Kat Eye Studio

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Which wolf do you feed?

What leads to creativity? It’s a question many of us struggle with, especially in the dark times for our art. The times when nothing seems to come easily. When inspiration seems to have deserted us. In those times, there are things we can do to keep us going. We can read thought-provoking books, visit galleries with good art, learn something new, or talk to people about deep and meaningful things. Those are a few steps we can take.

And one other step? We can step away from things that we know bring us down, overwhelm us with stress and worry.

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Earlier this year, I did that. I stepped away from something that was increasing my stress and anxiety, was fueling worry and was generating internal anger on a regular basis.

I stopped listening to the news.

It wasn’t just the election cycle, although that was a big part of it. It started with the Orlando shootings, and the obsessive coverage it got. And that turned into responses and sound bites from every direction. And it all felt so self-serving and sensationalist. The news outlets that covered it. The politicians who reacted to it. The conjecture and the analysis only served to fuel the hate. So I turned it off.

Instead, I’ve been listening to podcasts. I’ve found interesting, intelligent podcasts which stretch my mind, teach me new things, give a deeper story than a sound bite. After a few weeks of listening to podcasts I realized how much better I felt about the world. How much deeper I was thinking about it. How my thoughts were fueling more interesting conversations with those I interact with. How much happier I am, in my day-to-day life.

I still get the news, through the grapevine of coworkers, family, friends. If something happens I want to learn more about, I can go find a deeper analysis of it. Often in a podcast, on my terms.

And guess what? My creativity has responded, too. Without the extra stress and worry of how sad the world is these days and what might happen next, I am in a more positive place. My art doesn’t come when I’m working out my anxieties. My art comes when I take a deep breath and find quiet. Peace.

This week, I read a Cherokee legend in Arianna Huffington’s book, Thrive:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy, “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

This story resonated with me deeply. There is so much wisdom in these few words. If we dwell in the anger and hostility, we feed that wolf. If we step away from those negative sources, and fill the void with positive influences, we are feeding a different wolf.

Which wolf do you feed?

I thought I would share a list of my favorite podcasts with you, in case you would like to try something new. If you have other good podcasts you recommend, please leave a comment. I’m always interested in learning about more!

This American Life
Invisibilia
On Being
TED Radio Hour
Freakonomics

And, if you listen to podcasts, you need a good podcast app! My favorite podcast app is Pocket Casts, available for both iOS and Android. With this app, when you subscribe to a podcast, you can go into the settings to have it automatically download and add to the “Up Next” list, for continual podcast goodness without a lot of effort.

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Back to the Forest

Summer in Oregon is awesome. After what is often a long, gray winter, the feel of the sun on my face and the ground under my bare feet is delicious. I love being warm enough to lose the sweaters and socks for a while. I love the long days of sunshine, the morning hikes with my dog, open windows at night. All of it. 

But there is a downside to Summer. It also continues to be a challenge for me creatively. I’m all over the place. My bare trees are gone, I don’t have a focus. I don’t have anything that brings my work together. I experiment, and this year, nothing is sticking. So I’m back to the forest for a while, back to the trees. 


There are multiple reasons I like trees as a subject so much, but this summer I’ve realized a really important one — these images fit my creative process.

When I made the decision to stop the abstract project, I thought I would continue with the figurative work. But it hasn’t happened, even though I have tons of conceptual ideas in my head and on paper. Why??

The challenge, I’ve found, is the advance planning these types of images take. If I have a concept, I can’t just sit down and create whenever it comes to me. I have to go around collecting the imagery I want to use in that concept. That takes time and energy. It was easier to do on vacation, where I had lots of free time and people around to model. I typically don’t have this kind of random imagery that works for the figurative work on my camera roll. So what I’ve been finding is that when I have time to sit down and create, typically early mornings, I can’t create that work unless I’ve planned ahead.

It turns out, I don’t like planning ahead in my art. I like to capture images as I move through my day, and then play with them later. Images of things that catch my eye, where I can stop and play with composition for a few moments as I capture a photo. They aren’t images of things so much as images of light and lines. It’s the interesting lines I like to photograph. They are the inspiration. Ten minutes of photo play can sometimes fuel my mornings for a week, maybe more.

Because my art is not just about creating a finished piece of a concept. It’s also about meditation. It’s my own personal escape into a quiet space that takes my mind away from everything else going on in my life. Playing with the image, a single image, and seeing what I can do with it brings its own unique joy. 

The process of creating is more important than the finished piece.

I recently listened to a great podcast by Malcom Gladwell (Revision History Episode 7, Hallelujah) where he talks about different kinds of creators. There are those who have a concept and do things all at once, and then there are those who don’t have a concept in mind but eventually reach completion through experiment and revision. I’m the latter. It takes longer, but it’s the way that works for me.

So the trees are back. Not just because they are easier, because I certainly don’t believe art should always be easy, but because creating this way makes me happy. I need these morning moments of quiet and clarity in my life right now more than I need to create boundary-pushing art. So this is what I will do, what I will create.

