I'm 28 years old today.

I've spent much of the last week either coughing or in bed, knocked out by a horrible cold. Mostly I napped and watched episodes of Mad Men, but it did allow me some time to foggily reflect on my 27th year.

My birthday celebration last year also doubled as a farewell dinner with dear friends, as just a few weeks later Jason and I left New Zealand. It's been a bit of a crazy year, and because I've had my head down so much with school I almost feel like it hasn't happened. I've been spending so much time in my head, and in the routine between work and class, but I've learned so, so much. One of my greatest gifts this year is that my birthday also marks only two months until graduation. I also feel very blessed that this year, I'll be able to celebrate with a new group of awesome people.

28 has always sat in my mind as a sort of landmark, possibly even moreso than 30. The rest of 2010 is going to be pretty important for me – graduating and looking for my niche in the bodywork community, not to mention finally sinking my teeth into some new photography work. But what I want is for all of it to help me get a bit more grounded in my life and finding more confidence in where I'm headed. Most of all, I want 28 to be about shit getting real.

I wish I knew who took this picture. Found on his Twitter page.

Continuing my brain-crush on Alain de Botton, I recently picked up his first work, a novel called On Love. I'm only halfway through, but it's a great read.

"The most interesting faces generally oscillate between charm and crookedness. There is a tyranny about perfection, a certain tedium even, something that asserts itself with all the dogmatism of a scientific formula. The more tempting kind of beauty has only a few angles from which it may be glimpsed, and then not in all lights and at all times. It flirts dangerously with ugliness, it takes risks with itself, it does not side comfortably with mathematical rules of proportion, it draws its appeal from precisely those details that also lend themselves to ugliness. As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination."

I mean, damn.

© Yulanda Yee


© Yulanda Yee

I'm so incredibly sad to hear the news that photographer Yulanda Yee has passed away after a second battle with lymphoma. Yulanda and I were never close, but we followed each other's online journals for a number of years. She was the first photographer I ever purchased (three, small) prints from, all the more cherished now. I always found her aesthetic inspiring, both in her personal style and her image making.

In 2008, Yulanda created Little Thoughts, a blog that followed her day to day explorations in style, good food, and all the other things she loved. The photographs she made to illustrate it were impeccable, and she soon picked up a following. I have especially loved her self-portraits. Little Thoughts is an example of the kind of creativity we can strive for in our everyday.


© Yulanda Yee


© Yulanda Yee

I can't sleep and I barely know what to say. The news of her death came as a shock; I knew she was ill, but didn't realize how quickly it had worsened.

Looking now at her photographs, all I can think is: What a beautiful life.

You'll be missed, Yulanda.

As I drove away from school and Pathophysiology class tonight, I noticed a glow in the distance towards the mountains. I caught another glimpse as I headed up Cerrillos and saw it was the moon, gigantic and yellow, rising over the Sangre de Cristos. Like an embedded reflex, my thoughts went to "camera!" but I knew it'd soon be over and went back to enjoying it while it lasted. I discovered the moon sinking back below the mountains as I neared my neighborhood and got excited. What a chance, to be able to watch the moonrise twice. But by the time I pulled up in front of my house, the camera! reflex had long since passed.

I had enough time to go inside, set down my bag and books, warm up a little, then grab my sweetie and we stepped back out onto the street together. The moon was directly east, exactly in line with the middle of the little road we live on, and just starting to show up over the ridge of the mountains in our view. And it was in fact one of those things I used to run frantically to my camera for, but in recent times have more often than not remembered to just take in and enjoy. I don't take as many snapshots these days, and it's not due to less love of pictures or making them – I'm glad when other people are there to capture something like this in a photograph. It's just that I no longer feel as much motivation to record it as I do to live it. Maybe due to making my pictures with a different intention these days. As much as I still enjoy snapping shots of little things to share with friends and family, after many years of making images I've learned it's just as rewarding (if not moreso) to let that go in order to witness something special with all my own senses. No distractions.

Even after it got too cold, I lingered there alone for a little while, standing in the middle of the empty street and staring up at the moon. It rose quickly above the ridgeline, sporting a halo as it glowed behind a thin curtain of high clouds. I closed my eyes, took in the cold, caught the scent of a neighbor's winter fire. I opened my eyes, watched a car whir past on an adjacent street then gazed back up at the moon. It was one of those replenishing perfect moments that tell you everything's going to be alright. As someone who practices photography it's good to be reminded you don't need to take a picture to commemorate that. I think, sometimes, it can even teach you more about being a photographer than making the photograph.

