Below The Sun

I love that it’s been raining so much recently. Along with the rain seemed to come a flood of inspiration and I have been extremely productive. It’s nice to be creating things. If I am not making something I tend to feel pent up and unbalanced.

The summer, while hot, has been a good one so far. Many days sleeping in, sitting in the sun, staying out late. Many more days making art and day dreaming.

New Orleans at is probably the best place in the world to go for a twilight bike ride and clear your head. This is definitely where most of my ideas come from.

It is said that Daydreaming is actually your most creative state of mind. When daydreaming we are using the most complex regions of our brain that are otherwise left out of our more focused thoughts. We have the ability to see potential events and hypothetical situations, play them out, and practice for them. The mind is uncensored and free to explore a variety of options, and we are able to associate random connections that can sometimes lead to innovative and creative solutions.

More artists daydream than the less creative types, and this is attributed to the fact that artists seem to have thin interpersonal boundaries- a trait that is shared between both artists and psychotics.

Those with thin boundaries also tend to form more intimate relationships with people, appear unorganized and spontaneous, and have difficulties distinguishing dreams from memories. They are prone to acknowledge dualities in themselves such as viewing themselves as both a child and an adult or recognizing behavior that is both feminine and masculine. They may also experience a lot of deja vu and feelings of clairvoyance or premonition.

Being someone with fairly thin interpersonal boundaries who is also prone to day dreaming and creativity, its somewhat difficult to balance real life sometimes with this compulsion to create things, interact with people on a meaningful level, and imagine things to bring to life.

I’m not any good at scheduling, and scheduling seems counterintuitive to the creative lifestyle, but I have found that I can trick myself into scheduling.

If I plan my day as follows - wake up, eat breakfast, run errands/do chores (and other such brainless activity), as the sun sets go for my twilight bike ride, shower, eat dinner, then I can get on to my more creative stuff after I’ve had the time to brainstorm and then reflect on my brainstorming.
I am very much a night person, so I wake up late and go to bed in the early morning hours. Most of my creative work is done between the hours of 8pm and 2am. By this time I am completely awake and alert, I’m ready to start working and I’ve got my ideas in line and my priorities set. Obviously this kind of system does not work for everyone but it works for me.

1) Spend the first few hours of the day getting up and out, running errands, doing chores, taking care of all of the more menial tasks at hand.
2) Take an hour or so to unwind and detach and let your brain run free for a little while.
3) Put together some of the thoughts that may have arose during that time
4) Reflect and prioritize the thoughts into tasks and projects
5) Now turn off the tv, put on some music and work :)

Oh, by the way… I finally opened an etsy store. Some of my crafty things like jewelry and accessories can be found there. The URL is: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6497561

Summer is here in New Orleans and I am definitely feeling it. The daily bike ride has become more of a chore carefully placed between the setting of the sun and the awakening of the roaches and mosquitoes. It’s especially difficult to escape both simultaneously.
In May, my sister and I spent a couple of weeks overseas. We started (on a 10 hour layover) jetlagged in Amsterdam after which we promptly moved on to the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, followed with a spa day in Bath, England, a hop over to Paris and then finally to London where we spent our remaining 4 days.

Since then I have been focusing most of my time on trying to pull together all of the photos I took, arrange an updated version of a portfolio, and getting distracted by my multitude of hobbies and creative endeavors; the newest of which is building jewelry and accessories.
I guess I could also mention that I spent a week or two in April as a vampire in a movie that was being filmed here in New Orleans as well.
So far the end of 2008/first half of 2009 has been incredibly kind to me.

On a bad note, I was involved in a hit and run. My car is totaled. I was not terribly injured luckily, and that is what matters. I was on my way to the movie set on May 5th when some asshole ran a stop sign not even 2 blocks away from my apartment and t-boned my car. The frame is bent and the door wont close, so the battery died too. It’s sitting lifeless in my driveway. The NOPD, however, actually came through. I am impressed with how quickly they found the guy that hit me. I called 911 immediately after the accident and described the car, they said they would send police to the scene. 20 minutes later I got a call from a police man asking me to describe the car.

