It has been to long time since last I sat down to write. Simply to write, without a defined purpose, a release to what has been on my mind. I do not completely understand it, but there is a sense of a cleansing when I sit down to write out my thoughts. Someday I'll have the dream of becoming diarist and essayist. Today I write, release and cleanse my psyche.
There has been so much to write about, sometimes too much for me to formulate the words, ideas and thoughts into a non-random pattern. What’s new?
New direction and opportunity in the photo biz have opened their door to us. It is a strange thing every time “E” and I discuss moving the biz in a new direction it never feels right. We do not want to force a new business venture, that never works out for the client or us. We continue to build our portfolio, picking and choosing side-project that interest us, in turn the right client finds their way to our door.
Another new direction is that this autumn I am partnering with various Pittsburgh Carnegie Libraries to teach workshops. You can see all dates on my event page (here) or also at the link at top of the page. If you are reading this on an RSS feed and have not stopped over at the blog in a while go check it out (HERE). I added new pages: Events, Who I am, and a Say Hi page.
Current life is a blend, better yet a balancing act of family, photography, keeping hydrated, running the biz, all the while doing our best to stay on top of the “all-of-everything” which is “E” and I taking care of each other, she is better at it than I am…
During conversations with working artists I like to discuss lifestyle economics. I am interested in the how, what, why and why not of managing their professional lives.
For us we enjoy life, not professional or personal but a life of deliberate living. Our home working space is designed more like a coffeehouse or a den than an office space. The sofa and the sound system are just as important as the desk and the computer. The space is purposefully laid out to be a place of creativity, work, quiet reading and play with our daughter (not all at the same time).
Mobile has also been part of our latest workflow. With the purchase of two smart phones and the iPad, life on the go can now be go, go, go or stop and pause whenever we want (or need). I am late to the game on mobile tools but there has never been a wanting to be "that" connected. In the home or out of the house, downtime from the digital connectedness of today's world is needed, if not required, to be a creative, clear thinker.
p.s. the phone is not an iphone, it’s a droid...judge me, its OK. Worse than not having an iphone is loving the droid. Steve Jobs please return my phone calls, I love your products, let's be friends again…I am in your cult, koolaid for me, please.
The droid is good tool and having Google as the operating system makes the jump to mobile seamless. Forgive me Steve, I bought the iPad and love that more than the phone. Friends? Tell Al Gore I said hi…
Today I finished my first e-book on the iPad, I loved it…both the book (The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larrson) and reading it on the iPad. How quickly I am converted, a purist for the physical book I thought I would always be. Before starting to write this post I started reading a new book by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. The first chapter gives me the feeling that I have discovered a new favorite writer. Holding the book in my hands has me yearning for the comfort and back-light of the iPad (call me Steve, hugs).
More and more I find myself falling in love with the screen. I miss music on vinyl albums; I will forever write in my moleskin journal, six strings and a piece of wood will remain an endless mystery (my acoustic guitar) but the screen is evolving into a mistress.
Watching an oil painter move to the pixel screen for their palette of colors interests me. The still image has greater opportunity to be seen on the screen. I enjoy the openness that Creative Commons Licenses offers me on the screen, otherwise it would not be much of a marketable idea if it was not for art moving into the medium of distribution over the screen. The book, the novel, something that seemed so personal and private as sitting in a favorite chair curled up with a good book has gone the way of the screen. Will I miss the smell of a book, yes, will I miss the feel of holding a book in my hands, no.
With the change of medium comes the change of venue; I miss browsing in a record store. Even though I can listen to music before I buy it online (iTunes..a.k.a. Steve Jobs’s jukebox...wink, wink). The independent bookstore has become a dinosaur in my hometown, but every opportunity I get to browse a small bookstore, I take, even though I can read first chapters online.
In the end it is about keeping my feet rooted in the soil and my head in the clouds; never would I have though the clouds would have been in cyberspace.
