Memento mori

"All photographs are memento mori.

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's

(or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.

Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it,

all photographs testify to time's relentless melt."

-- Susan Sontag 

Self portrait 12-30-13

"It's being here now that's important.

There's no past and there's no future.

Time is a very misleading thing.

All there is ever, is the now.

We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it;

and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one."

-- George Harrison

"How did it get so late so soon?

 It's night before it's afternoon.

December is here before it's June.

My goodness how the time has flewn.

How did it get so late so soon?"

-- Dr. Seuss

memento mori

"remember that you will die"

There's that beautiful song in the musical Rent, called "Seasons of Love." The entire cast sings over and over about the five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes that make up a year in everybody's life. They repeatedly ask the question "How do you measure" the minutes that comprise those years, and they offer some possibilities:

In daylights, in sunsets

In midnights, in cups of coffee

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife ...

In truths that she learned

Or in times that he cried

In bridges he burned

Or the way that she died

They're all good suggestions. But I chose to measure the past year of my life in faces. 

And in doing so, along the way I simultaneously measured with pretty much all of the items on the Rent list: daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee, inches, miles, laughter, strife, truths, tears, burnt bridges, death. 

I don't know how significant my life is in the grand scheme of things. I'm guessing not very. When my life is finally over, probably aside from my family, I won't register on the radar much. The universe probably isn't going to buckle at the knees over the loss of a middle aged (former) insomniac from Ohio who spent her days in a small upstairs room taking pictures of herself and her toys. 

It's unlikely that any of my photographs from 2013 will wind up in a gallery, or a book, or a museum, or a store. My blog will never get a million hits. That was never my goal anyway. I'm not interested in where my photographs end up. I'm interested in where my photographs take me, whether they take me toward something I have yet to discover, or whether they take me away from something I need to leave behind.

As Susan Sontag said in today's top quote, "All photographs are memento mori." They're records and reminders of what we all have to lose, evidence of somethings and someones that will eventually be permanently erased. I guess my photographs represent that tiny, tinny voice inside us all that cries "I was here!" "I lived." "I loved." "I struggled." "I tried." "I kept going." "I learned." "I saw." "I cared." "I didn't give up when I was too exhausted to want to keep living." "I found a way to survive." "I wrestled the demons." "I stumbled upon joy."

It's been an unforgettable year.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart to anyone who took a few minutes out of their five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred to stumble along with me.

Gold dust woman

"Pulvis et umbra sumus."
(We are but dust and shadow.)

-- Horace, The Odes of Horace

Self portrait 12-29-13

"We're all more than the person we show to everyone else.

At least I hope so.

Because I feel like there's more to me than that.

I just haven't had the chance yet to show it."

-- Jessi Kirby, Golden

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."

-- Pablo Picasso

End of days

"Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky."

-- Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

Self portrait 12-28-13

"And the sunset itself on such waves of ether

That I just can't comprehend

Whether it is the end of the day, the end of the world,

Or the mystery of mysteries in me again."

-- Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems

"'One day,' you said, 'I watched the sunset forty-three times!'

And a little later you added:

'You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the sunset.'

'Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three sunset?'

But the prince made no answer."

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Endgame

"The feeling is less like an ending than just another starting point."

-- Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

Self portrait 12-27-13

 "Everything comes to an end.

A good bottle of wine, a summer's day, a long-running sitcom,

one's life, and eventually our species.

The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when.

And can we do anything vaguely useful until it does?"

-- Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

I'm feeling the end of the year bearing down upon me, and with it, the end of this 365 days project.

I always have mixed feelings as I face the end -- sadness, loss, joy, peace, fear, excitement, irritation -- the usual emotional cocktail.

But this time around, mostly what I feel is deep and immense gratitude for a project that became a lifeline during a very difficult and challenging year.

As I finish out the next four days, I have to make a decision:
Take a break and finally catch up on my ironing?
Or do another 365 project?
And if so, what?
Make more faces?
Make something different?

Waiting for inspiration to strike as the year winds down and the clock ticks.

Pieces on Earth

'"But I never looked like that!'

'How do you know? ...

You are the only one who can never see yourself except as an image;

you never see your eyes unless they are dulled 

by the gaze that rests upon the mirror or the lens 

(I am interested in seeing my eyes only when they look at you) ..."

-- Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes

Self portrait 12-24-13

"You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful,

and before you know it, it's neither of those things ..."

-- Clive Barker

I look at myself.

A lot.

Not so much in the mirror, but through the lens.

As a self-portrait photographer, it's kinda part of the job.

Maybe I look at myself too much. Maybe not enough.

I am not exactly sure what it is I'm searching for.

What it is I'm chasing.

What it is I'm trying to reveal to myself.

But still, I look. I search. I chase.

I dissect.

And so often, when I pull up the images on my computer, I think, "Is that really how I look?"

