the artists way

this is my kitchen table suffering the baby steps of my attempt to make a more presentable print portfolio. i've the hardest problem narrowing things down and an even harder problem actually getting prints of those. and then they sit in an old black book in the corner until i have to suck it up and show it to someone.

i definetly need to get some more prints made, but i don't have to suck so much up now.

white rock festival 2006, may 20 & 21

last weekend we went to the white rock festival. full of fair festivities and rosy cheeked children and cover-bands, it was just. . . .okay. smaller than it should have been. maybe it's cause they were charging FIVE DOLLARS! at the door and another FIVE DOLLARS!! to get into the children's area.

i just don't think you should have to pay to get into a community festival. nonetheless, penn got his first pony ride!

and would have give his older family members a heart condition if they had seen him totally own the big blow up obstacle courses.

which end in long steep slides. (soooo much fun.)

love the table of hand sanitizer in the middle of the children's area. there was a petting zoo. and i have tons of photos of penn posing with goats.

he understands mommy's work now and frequently stops beside any 'ole anything and demands (for example), "take my picture with the goat, momma." i shot all raw files that day, though, so rather than spend a whole friggin' day on personal stuff, i randomly picked a couple to jpeg and post. definetly have to go back and find that goat pic though.

benji took his third arm, i mean (ahem) his contact juggling ball which always gets attention.

so. . . .we had fun letting the hellish texas sun deplete our body of everything good in a human being and i'm pretty sure it was worth it.

camera-phone pic num. 34

awwwwyeeahhh. thanks for the goggles, dad.

carissabyers.com

really wanted a new look for carissabyers.com. i went with a sort of "anti-design." nothing is ever simple enough for me.

a round of applause to the makers of bandaids

this came out of my sons finger today.

he found the rotary i was using to cut photos with. now before you go calling any social services, the safety blade was up and it was on the kitchen table.

it was a tiny cut that would not stop bleeding little puddles of my screaming baby on the floor. i still have no idea how he did it.

bandaids are like god in my house. see? all better.

6x6

come one, come all to the 6x6 art show being thrown on june 6, 2006.

there're six curators:

Frank Campagna
Erica Felicella
Danielle Barry
Sergio Garcia
Mark Nelson
Havi Frost

who all have five artists making 6 pieces of art. each piece is 6"x6." there will be 216 works of art. each piece will be sold for $66.


i'll be showing "light sketches." (un-manipulated drawings done in-camera using candles in a bar. something that began as a complete and wonderful accident which then turned into the bet, "5 bucks you can't draw the star of david." so i won 5 dollars and just kept going with the idea that i really wanted to show them somewhere. then erica called . . .)

austin city music festival

i waaannnnnttttttt it.

chp 39

"Life is maybe like deep-sea fishing. We wake up in the morning, cast our nets into the waters, and, if we are lucky, at days end we will have netted one--maybe two--small fish. Occasionally we will net a seahorse and sometimes a shark--or a life preserver or an iceberg, or a monster. And in our dreams at night we assess our Catch of the Day--the treasures of this long, slow process of accumulation--and we eat the flesh of our fish, casting away their bones and weaving the memories of their once-glinting skins into our souls."

---Douglas Coupland, "Shampoo Planet"

*photo borrowed from www.coupland.com

momma's day

i love my mommy. i love my mommy because we're so similar in so many different ways it's scary. i love her because she loves everyone unconditionally. because she's always "growing" (despite her 4' 8'' status) and learning and rejoicing in sucess and trudging through the opposite.

i love her because i could feel her love as a child, even though we were divided by the great midwest. i love her because i can tell her anything or nothing and she is happy either way. i love her because when she cries and tries to talk i can't understand a word she's saying. i get that from her.

i love her because she has always been the most optomistic of all of my friends. because we sit on the phone and wish we could be closer. because we both love coffee. because she's always told me that i was "the best." because she taught me how to be a mother.

and i always acknowledge my father on mother's day because he was there to teach me how to shave my legs (which backfired, huh dad, since i don't shave), buy me tampons and bras and help me with money. i love you guys. thanks for being such awesome parents and not screwing me up. *hugs*

on flagpole hill

this one's for jonelle, 'cause i don't take pictures of trees either. maybe it was your influence on me that day. morelikely: i have too much time in my head this week.

private conversation between me and myself

methinks the stars are lined up funny. everyone i know is experiencing some dramatic internal issue made heavier with opportunities to make decisions or just let things be. i am a "let things be" kinda girl.

also meaning i don't always (m)take opportunities when i know they're there. sometimes that's just too complicated for me. it's debilitating knowing that as much as i truly enjoy taking a risk, i might be just as happy amongst what i know.