What works for you? Are you a conceptual creator or an experimental creator? What matters more to you, the completed piece or the process? Think about it, and allow yourself to be true to the right process for you.

PS – Don’t miss out on the chance for me to create you a new profile photo! Read more here.

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Lessons from #30edits

What happens when you edit the same photograph thirty times? You get a collection of images that are different, yet relate to each other through common elements. You get a surprising burst of creativity. And you might just get some of the best work you have created in a while.

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I know editing the same photograph thirty times sounds like something difficult to do. The words “boredom” or “stuck” quickly come to mind. But I found the exact opposite to be the case. This #30edits challenge was one of the best things I’ve done for my creativity in a while. Things seemed to evolve easily. And while there were moments of difficulty — places I had to push myself to get started in a new direction, or continue through to something worthwhile — overall it was simpler than I thought.

Most of the time, to get things going in a new direction, I just needed to try a new app or a new feature within an app. The possibilities really are limitless with the variety of iPhone apps available! Near the end, I spent more time editing within iColorama, an app with fantastic capability but not the easiest to use. The added push of this challenge helped me come a long way up the learning curve for this app, as well as help me get deeper into features of apps I use all the time.

One of the most surprising things I noticed as I progressed through more and more edits was how my point of view on that starting photograph changed. I shifted from thinking of it as “the image” to thinking of it as “the elements.” I looked at how I could use the elements of the image in different ways. How could I repeat, layer, invert, rotate or otherwise change the elements? I broke things apart and put them back together as something new. I wasn’t tied to keeping the same connection to the starting photographic elements and composition I have historically maintained in my editing process. Another invisible barrier to creativity, broken down.

The bottom line? I could have easily kept going beyond thirty edits.

Here are all of the images in the series, printed and hanging on my studio wall. I had to purchase two more of my favorite Photo Ropes to see them all together, but it was worth it! I will be exhibiting these in February, so I want to live with them for a while to figure out my favorites.

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Several other artists on Instagram joined me in the challenge. You can see all of the group’s work tagged with #30edits here. Some participants are still in progress, and some are finished. I asked a few of the participants who were furthest along to share their #30edits thoughts and experiences with us, along with their original image and favorite edit, so you can learn from them too.

Beth @shutterhuff

 

Original

Original

At first I thought one image for a whole 30 days? No way. I had done something similar with the #100dayproject last year although I wasn’t limited to only one image. But the more I thought about it, I figured that if I would pick an image where I could set a stage to do some compositing, then maybe it could work.

The image I picked worked well for compositing. Previously I had used mostly the DianaPhotoApp to blend my images together. I used this project to explore some new apps and to dig deeper into ones that I already used. My favorites being, iColorama, Juxtaposer, and two I hadn’t used much before, Union and Silhouette.

I still have a few more to make it to 30. It has definitely been harder than I thought it would be. I was glad to hear that we didn’t have to do one a day for 30 days, that would have made it so much more difficult, I don’t think I would have kept at it.

My favorite part of the project? Even if I got to the point where I thought I couldn’t do anything new with my image, I just kept working with it and something always appeared!

Fairy Tales 11/30

Fairy Tales 11/30

Janet @jreid1031

 

Original

Original

I love a challenge and this one did just what I hoped it would. It made me stretch and learn new things. It challenged me to take a simple image and see if I could make it look completely different each time I edited it. The first 15 or so weren’t too difficult because I love to edit on my iPad and I used a lot of the editing tools I’m familiar with . But after that I had to start really digging and looking for things I had never tried before. That for me was the real value of this challenge. Could I make it part of a portrait? Could I make it a fantasy? A self portrait? What was the least amount of editing I could do? What was the most?

So thanks very much, Kat, for pushing me along my artistic journey. It was really fun! I loved seeing what everyone else did and learned so much from them as well.

Rose 30/30

Rose 30/30

Shelley @sbenja823

 

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Original

I was intrigued by your 30 edits when I first read about it, but could not imagine doing 30 edits on any one photo. Then I took a photo that I knew immediately I could edit in more than one way. The first 10 edits flew by. Then I started pushing the envelope a bit. I saw what others were doing and got some inspiration from them. The last 10 though were the hardest. What could I do now that was different than before. I came up with a theme of 4 seasons and by then only had 4 more to go. One of my last edits is my favorite. Everything worked in that image and it is by far the strongest of the bunch. I would not have created this if I had not pushed through this project. And by the way, I did and posted 31 edits. There were probably another 4 or 5 more that never made the cut. This really was an amazing project in creativity.

I can see doing variations of this challenge for myself to continue this type of creative exploration.

29 of 30

29 of 30

Thank you Beth, Janet and Shelley for joining me in the challenge and for sharing your thoughts with us here! Seeing your work progress throughout the challenge really inspired me, and I thank you for that as well as the companionship of having others working through the same challenge together. It was so much fun, I will probably do it again sometime in the future and I hope you will join me again.