Sometimes it's pleasing. Sometimes it's startling. Sometimes it's disappointing.

Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes me think. Sometimes it makes me angry.

Sometimes it makes me wonder. Sometimes it makes me question. Sometimes it makes me sad.

Often, I alter the actual image, I vandalize it, until it feels right. Until it feels real. Until the picture hitting my eyes matches the one hidden in my head -- like two dissonant, agitating notes, one sharp, one flat, brought into tune little by little by little until there is peaceful harmony.

I suppose that when I find the whatever it is, I'll stop looking.

It's like that "hot and cold" game, where you're looking for a hidden something, and another person guides you towards it. When you're far away from it, they say "cold." "Colder." "Freezing." 

But when you home in, they say "warm." "Warmer." "Hot." "Hotter!" "Boiling!"

And often, you don't know what you're searching for until you find it.

Until you see it. Until it's right in front of your face, looking back at you.

Maybe when my eyes finally land on whatever I'm searching for, the dissonance will quiet down and I'll find that elusive harmony. 

I'll find that peace.

Maybe that's the "what."
Peace.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a happy one.
If you don't, then I hope you have a really incredible Tuesday night.

Peace out.

I'm dreaming of a wet ... White. Wait. WHAT? Christmas.

"... only darkened trails of rain could paint your face upon a pane ..."

-- John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

Self portrait 12-22-13

"The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house.

All that cold, cold wet day."

-- Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

"'I'm still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it.'

'I don't think I'd like that,' he said.

'You might if you tried.'

'I never have.'

She licked her lips. 'Rain even tastes good.'

'What do you do, go around trying everything once?' he asked.

'Sometimes twice.'"

-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I has been raining nonstop for days here in northern Ohio.

I went outside and played in it anyway.

I'd prefer snow. But sometimes you've gotta work with what you have.

If it was snowing, I'd be up to my eyeballs in it.

Oh, wait, I am up to my eyeballs in it.

Waddaya think cookies grow on TREES?

"Sophie and I would use her Christmas break to make 

homemade treats from our very own kitchen.

I mean, if thousands of meth addicts can do it, why can't we?"

-- Celia Rivenbark, 

You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning

Self portrait 12-20-13

 "They were almond cookies,

although they could have been made of

spinach and shoes for all I cared.

I ate eleven of them, right in a row.

It is rude to take the last cookie."

-- Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be At This Hour?

"The measuring and mixing always smoothed out her thinking processes --

nothing was as calming as creaming butter --

and when the kitchen was warm from the oven overheating

and the smell of baking chocolate,

she took final stock of where she'd been and where she was going.

Everything was fine."

-- Jennifer Crusie, Maybe This Time

The holiday candy has really been piling up around here, and nobody was eating it.

And the pool where I swim is closed for re-painting, so I had the morning clear.

So I chopped up all of the candy into chunks -- chocolate bars, chocolate candies, six little chocolate Santas from last year, an entire Whitman's Sampler -- some filled with nuts, some filled with caramel, some filled with peanut butter, some filled with toffee. I chopped up two chocolate turkeys, a chocolate cornucopia, some chocolate covered Oreos, chocolate covered pretzels, and a little bit of leftover Halloween candy (i.e. one fun-size Nestle Crunch bar, and a mini $100 Grand Bar). If it had anything to do with chocolate, it went under the knife.

I had a pretty big bowlful of chunks.

Then I mixed up a double batch of my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe, but substituted the bowlful of chocolate-covered everything for the chocolate chips. So they were sort of like candy-bar cookies. Not quite chocolate chunk. More like chocolate junk.

And lemme tell ya, my house smelled pretty damn delicious.
(And baking is pretty effective therapy. Maybe that's why so many people bake during the holidays.)

Because people keep giving us plates and plates of cookies, and fudge, and bags of Chex Mix, and peanut brittle, and homemade candy, and ... well, you get the picture. It's the holidays, so people feel compelled to bake. And even though such gifts might appear to be gestures of kindness and generosity and good will, I'm starting to think these desperate folks are just trying to keep the crazy at bay.

(By the way, a note to anyone who has the urge to drop off any more sweets at our door: we'd rather have wine. Wine is also pretty effective therapy, with fewer calories and fewer dishes to wash. And just for the record, I am not leaving Santa Claus cookies and milk on Christmas Eve. I'm making him a Manhattan.)

Anyway, since we are all carbed-out around here, I popped my Chocolate Junk Cookies into the freezer for another day.

Costume? What costume?

I just figured out how to screen print my own t-shirts, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

"If you seek information, read words.

If you seek understanding, have experiences."

-- Cozonacci

Self portrait 12-16-13

"From the very beginning of his education, 

the child should experience the joy of discovery."

-- Alfred North Whitehead

When was the last time you got so excited about something that you literally jumped up and down, clapped your hands and squealed "I did it! I did it!" like a 4-year old?

