Book Report....

Well, I received my book on Wednesday. My book cover is really nice, however I would have liked the first 12 pages of my book to be included. Yes, you read right, I am missing the first handful of pages of my book. I am not shocked and people who know me would not be either, it is called McCallum Luck and unfortunately we are what people call very "tight". Its sad but true. Anyway, I wrote Blurb (because they have no phone number). They responded 24 hours later and were "sorry to see this". I am getting a new book reprinted and I paid for one day shipping. There is obviously no guarantee that I will receive it before Tuesday, but I will keep my fingers crossed. Blurb is printing the second book free, I am paying for shipping and I am required to ship my old book back ASAP. Okey Dokey Then!


Over all I am pretty pleased with the quality of my photographs. They are still a little bit darker than I like and the text seems blurry to me. Before uploading my book, for Blurb's second attempt, I lightened the photos that really bothered me and made all my text a lot smaller. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. I got to preview my book and make changes. Now please can the book arrive by Tuesday?

Event #10 Little Italy's Art Walk

My family and I headed downtown Sunday afternoon to experience the art walk in Little Italy. There were tons of artist booths set up. Even the art galleries were open for the public to walk on in. I saw a lot of talented artists. I noticed a lot of the photographers would mount their pics under Plexiglas somehow. It really gave the photographs an extra "pop", as Deb would say. I would like to know how they were able to mount the photo to the glass, I would have thought the adhesive would have bubbled or worse ran the colors of the photo. My mother really liked the ceramic fruit by Kent Conklin, which is a high complement since she is not a knickknack type person. It was the cherry she liked best, I think I will put it on layaway and give it for an X-Mas gift this year. There were a couple of photographers that took pictures of nature in an abstract way, which is what I like to do. I found one of the artists website but I lost the business card from the other. John Villinski took close up cactus pictures and the other artist focused on tree bark. Anyway we had a nice time even though it was 98 degrees outside.

Book is off to the Printer...

My book is finally finished and on its way to me. It should be here Tuesday. What a process to get your InDesign project into Blurb's Booksmart. I don't know if anyone else had trouble but I was stuck for a couple of hours. I didn't realize that I needed to save my InDesign as a PDF and then open the PDF and save as high resolution JPG. I was trying to get InDesign to do that????? After I figured that out it was pretty much smooth sailing. Booksmart crashed on me about five times, however most of the progress that was made was saved and it didn't cause too much of a headache. I am looking forward to seeing the print quality.

Book Progress Cont.

Book Progress

Here are the first few pages of my book. My husband doesn't like the white space... but I am not too concerned with it and actually like it...so thats that. I have seen a lot of coffee style picture books that have a lot of white space and I think its quite beautiful.

Event #9 Wyland Galleries

Wyland was another artist I found having increased fame right when I moved here. I believe he did a few murals around town and now it was announced he will be the official artist for the 2008 Olympic games. I think of all his works the murals are most impressive. How one even goes about doing large works is beyond me!

Event #8 Wentworth Gallery

This gallery was getting ready for a big gala. The featured artist was Nechita. I remember when I moved here about six or seven years ago this artist was just coming on the scene here in San Diego. She impressed the art world starting when she was only 10 years old. She really is quite amazing, she has a style very similar to Picasso's cubism. This gallery actually had the original painting she created when she was only 10 years old. Its impressive!

Event #7 Fingerhut Gallery

The main artist this gallery was featuring was Dr. Seuss. They had original oil paintings and scultures for sale. I never knew Dr. Seuss was only a pen name for Theodor Seuss Geisel. His life story is interesting in how he created his characters by piecing together parts of animal bones that his father sent him. Sounds like something my father would do. He used to collect different animal skulls for a college assignment and to this day has about 60 hanging in the garage. Another artist I kind of liked was Sergey Smirnov. I guess I like the fact that his style is very recognizable, you will always know his works when you see them. This gallery also had a couple of original pencil drawings by Picasso...I of course liked the small doodle he did named "peace dove"

Event #6 Hallmark Galleries

Two artists stood out to me, Phil Borges and Douglas. Phil Borges is a photographer and his works were of Kenya people. I loved the how he keept most of the picture black and white and his subjects were left in faint color. Douglas is a contemporary abstract artist and I enjoyed the organic feel of his paintings.

Event #5 Molloy Gallery

This gallery had Australian Aboriginal Art. These pieces were amazing. They had so much movement it almost made me dizzy looking too long.

Event #4 Contemporary Fine Art Gallery

I spent the day in La Jolla. I was initially there looking for a bird called the oyster catcher but thought since I was there I would stop into a few art galleries as well. This contemporary gallery was one of my favorites. They were showing works from several Russian artists like Anton Arkhipov and Yuri Kuznetsov. Arkhipov's work was bright and fun. Its amazing how clean the colors were in his painting. I loved how detailed the works were... the more you looked the more things you saw. For example little bugs flying around or the constellations in the sky. My favorite however was works by Pascal. They were mixed media, mostly wood with amazing textures and finishes. I guess too they remind me of my glass works I have done.

