Intentions on the drive to Pennsylvania last weekend and I'm eager for me!

The scales have bee tipping ever closer to a rebel year for NaNoWriMo. All signs point to a completed stage play on December 1. The only problem: winning.

"Winning" NaNoWriMo means writing 50,000 words, and that's a bit (well, a lot) long for a script. I've gotten suggestions to over-write it or include my planning documents, but I don't want to practice bad form just for word count and my process involves very little outlining.

More likely than not, I'm going to have to redefine "winning." I'm either going to have to trick the little blue bar into tipping 50,000 or I'm going to have to call it a success if I have a completed script at 11:59 on November 30. But really, NaNoWriMo is about the adventure, about writing with abandon, and about exiting the month with a completed draft you never thought you'd hold in your hands. And wouldn't that be true even if I didn't pad my stage play to three times its weight with overly directorial, flowery descriptions?

New Direction and Call for Artists!

Last week, I started to wonder aloud about my direction with this blog. It has spent over a year in its baby stages, and I feel like it's ready to branch out into the world.

Since I launched it in July 2009, Mix Tapes & Scribbles has been about my creative journey, and what it means to live in the world as an artist. For me, this has meant exploring different mediums, finding my true calling, balancing distractions and self-doubt, and realizing my true calling could change on a semi-annual basis if it felt right.

Moving forward, the blog will still chronicle this personal journey. However, I'd like to open it up to feature other artists' journeys as well. Rather than talking about the "art scene" and what important shows are happening, these artists will be people like me: people who may have changed media, people who have struggled, people who love their work and have had to make tough decisions between art and job and family. Everyday artists who wander the world creating meaning every day.

Before launching this portion of the blog, though, I want to gather a critical mass of features and interviews so I can actually keep a reliable schedule.

Here's where you come in:

I'm seeking visual artists, actors, and writers (there is some flexibility there) who aren't exclusively supporting themselves with their art. In addition, I'm going to make sure I dedicate a percentage of my features to artists whose work centers on LGBT issues. Interviews would be done online, so geography isn't an issue. I'm looking to explore the interplay between life and art, what keeps us going, and how we do our work.

Sound like you or anyone you know? Please drop me an email at mixtapesandscribbles [at] gmail [dot] com or leave me a note in the comments.

(Edit 10/18/2010: a number of people seem to have gotten the impression I am looking exclusively for artists with an LGBT focus in their work, which is not the case. While I am putting that out there to make sure they are always represented in my features, I'm seeking writers, actors, and visual artists of all stripes.)

I'm really excited about this new (or expanded, really) direction for the blog. My real and true hope is to have enough interviews ready to go to launch it in November, but we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!

And I'd be remiss if I didn't close out this entry by saying thank you to everyone who already reads Mix Tapes & Scribbles and supports me with comments, emails, chat messages, etc. There's no way I'd still be blogging without you!

October Creative Goals

October has made its entrance, and it promises to be busy! After looking over my goals for September, here's October's lineup:

• 15 days of  20+ minutes of writing or editing.
  (This one's staying the same, since I didn't get there last month)
• Get a new draft of my novel ready to give to my second round of beta readers by November 1, when a new NaNoWriMo will be upon us.
• Finish the short story draft I started in August.
• Read a script or see a play.
• Come up with some kind of idea for NaNoWriMo, and maybe even decide to do a rebel project (short story collection or script, as opposed to a novel).
• Clear out the basement, which I didn't get to finish last month.
• I volunteered to make a video piece for our big annual event at work. I'm hoping to get some great footage and put together something I can be proud of.
• Get back to the piano, now that it's freshly tuned.

I realize I haven't written much lately, and that makes me sad. I think that means I have another goal: create more and share more!

Here's to a great October! Up soon: the return of visual art, tough decisions, and the long-neglected manuscript!

