Amy's birthday bash

I almost forgot to do a post on a get together of Portland Photographic Adventures that we had last week. It was Amy's birthday, a sunny perfect day, and a few of us had cupcakes and tromped around downtown. I always have a blast with these girls, they are all easy to relate to. The above photos are mine and a few of the other girls posted some of their photos here. You can tell Summer in the pink dress was the only one that really dressed up for the occassion, hence the amount of feet photos!

getting annoyed with poladroid

So a lot of people out there are abusing this hot program called Poladroid. Especially bloggers, using it so all of their photos look cool. In this desktop program you just drag and drop your photo onto it and after a 2 minute wait or so (they have to make it realistic!) slowly fades in your image with a few old Polariod effects and the trademark white framing. It's often not done well though, call me crazy but it should be treated like any other artistic process to be used appropriately. My friend Cameron was the one that introduced me to this program. I think her images are really great and even though it is kinda cheating, she does it well so who cares. I think what she does that makes it work so great is that she is taking the original photos with her camera phone. The camera phone has a small aperture and low resolution and matches well with the lack of depth of field that the original Polariod has. Using the camera phone also matches the spontaneous feel of Polariods. The awesome photos above are all images of Cameron Jones.

as good as it gets

I thought this week felt uneventful but in retrospect it was pretty interesting after all. Tuesday was Roller-Disco at Oaks Park, and yes, after years of not being on skates I can still skate backwards. I held Josephs hand during couples skating and I felt 13 again. Friday I got a freakin' awesome new dog. It was a cinematic moment, after I fell in love with the dog a day before I found out that someone else was already lined up to adopt him, I was heart-broken. They told me to come in the next day to do an interview anyway because there was a chance they wouldn't follow through or there would be problems with the application process. I did go in and had an interview, I was about ready to leave dogless when someone popped their head in and said that the person that was first in line to adopt the dog called and said that their landlord wouldn't let them have a dog. I was in utter shock with butterflies in my stomach. We now have a dog named Balls Barkely. He's just going to go by Barkley though, especially in public. Can you imagine "Here Balls...Come!" Our other dog Arf is adjusting slowly, liking the little guy a little more each day, their starting to wrestle a bit so I think it's going to work out great. Friday night my friend Sharon came over and we drank and watched Ghost Hunters International episodes. If you didn't know I was a nerd before, you know now. Saturday we had people over to listen to the Flaming Lips "Zairekka" Album. For those who are not in the know this is an album with 4 different discs intended to be played on 4 different stereos simultaneously. We had some pretty great "systems" set up and it was amazing. Panning, echoes, traveling voices, call and response of voices and instruments amongst the 4 stereos, we were surrounded by a sea of sound. Sunday we climbed the mountain we call Mt. Tabor.

breakin'

I was supposed to start my first break dancing class tonight but the instructor was sick. So instead me and my friend Sharon went for a few drinks then I came home to diligently start studying some moves in preparation for next week...

spring summer sunday crafternoon

What a crazy-awesome Sunday. It started off easy enough with a amazing brunch at Vita Cafe. Next we planned on going to this "bathhouse" where indeed we read on their website that clothing was optional. An option we though most would be taking. I came with swimsuit in tow but came to realize it would not be necessary. Everyone was goin nudie-style. We didn't want to offend or make people feel self-conscious so we took the plunge. It was less scary than I expected, I just hid under the bubblie water most the time. The best part was when it started to sprinkle while in the outdoor hot tub.




Next was a crafternoon at Summers house. We glued, we drew, we ate red-velvet cupcakes. It was nice to hang with some like-minded ladies. She had an amazingly colorful kitchy house that made me ready to buy one even more than ever.


I came home to Joseph in the basement circuit-bending an elmo talking kiddie toy to do his musical bidding.

I'm floating to the moon

Last week I really needed a break and needed to push my reset button (I'm imagining the gray and red button on the original Nintendo here) so I spent the day at Common Ground spa having a "float" steam and sauna. The floatation tanks or sensory deprivation tanks eliminate light, sound, gravity, and temperature. Everything our body uses to perceive the world is for the most part eliminated and the mind is free to relax. With 800 lbs of epsom salts in 200 gallons of water you don't have to worry about sinking, maybe just salt to the eye. After that, plus the steam and sauna (wet heat then dry heat is really supposed to detox you or something), I kind of felt like the blobfish I blogged about. Afterwards I wandered the streets of Portland with crazy salt hair, got some vegan gelato, bought my first Sci-Fi novel, and told a vintage shop owner about the world of floating. She said I looked really relaxed.

a flippin speakeasy

A little while back me and my boyfriend got a call from a friend "Come meet me, I'm at a freakin' speakeasy". Of course we went. Our friend met us at a street corner and lead us into the back door of a nearby house into a basement. At a handcrafted bar by the people sitting at it there was an amazing crew of people, everyone wanted to know how you found out about the place and where you were from. The beer on tap was brewed there in the basement, and then people just brought in exotic beers from all over the world to pass around. It was one of the patrons birthday, the wife of the owner brought down a cake she just made upstairs. Dean had been running the place for 6 years he said. You put a donation in a box for your drinks, maybe that's how they keep out of too much trouble. Everyone wanted to be your friend especially the wild irishman - amazing time.

weirder than you

Hey you, can you handle this? I don't know if you can handle this. I get inspired by weird animals. Makes evolution obvious when I'm oblivious in my computer life. I didn't write the text, just compiled from the interweb.