“Yep, we got him!” he said, describing how the driver of the car was running other stop signs and red lights trying to get home quickly.

Unfortunately, this was not enough.. the insurance company of the car owner is claiming that the car was stolen, even though the driver of the car was the nephew of the car’s owner. I had just recently taken my insurance down to Liability Only, no longer carrying comprehensive/collision, so there is still a chance that my car may not get fixed.

I got an attorney, and luckily I am self employed. I imagine I’d be pretty angry if I had to go somewhere to get to work every day while waiting out a lawsuit.

Even that is just a minor inconvenience. Over all I am lucky to be in a situation where I don’t rely on my car for my income, and I am lucky that I was able to still leave for europe the day after the accident. A lot of other people might not have been as well off as I was in a similar situation, so I keep that in mind. Instead of being frustrated at the inconvenience I prefer to consider myself lucky that it is ONLY an inconvenience.
I am probably going to start posting pictures of all of the amazing shows I’ve been to in the last couple months as well as bits and pieces of the jewelry I’ve been making.

In the mean time- here is a band called A Storm of Light whose members come from bands like Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Unsane, Tombs, etc.
I had the pleasure of catching them in Atlanta in February and then again in New Orleans in May. If heavy isn’t your thing, don’t bother with this one.

If light and fluffy is more your thing, check out the ever soulful and dreamy melodies of Bon Iver.
Bon-Iver_-_Blood-Bank

It looks like there is a huge storm heading straight for New Orleans, and all of the south for that matter. Luckily, this is something we are used to. There is something very peaceful about going to sleep in the rain, even if the thunder is a bit loud outside, its nice cozy-ing up under the covers and drifting off.

A couple of weeks ago was SXSW Interactive. This year the New Orleans people all banded together under the guise of NET2NO, chartered a bus, and rented two houses to all stay in. I couldn’t leave the day the bus left but instead had to fly into Austin the next day. Over all it was a pretty good experience, however, I don’t think the group thing was conducive to the kind of freedom I prefer while out of town for conferences. The houses were no where near the event and the bus came very early to pick people up to drop them off at the convention center about an hour or two before the conference even started.  It is very difficult to be spontaneous with a bus full of people, and there were a lot of things going on that I wanted to do. Most of the time I ended up taking a cab, but I think I should have just gotten the hotel room downtown and walked every where.

Next time it will still be great to have all of the other NOLA people there, but I will probably not be staying in a house in the suburbs or waiting for/riding on a bus to and from the conference. I will have a hotel room  where I can change clothes and drop off my laptop after the conference and from where I am able to walk to the parties. Last year I attended an average of 3 parties a night. This year I only went to 3 or 4 total. Due to the group budget concerns, we also had to cut the conference a day short, missing out on a full day of panels.

It was nice, I must say, on the way back to not have to drive or run around airports or anything like that. I got to get to know some of the people in our NOLA group and fall asleep for a little while, watch a movie, etc. The ride was definitely nice on the way home.

It also feels good to be home. I went for what felt like a week without sleeping properly. Of course when I got back to New Orleans I did run straight back up to Baton Rouge to catch a rock n roll show. When it comes to music I don’t ever shut down.

I came back from SXSWi inspired to get productive. There always seems to be this wave of inspiration that comes from being surrounded by so many creative people who are happy with what they are doing in life. The environment there is truly amazing. Every time you turn around you enter into a conversation with someone who is intelligent, creative and ambitious. It is very much an atmosphere of self-sufficiency and a culture of workplace happiness.

A big buzzword this year was Serendipity, and almost every speaker was preaching the importance of finding happiness in the work place; be it from the standpoint of the managers hiring employees whose personalities fit with the culture of the company or from the standpoint of employees demanding companies to give them a comfortable and creative work environment.

I came home and immediately set up my home office, got in touch with some of my slower moving clients, lined up some interviews for my book and started looking into opportunities to expand my current skill set. I found someone who is going to teach me some dark room techniques for developing more interesting photographs naturally, and signed up for a 3 week block printing program. I’ve also started working on a re-design/res-structure/re-build to one of my current websites that I hope will soon become wildly popular amongst you web folk.  :)

Some may know that I am going to England in May. I will be going to the All Tomorrow’s Parties (vs the fans) Festival. I also hope to line up some interviews over there for my book. If anyone knows anyone between Mineshead and London that would speak with me, I would greatly appreciate the referral.

