This cute couple bought a house and wanted some pictures to use for their Christmas card for 2013, so I took these for them!
Everything El[i]se
My life. My blog.
Failure to Blog (and some awesome pictures)
Over the past four weeks I have clocked a ton of time in front of my computer screen and have had a lot more time to think about personal projects that were pushed to the back burner while I dedicated my entire life to my job. I was pretty miserable while not thinking creatively about my own work and now that I have had time to reflect on projects I’ve half completed or stopped working on i realized that I pretty much completely stopped blogging. I did some creative work on the side or on weekends but never had the time or felt like the things I produced were incomplete. So to move out of the funk and create more of an online presence for my work (both photography and graphic design) I endeavor to post at least once per week (probably though strategic scheduling) a project I am working on or completed a while ago.
I may also start adding links to a new blog project I am attempting titled ‘Your Adult Life’ exploring the ins and outs of some subjects covered in my previous blog post ‘Proper Adult’ and others I’ve been thinking about. Going to aim for one a week over there but those posts may take a bit more research.
Without further ado: On September 5, 2014 I pulled triple duty as the MoH, DJ, and photographer at my sister’s wedding (also was the graphic designer for all graphic needs, but that didn’t happen day of). Here are some of the images I captured of this special day:
Graphic Design Portfolio
I created the invitations for my sister’s wedding! Also, as I am in the market for a new position, I thought it would be prudent to add a link to this PDF for any potential employers to glance through.
Please enjoy and feel free to share with your contacts!
My CV
My Portfolio
Fin.
‘Proper Adult’
Upon my return to the United States I was introduced to the HBO Show ‘Girls’ by my older sister. I watched the pilot episode without high expectations based on my sister’s brief review, but it hit so close to home that I power-watched the entire first season in one night. Since that night I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the message of the show and how it relates to my life.
Having effectively moved out of my parents’ houses and, for the most part, budgets at the age of 18, I naively considered myself an adult. At one point I had a boyfriend of 3 years that I thought I would eventually marry and I was on track to finish my Bachelors degree. There was a mini plan of a career and babies forming in my head.
THE break up happened, I graduated with a BFA, and moved across country to spend a year and a half living with (amazing) relatives. At the age of 24, I was again on track to enter the adult world of salary and health insurance in lieu of parental insurance and multiple part-time jobs to pay the bills. Had that train kept going, I think my life would be a little more miserable than it is right now. I purposely, if unknowingly, derailed that particular train by going back to school for my Masters degree half a world away from all friends and family.
Having finished that over a year ago now, I realized that those early twenties were anything but adulthood. Growing up in 2013 was a rough transition. I got my first exempt salaried position with my very own health insurance, which is alarmingly expensive. I have life insurance and a retirement account which are both very foreign concepts that I don’t fully understand yet. I bought a brand new car and car insurance for the first time and I’m still not entirely sure if I got a good deal or was taken advantage of. I found an adult relationship with someone that is reaching the six month mark as of publishing and I understand now that all the relationships I had before weren’t healthy or even close to being ‘adult’.
Now I am contemplating changing fields (as I do not work in the field I spent all that time being educated to work in) and have no clue where to start. Where was the class on how to change careers in all of my high school college prep, BFA and MA programs? How did I miss the day they taught all of these essential life skills? Truth is, the educational systems we have in place in the Western World are not teaching us how to live in society. They are teaching us how to fill a role in society: teacher, doctor, lawyer. These cookie cutter jobs do not list ‘must know how to buy a car’ or ‘must understand health insurance’ as necessary so those essential life skills get skipped over in the education system.
In high school I had to class called ‘Planning Your Future’ that I assume was suppose to teach me about these things. Yes, we ‘learned’ how to do our taxes by hand and what a 1040EZ looks like and that it would probably be the form we would need for the foreseeable future after high school. At no time did I, a pretty decent student (#25 in my graduating class) learn that getting a ton of money back as a tax return was a bad thing. Someone from a young professionals group I belong to now told me that getting a $4500 refund means that the government took more money from your paycheck than they really needed to and didn’t tell you for a whole year, essentially borrowing your $4500 interest free for a whole year and then they turn around and are like, “Oh yeah, here you go, you can have your own money back.” While they charge me an arm and a leg in interest on the loans they gave me for this education that apparently taught me a whole lot of nothing. This was a life changing revelation for me! I had been complaining that my return was only $250 for three weeks as I was counting on a larger return to pay down some credit cards no one taught me how to use properly. That three minute conversation altered my perspective on the whole educational system and is the reason for this pensive post. We didn’t learn how Worker’s Unions operated from watching the Stallone film ‘Fist.’ We didn’t learn how to budget when we ‘married’ one of our classmates and drew salaries and numbers of children out of a hat. My ‘husband’ and I got the two highest paying jobs in the hat and blew off the assignment because we could afford everything we could have ever wanted or needed. Who is responsible for teaching us these things? Should I blame my parents for not teaching me some of these things? Is the fault of the education system? Is it my own fault for not seeking the knowledge before I needed to use it? If you’ve made it this far with me I would like to know what you think about all this in the comments below. If you don’t feel like commenting, I hope I’ve at least made you think.
