(First 7 Photos by Angi Welsh The first one is of our lovely room mate Sarah, our cat Oliver and a bookcase I recently installed in our house using recycled wooden desk drawers. Other photos of our daily life and 7 year old neighbor Benny and his mom Audra. Last 3 photos by Emily Blake )
It is. A new. Season.
I know, this is nothing new. Fall has come slinking around the corner with her usual quiet prowess surprising and enticing the majority of us. Yet, autumn this year feels strikingly different than autumns gone by. And of course it is. For the first time in 19 years I am not “back-to-school,” Curtis (my boyfriend) has returned, at long last, from the North country after four (basically) communication-less months as a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska, I live now in a new house, in a new city with a new surrogate family of house-mate/room-mates, and this is what I’ve discovered - Life goes on. But seriously. No matter what my bank statement reads at the end of the day, week, or month. No matter what new situation I face. No matter what new place I find myself. No matter how odd, off-putting, or “emotionally-strenuous” the circumstance. Life goes on. It has to. And while I’ve found myself learning this lesson before, I think I may now, be learning it in a new way. That life goes on, and it can, with joy, trepidation yes, but joy also.
I’m learning to genuinely love the “stuff” of my new life. Emily’s heavy footsteps across our creaky and resounding wood floors each morning several hours before I really want to be awake (reminding me of course, and thankfully, that there is a day to be had), our cat Oliver’s persistent and admirable dedication to instinctual practice (leaping, pouncing, darting, etc.), Angi and Taryn’s relaxed but wonderfully habitual approaches to work and daily practice, Sarah’s relentless dedication to her school work despite the fact that it leaves her with only several hours of sleep a week, the necessitated need to learn to cook and clean, the daily requirement to practice and somehow maintain personal discipline, organization, and a spirit of creativity/craftmanship/hardwork.
This is a new life. And I’m terribly thankful for it. So fall, you relentless season of change, memory and forced forethought, welcome. And thanks for showing up.
Fortitude and the Dog Days of Summer
Well well well. Greetings once again to the blogosphere.
It has been a strange and wonderful several months. Finally graduated from what feels like ages upon ages of collegiate excursion and experience, and having ventured several months worth of teetering steps into my “adult” life, I feel both satisfied with my progress and simultaneously as confused as I’ve ever been. Here’s what I want to know… How do people do this adult life thing successfully? You know, feeding yourself nutritiously balanced meals, paying rent, managing the terrifying realm of finances, pursuit of a satisfying and fulfilling career, etc etc. It’s a lot. It really is. Sure, there are many days of successfully productive forward momentum (those days I am always mindful to congratulate myself with a pat on the back and a positive forward-thinking pep-talk. You know the kind, “See Laura? That wasn’t so hard now was it? What a productive day! Now let’s just do that again tomorrow and the next day and the….” Of course by that time the other part of me is whining for a glass of water or another blanket on the bed. But… we can’t always be as mature as we’d like, now can we?
I spent the first two and a half months of my post-college summer living with my brother, sister-in-law, and another couple that they had just moved into the most wonderful home with in Orange, CA. With a pool, hot-tub, wonderful patio, my own room, and two dogs that constantly sought after and fought for my affections, it quickly became the perfect space and environment for me to regroup, and plan my next step. Freelance work came out of nowhere, consistently, and always just in time. Copper, a hulking and handsome Australian Cattle Herder quickly became my best friend, companion, and summer-time “boyfriend” in light of the Alaskan commercial-fishing absence of my real boyfriend. He was faithful, always by my side, and found me wherever I was each night when he thought it ought to be time for bed. “Okay, okay,” I’d say, “Bedtime?” and he’d wag his tail, head straight for my room, and sit in the door way while I pulled out the sleeper sofa and made the bed. Finally, I’d pull back the covers on his side of the bed, look at him, and say, “Okay buddy! Come on up!” and he’d hop up with as much joy and exuberance as I imagine a dog can have. What. A. Pal.
And of course when it came time to pack up and move out, ours was the hardest goodbye. He’d known all week, sniffing my boxes suspiciously, coming over and licking my leg or arm he’d cock his head and let out a soft whine, “Laura, what’s this all about? You’re leaving? Just like that? What did I do? I’m sorry! When all that pasta fell on the floor I just… wanted to help! I swear I’ll never do it again!” And I’d hug him and kiss his face and tell him I loved him. But a week later while I packed up my car he laid forlornly by the door picking up his head for a moment when I came back in, and setting it down again with a sigh as I grabbed more boxes and bags. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little choked up when I finally left. I told him that I’d just be in Long Beach and that I’d be back to see him often. But I don’t think he understood.
Now, finally settled into a beautiful craftsman-style, California bungalow on a street called Bermuda with 4 of my friends and a precocious and aggressively-pubescent kitten named Oliver, I’m looking-forward (though not without apprehension) to a new season of life and learning. Remembering and learning of course, always and on-goingly courage, discipline, graciousness, contentment and joy.
