Home from Ontario (with Brownie Reflex Synchro Model Camera for more TtV fun)

Collage by Lani, with my own viewfinder frame!

Home again with my new/old camera, ready to create lots of fun things for my various round robins.Photo collage with a typical old Ontario farm house. I used one of my TtV shots of sky to create a frame.
Then I started having fun! Here's Paul and Tara's tulips. And here they are through the viewfinder and then without the viewfinder but with Katherine and their SuperCat.Here's Katherine with Tara's Blue Sock Doll whose name is Uncle something... er... I forget... was it Fred... Fud?
And here's a close up of not too much which I'll use as a photoshop layer.
I took my rig out for the evening walk with Rannie, Julie, Katherine, Lauren and Edward. Lots of fun!

One of the nicest activities was a trip to the Butterfly Greenhouse. I gave up the TtV and shot pictures straight. This is Katherine with Grandpa Edward. Cute, eh?

And finally playing with my TtV frames and some kids and wings. The kids (at the top of this post and here) are from the best digital image website, DigitalCollageSheets.com, which is great for old photos and collage material!!! Just pay and download. How simple.
So that was my fun experience in Ontario. What is next?

The Artist's Healing Journey: 12 weeks of resilience, happiness, and art journaling

Beginning this summer, I'll be doing an online course, The Artist's Healing Journey: 12 weeks of resilience, happiness, and art journaling.

I'll be using my Heroine's Journey eWorkbook which follows Joseph Campbell's heroic journey model. Participants who have worked with the Artist's Happiness Challenges can now continue their exploration of renewal and healing using art directives and the intimacy and support of a small group of artists. This eCourse will help artists create their own meaningful and restorative metaphoric journey with relaxing, restorative exercises in art and narrative as they work in their visual journals. Take the leap into joy; find and strengthen your inner hero or heroine. Join me this summer.

This eCourse features:

*The possibilities of building positive emotion and resilience through the creation of an illustrated healing journey narrative within your art journaling practice.
*A yahoo group where information and images can be stored and shared.
*Current information and research from positive psychologists.
*Weekly email lessons which will be posted on a private blogspot.
*Lots of illustrations, thought-provoking questions, support and more.

Email me for more information.

The Kerouac Art Challenge

Jack Karouac rescued from the gap and altered with layers from Nesster.

Here's the challenge. Read some of Kerouac's ideas about writing and try creating a piece based on his words. I'm going to print them out and use them in my art journal. I wonder why we never studied this in the English department at DePauw University? Check out #11, isn't that beautiful?

BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
Jack Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

ESSENTIALS OF SPONTANEOUS PROSE
Jack Kerouac

SET-UP The object is set before the mind, either in reality. as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

PROCEDURE Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

METHOD No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas-but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)--"measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech"--"divisions of the sounds we hear"-"time and how to note it down." (William Carlos Williams)

SCOPING Not "selectivity' Iof expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)-Blow as deep as you want-write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

LAG IN PROCEDURE No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

TIMING Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time-Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue-no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

CENTER OF INTEREST Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion-Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to "improve" or defray impressions, as, the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind-tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!-now!-your way is your only way-"good"-or "bad"-always honest ("ludi- crous"), spontaneous, "confessionals' interesting, because not "crafted." Craft is craft.

STRUCTURE OF WORK Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, "different" themes give illusion of "new" life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed "beginning" becomes sharp-necessitating "ending" and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle-Night is The End.

MENTAL STATE If possible write "without consciousness" in semi-trance (as Yeats' later "trance writing") allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so "modern" language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich's "beclouding of consciousness." Come from within, out-to relaxed and said.

Is it too late to join the beat generation?

Happy Mother's Day

Old family photo of my grandmother and her mother, Ma and Charlotte Gunderson.

Continuing to play with old tintypes and boarders

Continuing to play with old tintypes and frames (as my bid for true TtV artistic freedom ticks away on eBay). This frame was created by Andrea Rascaglia for Photoshop. I found it through Art-E-Zine (Thank you, once again, Gillian Allen!)

And here's a self-portrait through the purple bottle with deceased flying ants (wow, am I having fun looking for things to shoot through or things to use as frames while waiting for the TtV possibilities).

By the people, for the people!

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that -- to help people see themselves in others -- through the power of film.

On May 10, 2008 -- Pangea Day -- sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

Pangea is the name of the original super-continent which contained all the world's land mass before the continents started splitting apart 250 million years ago. We're launching Pangea Day with the vision that the people of the world can begin to overcome their divisions, and that the power of film can help make it possible.