For me, it was Saturday.

For my birthday way back in July, my son Sam gave me a screen printing kit. I asked for it, and I wanted it, but the thing has been sitting in its box since summer. I got out the instructions a couple of times, but in my then-sleep-deprived and anxiety-riddled state, I just didn't have it in me to figure the damn thing out.

But yesterday, well-rested and medicated, I finally took the plunge.

It was a process. But learning is all about the process, right? That's why it's called the learning process. Someone can tell you how to do something, but until you actually do it, you'll never truly understand it. Which meant I had to read through all of the steps in the instruction book, and then do all of the steps in the instruction book if I ever wanted to understand how to make an actual screen print. So that's what I did.

And when it worked -- when I lifted the screen and the t-shirt underneath it actually bore the exact image of the self-portrait stencil I'd made, it was like a little miracle. Leo was helping me out by holding the wooden frame down while I drew the ink squeegee across the screen. As previously stated, I jumped, clapped and squealed. We high-fived. We exclaimed "It worked!" "It worked!" My husband took a picture of the tender newborn on his iPhone and texted it to Sam, so he could see the first-fruits that came from his gift.

I made two t-shirts (one for me, one for Leo) and three posters. They all came out perfectly. Sam said he'd put a poster in his dorm room.

Now I realize there are folks out there who can do pretty sophisticated and impressive things with screen printing. And I acknowledge that my rudimentary little t-shirts and posters lurk somewhere in the far, far edges of the screen printing spectrum. But give me time. I'll get there.

Today's face isn't about the product. It's about the process. It's about expanding myself to learn something new. It's about not being afraid of the unknown, but diving (or tip-toeing) into the unknown and figuring it out. It's about choosing to grow a tiny little bit instead of shrinking back. It's about feeling that 4-year-old excitement of accomplishment -- like learning to ride a two-wheeler or tie your own shoes. Sure, a whole bunch of other people can already do it, ho hum. But this is the day I learned how to do it, and I did it all by myself!

That feeling never gets old, even if I do.

Fine and dandy

"The dandy cleans his monocle every day,

a silver monocle with a lens of smoked gold,

given him by a beautiful lady but,

suddenly overcome with sadness,

he has lost the monocle case."

-- Erik Satie, 

Les Trois Valses Distingues Du PR Ciuex D Go T  

by Erik Satie for Solo Piano

Self portrait 12-15-13

Carving out an identity

"Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop."

-- Michelangelo

Self portrait 12-13-13

"We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others 

the image we long for, need, love or desire, 

often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment

because it does not fit them."

-- Anais Nin

The last time I carved a linoleum block to make a print, I cut the crap out of my finger.

And by "cut the crap" I mean eight stitches and almost a severed tendon.

That was June 29th. I have a scar on the inside of my left index finger to prove it, a scar that still twinges and tingles every now and then, and which hurts like a sonofabitch whenever I bump it just right ... or is it wrong?

It's taken me until now to muster the courage to carve another block. But this time I finally got smart and came up with a crazy, kooky scheme. 

I wore gloves!

I know. It's a madcap. It's extreme. But wouldn't you know? It worked.

Look Ma! No bloody slashed digits!

When I told Leo about my brilliant idea, you know, the one about the gloves, he just looked at me kind of deadpan and mumbled "What took you so long?"  (I'm pretty sure there was a "Duh" implied in there somewhere.)

Whatever. I'm back in the saddle and happy to report that no fingers were harmed in the making of today's face.

Cardbored

"Inside a big cardboard box, a child is transported to a world of his or her own,

one where anything is possible."

-- "Cardboard Box," toyhalloffame.org

Self portrait 12-12-13

"The best birthday present is an empty box. 

Smile, it contains all my love for you."

-- Jarod Kintz, 

My love can only occupy one person at a time

"'I'm bored' is a useless thing to say.

I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you've seen none percent of.

Even the inside of your own mind is endless;

it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand?

The fact that you're alive is amazing, so you don't get to say 'I'm bored.'"

-- Louis C.K.

"I could party in a cardboard box with people who are funny and don't care."

-- Ke$ha

Apparition

"She was made of fog and shadow until Kate caught her eye,

and then, all at once, she became human."

--Erin Bow, Plain Kate

Self portrait 12-11-13

"We only pass everything by

like a transposition of air."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

"Extract the eternal from the ephemeral."

-- Charles Baudelaire

In living color

"If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint."

-- Edward Hopper

Self portrait 12-10-13

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone,

because I am the person I know best."

-- Frida Kahlo

"No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting.

I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."

-- Edvard Munch

Yo!

"You know, I've had my ups and downs."

-- Brett Favre

Self portrait 12-7-13

"I tried to throw a yo-yo away. It was impossible."

