Yesterday was a crazy day. I had two art shows, but not only that I had to somewhat professionally hang 33 frames for one of them and still had to complete my piece for the other before both events started. My little photo club of four friends, Grain, had a showing of film photography cleverly titled “Grain of Salt” at Cafe on 1st. I sported my holga shots and I gotta say, seeing them framed made them look 10x better. I decided to hang everybody’s work so that each person had a designated frame color with numerous styles and hung in individual salon style clusters. I’ve never hung anything salon style before and I tried to do research about it which was pretty overwhelming. With limited time, I ended up eyeballing the whole thing and am overall pretty happy with the outcome.

I ended my night at Kayo Gallery to see how all the boxes were doing in the bid. Box. Paper. Scissors. is an annual fundraiser of cigar boxes decorated inside and out by local artists. My box, titled “My Three Black Hearts,” is of an octopus and inside consisted of three calligraphy pens and ink jars. The idea behind it is not only the relation of octopus and ink, but octopuses have three hearts. Two of them are used to pump the gills and the one is used to pump the body. I related the three hearts to the three most important relationships to me – my high school/college boyfriend, my live-in boyfriend, and to my current boyfriend – and how the past two have really shaped how I treat my relationship to this day and without them, I wouldn’t have such a great understanding of myself or how a relationship should be (for the better and the worse). All three boys have a story with me and I with them. I took a few steps away from my usual process of carving a woodblock then pasting the print onto wood and instead I just directly carved onto the wood used in the piece itself. It’s very subtle, but all 8 arms have carving details of suction cups.

It was a little too perfect that the winning bid went to Ken Sanders of Ken Sanders Rare Books. He may find use of a calligraphy set?

As much of a relief it is to have a show over, I’m a little over being a hard worker. So much so that I am delaying my August solo show that was given to me by the owner of Stolen & Escapes Gallery. Huge shout out to her for understanding and accepting my replacement artist and also allowing me to delay it for a few months (TBD). My next big event is Craft Lake City, in exactly four weeks. That’s plenty of time to prep, right?

I got something very exciting while in San Diego last week. After strolling around inside the San Diego Museum of Photgraphic Arts, I couldn’t help myself in the gift shop full of goodies. I walked out with a Muse soft focus Lensbaby. It’s pretty wild to use and I love the results. I got to share it last Saturday at the first ever meeting of a new club I joined, dedicated to any kind of film photography. I’ll mostly be playing with my Holga still and maybe I will venture into new (thrift store bought) cameras.

Remember when nearly a year ago I started teaching Holga photography? Well this morning I got the most satisfied feeling from that class. I went to Coffee Garden in the 9th & 9th district at 10:30 am to meet with a new client of mine (I sound so professional, oh my). I was a little early so as I carefully walked my giant bowl cup o’ chai to my table I saw on the wall some very beautiful images that were clearly taken by a Holga camera. I soon discovered they were all shot by Brook Mingo, a former student of mine and by the looks of it, she’s doing fantastic! I’m so glad to know that one of the five people in that class is really keeping with it and keeping with it well. I instantly fell in love with the above image when I saw it this morning. Go by if you can! Go Brook!

Is this how teachers feel? Except times by 30 then times by 2 then times by however many years you teach? Whoa.

Tomorrow is my first day teaching, ever. Through the University of Utah’s Lifelong Learning program, I am putting on a 6 week workshop on toy cameras, focusing on Holgas. It will be taught every Tuesday from 6:30-8:30pm. I have a few seats left so if you’re in the area and can hold off watching the last 2 episodes of LOST to online the next day, it should be a lot of fun! My flickr account shows all of what I’ve done personally so far. The above photo is from 2 Saturdays ago at the Salt Lake Temple. This was my first experience at the temple and I could not believe how many brides and grooms were popping out the door every 5 minutes. There were people every where, so it was hard to get a shot with just these two and it was overwhelming. But I love how most of them turned out.

