At the Threshold of Balance

It's no secret that over the last two weeks, since returning home from Chicago, I've been thinking about balance. I started out by diving into a plan of how to achieve it, but realized that there is a bigger question that has to be answered: What does balance mean to me anyway? I can't develop a plan for balance if I don't have a target of what balance looks like for my life.

For me, balance does not mean focusing on any one thing to the exclusion of others. My life is a dance, moving from side to side of the dance floor. Each side has something different to offer, something different it needs. It encompasses so much more than one "thing." I don't think there is one word that can capture all of this: Photographer/Teacher/Writer/Engineer/Mother/Wife/Friend. There is no all or nothing.

In my photography, balance starts with deciding what is in and out of the frame before I take the picture. But it doesn't stop there, it continues as I play around with different compositions and views. I need to remember I'm doing the same in life - experimenting and playing with the elements that make up my life to create a balanced whole. There is no realistic expectation that says we will get it all right and perfect on the first try.  There is no realistic expectation that we will get it all right and perfect, ever. Maybe perfection happens for a brief moment in time, but life is subject to change.

I'm at the threshold of balance right now. Deciding what is in and out of the frame of life. From there I'll experiment with the details and see how to make things fit in a balanced way. It feels much simpler and freer to think of it as an experiment, where I'm testing to see the outcome, than as a commitment where I "fail" if I don't get it right.

What does balance mean to you? How do you manage this ever-changing process of achieving balance in your life?

Why We Need Art

I was so excited last weekend, visiting the Saturday Market here in town. I found the first American image for my market/wheels series! Yay!
When I applied the standard "seventies" processing used in the series to the image, I got chills. I had this amazing realization. This series transcends place and time. All over the world, farmers are bringing their delicious wares to markets on wheels. They always have, they always will. I can go anywhere in the world, anywhere, and find images for this series. I could be in the middle of rural China or my little town of Corvallis and I will find a market. In the market, I guarantee I will find wheels. Within this commonality, I can see the differences too. The unique elements that tell the viewer where I am.
This is why we need art. Art is a way to equalize. Artists find connections, and commonalities. We speak in a language that transcends words. Anyone, anywhere in the world can identify with a piece of visual art. It can move us, bring us together in a way that nothing else can. 
And each of us, with our unique vision of the world, has something to offer that conversation. Whether it's with a camera or a paintbrush or pieces of glass. Each individual point of view adds depth and dimension to the world we live in. We share our differences, and in the process, find the similarities between us. Don't you think, if the everyone in the world participated in the conversation this way, the world would be a better place? I think so. I hope you're joining in too.
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What's going on around The Kat Eye View of the World...

• Linking in to Paint Party Friday today, with these two works in progress started this week. I'm loving the colors! I'm picking up some new liquid acrylics in similar colors tomorrow at our new art supply store in town. (Check out the bottom of the page - I'm featured!!) I can't wait to play with the new colors, and see where they go next.
• The current Exploring with a Camera theme is The Color Wheel: Part 1. Check out the post and join in the exploration. 
• Do you want find your unique vision of the world through photography? Registration for the fall series of the Find Your Eye e-course is open! Visit here for more info.
• You can subscribe to the Kat Eye News to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.

Fascinations, Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, one of my latest fascinations is mail boxes! ("Letter boxes" for those of you in the UK.) These are disappearing around the US too, just like parking meters. Replaced by safer and more efficient shared post boxes, these are a bit of life that is going away. I remember the excitement as a child, of putting up that flag when the box had mail and seeing it down later in the day after the postman had come. I would run to see what had arrived in the mail. It's sad, I don't even have one in front of my house now. We walk up the street with a key to see what arrived, and it's usually junk. Bills don't even come anymore, they are sent via email.

Mail boxes are a symbol of so much else disappearing too, personal mail and the written letter. We all love to get mail but how often do we send it? Not so often. That's why the Liberate Your Art postcard swap was so much fun for many of us. For a little while, we got fun mail!

In honor of little-used mail boxes everywhere, let's all send a postcard or a letter or a note to someone we care about today. I've got my pen out now! Won't you join me?



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What's going on around The Kat Eye View of the World...

• The current Exploring with a Camera theme is Process of Elimination. Check out the post and explore with us.
• Do you want to deepen the connection between your heart and soul and your photography? Registration for the fall series of the Find Your Eye e-course is open! Visit here for more info.
• You can subscribe to the Kat Eye News to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.