I’m looking forward also to the coming Autumn, Curtis’ return from the north country, and forging ahead with fortitude headlong into this adult-life-thing. (I NEED A JOB!)
New styles from my all time favorite shoe/boot company: Redwings. I know they’re for guys but… maybe I could get a pair anyway?
No, I haven’t suddenly become a gear head or anything like that. But there IS something undeniably alluring about this 1934 BMW R7. I can’t help but look at it and fantasize about how cool it would be to cruise up all non-nonchalantly to a friends house, “Oh this? Yeeeeeaaaah, … I’ve had it for a LITTLE while… it gets me around… you know, it’s no big deal.”
5 weeks.
$7,500.
Just a weekend getaway for two brothers and their families.
Seriously? This is so cool that I’m almost out of breath. I’m not kidding.
“The shape of the prefabricated trusses was inspired by sails and Moskow’s father-in-law’s love for boating. The collection of shelters is reminiscent of days past when groups of covered wagons traveled West.”
Read more: http://www.dwell.com/slideshows/swamp-thing.html?slide=7&c=y&paused=true#ixzz0lBzuExxo
Last Thursday my friends Dustin and Michelle and I set out on an overly ambitious task… and passed with flying colors! Our goal was to photograph my entire portfolio of woodwork BUT we wanted to photograph it as a catalog. Since (to my knowledge) none of us have really spent any time with product photography and all of the things that go along with it, I would say that our approach was rather haphazard (grabbing my many large and small wooden pieces, throwing them in the back of Dustin’s truck and shooting off to our two locations, locations we had never actually seen). But Michelle really stepped up to bat when I asked her to do this project and the three of us were able to pull off a relatively painless experience. I’m pretty excited about this project, especially as it enters it’s next phase of collaboration in the capable hands of our friend and incredible designer Colin Snow.
I’m so excited that I’ll probably post a few picture’s even though I SHOULD wait until the book is finished and my show opens (May 24!). Who knows. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
P.S. Though I wish the above photograph was featuring my work… it’s not. It’s Unis with Brooklyn’s Sit and Read Furniture. Pretty cool, it freature’s handpicked vintage chairs that have been reupholstered by the left over fabrics from Unis’ Spring Summer 2010 collection. What a killer idea! I found this this morning on … where else… Selectism.com of course.
Photos by Michelle Mosqueda
What and Eventful Month of March!
Welcoming spring has never been so fun! We’ve been up to so many cool things! From an adventurous getaway to the Salton Sea, to an extravagant 1920’s themed birthday party, to sailing for the very first time, the month of March was truly picturesque. Good thing Samuel and Michelle were around to capture it. (Photos above and below)
1920’s Hoopla (Rebekah and Elizabeth’s Birthday)
Photos by Michelle Mosqueda
Salton Sea Adventure 2010
Failure is not necessarily a bad thing. It has meaning. It has sign value.
— Visiting Artist/ Art Professor from Otis concerning failure in art making.My dear friend Jake Albaugh recently covered Thom York’s: Atom’s for Peace and shared the video with us (Michelle and I) last night. We were pretty darn impressed so we thought that maybe our tumblr friends would be as well.
Seeing all of the personal work that many of my talented friends have been churning out lately has got me itching to be more creatively productive myself. So, as another summer comes tripping over the horizon I resign myself to spending the coming warmer months dedicated once again to the task of learning (or trying to learn) discipline and courage.
Courageous Attempt #1
Finish my senior show / Wooden Sailboat Skeleton = Completing something. All the way. For maybe the first time. Ever.
Pictures via The Sartorialist
Weariness- Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependance, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.
- Blaise Pascal from Pensees
Indeed. While wonderful and exciting things have been happening all around me and to me this last several months, I have found myself personally in a state of weariness. Without excitement or passion for my work, my ideas, my craft, etc. Forgetting to take joy in things, forgetting to appreciate things and forgetting to think well (forgetting, of course, courage). BUT! The joyous “but,” I awoke this morning with a sense that I have gotten past the “weariness.” So as I grin at my screen, tickity-tack-tack-typing these words, I urge you, if you are weary, be not so.
I am now going to ask you a favor which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well, this is it:
Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them. For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don’t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that’s why I don’t want to know that you are fond of me.
—Franz Kafka wrote exactly the sort of love letters you’d expect. (via ewilcox)
GAHHHH/
(via meaghano)
(via 245am)
ESKIMO-FOOTED FUR TRAPPERS
Today, my comrades and I (mom and dad) traveled north to dry creek (the woods and creek in the back yard) heading up a scouting expedition of the area and in search of trade routes and possible camp locations. It was a successful, though frightfully cold journey.
CHEERS 2009 YOU WERE A HANDFUL
I think that this has truly been the most eventful year of my life, so far. Every piece and player has been moved and changed and replaced and reconfigured. A hard year. A good year. Here’s looking forward to the next one.
HAPPY 2010 EVERYONE.