Teaching, although temporary, is currently my 5th job right now. I am still at Fluid Studio designing, I recently started at Signed & Numbered underneath the oh so talented Leia Bell (her partner Phil Sherburne is an excellent woods craftsman as well) working in their shop full of fantastic limited edition prints, building frames and soon working in the gallery which will be located at music venue, Kilby Court. I’ve been modeling for various artists and university classes and I didn’t want to say anything yet but I can’t contain it any longer: I blog for Boxcar Press as well. I get to interview letterpress artists and companies from all over and help create a resource center of all things letterpress on their website. How stinkin cool is that? Pretty stinky stinkin, if you ask me. I have been waiting to post my first interview, however Boxcar Press is super busy with the National Stationery Show currently going on. I am there in spirit. Sigh. But once their blog becomes more ritual, I’ll be sure to post here too.

I suddenly have become swamped and I love it.

It’s official. And crazy. I’m teaching Holga Photography via the University of Utah’s Lifelong Learning program, this summer. The catalog and web information won’t be official until all the details are in order so stayed tuned for links to sign up, if you’re interested. I’m looking forward to it!

I took these 3 images above when I was scared of 120 film. Scared of the size, scared of the price, scared of what to do with it. I adapted my Holga to hold 35mm film before I even put 120 film inside it. As much fun as it was, it’s so much simpler just to use 120 film, now that I know what I’m doing with it.

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Last night I got to see documentary, Wasteland. Let me just say, wow. Brazilin artist Vik Muniz creates a project based in his home country, where lays one of the largest landfills in the world. He recreates photographs of natives by using found materials/trash. He even involves workers from the landfills to help, which give them a bigger perspective on their life outside of trash. Really inspiring. I was able to find a photo from the film:

This last one is the one I had mentioned I couldn’t wait to see how it turned out. I just love it. She totally wasn’t keen to get her picture taken, and I’m so glad for it. Hah!

Come to think of it, I’m diggin black and white film… but I did get lucky with a lot of rainy days.

Sorry Britnee.

Eva taught me a lot. Where to get film developed the cheapest, always experiment, make sure you know if you’re on the Bulb or Normal setting, have fun, and reminded me of some basic photo knowledge. I am going to start carrying my holga around with me everywhere I go. I think I want to sell my CFN (the flash doesn’t even work) and get the basic N so I can attach my own, stronger, flash. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.

Before I said goodbye to Eva and reminded her that I would drive all the way to Heber to rack if she needed help, she told me her and her husband are taking Sycamore Street Press on the road for about a month and hitting up craft fairs along the west coast. One that struck me was, The Renegade Craft Fair. One of the biggest all hand made craft fairs that I know of  traveling from Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco about twice a year. They’re headquarters are in Chicago. I’m in awe. But I can’t just sit here and be in awe. In fact, I’m due for another vacation. And San Francisco ain’t that far.

I’m going. Obviously not as a vendor. But as a customer, spectator, and someone who has ambition to one day be apart of it as well.

It’s a plan Stan.

“Sycamore Street Press??” I interrupted. So rude. But she nodded with surprise that I knew. I’m a creep and have been reading her blog. I even went back to her very first post to see how she developed such success. Her online shop is very popular in the etsy community. My favorite card of theirs is:

Eva is very inspiring to me in many ways  - she started as a photo major, just like myself. She discovered the world of printmaking and stuck to it. She got her Master’s in it at the University of Utah and now she’s making a career off of it with a Vandercook 3. Her husband, Kirk, was in my letterpress class this semester to learn how to use a Clamshell and set type. I was sure to fib and tell her he wasn’t in class earlier that day.

Here are the top 3 photos I like from our first assignments. We had to do landscape, portrait and experiment with the Bulb setting and light.

I’m learning a lot so far. I feel like I am gaining more confidence with the Holga. Two more assignments left! More photos to come…