Deeper than the Eye

The heart sees deeper than the eye.
- Found on my Yogi tea bag Friday

Inspiration... sometimes elusive, other times abundant. As a creative person, I'm always aware of my sources of inspiration. It comes from the reading I do, the playing in my craft. It comes from exploring the world around me. Inspiration is everywhere.

Let me repeat: Inspiration is everywhere.

This weekend, inspiration was found in crab pots sitting along the bayfront in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. Aren't the colors and textures just amazing? I spent quite a while exploring the crab pots with my camera. A few years ago I took one picture of a stack of pots in this town, and for some reason that image popped into my head before my excursion. I was on the hunt for crab pots.

During my hunt I found a number of other things... some interesting texture, brought on by the salt water and proximity of the ocean. I found interesting colors, from the quaint buildings to the stacks of containers in the fish processing warehouses. I found interesting contrasts, in the people working in the processing plants in their rubber boots and the tourists in their flip flops. I found inspiration in the process of taking pictures, with three new Exploring with a Camera ideas coming to me. Thank goodness for my little notebook and pen, always with me in my camera bag.

Most of all, I found a deeper truth, finally understood with my heart instead of just my head. My inspiration comes from the process of creating my art. It is found when I am out and about, hunting for photos. Seeing the world through my viewfinder and lens. Translating something that just catches me out of the corner of my eye into something that is beautifully presented. It is the process of photography -- of exploring, capturing and then making those little tweaks in post-processing to perfect an image -- that matters to me. It is the process of creating that is the whole point to all of this artistic stuff. Sitting at home, inspiration doesn't come for me. It takes getting out and doing.

For some reason, a year ago or more, I had this idea that I would move back to Oregon and still share mostly photos of Europe on my blog. I have gazillions of photos from my two years of living in Italy on my hard drive - many unedited and just crying out for review. Who knows, I might even have ones I like better than my favorites hidden in the folders. So I've had this idea stuck in my head, that's what I would do... Edit my photos from the last two years and continue share them here. For some reason, I thought it was Italy and Europe that was inspiring me photographically, and that just the sharing of the images would be inspiration enough to carry me a good long while.

Not true. I know now: It's the creative process itself that inspires me. What living temporarily in Italy did was get me out regularly with my camera, to new places. It exposed me to new and different things. It got me out and doing. It got me writing and sharing. Trying new things, like painting. Once I was doing all of that, the rest took care of itself.

Inspiration is everywhere I go, because it's found within me. 

That lesson, learned with my heart this weekend, may be the most important one I've learned to date. I hope you can take it to heart too.

Linking in to Creative Exchange and Creative Every Day today.

The Return-from-Vacation Conundrum

So, I'm back from vacation. Back to the normal routine. Here I sit on a Monday morning, debating the ways to approach this week, where I have a lot to do after two weeks away... Do I jump in with both feet, and just try to get as much done as possible? Or do I ease myself into it, focusing on the priority things and let the rest slide? How do you approach this situation?

My tendency is to jump in and work to get everything done, but that can stress me out. (Case in point - I couldn't shut my brain off last night and didn't get a good night's sleep.) I think I'll try the second option, since "easing" sounds so much nicer, but I'm not sure how I'll do at that. I guess we'll see as the week progresses.

Today's second question: Where in the world is this photo from? Do you think it's from Europe or the USA? Answer tomorrow!

Linking in to Creative Every Day and The Creative Exchange today.

Seeing Green

A funky green-painted building on Carbondale Main Street made a great repeating pattern, in the sunshine and shadow.

The Color and Texture of Paint (+ Swap Update)

I bet you thought you were going to see peeling paint in today's image, from the title of my post, and knowing what I love. Wrong! I've been neglecting to share good, colorful, fresh paint too. For equal opportunity, today I give you this wonderful color from a shop front inside the Victorian Market in Inverness. Aren't the colors and textures of this paint just delicious? It was the shop front of a flower shop and the riot of color was fun, but I focused on simplifying things down to this architectural detail. In addition to color and texture, there is also some great shape and form here, I always love that too.

Along with this cheery image for your Sunday morning, I'll also give you a cheery Liberate Your Art Postcard swap update. The final count for sign up is at 254 people in the swap! Wow!! That's 1270 pieces of art that will be winging their way around the world shortly. Add to that, the 254 postcards I will be sending for meeting the goal of 200 participants. It may sounds crazy, but I can't wait to get on it. I'm so excited for this, it fills me with such happiness. So many people have mentioned that they are getting out of their comfort zone to sign up and do this - I'm so proud of you all for putting your art out into the world!