Blobfish This thing lives on the bottom-most muck of the darkest sea-bottom. This full-figured cutie may be harmless, but he's tough. The pressure at the depths where blobfish are found is dozens of times higher than at sea-level. The density of its flesh is slightly less than water, allowing it to float just above the sea floor without exerting any effort. Their relative lack of muscles is not a disadvantage though, as they spend most of the day just swallowing edible matter that floats by in front of them. You've got to respect that!

Sloths Modern sloths live upside-down in the forests of South America. Despite their long, sharply curved claws, they are herbivores and mainly eat tree leaves as their teeth are too primitive and weak, due to a lack of enamel, to chew anything else. The claws are part of their adaptation to life in the trees and help them remain sleeping and suspended underneath branches for hours.

Angora Rabbit You've probably heard of the Angora Rabbit. Well, this is what they look like in the wild. You can see why these mop-like little beasts are treasured for their long wool, which may be removed by shearing or plucking. You could probably make a sweater and a good pair of socks before she would notice anything was missing.

I'll never look at a angora sweater the same way again...

Tapirs are large browsing mammals, roughly pig-like in shape, with short, prehensile snouts. They inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. All four species of tapir are classified as endangered or vulnerable. Their closest relatives are the other odd-toed ungulates, horses and rhinoceroses.

The Philippine tarsier, (Tarsius syrichta) is very peculiar small animal. In fact it is one of the smallest known primates, no larger than a adult men’s hand. Mostly active at night, it lives on a diet of insects. Philippine tarsier can soon be added to the list of extinct species.

bellbirds debute album

My boy Joseph is in a band called the Bellbirds and they wrote and recorded an album in February as part of the RPM challenge. You've probably heard of the write a novel in the month of February so this is similar. It's pretty great what they came up with in such little time. Very raw and thoughtful and it's making pretty voices fun again. You can hear their stuff on their myspace account: Bellbirds They describe their sound as "If a herd of horses were actually banana slugs..."

I had to go home

I went home to Illinois this week for a dad with a broken heart. It was kind of ironic that I found that heart rock the day he started having symptoms for a heart attack. It's always strange when I go home, nothing ever changes. Well my mom got new drapes.

The house photo is the beginning of a new series of mine in which bubbles will be floating through different landscapes or man-madescapes. This first one is in front of my childhood home.

photo day sunday

Today I found a heart shaped rock. I felt a little selfish about taking it home with me instead of leaving it for maybe someone else to look down and discover. I took it anyway.

come see my new etsy shop!

Indian Summer at Indian Beach

My V-day was amazing by the way. Me and my boyfriend decided to head to the coast to find Canon beach packed to the gills (pun intended - gills - ocean - come-on). We ended up finding a very cool beach called Indian Beach located just north of Canon beach in Ecola State Park. $3 for the park. Only a handful of people were along this small beach in a rocky cove. We drank Tequila Sunrises and watched the sun set. Arf our dog is turning into the Buddah in her old age - she just sat and watched the waves. We left when it started to hail.

that mofo can write

While calamity jane in a slow burlesque plays catch in a bone yard way at the top of a two-legged mare it was a good night full of bad dreams with flat champagne and leaves in my hair, still shooting at birds with a violin bow first whisper your dreams in your children's ears making them safe as a hurricane dangling from a spider web and across the plate with a swing and a crack with just a skull for a ball and a leg-bone bat and all I remember are sparkle rocks, blue horses and flamingos as the train begins to slow and I always saw better when my eyes were closed.
-Tom Waits
from The Meaning of Life

photographic adventures!

The sun was shining, flares and light leaks were flying, what an amazing day at Oaks Park. The other day I joined a group of female photographers and we romped around and put on our best dead-pan stare - photographers make the best models don't you know! These ladies were even more geeked-out than me (in the best ways of course) with all their beautiful vintage cameras.

I took all the photos above but you should follow the link below to see the group pool of images:
Portland Photographic Adventures

Gocco Don't Go ;-(..

Ahhh Gocco, the miniature printer that makes screen printing accessible to the average crafter, oh how I'm going to miss you.

I finally revived from denial today about Gocco no longer shipping supplies to the U.S.. I realize I'm pretty late gathering and hording supplies but finally started the search today. So here's some information, not necessarily insightful for my first real blog entry but hopefully helpful to my fellow Gocco lovers.

Cheapest place for screens and bulbs I found: Gocco Screens and Bulbs

Cheapest seller of inks (on ebay but they have a bunch and it's "Buy It Now"): Gocco Ink

Much like our beloved Polaroid, the cost of the supplies are getting super spendy and are going to get even worse. Get them now! If you don't end up using them, I'm sure you'll be able to sell your stuff on ebay in a year for a killing.

The photo is of a "Thank You" card I made on the Gocco and the bowing guy is my very cooperative boyfriend Joseph. Here is a link to see a lot more awesome samples: Gocco Group Pool

what's in a name...

So the name pineapple *surprise* comes from something that happened today. For the second time me and my boyfriend went to this Vietnamese restaurant here in Portland. The first time he ordered a noodle dish, the second time a curry. I ordered the Vegetable Pho both times. Both times, even though it was not listed on the menu, there was a single piece of pineapple buried in his dish. We started to wonder if they did this on purpose...

I'm a photographer, a collage artist, a crafter, a cook, a collector, a documenter, an examiner of life. I really want to start finding and exploring those "pineapple surprises" in my day and showing you what I learn.