Kat Eye Studio

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You’re Invited

To an exhibition of my Market/Wheels series of photographs at The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon

The Arts Center Corrine Woodman Galleries
700 SW Madison Avenue
Corvallis, Oregon
Through May 3, 2012
Gallery Hours are 12-5pm Tuesday-Saturday

It was exciting to visit my exhibition yesterday! Ten prints from my Market/Wheels series are on display in a joint exhibition with another local photographer, Phil Coleman.

The Main Gallery of The Arts Center is showing “Extreme Clay” with works by Katie Swenson and Brad Mildrexler. Beautiful colors and textures! I hope you will stop by if you are in the area.

Brad Mildrexler

Katie Swenson

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Hello… Spring?

We woke up to snow yesterday. Where we live in Oregon, snow is unusual. A bare trace of snow will cancel the schools. Snow in March? Unheard of.

But I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood, capturing the mix of the seasons. I hope the spring flowers survive!

I found this guy, waiting at the bus stop. I wonder if his bus made it on time?

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How do you spell relief?

Today I’m spelling it VW! After being a single-car family for the last nine months back in the US, for three years total if you include Italy, yesterday we bought a second vehicle, a used VW Passat. Today I’m feeling is a vast sense of relief.

It’s been harder than I expected to have one car in the US. It seemed so easy in Italy, but our lives were different there. It would be easier here if all I did was go to work and come home on a regular schedule. Or all my husband did was go to work and come home on a regular schedule. Or one of us was a completely stay at home parent. Or if no one in the family had any outside activities. Or if we did everything together. Or if all of our activities were accessible within walking distance. Or we lived in a big city with more frequent and extensive public transportation. Or we lived in a place where it was sunny all the time, where we could bike or scooter without getting wet. Or if we had all the time in the world to be flexible around transportation.

None of those things are true for us.

So lately it came down to either organizing and making tradeoffs based on transportation, or buying a second vehicle. Looking at everything, the answer was clear. It was time to get a car.

I worked so hard to make it work with one vehicle this long, I thought I would be disappointed. But I’m not disappointed in the slightest, only relieved. I’m surprised at how much relief I feel. I didn’t realize how much stress must have been building up inside me around the transportation situation. I’m happy we went this long, because I now know the tradeoffs I am and am not willing to make. I am confident that buying a second vehicle was the right decision for us, whereas nine months ago I was not convinced.

For those of you who live in the US and manage a family with one vehicle, I truly salute you! And you’ll find me happily waving to you with a smile on my face, from the ranks of the two-vehicle families again.

Cultural Reference Note: The question “How do you spell relief?” is from a 1970’s TV commercial for an antacid in the US. The answer was R-O-L-A-I-D-S. I wonder if equating this phrase with “relief” means I watched too much TV as a child…

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Subtle Reminders

The sun and moon come together in this tiny little bit of graffiti. The curve subtly breaks up the the lines of the bricks, the door, the strong shadow. If you aren’t looking closely, you will miss it.

I’m not sure why I like this simple image so much. It is an image that calls for the balance of shapes, as we’re studying now for Exploring with a Camera, so that is one element. But it’s more than that… There is something in the quiet whisper of the graffiti, something usually meant to be loud and bold. It’s as if it was put there especially for the observant. A test of sorts. And if you notice, if you pass the test, you are rewarded with thoughts of the cycle of the sun and moon. The never-ending nature of time.

All from a tiny bit of graffiti on a brick wall. Perhaps I’m reading into things this morning… it is an hour earlier than usual, after all. Here we are, we humans, trying to shift the cycle of the sun and the moon by changing our clocks. It must seem laughable to the universe.

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Making a Mark

What am I trying to say as an artist? Where is it that I want to go? Those questions are swirling around in my head after taking a one-day class called Preparing and Presenting your Photographic Portfolio from a wonderful instructor, Chris Eagon, at the Oregon College of Art and Craft yesterday.

The question “where do I want to go” is an important one for us as artists. Having goals and direction are what keep us moving forward, learning and growing. It’s through the continued journey that we figure out how to make our unique mark in the world.

I’ve known since living in Italy that the next step for me, upon moving back to the US, would be to bring my photographs into the real world. I needed the foundation I gained while in Italy: Confidence in the creation of my images, sharing them with others online, and identification of my unique vision. I’m building from there now, learning how to print and exhibit my work. Even harder, learning how to talk about my work and myself as an artist, with people face-to-face. I did not expect it to be such a challenge, with all of that confidence and knowledge I had gained. But it’s a new realm, and the challenges are different. The fears are different. It’s the next step I need to take in my creative journey, regardless of the resistance that comes along.

I am starting to understand that there is the journey that is “Kat the blogger and teacher” and the journey that is “Kat the artist.” The are separate yet inextricable. If I did not continue on my own artistic journey, separate from blogging and teaching, I would have nothing to share here. I have to admit, the journey of the artist feels a bit more scary and lonely. It’s the one I have to do on my own, in order to be true to myself.

So I’m letting my thoughts swirl around the questions: What am I trying to say as an artist? Where is it that I want to go? Only by answering these for myself will I figure out how to make my mark as an artist. I thought I knew the answers, but they have changed. It’s time to answer them again.

How about you, do you know the answers to these questions for yourself? Do you know where you are headed next?