Bark and onion in my eye.

Learning to turn of the TV, to spend my time more effectively.

I am already behind in my classes, which means even less time for art--or guiltless art.

I don't want to work, I just want to play in my journal all day! (and listent to oldies!)

And dream of a space of my own, of being free from the weight of this house and all its contents

Expanding expanding.

Weightless.

Contemplating the hours.

Another drive in search of photographic adventure. 

We saw a few abandoned and semi-abandoned sites that we'd like to explore further, took country roads with dilapidated farms and defunct restauruants. 

Our best find (or what made us get out of the car) was this historical building which at the turn of the century was home to "good Irish stock." Agent P. is enthralled with old structures and abandoned factories, learning about their histories, dreaming about the people who used to live or work there, and ultimately preserving them with her camera. It's frustrating that this subject is now en vogue, causing people to desecrate these beautiful remnants just to get a good shot. 

 She sat on the stoop and contemplated the hours of the people who had sat there before, and the hours in between. What did they wait for?

Blue sky, red brick, green grass, perfect sunlight: perfect day.

Another set of twins.

Lone door, pebbles, and snow.

Contrast.

Contrast & treasure!

Slick pavement, beautiful road shot through the winshield. 

There were so many gorgeous puddles and illuminated praire grasses. 

Loving the warm weather.

And there are ghost towns in Illinois. Who knew? Not as cool as the ones out west but worth exploring. There's a county in southern illinois with five such towns!

xo Lara

Chasing the moon.

I saw the most beautiful sliver of a sideways moon last week on my way home and planets like jellyfish, billowy tentacles of light ascending toward the heavens. The sliver was daintily perched between the two lines of trees on either side of the street. When I went back out to take a picture it was gone, I ran to the highest spot but I couldn't find it. The next night, it was high in the sky and no longer a sliver, but I snapped a quick picture anyway down my driveway. I'll be ready if it comes around again this month: February 28th.

xo Lara

January mosaic.

A January mosaic., originally uploaded by kaliji.

January was a great month, I:

became enthralled with a new medium, photography.

fell in love with winter.

went on a few adventures.

finished a journal (well, practically).

created a piece outside of my journal.

connected with amazing artists.

saw a sideways moon and jellyfish in the sky.

dreamed new dreams.

I wonder what February will bring?

New journal, new directions

It's a huge computation notebook bound comp style. Don't you just love the cover? I have two smaller spirals by the same company for my compulsive non-school related notetaking and collecting of words. Each journal is getting larger than the one before. 

I found a stack of painted papers that I made a few years ago that inspired me to collage. Agent P. was really intrigued by them, so perhaps a paper painting afternoon is in order. It's difficult for us to both get into art mode at the same time and try to share what little floor space we have in our room. I can't wait to have my own little art room one day with a big table. A small space can be confining to the act of creation, not being able to find what one needs or see what one has. One day :) 

Refuse, bark, charms

Deer have been lent a special significance from my mother (it was her birthday yesterday!), I still keep my eyes peeled when driving through wooded areas for them. Such majestic creatures. I can't wait to hike through the forest preserves and soak in the green, commune with the flora, and collect more natural detritus for art.

The deer and fauns are from a book I borrowed on how to make hand shadows, I traced them onto notebook paper saturated in olive oil. I love the selectively transparent effect it lends. 

I'm really excited about the direction this journal is moving me towards. Collage is less intimidating on big graph paper for some reason. Whoop whoop can't wait to go outside and journal.

xo Lara

Nothing, Indiana.

Pictures of nothing.

Like sandy water in the sky.

Textures that go unnoticed

or are eradicated because their beauty is not apparent.

Seeing the little things

and appreciating them before they disappear or are washed away.

This intriguing structure may not remain for much longer.

Agent P and I decided that we needed to go for a Sunday drive. We flipped a coin once to determine North or South and again for East and West. This lead us to Indiana where we saw a rainbow in a single cloud floating above riots of development. When it is warmer and the snow isn't to our knees we will try and find this house again and remember that there were once footprints in the snow. I want to bring my camera everywhere, it's becoming a part of me. I'm always taking note of pictures I would like to take but soon forget about. 

Did you go on Sunday drives as a kid to another neighborhood or state? To the city or country? To people watch? My mother used to tell me stories from her childhood when she would nestle in the car with her mother and father every Sunday for a Sunday Drive. I hope that driving aimlessly to Love FM and the oldies stations becomes a Sunday ritual; having the freedom to pull over at every point of interest and take pictures (when it's not freezing). I love it, even if the destination seems boring the act of driving and listening to that happy music you can sing along to is worth it. 

Can you guess what the nothings are?

xo Lara

Plumbing pianos.

Marisol, a kindred photographer and friend, initiated a Chicago adventure this weekend. She spirited me away in the dead of night to Hyde Park, which is where I spent a few of my "formative" years. We stayed at her friends apartment for the night two blocks from my old one. In the morning after coffee coupled with pitas and olive oil we poked around his apartment with our cameras (including the rooms of his roommates...)

There was this great enclosure between the apartments with a lid of windows. The photo below was taken through a window.

Then we grabbed all day CTA passes and decided to start in the loop. She took me to her favorite building, a relic from the late 18th century, and it instantly became my favorite building as well. We spent hours here, discovering hidden rooms and lonely instruments and

this magnificent white room with windows overlooking the water

twins

Crawling, sliding, clicking shutters and posing all over the these dusty surfaces for art

The grand white room contained a stage and a shrouded piano

harmonious trinity

plumbing pianos for their secretslooking through keyholes and opening doors


finding ghosts at work

we slipped through a door, went down a short flight of stairs, into a dark room through a thick plastic curtain filled with machines with red and green lights from floor to ceiling and thick wire tresses flowing across the ceiling. Marisol found a door, the light from which illuminated the machinery, leading to this fire escape on the 8th floor. I'm afraid of heights so i had to take this picture as proof :)

Click the mosaic to see the full set. Our next stop was the Museum of Contmporary Photography which is featuring a series of work by Michael Wolf entitled The Transparent City. "Chicago is known for work by innovative architects such as David Adler, Daniel Burnham, Louis H. Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright. After World War II, it established itself as a world capital of modern architecture influenced by the international style of Mies van der Rohe and home to notable projects by Helmut Jahn, Philip Johnson, and more recently Frank Gehry. [...] Wolf depicts the city more abstractly, concentrating less on individual well-known structures and more on the contradictions and conflicts between architectural styles when visually flattened together in a photography. His pictues look through the multiple layers of glass to reveal the environment, focusing specifically on voyeurism and the contemporary urban landscape in flux. Wolf explores the complex, sometimes blurred distinctions between private and public life in a city made transparent by his intense observation." --Natasha Egan, Associate Director and CuratorChicago is a fascinating metropolis by virtue of it's claim of the only throughly modern city in the world all because it nearly burnt to the ground in 1871. The building we played in was built a few years later and is remarkably intact. I can't see myself choosing to live in a metropolis (although the prospect is intriguing) however, I feel honored to live near enough to be able to explore its relics and learn its history through exploration. Marisol and I ended our jaunt by hopping on the El again and rode it until we exited at stop we deemed compelling, wandering around another hour before returning home. It was just the ticket to get out of the house, meet warm people, wander about, and take hundreds of pictures.
Happy wandering :)xo Lara