September Goal Review

Happy October! It's a new month, and time to look back on my goals for September. Some went well and some...not so well. I got hit by illness, allergies, and a sick cat and husband to boot, but that's just life. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's rarely such a thing as extenuating circumstances. So here we go:

• 15 days of  20+ minutes of writing or editing.
  Not too shabby: I did 50% more writing in September than August, and even though I fell just short of my goal at 12 days, I'm pleased.
• Work on editing my novel manuscript on at least 10 separate days.
  This is bad news. I worked on it for 5 days, folks.
• Set a date for a creative retreat weekend in late fall/winter.
  Done and done! I'll be writing at the beach in mid-November.
• Finish the short story draft I started in August.
  Another no-go. I sent it to a friend to read over for me, but then decided I needed to let it rest for a month. This goal gets bumped to October.
• Get my hands on some script-writing resources, or team up with someone who knows a thing or two about stage/screenwriting. Set a goal for starting a draft (and make sure it doesn't conflict with NaNoWriMo).
  So I didn't do this, I'm sad about not doing this, and there's really no reason for not doing this. Huh.
• See Five Women Wearing the Same Dress at Mobtown Theater.
  Mission: accomplished. I may write more about it later, but I was underwhelmed by the experience considering how excited I was to see the show. Incidentally, I also volunteered at—and stayed to watch—Natural Selection at Single Carrot Theatre and thought it was just great. I feel like it was a better script, but I also feel like Single Carrot is just great, so there it is.
• Register for NaNoWriMo 2010.
  Just jumping in and doing it.
• Completely empty the portion of the basement I want to remodel, down to nothing but the bare floor and walls, and revise my budget/supply list for the project.
  (This will help get me closer to both a decluttered house and a better office/writing space.)
  I'm working on this, but it's a little more strenuous than I expected, so it's not quite done yet. Here's a picture though:
  
  
• Get out of the house for some cafe writing!
  Did it once, should try to do it more.

All in all, not to bad! Are you looking forward to October? Setting any new personal goals?

What's It All About?

Within the past week, I've seen two plays. As a result, I found myself wanting to resurrect my onetime identity as an arts and entertainment writer, reviewing shows I see in my corner of the city. That led me to wonder whether such reviews would be a worthwhile addition to my blog, which brings up my most dreaded question: is the blog about what I want to say, or what readers want to read?

I shut down my previous blog, Words + Images, because it became a chore. It stopped enriching my life. A couple months later I returned to blogging with Mix Tapes & Scribbles, which has followed a much more freeform posting schedule, featured more personal topics, and chronicled my creative journey more than regular happenings in the art world at large.

I sacrificed hit counts, opportunities to represent the Baltimore art blogging community, and probably some other perks I haven't even considered. But I firmly believe that a blog takes years to establish, and this one has way more potential. Why? Because it's genuine.

However, I still haven't answered the question: how much of blogging comes from a marketing mindset? How much should writers be considering their target audience with every word they write? A recent post on Write to Done states:

Every post you write should satisfy a core desire for you and deliver a real benefit for your reader.  If you are simply writing to satisfy yourself then purchase a moleskin notebook and write away.  But if you want to blog publicly then you owe it to readers to deliver real value.

I think I first need to find more blogs on the creative process—how creative people live. Then I need to figure out where I fit in, even if it doesn't change my end product at all. This sentiment springs from the old adage: you can't create art in a vacuum. Any artist is responsible for knowing who else is producing similar work, and we should be able to compare and contrast them intelligently, as well as explain our own work succinctly.


On that note, do you know anyone else who blogs about the creative process? Whether you're the type who likes to email feedback to me or post it in the comments, please let me know if there's something I should be adding to my reading list!

There and Back Again.

When I wrapped up my undergraduate degree (BFA with a concentration in painting), I had some seriously conflicted emotions about my art.

Firstly, transferring schools once and changing majors three times in my college career had resulted in a sprint to graduate on time: loading up on fine art studios and absolutely immersing myself in art-making. This sounds great in theory, but it was a recipe for burnout. That's even before you factor in the ironic fact that in the beginning, I'd rejected a BFA in music performance at Berklee in favor of a BA in psychology at Lehigh, and why? Well, I'd gotten the idea that performance degrees demanded you reject everything else you loved in life, including writing and visual arts, and I didn't feel I could make that sacrifice.

After an intense run as a linguistic thinker and learner in a painter's clothing, I graduated intent on identifying as a photographer. Despite countless hours in the painting studio working toward my concentration, my best artwork—and the stuff I felt most deeply in my heart—was my photography.