For those of you signed up, all of the swap details will be sent to you via email later this week. Until then, be sure to visit some of your fellow participants on our AMAZING participant link list! Pick two or three links, stop by and say hi this week to a few artists in the swap. (If you're signed up, it's not to late to have your link added. Just drop me an email with your link.)

Enjoy your Sunday!

Links added since last blog update:

Marie OteroShelley ShockleyBrain Angles - Invisible InkMosey AlongApril Cole's StudioJo Murray - ArtWith Renewed EyesZentangles & StuffmichellereneFleeting MomentsJournaling through PhotosStefanie ReneeAlison BehnGramma's Little CornerThe WhimzymeincaMoon's Musings
All the rest of the links - wow!!How to Feather an Empty NestLearning as I GoPaloma ChaffinchFiberworksAshley Sisk's Ramblings and PhotosJenny ShihLife @ RuffHavenkharliebugHere and NowLiving in a Still LifeBastelmaniaDonna Did ItLeft in Front of RightThe Red TinAltered Muse ArtDreams and WhispersMaddy's Stitching CornerSimply Life PhotographsPointy PixNatasha MayThe Vintage ArtistDigital Experiments by CarolynWJC's Digital DesignsCreating my Lifeicandyi wanna be me when i grow upGiddy-Up Let's RideThe Creative IdentityElizabeth GLZJofabi PhotoA New Day, A Different WayA Rural JournalAlchemy of ArteyechaiPicturing the YearSuperdewaHounds in HeavenBleuOiseau PhotographyAquarel RiversThe Wright StuffThe Mrs.Urban Muserdeustchemexicana{Furi Kuri}TravelsA Little Blue Skycarola bARTzSame Day: Thirty Years ApartCamperCottage 960Nomadic NotebookWell of CreationsCindyLew's StudioOm2ArtHysong DesignsThe Weekend Photo WarriorTina's TreeThe Studio 56Kristen WalkernaperieRosie GreyThis Life through the LensNot Everyone Has FilmSloane Solanto: A Colorful LifeRavenous RaesassyangelacMy Midlife CreativitiesMakieDollTracy Swartz, Whimsical Gourd ArtOne Thousand PaintingsOne Little PromiseAmber Leigh JacobsMarie Z. JohansonThe Queen of CreativityExpressive WorldRandom Thoughts Do or "Di"Lyrical JourneyKaren Koch, Life Needs ArtMy Sweet Prairiedye~ing to be yoursKnottyneedlemy heart artODDImaginationCrafty CreativityJenna Kannas InspirationsGoing a Little CoastalStarry Blue SkyQuilting, Calle and other thingsMatthew and LarissasightspecificStudio MailboxArtimagicaPoetic MappingSimple MansionBy JenPaper BirdMusings of a HennaphileShe Dreams of the SeaThe Little Things...Tangerine Megamaze, surprise & delightlove PEASStraightlinezKristen Laudick PhotographyGrandma's Recipe BoxHeartwork PhotographyDixon HillJust me and my ArtMia Makes...Cosrard & PenpenI miei due bambiniSpecial Moments in TimeSuch stuff as dreams are made onPasandoDarlene Cunnup PhotographyPeach CogloOne Woman, ReinventedCreative ExplorerBren's Bright CornerJillsy Girl StudioBahamaDawnToday is a GiftMy Consuming Passions

Learning from the Lulls

Friday night I came home from work exhausted. I don't know why, it hadn't been a terribly stressful work week and I had a holiday on Thursday. Saturday morning I woke up looking forward to a morning on my own. My husband and son were heading off early to watch a bike ride and I had the house to myself. A rare treat. I sat at the computer to get into some of my creative work and what happened? Nothing. There was absolutely nothing there. No motivation, no inspiration, no creativity.

This had never happened to me before, around my creative work. This was new. This was scary. My mind quickly went from tired and unmotivated to panicked. So I took a deep breath. Centered myself. And then did something I never do: I turned off the computer.

Here's what I did instead:

Took a bath.

Read a book in a sunbeam on the couch.

Colored a zentangle, so nicely provided to me by my blog friend Karen, only a day before. (Visit her here to download some zentangle book marks, if you have the urge to color.)

Baked popovers.

Read some more out on the balcony, finished the book. 

Ate pizza.

By the end of the day on Saturday, my creative inspiration was back. I turned on the computer, and my work was easy again. Sunday I continued my unplanned hiatus from creative projects and just let myself be. A few more things I did...

Started a new book.

Spent some time journaling.

Baked a cake with my son.

Started to color another zentangle from Karen.

Made origami cranes.

Photographed origami cranes. Multiple times.

Went for a walk with my son.