Are you in need of a little creative boost? Are you up for a challenge? Don’t wait for me, you can start on your own thirty edits anytime. Just use #30edits on Instagram. I’ll see you there!

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Take the Opportunity

Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.
– William Arthur Ward

As a photographer, you quickly learn the light waits for no one. You decide to sleep in a few minutes, and the light is gone. You decide to go out tomorrow instead, and you find the weather has changed and yesterday’s gorgeous sun is now a bank of grey clouds. You missed your opportunity. There is no going back.

As artists, it’s the same, only the opportunities are not as clearly identifiable as a sunrise. They come as a chance meeting, a passing suggestion. You don’t always recognize them, let alone jump on them, when they come along. Some you might not realize we’re opportunities until years later.

Or, even if you recognize the opportunity, it might not be convenient to act on it at the moment, so you let it pass by. Thinking, I’ll catch it next time. Only to discover later that there is no “next time.” There was only that one time, and you chose to let the opportunity pass.

You might kick yourself later, but it’s the opportunities you’ve missed in he past which help you take advantage of the opportunities of the future. The lessons you learn in missing or taking opportunities stick with you, and you try not to make them as often.

The Salem Art Fair & Festival opens today, so I’m thinking a lot about the opportunities I had last year, the newspaper article, the radio interview, and being offered a book deal out of all of that publicity. Wow. Compare that to this year, where I’m just lucky to be in the fair. I was originally rejected in March but got a call in June asking if I wanted to be in this year. I had to rearrange my vacation to be there this year, but I’ll be there.

Because, you see, I’ve learned my lesson. I see too many missed opportunities and missed sunrises in my rear view mirror. I’m determined that there will be less of them in the future. A little inconvenience is worth it to take advantage of an opportunity. I will likely still miss some, for one reason or another, but I hope that my story is more like, “This amazing opportunity came a long and I dropped everything to take it,” than, “I can’t believe I didn’t do that while I could.”

Take the opportunity when it is presented. Don’t delay.

“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.”

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The Mess in the Middle

Last weekend, I taught “Advanced Blending Techniques,” the last in my workshop series on mobile photography, for the first time. The purpose of the course was to dive deep into blending modes, and how they can be used to create cool art from photographs, like this:

 
But I think what I might have really taught, to both my class and to myself, is how important the mess in the middle of the creative process is.  

One of my examples was a complete disaster. It stemmed from an idea I’ve used before with great success on a few pieces, combining a blurred background with another image using an Exclusion or Difference mode, but the outcome using recent Images was terrible:

 
What was I going to do with that? Nothing! So I laughed about it, moved on and told everyone it’s ok to make messes. That’s part of the process of creating. And while you may spend a lot of time getting seemingly no where toward a finished piece with your experimentation, you are learning things you will use later. This disastrous outcome influences what I do, or don’t do, when I sit down to work on the next photo.

The top image, Emerald Forest, is the eventual outcome of the mess I made in class. I didn’t use the mess in the final image, but it frustrated me enough that I experimented with other similar blends and found something I liked. The mess in the middle turned out to be a valuable step in the creative process.

As an instructor, I often have canned examples so I can show how things work. But if someone sees it work perfectly every time when I do it, and the theirs don’t, will they give up in frustration? Maybe. Some will, some won’t.

Maybe my job as an instructor is really to help people see not only what they can achieve with the techniques, but how important it is to make the mess in the middle. To try, and fail, and try again. To truly learn something, you’ve got to do it wrong a few times so you internalize what it takes to make it right. 

That’s the creative process. That’s where we become the artist we were meant to be. It’s not all finished pieces and accolades, it’s a journey of hard work and messes that no one ever sees.

Are you making messes right now? If not, you are sitting in your comfort zone. You aren’t learning anything new. It’s time to push yourself and make a few messes. Let me know how it goes. 

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Something from Nothing

My studio is filled with prints right now as I start to get ready for art fair season. Seeing this abundance of imagery, I find myself in awe of the artistic process. Of how we can create something wholly new from seemingly nothing.

 

Think about how amazing this is…

I walk through my daily life. On occasion, I am aware enough of my surroundings to stop and notice something interesting. I pull out my camera, frame an image or two, and then move on.

Later, I edit the images, working with the raw material to alter mood and message. I print, finish, frame, and hang on the wall.

From almost nothing, a momentary observation, to something real and tangible on the wall of my home. Or, even better, someone else’s home. I take the makings of my ordinary life and transform it into something I can share. Something that other people can and do choose to have in their space.

  

How lucky am I, to be able to do this? How lucky are we all, that we have art to show us the extraordinary in the ordinary? I am amazed, humbled, and grateful to be part of the process. 

If you haven’t printed your work lately, or finished and framed a piece to hang on the wall, I encourage you to do so. Finish the process of creating something from nothing. Become a piece of the world that gets observed as part of daily life, fueling even more creation of art.

You won’t regret it.

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