Yet, my adult life has thrown my into more than one identity crisis. Most recently, I've embraced writing again. Incidentally, writing and photography were my first art forms, and remain the ones I gravitate to the most.

Everything comes full circle eventually, though. Last week I went shopping with a friend and inexplicably found myself at Barnes & Noble buying a copy of Artforum, of all things. I made a birthday card last week from magazine cutouts (every art kid remembers those cutout projects, right?). I've been making plans for Instamatic photography, reloading cartridge film, returning to my darkroom. Strangest of all, as I take a mallet and crowbar to my basement and turn it into a blank canvas, I'm feeling a need to draw an art corner into my plans. I want to leave room to tack up a canvas, put in a drawing table, make a collage.

Huh?

I guess I just needed some time to cool off, write a novel, get a piano in my house, take a voice class. Now that I'm free to do anything, I'm going to do just that—in whatever medium feels right.

NaNoWriMo or No?

I've been chugging away at my September goals, and I feel pretty good about where I'll end up at the end of the month. Well, except for one goal that's giving me a little trouble: National Novel Writing Month.

Last year, I registered for NaNoWriMo in September or so, deciding on a whim to give myself a run for my money with a lofty goal. This year I know I can do it. I have a fine manuscript to prove it. But I'm a little hung up on plot and process.

I don't have a Great Idea yet, and November promises to be busy with school and holidays and the like. Actually, I do have a Great Idea, but it's for a collaborative project and I don't see any likely collaborators on the horizon.

This all amounts to a lot of hesitation about doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'd love to make it an annual tradition, but I'm torn between ambition and needing to have everything planned out. Part of me wants to spend all that time editing my current manuscript. Part of me wants to have the second draft finished by November so I can give it to my second beta reader. I want to be reasonable, but I also know I tend to make a lot of excuses. I can rationalize my way into (or out of) any situation. This is just a matter of direction—and which is the right one to rationalize.

Recovery Mode

I was sick most of this week, and rather than try to get anything done while I was home from work, I decided to leave two of my characters on the cusp of an important reunion and watch season one of Veronica Mars in bed.

Yesterday, though, I felt good enough to install cable television in my house, so there was no excuse for slacking off today! I got up, made some coffee, and finished up the alternate ending for my novel. Woohoo!

To add to the success of the morning, I have to share with you some important findings that will send me back to the darkroom in the near future (assuming my construction in the basement doesn't interfere with its light-tightness).

With good news all around, I discovered I can buy 126 cartridge film. I ordered two rolls, but it was steep! Look at that shipping charge, not to mention $9.95 per roll sticker price.


Good thing the internet possesses answers to all things, because this video has given me the confidence to learn how to reload those cartridges with regular 35mm film. Check it out:



So I ordered two cartridges, which I'm going to shoot and then try processing myself. After that, it's all about practicing reloading!

Creative Non-Fiction (Both Auditory & Weekly): Dashboard Confessional - As Lovers Go

Even though I feel like I could have written more this week, I have kept pace with my writing goal for the month. If I keep going just like this, I'll have at least 15 writing days on my calendar by September 30. This extra effort hasn't just yielded me a check on my to-do list, it resulted in two music-inspired creative non-fiction pieces this week! Obviously I only chose one, but I thought I'd share news of my bounty.

This week's is a little long, so you'll find it under the cut.

Instamatic

While visiting my mother this weekend we did some significant antique shopping, which was wonderful as an activity to do together and an opportunity to look at a lot of really cool stuff.

Imagine my excitement, then, when I came across a cabinet full of weird old cameras! Thinking this was just the type of cabinet where I might find the medium-format camera I've been waiting for, I examined every single one. I came across some vintage 8mm video cameras, bulky polaroids, and plenty of toy cameras. I didn't find a medium format, but I did find another treasure: a Kodak Instamatic X-35, the first camera I ever carried.

I'm so happy to own this camera again because I feel like it's an important piece of my past. My next project will be finding film for it—a challenge considering the days of buying Kodak 126 cartridge film at the K-Mart are long behind us. I've heard cartridges can be reloaded with unperforated 35mm film, though, so this may be a project to take to the darkroom. We'll see! For now, a picture of my find (the square format is a tribute to the pictures it takes).