Ate gelato.

I finished the weekend refreshed. It's Monday morning, and I'm ready to start my week. The small, unscheduled break from my creative goals turned out great. It refocused me, showed me a tiny bit of where I need to make changes to keep my inspiration flowing. I learned from this little creative lull. I know it's not a big deal - it's not as if I was completely blocked. It was just enough for me to get a glimpse of what could happen. To show me that I need to be careful, to listen to these moments, so I don't get to real burnout.

Has this ever happened to you? How do did you respond, what do you do when a creative lull hits?

(The first photo is from Burano, and fills me with a sense of peace and calm. I can imagine sitting quietly in that chair, gathering my creative strength. It is a companion to another one I've shared previously here.)

In Search of the Tricolore

Tricolore in Italian means three colors. It's the nickname of the Italian flag with its green, white and red, similar to our nickname of "stars and stripes" for the US flag. Yesterday, the three colors were found everywhere for the celebration of 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. It was a special "one time" holiday, and schools, banks and businesses were closed. We hadn't known about this in advance, so it was a bonus day off for us. We enjoyed a lazy morning at home and then went into Milan to see what was going on.

I don't know if this is the same in all European cultures, but on public holidays Italians seem to gather in the piazzas and pedestrian zones. They get out and about. The museums and restaurants are always open and full, even if the shops are not. Surprisingly the shops were open this day, which made it even busier.

There were probably a lot of special events such as concerts going on, but we just enjoyed walking around. Our excursion became a quest to spot the Tricolore, since the colors of the Italian flag were creatively displayed in many unusual places. The colors could be found on public buildings (above) and the light posts became flagpoles in Piazza del Duomo.

Sometimes it was as simple as a flag added to a display, as in this elegant mens clothing store (note the price of those pants - 1590 Euro!)...

... or neatly stacked shirts.

They ranged from a complete window set up, like my favorite store Campo Marzio...

... to a subtle little addition in an otherwise full display.

Who knew there was so much to be found in green, white and red? You could outfit your whole desk or wardrobe! I loved these little clocks.

You can't forget jewelry. Swarovski had a special edition crystal to commemorate the anniversary.

The street vendors were not to be left out. It was a rainy day so you never knew when you might need an umbrella.

The vendors who usually sold scarves or other trinket merchandise were in on the holiday too.

Flags could be found everywhere. On heads...

... and in hands.

The pride in country, through display of the flag, was visible everywhere. We ended our day in Milan by finding a special tram, painted in the tricolore and covered in lights.

We were nearly home when we saw an amazing light show, at the Villa Reale (Royal Villa). Just up the road from us, this "villa" was once the summer home of the king of Italy. They occasionally change the color of the lights, but we've never seen the tricolore before. It was a great end to our color-spotting day.

Happy Anniversary Italy! We were happy to be here to see your celebration, and the colors of your country so proudly displayed.

PS - I didn't forget! Today was the drawing for the giveaway of the Florentine papers. The winner is Deb of the blog Learning As I Go. Congrats to Deb, and thank you all so much for entering.

And this time, with Color

As I go through teaching Find Your Eye, I am following my students in their assessments of their eye and rediscovering mine all over again. It's been a wonderful experience. I've been able to define my style even further, to state that my best images have an element of line, color or texture. Yesterday's images were about line, devoid of color. Today I'll show you more of the dance center Kirstin took me to - the inside is all about line and color together! 

Such wonderful, bright colors, green and pinks together. Lockers of green, walls of pink. Hallways of green. Everything bright, cheery and open. Can I come study here?

I even played around with bokeh lines. How's that for some influence from my muses? 

Even wavy lines to catch my eye! There is a companion photo to this one, of me, floating around on Kirstin's memory card. 

Thanks again Kirstin! I hope you all enjoy this little bit of summer color today. I'm off to photograph some more fog this morning in the park. 

Peek-a-Boo

Traveling in January means you might have bad weather, and it was a bit grey on our trip. On one of the days threatening rain in Lisbon we visited the Oceanário de Lisboa (Lisbon Aquarium). It was a very nice aquarium, said to be the largest in Europe and the first to have exhibits of all the world oceans. It is always so interesting to get to see these unusual creatures up close and personal. I especially love the tiny frogs of various colors, like these hidden in the plant. I almost missed them in the exhibit until I looked closer.

We like to visit aquariums as we travel. Brandon has never been a "zoo" kid but he's always liked aquariums. We were spoiled in Oregon, with the Oregon Coast Aquarium being less than an hour away. When Brandon was little, we had a membership and would just pop over for an hour or two to wander the exhibits. We would watch whatever he was interested in at the moment, even if it was just the wave pool.

