Cougar Kisses

No, I don’t mean lip locking with sexy older women.  (Sorry, guys!)

Last Friday (June 3rd) was my birthday.  We’ll suffice it to say I am in my early 40′s and leave it at that.  As I was casually wondering what I might get for presents, it stirred memories of the greatest birthday present I ever received.  As we were growing up, our family was not the most financially stable.  It was more like feast or famine, but I never really minded all that much.  It made me appreciate people and experiences over material things, and not to take anything in my life for granted.  In fact, I am struggling to find a way for my children to learn the same valuable lessons without living in abandoned farm houses.  But I digress…

One “famine” year, my parents just didn’t have the resources to buy much in the way of gifts for me (or my 3 younger sisters).  To be honest, I don’t remember how old I was (12? 15?) or if I’d even gotten any material gifts at all that year.  All I remember is my father asking me to get in the car early that day.  My mother and siblings stayed home, so it was to be something special shared between us.  I had no idea where we were going.  It seemed to take forever.  After driving for what felt like hours but for all I know was only 40 minutes, my dad started to explain where we were going and why.  I couldn’t believe my ears.

Since the day I popped out of my mother’s womb, I have been an enormous fan of big cats: lions, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, lynx, ocelots.  My favorites still are Siberian tigers and the cats native to North America, bobcats and mountain lions (puma).  My first “big girl” book was a large, blue-green Encyclopedia of Big Cats.  I still have it to this day.  So excitement was a gross understatement when my dad, trying his best not to smile too hard, explained to me as we cruised down a sunny country road that our destination was a house where a man he met kept a young, friendly mountain lion as a pet.  My birthday present that year was an afternoon with his incredibly gorgeous 2 year old cat!  I simply could not contain myself.  When we arrived, my dad and the man shook hands and introduced me.  I got the feeling they were not long-time friends, and I could just imagine that my dad had contacted him with a special request on my behalf.  The man was very gracious.  He couldn’t stop grinning at me and my feeble attempt to remain patient as he led us to the outdoor pen where the cougar played in the yard.  The holes in the fence were large enough to easily put my whole arm through.  After a thorough sniff inspection, the cat accepted me (or claimed me!) by trying to rub it’s head on my hand.  I pushed my arm into the pen and rubbed him behind the ears, under the chin, stroked his cheeks.  My heart soared when he leaned against me and purred, a sound so loud and deep, I felt it in my chest more than I heard it.  The adults kept a watchful eye but let me simply slather him with affection for as long as I liked.  Suddenly, the cat gently pulled my hand down onto it’s front leg and rested an enormous monkey-like paw on top of my hand.  He began to clean me, purring with his eyes closed.  It was like someone slowly dragging sharp, damp 10 grit sandpaper over my fragile skin.  I tried not to wince, focusing instead on the massive cool factor.  His owner said he never does that for strangers, that he must like me to be giving me cougar kisses.  (Did he say that to all big cat-worshipping young ladies?)  For a brief instant I wondered if I tasted good and might lose my arm in a violent twist of kitty emotions, but the cougar remained gentle and affectionate.  It was actually a house cat when there were no visitors, lounging down the entire length of the back of the sofa most of the day.  Needless to say, I was completely blown away by the whole experience.

To this day, I still wonder whatever became of the man and his cougar.  Did it mature only to turn on him and wind up being shot?  Was the owner forced to place him in a zoo?  Realistically, that guy had no business keeping a mountain lion as a pet, and statistically I was probably lucky that nothing bad happened to me during my visit.  But the purest joy I felt that day continues to remain with me.  The best gift ever had nothing to do with money or toys or games or STUFF, save a few gallons of gas and some driving time, and everything to do with the celebration of the wonders of life and that which a young girl loved with all her heart.  Thank you, Daddy.  I will never forget my precious cougar kisses.

Ojibwe Stories Project

As the end of the semester at Kent State University fast approaches, I am up to my eyeballs in my final project.  It will be a real struggle to get it all done in a timely manner.  For whatever reason, I must secretly love tormenting myself by making things way more complicated than they need to be.  I couldn’t just decide to photograph children, or the homeless, or life on a rural Ohioan farm.  No, that would make too much sense.  Instead, I decide to create dioramas illustrating 20 of my favorite Ojibwe and other midwestern Native American stories.  The dioramas are constructed by layering drawings, cut out pieces of photos and props.  I then photograph each one in black and white for my final image.  The 20 complete images will be edited down to the best 15 for presentation as my final portfolio for Intro to Fine Art Photography, due May 3.