Fin.
Intense Dreaming
Occasionally, my dreams are so real that they scare me. This one wasn’t too bad.
“Earth/USA has been invaded by super natural/extraterrestrial beings (giants?) which have caused a giant snow storm that turned off all power to private homes.
Story starts with the protagonist in New York City, hiding behind a very tall/wide man -an agent (agents are humans that have become servants of the invaders).
The agent moves on and Elise opens her long rain coat to reveal yet another person, a small little girl with bright blonde curls, only wisps of which have escaped the wrap around her head.
Later a group of women and girls have been gathered up by the agents and are being marched toward “the building.” They are all shaking, except Elise, who is looking for a way out of this mess for all of them. The agents lead them up a few flights of stairs and into a large warehouse space. The floor is covered in giant rushes and the women and girls have to work hard to stay on top of the mess. They are ordered to stay in the warehouse and will be, “dealt with soon.” The agents leave, slamming the door behind them, Elise hears the distinctive click of a deadbolt slide into place. From somewhere out of sight as the only light is coming in from a skylight directly above them, they begin to hear rumbling. Elise whispers to the now ultra terrified group to, “try to keep calm and don’t scream.” Mostly because she can’t stand screaming women and might be less inclined to help those who lose their heads. That’s when the shuffling noise starts, slowly moving in their direction. The noise makes it seems as if they are being stalked by a giant cat. An idea jumps into Elise’s head so fast she almost yelled. She quickly gets the attention of the group of women and girls all huddled together and whispers her plan. If whatever is out there wants to play cat and mouse, they would act like mice. “Drop under the rushes and crawl to the edges of the room in different directions. Keep moving around the walls until we find a way out, if we don’t then I guess we can say we tried before whatever that is ate us.”
The group followed directions and found a small crack in the wall. One by one as they found their way around the wall, they slipped inside the wall and followed the direction of the light wind bowing past them. To ensure all escaped, Elise was the last to leave the place. She felt that she had won a small victory against their conquerors and smiled to herself in the dark as she followed the shuffling feet of the group of women she had liberated.”
So that’s a dream I had. I can’t recall what significance the little girl with blonde curls had, but she was precious to me in the dream.
Fin.
Creative Energy
Just a few quickie screen shots of a new project I’m working on. I’ve been seriously considering changing my eating habits and while researching different lifestyle diets (clean eating, low carb, Vegans, etc.) on the Interwebs, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to make this type of drastic change without some sort of help. It inspired me to design a meal planning journal. I also need to start budgeting my money more effectively. I spent an entire night combing though my bank statements adding up the amount I’ve been spending on food. I thought adding a budgeting/pricing piece would help me as well. Above are a couple rough ideas for pages. Input is welcome, though I am pretty in love with the font (a free Font on Abduzeedo called Benchnine).
What would you like to see in a journal like this?
This is going to be a collaborative project with my friend across the Pond Luke Taylor. We are brainstorming ideas currently; these are just mine. I can’t wait to see what he has cooking! Bubbling on the back burner are ideas for an icon set and a companion app!
Look for updates eventually!
Fin.
Nostalgia
Today I got a tad nostalgic while going through my HD that’s been hanging out at my sister’s house while I’ve been abroad. I was doing a bit of graphic design work for a friend and it got me thinking about my empty Dribbble account (which is kinda like LinkedIn for Graphic Designers). So I wanted to post some of my old projects as well as newer ones. While going through my old class files from Kendall it brought back many memories. *Le sigh*
I even found some stuff from a workshop that the Kendall Photo Association organized with Tom Allen a few years ago. At which I produced the image below. I’m pretty proud of it.
After the trip down memory lane – I caught the graphic design bug again. I don’t have anything specific to do this week in MI while the rest of the world has actual jobs so I think that’s what I’m going to focus on. I have all these new goals for my creative future. I think after finally finishing this Master’s degree, I’m ready to be creative on a regular basis again. The trip down memory lane and a visit last week to Kendall while I was in Grand Rapids catching up with old friends really made me miss the creative environment. Academia is alright, but creative people are so much more fun to be around!
This doesn’t change my desire to work in a museum or gallery because those environments seem like a good balance between creativity and academia, but I think I’ve reached a point where I wouldn’t mind doing freelance photography or graphic design on the side just for kicks.
So there’s that. A little more serious than originally intended, but I’m OK with it; the situation seems to call for it. It feels like a new stage in my life is about to begin and for once I don’t mind the change so much.
Normally this is me:
Missing the UK
Top 10 things I miss about the UK
Picture via The Telegraph – Go read their article!
1. Rugby – seriously the best sport ever to watch and to play. I need to figure out how to find matches to watch on the interwebs.
2. The Accents – the general populace over here in the States, just doesn’t sound as intelligent… being surrounded by such wonderful accents every day for a year and then going directly back to people sounding stupid even when they are discussing astrophysics is pretty jarring. I realize this is a strange controdiction because I still have an American accent.