© M.C. Escher

Tonight I was piddling around on Google Images, looking for illustrated depictions of snakes, and stopped in my tracks when I spotted the image above, Snakes by M.C. Escher. It's the first time I've ever seen this woodcut, and now I can't stop staring at it. I love his optical art, but clearly it's time to find a good book of his work, because these images are cutting through me like a knife.


© M.C. Escher

If you're as entranced as I am, check out the picture gallery on the official M.C. Escher website.

Maybe to some people this will sound like hippie bullshit, but if you look past the flowery language I think there is truth.

What is Right Livelihood?

When someone's means of livelihood is also a means for expressing one's unique creativity.

When someone's work brings joy and fulfillment, rather than being only a monetary means to an end.

When there is no need for separating what one does from what one is.

When one's work adds to the reservoir of positiveness in the world.

That is Right Livelihood.

And when you personally identify and take your next step towards transforming your livelihood to right livelihood, then the evolution of consciousness of every being is accelerated. We are not in this alone.

–Danaan Parry

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life. The whole experience of studying massage has started a subtle but fundamental change in me. Digging up my foundation, laying a new one. I realize how much I don't trust myself, how I've always been afraid to take responsibility for something bigger than just me, sometimes even for myself. As a bodyworker there is a power dynamic between you and the person on the table. You have to hold a space for them, respect them, be present with them, because in that hour their physical (and at times mental and emotional) experience and well being is your responsibility. Whoever walks in, usually total strangers with unknown life stories, you are there with them in every moment as much as you can be while also looking out for yourself. And looking out for myself is not something I've always done well, but I'm slowly getting better at it.

For Christmas, I went home to North Carolina for the first time in two years. I couldn't believe it had already been so long, it's hard to know how the days pass like they do. The previous trip eventually helped cement the decision to move home from New Zealand. It was just too hard to be so isolated, and so far from family and friends. Especially in tough economic times, when no one could manage the extra vacation days and the price of the plane ticket to come and see the place that meant so much to me. Being home again really made me take a look at my life between then and now, and from now until who knows when. Everything gets kind of broken down into puzzle pieces, fragments, decisions, actions and non-actions. Conversations, letters, laughter, tears, risks, small victories. I'm trying to see where I want things to go and how.

Some days I feel like my molecules are rearranging. I find myself wanting different, unexpected things. I'm turning 28 soon and my astrological Saturn return has already begun. There's a saying every 7 years all the cells in your body have regenerated, and regardless of truth or fiction I feel like I've started shedding a skin.

I can't help but feel frustrated in not making artwork now, in a time when I so want that retreat and forgetting of rules, just making a picture. But maybe all this weird fumbling and confusion will eventually give way to some serious focus. Letting go of any expectations or hopes I had for my success as an artist and just making work. Fuck it, because if there's anything I'm learning from this time apart from the cycle of making and showing work, it's that the process of creating is what I love the most, it's what matters most. When I look back on my life I'm not going to remember being chosen for some juried exhibition, I'm going to remember kneeling out on the beach with sand all over me, soaking wet at low tide building an impromptu wind shelter out of driftwood and detritus so I could try for the 80th time to light a fire in a set of brass scales while tourists stared at me.

Just for a picture.

Just for myself.

We're only hours away from 2010 now, and I'm ready for the new year. 2009 has gone by in the blink of an eye and was filled with transition for me. I went through a rough international move from New Zealand back to the States, made the decision to study massage and started school, all in the span of about 10 weeks. Since then life has been hectic and I've been working my ass off. I'm looking to the year ahead with a lot of excitement, and I'm especially optimistic for the spring:

March 9 I'll celebrate my 28th birthday.
April 9 marks my first year here in Santa Fe.
May 9 I graduate from massage school.

Once I graduate, there's no stopping me. Massage and making pictures for the win.

Happy new year to you!

© 2009 Liz Kuball

It should be known that I am Boo Radley's #2 fan. Second only to his personal assistant, chauffeur and tour photographer, Liz Kuball.

Lucky for me, Boo's schedule of personal appearances for the 2009 holiday season includes a stop in Albuquerque. He's agreed to have a personal audience with me, but first Liz and I are going to discuss his tour rider and the rules of etiquette over lunch at Flying Star.

I'm so excited to meet Boo! Oh yeah, and I'm looking forward to seeing Liz, too.

Well folks, I laid out the names of all the people who've bought a print from me over the past few weeks and revved up a handy dandy automatic number generator. And who should win the 13x15" editioned print but my dear friend Liz Kuball! She chose the image above. Awesomesauce.

Don't worry, there are still prints available and surely one of them's got your name on it. Have at it my friends!