There is something peaceful about watching these animals of the sea. It takes you away from the lights and noises and hustle and bustle of our world, to a calm blue-green place. I could photograph them for hours, trying to get the perfect shot. Unfortunately, Brandon doesn't have that kind of patience. :) Traveling with a child, you learn to shoot fast and keep moving, relishing the moments you have.

Visit me at Mortal Muses for another aquarium shot today, of the cutest sea otters ever!

The World is a Canvas

Wandering the back alleys of Burano, I found this. Sometimes I wonder, do the people who leave these things out, for me to see, know what they are doing? Do they see what I see in them? The fusion of textures, the contrasts, the repetition of color? Sometimes I think they do, and I am lucky enough to see it with them. Sometimes I think no, this may just be a chair someone set here, to sit outside their house on a summer evening. I wonder.

This morning I picked up Eric Booth's book, The Everday Work of Art, for the first time in a long while. Here is something I read on this topic:

The moment we see that the world we inhabit is not just a sequence of hard, dead surfaces with fixed absolutes, but that it also can be seen "as if" it contains many non-logical truths, many mysteries, we head into a better future. The "as if" transforms artifacts into live media for the work of art.

I don't quite know if that makes sense outside of the context of the book, but I see it in this photo. This chair, in this location can be a place to sit, or it can be seen as a work of art. How do you see the world?

Exploring with a Camera: Dappled Sunlight

This image fills me with a sense of peace. The greens and blues, the sheltering trees, the path to follow, with the archway leading you right around the corner into the sunlight. It's a safe, shaded place to pause before moving onward. Beautiful.

This path is part of Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, where we spent one day hiking along a series of lakes with wonderful waterfalls. Just as spectacular is the path you follow, that winds you along and right up close and personal with the waterfalls or "splat" as they are called in Croat. It was an enjoyable day, a nice break from the cities we had visited to commune with nature and see something new.

I've often struggled with getting a good exposure in dappled sunlight images like this one because of the high contrast between full sun and full shade, a common problem in the middle of the day in the summer. Here are a couple of tips for your own explorations of dappled sunlight:
1. In the camera, underexpose. You want to make sure that the bright areas of sunlight on the leaves and the path are not overexposed or "blown out" completely. If that happens, you lose the ability to make any adjustments to those areas later in photo editing software.
2. In your photo editing software, consider two edits (I use Photoshop Elements):
- Adjust Levels to get back the "bright" areas if they were underexposed too much.
- Lighten shadows or Darken highlights to get less contrast between the light and the dark areas. I've found the biggest problem with dappled sunlight pictures is that the dark areas are too dark relative to the brighter area of the photo, so if you just lighten them up a bit it looks more like what your eye sees.

For this image, I underexposed a full stop in the camera and then just adjusted levels to brighten the highlights back up, because the exposure was pretty good overall. A small bit of cropping and I was done!

I also played with Pioneer Woman's Lovely and Ethereal Action for Elements, and I like the depth of color and the dreamy quality this one gives as well. I can't decide which one I like better!

Try your own dappled sunlight pics, and let me know how it goes! I've created a flickr group if you want to share your exploration results called Kat Eye View: Exploring with a Camera. Come join in!

Just Because

An image I love, just because of the green and brown. Just because of the depth of field and the light. Just because of the contrast of budding, growing life against the peeling paint and grungy pot. And maybe just because there is peeling paint involved. Enjoy this image from Braubach, Germany. It could be from anywhere, even in your own little corner of the world. Can you go out and find your own "just because" image today?

PS - I'll be disappearing from the blog for a little over a week as we travel to new places. I'm already anticipating much creative excitement, poring over photos upon my return, and sharing them with you here. Ci vediamo! (Which roughly translates as, we'll see each other later.)

Market Still Life

This bright still life is from a market we ran into in Paris during our visit there in September. I loved the sun on this lemon, and the bright colors surrounding it. Why it was sitting there, all alone in its tray, who knows...

Tomorrow we leave for Paris, to go to Disneyland Paris for a few days. After a week at home being wonderfully lazy, I'm excited to go see someplace new, yet a bit familiar. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun images to share after the trip, but in the next few days I'll be posting some of my favorite shots from our first trip to Paris in September.

Color and Texture

Anyone who's looked through my albums knows that I love window shots. This one from Burano, a small island near Venice, is particularly interesting for the color and texture. Such a rich blue. Such a touchable texture. I could look at this all day!

Happy Monday to everyone!