I don’t expect anyone viewing the images to grasp the concept behind any of these stories.  I am more concerned with sparking interest, however brief, over the unusual behaviors of the animals and dreamlike quality I am working to achieve in each scene.  For example, in the work-in-progess above, Turtle hears the birds talking about flying south for the winter and all the good things they’ll enjoy when they reach their destination.  Turtle wants a piece of the action and begs the birds to take him along.  Since Turtle has a very strong bite, never letting go unless he wants to, Crow and Blackbird volunteer to carry him with a stick in his mouth.  However, as Turtle is flown through the sky over the changing landscape, he is amazed by all the natural wonders he sees from his new vantage point.  What were the places they passed?  How much farther did they need to go?  Unable to contain himself any longer, he opens his mouth to ask, only to plunge back to Mother Earth far below.  Upon landing, he strikes a large rock beside a pond, cracking his smooth back into many segments.  To soothe his wounds and hide his embarrassment, he crawls into the pond and buries himself in the mud to sleep for the winter and forget his foolish desire to migrate like a bird.  To this day, Turtle still buries himself every winter in the mud to sleep and still wears cracks upon his back as a reminder that sometimes it is better to keep one’s mouth shut!  (This is a great one for those long family trips in answer to the umpteenth “Are we there yet?”)

Gotta cover the bridge…

As soon as we got our second project assignment for Intro to Fine Art Photo at KSU, I knew the first thing I would photograph.  The assignment was dubbed “Picture Within a Picture”.  The jist of it was to use framing, camera angles, reflections, shadows, openings through objects or other devices to create any kind of a picture within a picture.  This could include murals or old signage.  We needed to turn in our six best prints, based on meeting the criteria and achieving a good range of tonal grays, along with balanced contrasting of black and white.

I had at least one good candidate covered.  Literally.  This would be my first attempt at a black and white photograph for the class, so I really wanted it to be something I thought was pretty cool.  Centennial Bridge, a restored covered wooden bridge just south of Salem, would be perfect.  Initially, I thought shooting a photo down the length of it’s rectangular tunnel would be the best, with my outer picture being the bridge’s exterior and the inner being the view out the other end.  Just to be safe, I took a bunch of extra pictures from just about every angle.

After spending some quality time in the darkroom, I was surprised that my favorite photo of the old covered bridge wasn’t any of the images I’d planned with the assignment in mind.  The most successful one was an upward shot of the somewhat awkward phrasing painted on one end of the bridge.  I had been attracted by the snow on the branches next to the weathered wood and taken a few backed by gray winter sky.  The antique styled lettering just added more interest and provided the contrast I needed to meet the assignment requirements.  I think of all the six I submitted, it’s probably my favorite.  Hopefully in the next few days, I can post the remaining five.  Thanks for looking!

Autumn Moon

Man, here I am over halfway through the Spring semester at KSU, and I haven’t posted anything but a few experimental photograms.  Sheesh!

Those strange looking images I shared with you earlier were created by laying various objects on light-sensitive photo paper and exposing them to various amounts of light for different lengths of time.  Essentially, they were all practice for our first real project in Intro to Fine Art Photo.  Out task was to create a large photogram from a minumum of 12 sheets of 8″ x 10″ photo paper, using the techniques we explored in the smaller ones.  The images could be separate, displayed together with some common element tying them together, or they could be arranged to form one seamless photogram using a special enlarger and the darkroom floor.  Of course, I chose the technically trickier enlarger/floor option.  We were tasked to create an image with movement, meaning, good contrast and a range of gray tones.  Thankfully, mine received a good grade and was selected to be displayed in the Fine Arts lobby along with a few others.

I chose to use a Native inspired drum my sister Mary had made for me years ago.  The circle of the drum is suggestive of the full moon, hints of the stretched hide texture replacing craters and peaks.  Dried leaves swirl from the trailing feathers, fur and horsehair, their path accentuated by traces of wild rice, grasses, dried moss and branches bearing winter berries.  I also included a few arrowheads I found in my garden.  Once it was developed and assembled, I added touches of hand coloring by rubbing in raw oil paint and a few positive images of leaves created from my negative ones.  It’s hard to see in the photo, but I cut out multiple leaves and mounted them 1/4″ from the surface, with some drifting off the edges, for a more dimensional effect. 