Movies can't change the world. But the people who watch them can.

On May 10, we want the whole world to be watching the Pangea Day program. Join an extraordinary community of people who are coming together to do just that by hosting an event. (From the Pangeaday website)

Here's a video explanation.


This is anthropologist Wade Davis's explation (love this guy!)


Here's a Kenyan chorus singing the Indian national anthem. Just beautiful!


And here is a French chorus singing the American national anthem! Imagine!

While doing some camera research...

Nice old tintype from Ian Collinson on eBay.

My urge to play got the better of me. What can I say? It's part of my hard wiring I think, or maybe part of my personal philosophy of life, play more often. So wanting to see what my point and shoot digital camera would do with various distortions of light, at least I think that's what it is, I pulled out a bunch of old lenses and pointed at sky mostly, and shot. Then I pointed through bottles and the old sea urchin again. I used what I got doing that as a layer in each of the following, using my old tintype from Ian as a base. What do you think?


Here he is seen through the sea urchin.

And here he is seen through the bottom of a cobalt glass jar.

This one was shot through one of the Bergamasco boy's kong (a chewy dog toy).

This one was was taken through the wrong end of a lens.

And here's my favorite, Mr. Whiskers through the bottom of a purple bottle with deceased flying ants.

Fun, eh?

The TtV mystery solved by Argus McArgus.

Argus McArgus lol
Originally uploaded by GuhlMustafa

OK, so this is how the whole TtV mystery works: You get an old camera, create a light proofing thing to block light between the viewfinder and your point-and-shoot digital camera. (You see it at the top of the contraption.)

How awesome. Now to go look on freecycle or kijiji for the old camera.


Also there's this blog with great links which should help in the building of my Ttv contraption. I'm on a mission!

More fun Through the Viewfinder

Tintype from eBay (cleaned up and grunged with photoshop by me), frame from Nesster.
OK, I must confess, it's hard to stop, I love this look. I am so delighted with all of the TtV material on Flickr. Today I'm focusing on Nesster's work. He's got tutorials, photos of nothing (the most beautiful photos of nothing I've ever seen) and a blog where you can get lost for hours.
Cabinet card from eBay, frame from Nesster.

Family photo from Andrea Ramsey, frame from Nesster.

Postcard from Parabola cover, frame from Nesster.
Thank you Nesster.

Pete Seeger, happy belated 89th birthday!

Here's Pete Seeger singing away on The Smothers Brothers TV show.
Pete turned 89 a couple of days ago and Dan Berggren created a radio tribute for Pete (beautiful!):
http://www.berggrenfolk.com/albums_details.cfm?aid=27
More youtube clips:

Listening to all of these old protest songs from so long ago is really quite startling. It surely feels as though we've hit some kind of weird wrinkle in time where everything that was being sung and talked about back then could sure fit today!
Well, God bless the peace makers.

Mother's Day is coming soon...

"when she held out her arms, the world itself wrapped around me & held me tight"
Collage by Lani with some help from Andy McLemore, Haeretik, and flickr. Text from Brian Andreas.

If you like this strange look of depth, dust, and mystery check out Noise and Dust Through The Viewfinder (a flickr group). You will find interesting frames and lots of helpful discussion.

Through that pool I discovered Andy McLemore's work along with Haeretik's work. Very helpful!

Here's one I did with McLemore's and Haeretik's frames. I think it looks like my buddy Ellen. What do you think?

You will read a lot about TTV shots and you may wonder exactly what are they talking about. So here's another group which explains it: About Through The Viewfinder.

Through the Viewfinder photography is defined by this group as "taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera."

You might ask why would a person take such a photo, or even how would they? I mean how many hands does it take to take a true TtV photo? I like the results on flickr and I LOVE the fakes! So thank you flickr and McLemore and Haeretik!

Any way Mother's Day is coming soon so I made the above collage and added the text from the Story People 's great Mother's Day reminder.
Now isn't that beautiful?
They said to send it as an eCard to your Mom. (I can never follow directions exactly and I am glad!!!)

NYU Spring Puppetmaking Workshop

With the assistance of Pat Brown, another puppetmaking workshop was very successfully completed. The images and sound files (the student's resilience narratives and photo's from the workshop are here:

http://web.mac.com/lanipuppetmaker/iWeb/Site%202/NYU.html
and
http://homepage.mac.com/lanipuppetmaker/freedownload/FileSharing116.html