bricolagelife

see what i see :: midwest landscapes

from the car window on our drive home from the beach earlier this month.

have a wonderful weekend!

 

making stuff :: collage a day reflections on summer

rising from the sea

embrace those shifting weather patterns

thirst

see more of my collage a day project in my paper works flickr set.

right now i am: playing with toys

they couldn't be left alone in the house.

i'm finding toys express some things better than words can. this is how it feels inside my head lately. i should probably make time to meditate before i leave for work...

making stuff :: instant double exposures

i have a habit of holding pages up to the light when i am cutting up books and magazines for collages. when there are images on both sides i check to see if i can extract from one and still use a portion of the other. i do this all the time. so i can't believe i never thought of this before. i saw it here on vivienne strauss' flickr stream. she found it here on seriykotik1970's photostream. good stuff. and so much fun.

if you try this (and i think you should), leave a link in the comments - i would love to see what you make of it.

see what i see :: beach collections 2

this year i rearranged my beach combing finds into multiple collections. last year i arranged them by day and by common objects. i like to switch it up a little :)

right now i am: moving pieces of paper around

in an effort to make my mornings more efficient i have been devoting the hours before my day job begins to my own projects. i find i am too tired to accomplish very much in the evenings so i give myself the nights off and attempt to relax. after a weekend frenzy of stitching i switched gears to cut and paste paper works. this collage began as a reflection on another quote by rachel cusk, from the essay aftermath in the last granta (#115): "one way of defining what you are is to define what you are not."

it is still in process. i continue to cut, move, eliminate, add and alter the pieces until it all feels right. whatever that may be...

absent friends 2

the absent friends photo project continues...

after the untimely demise of my computer monitor last week, i am adjusting to a (generously donated) new to me screen and system. i noticed immediately the pale washed out appearance my images have on a different monitor. next i discovered if you tip the screen back at an angle, the brightness and exposure are a little closer to the original photo. try it :)

nice finds :: haunting films and brilliant shoe design

it's often pleasant to end a long workday with a free film and i have been indulging in the pleasure regularly, even venturing outside the apartment on occasion for a viewing. this week's nice finds include some of the haunting films and images i have seen lately and can't stop thinking about. and likewise, those brilliant shoes...

i admit that while watching the quietly heartbreaking wendy and lucy i was taking mental notes on michelle williams' haircut. and i think i can copy it.

within a 36 hour time period i saw both the spare and spooky 1973 spanish film the spirit of the beehive and the finnish artist eija liisa ahtila's talo/the house. if you enjoy films and stories that leave plenty of room for the viewer's imagination to fill in the blanks, i highly recommend both.

studying the levitating images by natsumi hayashi gave me a similar sense of existing in a mysterious other world. this image struck me in particular as it depicts so strikingly the way i fly in my dreams.

and then the sandals that made my heart skip a beat this weekend... designed and built here in chicago by mohop, the wooden soled (some with padding), eco-friendly, infinitely interchangeable loop and ribbon design is pure brilliance. and the low and mid heels look incredibly comfortable, too!

absent friends 1

absent friends have been very much on my mind for a long time. yesterday i began making a series of images to express these ruminations. this is the first.

 

a week of summer colors

monday = yellow

tuesday = pink

wednesday = blue

thursday = rainbow

friday = red

poppytalk is hosting a flickr pool this week called summer colours week 2011. these are a sampling of my submissions. focusing on a color a day was a welcome distraction this week and sparked more than a few ideas for future pics and projects. the photos don't have to be shot on these days this week so you can play, too, if you like.