The thunder and lightening has already begun, so I am going to make a cup of tea and lay down to wait for the wind and rain to knock out the lights.

This is a strange holiday season. I started early this year in preparing my gifts, but it seems like I have more gifts to give for some reason. I am still late in getting them all out, and Christmas is this coming week. Oh well, late as usual.

Down here in New Orleans, it has gotten up to 80 degrees this winter. It has also snowed. Everyone locally has turned into a prophet of doom, insisting that this is a sign of the apocalypse so to speak, the impending next big hurricane that will once again wipe us off the face of the earth.

I, unfortunately, have also inadvertently fallen prey to this manner of thinking. Logically it doesn’t make any more sense than anything else, it just so happens that the last time it snowed, Katrina was to follow on the next hurricane season.

That winter was particularly cold, if I’m not mistaken. This one was uncharacteristically warm, even for New Orleans. It’s only human to get nervous though. We are all still a little traumatized.

As far as work goes, I think I might be close to capacity for the time being. That is, through the next month anyway. It’s a good feeling. I’ve got an artist website to finish building, one contract signed to begin designing, and another contract signing on Monday to begin designing next week. It will be difficult to juggle, but its nice to be busy.

It’s crazy, I have been busy ever since I stopped working full time. I am amazed at how life is working out.

I come from a long line of artists and entrepreneurs, so I always knew from childhood that I would be able to do my art and be my own boss. I just never knew how it would all fall into place. I came to a certain point in life where I decided I would sit back and float, explore my talents and take only the best opportunities offered to me. I floated this far, and finally I am exactly where I always wanted to be. I don’t even have to be rich, as long as I can continue to be creative in a comfortable atmosphere and have the time to continue learning new things, I will be happy.

I always worried that not having a college education would set me back, but so far I’ve come out ahead. I’m probably one of a lucky few that this works out for, but I am young, I have no debt, and I am able to do something I love for a living. I have had the time to get years of hands-on experience, and the major benefit of creativity is that it drives you. Creativity drives you to learn, to explore and to express, and that is the single most important thing I have in my life.

I just got an approval on a proposal for a website. This is always the most exciting part of the job to me. This is the time where creativity is absolutely necessary and rewarded. I love the fact that I can be creative and build another company’s business and still support myself. I really am grateful for all of the turns in the road that made this possible :)

Also, this thursday (December 18th) I will be participating in PhotoNOMA, a portfolio walk at New Orleans Museum of Art. 100 photographers will set up on tables and the public can walk through, chat with artists, look at photos, buy things, network, etc. I think it will be a lot of fun. While I am moderately connected in the New Orleans art scene, I don’t know too many people involved in the local photographic scene. I look forward to being able to meet new people and put myself out there! I just hope the prints I make will work out okay. Kinkos already botched them once, hopefully Lakeside camera will work out better.

The event was actually scheduled for last Thursday, so I had prints made last minute at kinkos, and then had some business cards overnighted to me, and then the event was cancelled due to the snow. The one day it snows in New Orleans. Hah!  So at least now I have the business cards and I will have better prints and I will have time to put matts on them. Hopefully everything comes out alright.

In the mean time I have one website to finish building and one to start designing, so it looks like this is going to be a moderately busy holiday season for me. In good time, cause I still have some presents to buy :)

How funny. No sooner do I post about the south for winter, than do we get our first snow in 4 years. First snow in probably 20 years that is actually anything to speak of/sticking to anything.

This global warming stuff is weird. I was wearing a tank top and jeans literally two days ago.

Snowy rooftops, Uptown New Orleans.

back yard neighbor

Back yard neighbor-beyond

The holidays are upon us, which unfortunately means a lot of rain and cold weather.

Luckily for me, I live in the south. Every couple of days it warms up enough for me to wear a tank top and jeans, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In order to maintain the summer time level of happiness through the indoor season, I find it’s best to keep busy and social.