-- Mitch Hedberg

"You know what my problem is? I am not interesting.

What am I supposed to say? I went to magic camp?

That I'm an accomplished ventriloquist?

Oh, I am the Seventh Degree Imperial Yo-Yo Master.

'Ooh, do me, Yo-Yo Master,

I want you to do me cause you're the yo-yo guy!"

-- Andy Stitzer, The 40 Year Old Virgin

Edna:

After two months at sea, the pilgrims were running out of food and water. Yes, Nelson?

Nelson:

Did they have any yo-yos?

Edna:

No, they did not have yo-yos. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, 

they were greeted by the friendly Indians.

Milhouse:

Did the Indians have yo-yos?

Edna:

No they did not have yo-yos! That's it! I am sick and tired of talking about yo-yos. 

From now on I won't accept any book report, science project, dioramas, or anything else 

on yo-yos, or yo-yo related topics. Am I making myself clear?

Bart:

Yo!

--The Simpsons

EncourageMEnt

"Be good to yourself when, nobody else will

Oh be good to yourself."

-- Journey, "Be Good to Yourself"

Self portrait 12-6-13

"Awareness is learning to keep yourself company.

And then learn to be more compassionate company,

as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage."

-- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"I see you the way you may never see you

caught inside the lies told to you

You're beautiful you know

It would mean so much to me

if what I felt was something you could see."

-- Meryn Cadell, "Beautiful"

Life is like a box of faces

"'When I die,' I said to my friend, 'I'm not going to be embalmed.

I'm going to be dipped.'

Milk chocolate or bittersweet was the immediate concern."

-- Adrianne Marcus

Self portrait 12-5-13

"What you see before you, my friend,

is the result of a lifetime of chocolate."

-- Katharine Hepburn

"Your hand and your mouth agreed many years ago that,

as far as chocolate is concerned,

there is no need to involve your brain."

-- Dave Barry

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary.

Happy Anniversary, D Ray!

I decided to buck tradition and skip the typical brass/nickel gift and go with chocolate instead.

Unlike my husband, who is consistent, rock solid and super dependable, I tend to be a little ... unpredictable.

I'm pretty sure he'd agree that being married to me for 21 years really is like a box of chocolates.

Hell, most days even I don't know what I'm gonna get.

Through a glass darkly

"Nature gives you the face you possess at twenty ...

Life the face you possess at thirty.

But the face you have at fifty is the face you deserve."

-- Karleen Koen, Through A Glass Darkly

Self portrait 12-4-13

Horror vacui

"For your birthday, I got you a box.

Hooray! It's empty, so you can

fill it with whatever you want."

-- Jarod Kintz, 

A Zebra is the Piano of the Animal Kingdom

Self portrait 12-2-13

"They gave Pandora a box.

Prometheus begged her not to open it.

She opened it.

Every evil to which human flesh is heir came out of it.

The last thing to come out of the box was hope. 

It flew away."

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

"The human life cycle ... evolves around the box;

from the open-topped box called a bassinet,

to the pine box we call a coffin ...

It should not surprise us then that the lowly box 

plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story.

For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood.

The Magi ... laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child.

And in the end ... the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone.

How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes 

skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world."

-- Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box

Someone gave us a huge basket filled with many boxes of a bunch of different chocolates.

This box with the little peep-through window was full of chocolate-covered pretzels with sprinkles.

The boys ate all the pretzels.

So, the box was empty.

And you know how nature abhors a void.

(That's horror vacui to you Latin-speaking folks and Aristotelians.)

Some say that human nature abhors a void, too.

People will do lots of extreme, and dangerous, and crazy things to fill their void.

I do this. 

All work and no play makes Batgirl a dull superhero

"A little nonsense now and then,

is cherished by the wisest men."

-- Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Self portrait 12-1-13

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play

than in a year of conversation."

-- Plato

"Go and play.

Run around.

Build something.

Break something.

Climb a tree.

Get dirty.

Get in some trouble.

Have some fun."

-- Brom, The Child Thief

"It is human life.

We are blown upon the world;

we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while,

complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors;

then we vanish with a little puff,

leaving nothing behind but a memory --

and sometimes not even that."

-- Mark Twain, "Mark Twain's Own Autobiography," 

North American Review, May 3, 1907

Defense mechanism

"All art is an intensely vulnerable gesture,

and it is made with no small amounts of risk, and fear.

So, I have plenty of sympathy for self-defense mechanisms,

especially among artists."

-- Steven Erikson

Self portrait in bubble wrap corset 11-30-13

"Everyone struggles to guard their heart from breaking, 

when they should desire to have a heart that breaks.

... some people won't even own a dog for fear it will die --

you can't bubble-wrap your heart ..."

-- John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

"Without comedy as a defense mechanism

I wouldn't be able to survive."

-- Gary Shandling