This past week I started photography classes. Through a local nature center I’m taking a series of six classes from a professor at a local university. There are only 10 of us in the class and we meet for two hours once a week. I have a really nice camera and feel like I’ve gotten some beautiful shots with it, but I rely too much on luck for those images. My teacher says I should discard the power of luck, but we agree it would be nice if some skill was involved.
The first class was about while balance and lighting. We did cover a few other things but they were review for me. White balance is something I’ve always understood but just adjusted for in Photoshop. One of my good friends was horrified when he learned that I edit every. single. picture. with Photoshop. I have a system and it’s fast to do, but still. If the color balance was any better in the original photo, I’d be a lot better off.
After each class period we will be turning in five to ten of our favorite images and they will be used in a calendar for the nature center. Do you know what that means? My photography could be appearing in two 2012 calendars. Also, by taking the class, I am working at checking another thing off of my 100 list.
I’ve had a longtime interest in glass blowing. I love tactile arts – anything where you create stuff with your hands. For my birthday last year Wonder Boy got me a gift certificate for glass blowing lessons. I was super pumped but classes were limited so I had to wait a while to take the survey class I was interested in. Last weekend I finally got to get to blowing.
Because the classes was a survey, we learned a little about a lot. We made a flower, a paper weight and an ornament. To be honest, would I have selected to make any of these things? Nope. But! I now have a much better appreciation for handmade glasswork.
The first thing we made was a flower. Now, when I worked at the mall during college I used to have to straighten up flowers just like the ones we made in class. I thought they were over-priced and a pain in the butt. They broke all the time and it fell to me to clean up the pieces. Maybe they weren’t so ridiculously priced after all! To make my flower I dipped a long stink (I am using none of the correct terminology because I remember none of it) into liquid glass. Then I heated it up and shaped it on a steel table. I dipped it into broken bits of colored glass and melted the color in for the stem. Then I dipped the glass-covered stick into more glass and added more color for the petals of the flower. At this point it looked nothing like a flower. Then, with the help of my teacher, I pulled and stretched on the glass and it was amazing. A flower totally took shape!
Our next item was a paper weight. I think paper weight and I am reminded of my grandma who had several. I don’t think of awesome. But now that I have mine? Awesome. Making the paperweight was similar to making the flower. I dipped a stick into melted glass and then melted color into the glass. This time I shaped the glass and then dipped malformed, colored glass chunk into melted glass and shaped my final blob. This was not an activity of precision but what it created looks as if it took lots of skill.
The final piece was an ornament. For this piece we actually blew glass. We were instructed to dip a hollow stick into glass and then blow into the stick from our cheeks. The instructions should have been to blow from your cheeks unless you have the lung capacity of an infant, in which case you should go for it. I got red-faced from blowing so hard (yep, I did just type that) and the whole thing was pretty pathetic. I added color and more glass and then one of the class assistants, thank god, did the rest of the blowing while I shaped the glass. Our teacher add the top piece to the ornament where you can add a hook to hang it.
When I was done with my class my opinion was that glass blowing might not be an art form I should pursue. I don’t think my lungs are cut out for it. But now that I have my pieces back, I LOVE them and am so glad I tried it! Also, I get to check one more thing off of my 100 list!
Last night I head out to see the New Pornographers perform and was anxious to find out if Neko Case would be joining the band on stage or not. Technically I have seen the New Pornographers play before. But I only get to say that as a technicality because they were the opening act and I only arrived in time to see about two of their songs. And Neko, and artist who is high on my list of people to see, was very absent.
So last night I was thrilled to find out that Neko was indeed performing with the band. Not only do I think she is awesome, seeing her live is on my 100 List so I am able to check something off!
Last weekend when we saw the Decemberists, they were so good but just didn’t have a handle on the audience. Last night the New Pornographers confronted an different issue. The sound, particularly for the first part of the show, was terrible. Neko has this killer voice that can drown out just about anything and yet she was washed out.
The show last night was at a venue notorious for their terrible sound quality and bad crowds. But, I’ve seen plenty of perfectly good shows there as well so I’m not willing to write off the whole place. Wonder Boy’s theory is that something was wrong with the amps last night. Something about the facts that amps have three parts — focusing on high, medium and low sounds — and the part that amplified the low sound was busted. Maybe, but regardless, I felt bad for the band. Audience members were yelling at them because we could hear their vocals and they were trying to fix things from the stage. I’m sure the sound person was frustrated but he whole thing, but isn’t he or she the one who is supposed to be fixing the sound quality and not the band on stage?
By the end of last night’s show, many of the sound issues were resolved and the music was still great. Get a great bunch of musicians and performers together and it’s hard to go completely wrong. And I’m happy because I saw Neko. I’m also a little bummed because neither Wonder Boy or I could rationalize that a poster from last night’s show could make our wall of fame, but so it goes.
In March of last year there was a blogging event called the Mighty Summit. I read about the event and its attendees, many of whom I admire and read daily, and was inspired. One of the activities they did was to create 100 lists, an act that is almost cliched in the blogging world but which I think has merit. I’ve written before of my intention to create my own 100 list. Since I’ve been working on it for the last year, I thought it might be worthwhile to post what I have so far so I could get to checking things off. I’ve selected these items from personal goals I’ve had over the years as well as cruising the internet. I am not stupid naive enough to consider putting an end date on accomplishing these goal. But I do want to make progress towards doing them all.My list
Go back to school to get another degree and drive people nuts with unnecessary but very wanted education
Take cooking classes
Find a truly fulfilling job that doesn’t require wearing a wrist brace
Listen to 1,000 new bands
Take each of my nieces and nephews overseas
Find a career I love
Host regular parties
Write thank you notes
Visit 50 states (Accomplished 42 Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming)
Visit 50 countries (Accomplished 30: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, USA, Vietnam)
Meditate
Retire at 55 (50???)
Get in shape, be active and have fun doing it
Keep a reusable bag handy
Be a better friend
Get better sleep
Reduce computer time
Attend BlogHer
Reduce TV time
Keep house filled only with things I love
Give yoga a shot
Learn to ride the city bus
Read all of the books in the BBC Top 100
Take more photos
Be a good daughter
Be appreciative
Visit Cuba
Go camping
Attend a TedX
Make grand gestures
Send out a photo Christmas card with cats where most people have kids
