Color Poem #29

in the evening the child says to me

I’ve finished all my homework can we do
the temporary hair color someone I can’t
remember who gave me for my birthday?

and I say sure thing kid and apply
the weird chalky pens to her hair
so she has pale purple-pink bangs
and wavy orange streaks on each
side of her face as requested and
the stuff makes her hair stiff and
straight so I see her bangs are too
long so I go ahead and trim them
with the scissors over the sink but
of course it turns out crooked so I
trim them again and now they are
straight across and they are quite
short maybe too short and maybe
she looks hilarious but that’s fine
and then the child she says to me

thanks mom this
will look great for
picture day
tomorrow

Review Santa Fe

What I was doing in Santa Fe, other than marveling at the town's Southwestern color palette and visiting art museums (those are coming Friday), was reviewing portfolios at the venerable annual photography event Review Santa Fe. I've talked before about how these portfolio review events work -- they're a bit like speed-dating, with photographers sitting down with reviewers (photo book editors like me, gallerists, curators, magazine and newspaper photo editors, etc.) for 20 minutes to show a portfolio of their work and receive feedback, all day for two days. So I met, and saw the work of, a lot of photographers. And they were uniformly fantastic! Here's whose work I got to encounter.

Santa Fe

Ok, so I just got back from an epic work trip that will take up Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on this blog for weeks, if not months, to come. So many cities! So many exciting things! So much to unpack!

First stop: Santa Fe. More anon about the work stuff I did there and the art I saw there, but for now, here's the bit of the town itself. Which actually looks like this! I mean, it actually looks like a southwestern town with warm brown adobe buildings and blindingly bright blue autumn skies and yellow leaves everywhere. Who knew?! Check it out!

Birds and Buildings

Have I mentioned that I'm writing and illustrating (illustrating! eep!) a fill-in journal for Chronicle Books?! Well I am! And this is the very first drawing I have made for it. It's a tweaked and updated version of the first drawing I ever made when I started on this current drawing odyssey nearly three years ago. I still love that original drawing, but I must say, I am also pleased with my progress.

Hamlet

A.C.T.'s production of Hamlet was fantastic. And John Douglas Thompson was a revelation -- his was the first Hamlet I've ever seen who actually seemed to make sense. With this epic role, even the greatest actors often seem to default to the oh-well-he's-emotionally-unhinged-he's-acting-irrationally mode. But this time, like watching a great novel or a disaster unfold, you saw the intelligent thought and internal logic going into each decision, and the tragedy was all the greater for it.

Color Poem #28

why is the most

purple cardstock

all used up when

purple’s my least

favorite color?

Audio Books

Maybe a year ago, maybe less, I started listening to audio books. One of my best friends and my mom have both listened to them for years, but somehow I always thought they were something other people did -- people with CD players, and cars. Then I realized I could listen to them on my phone while I walked to work or took the bus or washed the dishes. And it was quite a revelation. A little while after that I realized I could get them from the public library via Hoopla or Overdrive rather than buying them through iTunes. Another revelation. Because while I like to own the physical books I read, I have no need whatsoever to own some random digital files of books I've listened to. The other day I got the urge to snapshot all the audio books I've listened to so far. So I dug up the history section on the three different apps and this is what I got. There are 33 of them and they were nearly all very excellent. Perhaps it will not be interesting to anyone else, but it is interesting to me.