Yesterday we had some friends over for a craft party, we made weird christmas cards and drank wine (well, the guests did, I don’t drink) and had a good time. Then followed it up with a rock show at a dive bar down town. It’s nice to surround yourself with people that are happy to see each other.

The move from full-time to freelance is working out well so far. I have a lot of time to see my friends, I have time to work on my photography, I have been continuing my ceramics classes, and I still find the time to sneak some design work in here and there :)

My father came in town from Milwaukee to visit early in November. We don’t see him very much due to the geographical differences but it was nice. My dad and I spent the day riding bicycles, eating lunch, and hanging out at the park. Later on, my sister and I brought dad to the Red Elvises show at the Dragons Den. My sister and I are twins, albeit very different twins. We are pretty much the exact opposite of each other in a lot of ways and very similar in others. She is a massage therapist and also teaches massage therapy.

Later on in the month I went with my mother to Kansas City to visit her side of the family. I have a couple of uncles and cousins who are musicians, so we all got together and played for a little while.

It’s nice having a family full of artists. It’s hard to explain really, but there is a strange feeling of continuity in the bloodlines. Both my mom and my dad’s side of the family are all artists and all work with their hands. As a result I have to feel absolutely everything to every extreme. I have to constantly be stimulated or else I feel depressed. Luckily I am very easily inspired and amused.

Being around so many creative people on a regular basis kind of makes keeping up on my own creativity a little bit daunting. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, because it makes you want to create something beautiful and magical but at the same time it makes you start to question your own talent and skill. I definitely stay on my toes, but sometimes I tend to spread myself a bit thin.

I have found a couple of ways though to buckle down and focus.

1) Sketch it out. Any idea, be it writing, a design, a painting, a photo, a song, map it out somehow. Even the most basic of outlines will keep your project somewhat on track.

2) Eliminate distractions. If you must have the television on, mute it. If you must check your email, your myspace, facebook, etc set up a schedule, only check it once every 2 hours or so.

3) Manage your time. If at all possible, task yourself with phases of your creative process, and don’t be overly ambitious. Go through all of the tasks in order, and never stop mid-task. Finish the task at hand before coming to a stopping point so that it’s easier to pick up when you come back.

4) Finish it! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten to the middle of a project and decided that it would be a better idea to stop and forget about it. Terrible idea. Even if you dont feel like it, finish the project you already started. It will give you a sense of pride that you followed it through, and best case scenario, it could come out even better than you imagined.

It’s hard to prioritize a blog sometimes :)

I think I accidentally deleted a comment when I was deleting all of the spam, so to whomever it was that left it I would like to apologize.

I recently left the uncomfortable position I was holding with the company that I worked for. The situation there had been growing increasingly uncomfortable over the last couple of months, so this is the best thing for me.

I am happy now, doing a lot of freelance gigs and I finally have time to focus on some art. I have been featured in a fashion spread in Cue Magazine, i have been going to ceramics classes, i have been taking/manipulating a lot of photos, I have been featured in a couple of movies being filmed locally, and i have been playing music. Most importantly, I have been meeting new friends and reconnecting with the old ones. It is a shame to have to give up so much out of life for the sake of a regular paycheck.

As a matter of fact, I will be playing this Saturday at Voodoo Music Festival, filling in on bass for a friend of mine’s music project called “Deep in the Ninth”! I am especially excited about this.

The transition from full time to freelance has definitely been a strange one, but ultimately a hundred times more fulfilling than toiling away for a bunch of unappreciative jackasses. Pardon my contempt :)

I love being able to make all of the creative decisions in my work, and I love how rewarding it is to present the work to clients who appreciate my style.

Now I am feeling inspired, creative, laid back and happy… I may even have the time to start writing again, so look out for more from me very soon.

Most of you know that with the growing cost of fuel/energy it is cheaper to buy local in-season produce. It also leaves you with a fresher and better tasting product.

What a lot of people aren’t too sure on, however, is when particular produce is in season.