Event #3: Innocence is Questionable

I happened across Escondido's Center For The Arts on a day that was free...yeah! I saw works from several different artists. Ernest Silva's works reminded me of my brothers old elementary reading books. I really enjoyed Iana Quesnell's work. She drew pencil drawings of the places she lived in. They were amazing architectural drawings with serious detail, like an unmade bed or a broom in a closet. They were all drawn from the perspective of look straight down on the property and the landscaping was amazing!! Raul Guerrero's work was part fun and part serious. He first had on display a huge 6 x 10 ft. hamburger which my kids would have loved. The others were more border art. The huge mural look to be about Mexican immigrants trying to cross the border. This image was then juxtaposed with images of Nike and other large corporation magazine advertisements. I guess we dont want them here but we do want the cheap services. The other works I really did not enjoy mainly because I didn't understand what the message was. The artist name was May-ling Martinez. She had odd books stacked on antique furniture which was also stacked up. Anyway, this was the first time at this museum and I thought It was pretty nice and best of all it was close to home.

Event #2: The Murder of JR Warren

This was located in the Library's lobby. Its an amazing story and I loved how you had to read from the mirrors. People really don't look these types of problems head on... rather a quick glance out the corner of the eye... mirrors are very fitting. What a world we live in!

Event #1: Imprints of Woman

Located in Arts 111. This was an exhibit of an artist's body imprints. They were all chalked silhouettes. It reminded me of Anna Mendieta and her Earth Body pieces.

Field Trip

I went to Quail Botanical Garden actually three times in one week. First with my daughter and her first grade class, April 7th, then back on my own the following day and on the weekend. The plants and birds there are amazing! I had a hard time with my camera on my return days. I just can't seem to get how to shoot under low light conditions. Most of my pictures were either one big blur or very very grainy. Now I will take this as a challenge and keep trying....I will keep you posted on my progress.

Oliver Herring

Okay now I have reached my limit...I really have a hard time understanding art like this. I don't mean to be disrespect the man or any other abstract/modern artist, but sometimes I just feel that these artists are full of it. I would be interested in seeing some other work of his. I guess in a way it reminds me of the Gatorade commercials with the colored sweat dripping from the athletes.

Saed Meshki

When I was thinking about my Yellowstone idea I was thinking of a style very similar to this…kind of incorporating my images with a watercolor or burned overlay to it. I think it gives a creative look to an image. His works gives the feel of being organic...Very nice!

Reza Abedini

His graphic design is amazing. I love the way the farsi language looks, its really an art form all on its own. I also am amazed we had a student that spoke the language...very cool.

Arturo Herrera

I think his images are beautiful when displayed together, I think it works better as a group rather than stand alone pieces. I want to know how he discovered this technique. I think photographers that are fortunate enough to learn darkroom techniques have a better understanding of photography and are ultimately more creative.

Tom Scott

I really like close-up photography and this kind of work is exactly what I was thinking when I said patterns and textures. The world becomes very different when looking with such detail. Although, his photographs are beautiful I question whether setting up your photos is fair. To me, I guess, finding nature as it is found is more extraordinary. I think I have finally, discovered a good book idea and now can relax a bit.

Shot Down!!!

Ok...so I will be re-thinking my book idea. 80 pages seem like a lot!! Especially for someone who's life is not too exciting! I have no journal; I do not save letters, cards or ticket stubs. Man! I really am quite a boring person...and now that I have typed this… those words just sit right there in that bright white box making me feel even more pathetic. I think I will work on the other art book, I think I am more inspired by that assignment.

Yellowstone

My book will be on my week trip to Yellowstone. It was one of the best trips I have been on in my life! Yellowstone is like no other place on earth and at times I wondered if I was even still on earth. I tried to capture the feeling of Yellowstone, although my photos are only a slight impression of what I really saw. My skills as a photographer are still limited and these images, for me still don't reflect what I actually experienced there that week.
Along with my images I plan on placing text more as an added visual element than actual substance.

Stefan Sagmeister

I agree that over used type becomes mundane. However, Helvetica is still best for signage because of its ease of reading. I think the history of this font is interesting and surprisingly made for an ok movie. I think as a graphic designer, it is more interesting to explore the use of uncommon fonts.

InDesign Practice

David Carson

I have seen other short films talking about and describing David Carson’s work. I have the same thought every time I see his work…”why can’t I be so talented?” I enjoy the haphazard look to his work...it is organized chaos. I appreciate how he is able to expand the literal meanings of words by visually changing them and I love that he didn't let the pressures from the industry get to him. He didn't conform to what the standard was at the time...good for him!