work/life/everything comes at it's own pace, whether i bust my butt looking for it or not. everything i say/think seems to come with a harangue of disclosure's about my brain. outloud, my thoughts contradict myself. not purposefully. the *footnotes don't always make it into other people's ears or letters so i find myself wondering alot if i'm dangling at the end of misinterpretations. or if i'm rambling . . .

but i realized in my many thinking moments behind the fence with the dog and the stars that sometimes peek their way through the big dallas smog bubble that i am truly just in the middle. with everything. and so long as my intentions are karmically juicy i'll end up somewhere happy and those pesky misinterpretations will work themselves out. if they even exist. *note paranoia* i may be a little too comfortable with letting the universe take the reigns.

but me and the universe, we go way back.

sky's the limit

i'm working on a series of photographed cliches tenatively titled "skies the limit." i am really excited about what i shot this weekend.


no definite picks for what will make the cut yet. the above are the only two i'll be sharing and i'm sharing these because i think i might use them as the "teaser." and for the record, 'cause people have asked, no i'm not on a trampoline and yes i hurt like hell today 'cause we took a lot of photos.


jonelle took some pics of me working.


"i thought you didn't take pics of flowers," jonelle said.

ha. cause i don't. the subject matter rarely appeals to me. but i did that day because it was a beautiful day and because it was relavent. flower photos later.

la reunion 80's prom

as i type this, tiny bursts of giggles are rumbling around my insides. this weekend jonelle the great came up from arkansas and we donned a bit of 80's gear and headed out to la reunion's 80's prom at sons of herman.

there was much dancing. and RUFFLES!

here are d. and e. busting some 80's moves with the robot.

and e. busting some 06 moves: dancing while text messaging.

jonelle, who was a little nervous about her garb before we got to the party,

ended up winning PROM QUEEN!

i just ended up bumping booty's with d. hee.

congrats to sj and catherine for putting on a most fun event for a really awesome cause. the new artist residency, la reunion, on it's 35 FREE ACRES OF LAND is going to rock the socks of dallas. totally.

more pics here and here.

closed again

i am so tired of closing my eyes in pics. this one was taken in december at the art conspiracy by nathan schroder. older, but perfect example of how i can't keep my eyes open.

potential

so much potential in the city these days. but only because people are bringing their ideas, big, small and huge into fruition. i forgot to mention a while back that i attended the first meeting of the dallas visual arts forum. i left feeling really inspired. the little student council girl in me came out and on the drive home i was frothing with ideas of how to make things work.

and then i reigned them all back in, because there are enough people ready to make this happen and i have enough artistic endeavors of my own to complete. not to say that you won't see me at all the meetings.

i will officially begin shooting a new series this weekend and i am so excited.

and if you want to support something really fantastic that's going to blow the socks off this town come to the 80's prom this weekend to hear more. contact sarah jane for more details. i've already got my prom dress. (ohgod.)

day without an immigrant

rally's were held across dallas and the nation today, deemed, "a day without immigrants." penn and i went downtown to hear more and see more.

this is one subject i can't really form an opinion about. i don't have enough information. the most i can say is i don't care if someone sings the national anthem in another language. sometimes politics feels like a structered way to stop everything. and it is, i suppose, but i see more of the "stopping" than i ever see the "starting." i rarely see acceptance. or tolerance.

i am extremely grateful to have been born in the united states where despite any natural disaster of life, opportunity is almost handed to me on a silver platter. i think we should be happy those of other languages want to sing this countries anthem and who are proud to sing this countries anthem.

there is a general apathy that runs in the day to day life of americans. our mass reputation across oceans and borders is that of gluttony and greed. it's so easy for us to take it all for granted. and there are so many who want to come and take advantage of what's to offer.

so i don't know what i think. i'm happy to have people from other countries come here. i wouldn't be here if they hadn't let my mother off the boat. (she was a baby.) but "illegal" does add a different note to it all.

i'm glad we went. neither of us understood a word as everything was in spanish, but penn clapped appropriately, chanted spanish words that neither of us knew and bobbed his head to the fancy beats. i felt better having been there and sort of seeing the people this is affecting so much.

sidenote because i have a photo: on the way downtown i said, "momma has to put on sunglasses to keep the sunshine out," (i add the reason i do anything to almost everything so penn learns definitions as well as vocabulary.) "me too!" he said. i handed him the extra pair which he put on and then immediately fell asleep. i caught the picture after they had fallen down his nose, but-----so cute.

fyi: you can click any photo on this site to view a larger size.