3. Being a Novelty – Speaking of which – for some reason the Brits love American accents and Americans in general… I shall miss this being a conversation starter when out in public.
4. Public Transportation – The public transpo here in the States blows! Things are too spread out for it to be anywhere near convenient.
5. Brands/Shops/Designers – Cath Kidston has to be my favorite designer and now I can only find her stuff online or in super-mega big cities (maybe?). Also my new obsession with the shop White Stuff has be bummed because they don’t exist (to my knowledge) over here either.
6. Cider – Not apple cider, there isn’t a lot of that in the UK but tons in MI, but the real (alcoholic) kind. The beer industry has a monopoly on the drinking in the States and cider is hard to come by. Good cider is especially hard to find. Cider on tap is more rare than Pandas in China.
7. £1/£2 Coins – Dollar bills and the rare $2 bill are really boring. I liked that the smallest bill was a fiver in the UK. Coins might be heavier, but they don’t seem to go walkies nearly as much as $1 bills.
8. BBC/ITV iPlayers – I shall miss catching up easily on my favorite BBC/ITV programmes.
9. Easy/Cheap Travel to Different Countries – Everything is so close together and smaller over there. You can go to 6 different countries in a weekend if you really wanted to – for less than $500 for traveling expenses.
10. Gregg’s Sausage Rolls – I don’t know why I become so obsessed with this specific type of sausage roll, but I will really miss them.
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
Hey UK Peoples –
You want stuff? I have stuff you can either have or buy from me. It’d be cool if you left a comment letting me know if you want something – prices listed next to items. There is more than this, but I didn’t feel like photographing all of it. Complete list at the end.
Mini Trash Bin £2
Mini Christmas Tree £2
Assortment of Sharpie Markers, Dry-Erase Markers and Day of the Week Dry-Erase magnets £1
2 x Fish Shape Ice Cube Tray
2x Bottle Ice Cube Tray All 4 – £2
3 Tray Ikea Desk Organizer £3
3 Drawer Mini Organizer £2
Remington Hair Straightener £5
Tesco Hair Dryer £5
Food Scale with lid £1
Ikea Cupboard/drawer Organizers – Set of 6 (only 4 pictured) £2
Litchfield Self Inflating Camping Mat w/ carry bag and patch kit £10
Ikea Underbed Storage Bag/Box thing £2
File Box w/ hanging folders & manilla folders £2
Other Items not pictured:
1 x Medium Sauce Pan £2
1 x Small Sauce Pan £2
1 x Small Milk Pan £2
1 x Set of 2 Ikea Utensil Canisters £1
3 x Plates (1 ceramic, 2 plastic) £1
1 x Set of 4 plastic square bowls £1
1 x Baking tray – Free
1 x Roasting Pan – Free
1 x Large (Well Seasoned) Wok £1
2 x Small Square Plastic Storage boxes – Free
2 x Small Round Plastic Storage Containers – Free
Assorted Cutlery – Free
Assorted Cooking Utensils – Free
Assorted Mugs/travel mugs/drinking glasses – Free
Assorted Random Objects – Free
Leave a comment if you want to call dibs on anything. I can deliver to UoN Campus, Jubilee Campus, or Lenton/Notts City Center or you can pick up from Broadgate Park. Payment in cash please! All transactions are final (if you don’t want it after that – it is your problem :P) Preferably all items will be picked up/dropped off by the 15th, but small items can be held until the 21st.
That is all.
Fin.
Mama I’m Coming Home
That’s right folks, I’m headed back to the States in a little more than a month. I still have a bunch of work to do on my dissertation but after that is all handed in – I will be leaving on a jet plane. I’m packing up myself and leaving London on 22 September for Helsinki, Finland (yep cheaper to fly to Finland than direct to the States) where I will spend the night and then at about 2pm Finland time, I’ll be on my way to Chicago, where I will arrive at about 3pm Chicago time on 23 September (That’s a Sunday).
To my friends/family in the States:
Going to be in Mason for at least a week and then I’ll be packing my stuff and my kitty (unbelievably excited to see her!!) and heading back to South Florida. Feel free to message me on Facebook or leave me a comment to let me know who will be around and when so I can try to see as many people as possible while I’m in Michigan. I know it seems like a very short amount of time to spend with you all after being gone for so long, but I’ve got to get back to making money so I can pay my bills. I will, however, do everything in my power to come back to MI for Christmas.
To my friends in the UK:
This has been the best year of my life thus far and I will miss you all dearly. If you are ever in South Florida please let me know so we can catch up! I’m going to come back someday, if only to visit. That’s a promise. I hope I can see most of you before I take off, though my hanging out time is limited, I will be here a whole week after dissertation hand in and leaving so that would be prime time to say goodbye. So please message me on Facebook or leave me a comment to let me know if you will be in Notts or want to meet up in London for tea/coffee/lunch (I’ll probably be there for a few hours before my 6pm flight on the 22nd).
Leaving is bitter sweet and I might cry a lot when it happens (she says while tearing up already) so be prepared for that when saying your goodbyes!
So before I completely ruin any chance of getting work done tonight due to puffy eyes…
Fin.
Everything El[i]se 