I’ve compiled a couple of lists from around the internet to put here as a rough guide for anyone trying to keep track of when they should purchase specific fruits and vegetabes.
You can write it down or print it out, or just bookmark it. :)

This one is from WiseBread.com:

Listed by season from Foodfit.com

Fall - Vegetables
Avocados, Beans, Beets, Bok Choy, Broccoli, Broccoli Rabe, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery Root (Celeriac), Chestnuts, Collards, Garlic, Jerusalem Artichokes, Kale, Leeks, Lettuce, Parsnips, Pumpkin, Rutabaga, Salsify, Snow Peas, Spinach, Squash (Winter), Sweet Potatoes, Swiss Chard, Turnips, Watercress.

Fall - Fruits
Apples, Bananas, Clementines, Cranberries, Grapes, Grapefruit, Kiwi, Kumquat, Oranges, Pears, Persimmons, Pomegranates, Quinces, Satsuma, Mandarin Oranges, Tangerines.

Winter - Vegetables
Artichokes, Avocado, Bok Choy, Broccoli, Broccoli, Rabe, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery Root, Chestnuts, Jerusalem Artichokes, Kale, Lettuce, Parsnips, Radishes, Rhubarb, Rutabaga, Salsify, Snow Peas, Squash (Winter), Sweet Potatoes, Turnips (White), Watercress.

Winter - Fruit
Bananas, Blood Oranges, Clementines, Cranberries, Grapes (Red), Grapefruits, Kiwi, Kumquat, Oranges, Passion Fruit, Pears, Persimmons, Pomegranates, Pummelo, Rhubarb, Satsuma Oranges, Tangelo, Tangerine, Ugli Fruit.

Spring - Vegetables
Asparagus, Snap Beans, Carrots, Fennel, Garlic, Okra, Onions, Green Onions, English Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, Rhubarb, Shallot, Spinach, Swiss Chard.

Spring - Fruit
Apricots, Blueberries, Cantaloupe, Casaba Melon, Cherries, Currants, Figs, Nectarines, Papayas, Pineapples, Raspberries, Rhubarb, Strawberries.

Summer - Vegetables
Arugula, Avocados, Green Beans, Beans, Beets, Collards, Corn, Cucumber, Eggplant, Garlic, Kohlrabi, Mushrooms, Okra, Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Shallots, Summer Squash, Swiss chard, Tomatoes, Zucchini.

Summer - Fruit
Apricots, Asian Pears, Blackberries, Cantaloupe, Casaba Melon, Cherries, Crenshaw Melon, Currants, Figs, Gooseberries, Grapes, Guava, Honeydew Melon, Huckleberries, Lychee Nut, Mangoes, Nectarines, Papayas, Peaches, Plums Raspberries, Strawberries, Watermelon.

And finally, here is a small basic printable guide.

I read an article today titled “Playing Music Makes You Smart.” This should be obvious but for some reason I never fully put two and two together. I had always figured that people who play music are smart in their own field, much like people that do math are smart in math and people who do science are smart in science, but the smarts aren’t always cross platform.

As they watched movies, the volunteers also listened to Mandarin words that sounded like “mi” continuously at conversation level in the background. Mandarin is a tone language, where a single word can differ in meaning depending on its tone. For example, the Mandarin word “mi” means “to squint” when delivered in a level tone, “to bewilder” when spoken in a rising tone, and “rice” when given in a falling then rising tone.

The researchers recorded neural responses from the brains of volunteers during the experiments. Half the volunteers had at least six years of training in a musical instrument starting before the age of 12. The others had no more than three years of musical experience. All were native English speakers who had no knowledge of Mandarin.

“Even with their attention focused on the movie and though the sounds had no linguistic or musical meaning for them, we found our musically trained subjects were far better at tracking the three different tones than the non-musicians,” said neuroscientist Patrick Wong at Northwestern University.

Wong emphasized these results were seen “in more or less everyday people. You don’t have to be a top musician to find these kinds of effects.”

Surprisingly, the researchers found these changes occurred in the brainstem, the ancient part of the brain responsible for controlling automatic, critical body functions such as breathing and heartbeat.

There are also numerous studies that claim listening to music will strengthen your verbal and memory skills, dull pain and relax you during recovery and help you lose weight.

Just about any uncomfortable life situation can be made atleast slightly more tolerable by simply throwing on your favorite song and getting lost for a while.