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.  During critique, my classmates seemed to get the feeling of a windy autumn night, in the solitude of the woods, caught in the changing of the seasons.  But apparently, I need to watch more Disney movies, because several people commented that it reminded them of the animated film ”Pocahontas”.  Oh well, at least it connected with them in a positive way!  (I think?!?  Maybe I need to rent that movie…)

Assemblage Sculpture

In an effort to play catch-up on last semester’s work at KSU, I finally took a halfway decent shot of my final project for Sculpture I.  This thing was difficult to photograph as a whole.  In fact, I think I’d like to take some close-up shots just for the potentially interesting imagery it might create.

The project was an assemblage of found objects.  Using a large old tree branch, I wrapped select branches and joints with bright silver wire.  The wire started and stopped via embedding into tiny holes hand-drilled in the branches.  At intervals along the branch, the silver wire carried leaves cut from circuit boards I scavenged from various defunct hardware lying in the basement.  Also from the pits of Spiderland were inoperative cell phones.  I sprayed these a bold flat red and wired them to the branches like outdated fruit.  (I actually liked the sculpture a lot better before the garish “fruits” were attached.)

The piece was titled “Overripe”.  The whole concept behind the thing was based on technology and how as soon as a “new” technology or upgrade hits the public market, it is already practically obsolete.

Although this piece has returned to its roots (back in the basement from whence most of it originated), I would like to revisit this concept again some time.  I think a small bush, very bonsai-like with twisted arms and sparse but well-placed branches, supported by a stone container, would make an interesting sculpture wrapped intermittently with wire and adorned with dozens of circuit board leaves.  It would be cool if the wire were thin enough to allow the leaves to nod a bit in passing breezes.  Maybe some day I will find the time, because I think about it fairly often.  Perhaps it will find its way into a painting instead.  Either way, there’s something about the integration of the soft gray wood against the bright silver wire, the organic merged with the man-made, that holds a big appeal to me.  Don’t be surprised if you see this concept from me again!

Has anyone seen my head?

 

This week was the call for entries for the Annual Student Show in the art building gallery at Kent State University.  The deadline for submission was Wednesday.  On Tuesday, I agonized forever over which pieces to drop off for the juror.  I found it really difficult to decide.  I wound up choosing a gesture study I had done some time ago of a woman’s backside and the finished head sculpture in plaster from last semester’s Sculpture I class.  (Click here to see an early stage of this project.)

On Wednesday, I set about searching my various storage areas for the 2 pieces to submit, but for some bizarre reason, I just couldn’t find the head sculpture.  I mean, it’s not like it’s small, so where could it be?  I hunted everywhere, asking my children, “Have you seen Mommy’s head?”  Of course, they laughed and told me it was still attached to my neck.  “Reach up to your face, Mommy.  That’s where it is.”  I asked my husband, “Have you seen my head?”  He basically just looked at me and shook his.  Eventually the missing melon turned up in a box in the basement.  I had forgotten that I removed the sculpture from it’s base and carefully packaged them to protect them from exposure and damage.  Now, if only keeping my REAL head clean and organized were as simple as bubble wrap and cardboard.

Having never seen any previous student shows, I had no idea what type of work they were looking for.  Of course, I wasn’t surprised that both pieces were rejected.  The good thing is when I went to pick them up afterward, I saw the stuff that had made the cut.  Next year I will have a much better chance of properly catering to their tastes without losing my head!

Exploring More Photograms

Today was our 2nd day in the darkroom for Intro to Fine Art Photo at KSU.  I was able to experiment with a wider variety of materials this time, including feathers, sticks, leaves, dryer sheets, Easter grass and the kids’ squishy wiggly toys, among many other things.  I can’t believe how fast time went screaming by!  I’m getting closer to nailing down a solid idea for the large photogram due next week.  The hard part will be getting into the darkroom to work during lab hours, since they’re all in the evening, but I’ll find a way to make it work.  In the meantime, I’m scouring the house for cool looking shapes with translucent qualities and interesting patterns.  Maybe when I’m all done, I should have a contest to see who can accurately identify all the items in my photogram, just for fun.