Loose Thread #3 Ocean Gate

Back in October, my niece sent me this open call for amateur digital photographs for the Hungry Man gallery in Chicago.

"We have been in the age of the digital revolution for some time now that this super speed world has become normalized. The Internet has changed how we perceive and interpret artwork, through artist websites as well as cut and paste blogs. Digital cameras have birthed a plethora of self-taught photographers. Are these outsider artists? Online tutorials and instructions litter web pages. Apprenticeship and art school practice are not necessary in order to learn how to make a picture. With the overload of images in our society, what makes a photograph a real photograph? It depends on who you are– your values and principles on your practice. Making a deemed “good” photograph is so subjective. This is an exercise and experiment in the values of our culture towards image making. What is your best image?"

I rubbed the callouses on my sewing fingers and figured, "Why not?" I sent in the above photo which I had tagged as "ocean gate" on my hard drive.

A few days later, I checked the blog where the photos were to be posted and there it was. If you want, copy and paste this link: http://yourbestimage.blogspot.com/ (someday I'll figure out how to make a link) Look under October for me and also for my talented brother Mark Gallo, the father of the Chicago niece. In November, I got an email from the curator, Robin Juan, that 16 of the blog photos were going to be printed out and hung in a regular gallery show. Mine was one of them.

I found this alternately funny and exciting. You have to understand me and photography. I like to take pictures and my hard drive is crammed with thousands of pictures. I try, I really do try to learn more about photography, but when I read about white balances and apertures and ISO's, my mind glazes over and I start wondering if I left the iron on. This photo was taken with a little tiny point and shoot Sony about the size of a cigarette pack. I put a watercolor filter on it in a photoshop 6 program. Any more basic, I'd be carving it on a rock with a sharpened piece of flint. Robin Juan's statement for the gallery show said, "What we are making photographs of are more important than what we use to make photographs."

One of the files on my computer is called "Arches and Gates". In this file, I have pictures of, well, arches and gates that appeal to me.












The concept of looking through something to see something else is intriguing to me. My personal favorites in this group are the first one of the bridge and the last one of the gate in the stone wall. I was going to add where I took the photos, but somehow that detracts from them.

In Which I Wear a Dress

Well, a skirt, actually.

It all started yesterday when I had to wear a responsible adult disguise for a work-related court appearance. I have quite a few of those outfits left over from my previous job where competitive dressing was a form of office politics. Rummaging around in the darker corners of the Home for Wayward Textiles (aka, my closet) I found some things I had forgotten about, including this skirt and the purple ultrasuede suit that went to court with me.

These days, my job usually entails a lot of getting in and out of the car, sitting on the floor, and other activities not conducive to skirt or dress wearing. Today, however, I had to go to some meetings and then down to Monroeville for a guild retreat meeting, so I decided to wear the skirt. It has an elastic waist and promised to be comfortable. The poor thing had been lurking in the back of the closet for a couple years, still with tags on, and had never been worn. It deserved a day out. Then I realized I could wear my favorite boots with it. I don't know about you, but I just feel in charge of my day when I've got leather up to my knees. Even better, I could wear the burnt orange jacket with the wool embroidery. A decision had been made.

It was interesting, having a skirt on. I stepped outside to go to work and the first thing I noticed was..........I was cold. It was 37 degrees out. Not exactly the worst weather western Pennsylvania can throw at you in December, but suddenly the purpose behind our foremothers' quilted petticoats became clear. Erin on the Dress a Day blog swears that tights will keep you warm while skirt-wearing. Either her hot flashes are better than mine or she lies. I sashayed into the office meeting where one of my coworkers asked me what the occasion was. How do you explain a sudden decision to wear a skirt? Should you have to explain why you are wearing a skirt? "Oh, ah, just an experiment," I mumbled.

I went to the quilt guild meeting. Oh, those girls! NO subtlety there! Gladys grabbed her heart when I walked into the room. Bunch of hams, they are.

Now that I've got the skirt wearing urge out of my system for a few years, everything can return to normal. It was kind of fun, in a way, to walk down the stairs with my skirt trailing behind me. The elastic waist was nice for sitting all day and it was kind of fun to feel it swinging around as I walked (doing the boot-wearing walk!). People treat you differently when you have a skirt on. They're more polite and there's more door holding. Tomorrow, though, it'll be jeans and a sweater. Ready for action!