Snow day 13

Posted on February 17, 2010 by ruthek

Still snowing. I admit to being obsessed with the snow, but I do have other things in my life, I think. Yesterday I wasn't so sure. My neighbor, David, is obsessed with Gigapans. You remember those photos you can zoom in on and see amazing detail. Last October, he and some friends went to the top of Pittsburgh's tallest building and shot four Gigapans, 360 degrees, 1000 photos in each. Now he's been trying to get those four huge photos stitched together. I helped him stitch together a quarter size version which you can see here. He insists the full size version will be better; he's nothing if not persistent. So he found someone with a computer with 64 GB of RAM. I didn't know such a thing existed. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Photoshop on it. I started the day with a meeting and lunch with David and friend. I think we have figured out a new procedure that we may, or may not, try later this week.

Back to the snow in my life. After lunch I walked, using my walking stick but still somewhat perilously, over to the Frick art building at Pitt to go to the preColumbian art class I've been auditing. Although the pavement was clear around the building there was no clear entry from the street, only those single file/foot paths where you have to put one foot in front of the other. I don't do those. I went to the library across the street, where I was supposed to meet one of my students. My phone was running out of juice so I had it turned off (it was a really bad day). When I turned it on I found a message from him begging off. Again, navigating the really awful unclean pavement, I made my way to the bus stop where I finally had to climb over one of those snow hills to get on the bus.

After a cup of tea at home I took the car out of the garage, almost didn't make it up the driveway (remember I'm from Chicago; I'm supposed to understand this stuff), and went to Whole Foods and got pears, tomatoes, spinach, a papaya and a lot of other stuff.

This morning I had to go downtown. The bus was half an hour late. I now flag it down standing in the street. There is no way I'm going to stand on the mountain at the bus stop. My neighbor at the corner of Penn and Murtland ought to be ashamed. His pavement won't be clean until May at this rate.

Do you wonder that I've become a little crazy?

New project

Posted on January 6, 2010 by ruthek

The next book I make will be about Japanese Gardens, at least the ones I've visited. I'm still enchanted with the gardens. I would like to return to Japan and remain from October through April or May so I could see the gardens at the most interesting times. It probably won't happen, but working on another book lets me enjoy the photos and memories all over again. Here are three collages using some of the photos from Rikugien, the Tokyo garden where I met the origami lady. Most of these photos were not posted before.

I never took multiple Gigapan-like photos as I did in my backyard, so I can't make that kind of collage. Only the one immediately above comes anywhere close to it. I want to immerse you in my view of the garden. I don't think any of these are really successful; I'll keep trying.

Happy and Healthy New Year to all

Posted on December 30, 2009 by ruthek

From my backyard to yours.

Snapshots and stitches

Posted on December 30, 2009 by ruthek

Before I fell asleep last night I thought of something I wanted to post. This morning it's gone. It's a lot easier to write when I have done something out of the ordinary. Somehow, telling you about the snow, or keeping my humidifiers filled (I like a little moisture in the air), or going to the fitness center doesn't do it for me.

I am also trying to do alterations on some of my favorite larger jackets. One, I bought on sale at Nordstrom's, I wore constantly. It's still in good condition, but now much too large–it was always a little large. I've taken out the sleeves and the shoulder pads. Next comes figuring out how and where to remove extra fabric. The jacket is lined, making it all more complicated.

One of my neighbors is involved with the Gigapan project. He wants to do a massive Gigapan from the top of the former U.S. Steel building, the tallest building in downtown Pittsburgh. We spent much of yesterday matching up the four Gigapans he (and his group from CMU) shot. This is just practice. The sun was low and there are long shadows that obscure some of the detail. He wants to go back and do it again. It took a lot of Photoshop(ping) and I became reacquainted with some of the tools I hadn't used lately. Another volunteer gig where I learned as much as I gave. Now I have to go back and apply some of this to my still not satisfactory photo collage.

New York photos

Posted on December 27, 2009 by ruthek

On the way to NYC, taken from the train with raindrops on the window

From Renee's window. The snow and the flag made me think of Grandma Moses.

Memorial wreaths in Battery Park

Merchant Marine memorial

On the train home. Snow is gone but will come again.

Hockney

Posted on December 20, 2009 by ruthek

My motivation for this trip to NYC is to see the Hockney show at PaceWildenstein. I first became interested in Hockney when I discovered his photo collages. I had little interest in his early paintings, particularly the swimming pools, but have enjoyed reading his thinking about painting and photography.

Some of his photographs bear some similarity to the Gigapans I was playing with. In a lecture he gave in 1983, he talks about photographs being an instant in time, whereas paintings are a record of time passing.

Why is a painting based on the camera (and with one viewpoint) more interesting than a photograph taken from the same spot and enlarged – even when taken with a large plate camera? And my conclusion was this lack of time, the static quality photographs have is due to the fact that it's the same time in every area of the picture. The removal of the hand (the removal of the body) causes this. The hand moving through time reflects the eye moving through time (and life moving through time). The evidence of the hand is our time. On Photography, © David Hockney, 1983

I would love to know what he thinks of the Gigapan, which is after all, a robotic hand moving through time.

He also compares the use of one point perspective in Western art to the multiple viewpoints in Cubism and the progression of images in Chinese and Japanese art.

The Hockney website

More about Hockney

http://www.youtube.com/v/cIfDdW9GKmA&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

So what, you may ask, does all this have to do with the exhibit of his paintings in New York? Thinking about Hockney I came up with his photo collages, which are making me think about my own work. I would like to do a book about the Japanese gardens I visited. I would like a way to present more of the photos I took–I never posted all of them. Just as I did with the collage I made of the photos of the 300 year old pine tree in Tokyo, I often took multiple shots of views that didn't fit into one image. How do I present them in book form?

Here are some of the images I'm playing with:

Sunday in Butler

Posted on November 29, 2009 by ruthek

When I say to Renee, "How would you like to go to…" she says yes before I tell her the destination. She loves driving anywhere and sometimes get very excited about the most mundane occasions. Today we took a trip to the Maridon Museum in Butler PA. It's about an hour from Pittsburgh and mostly was easy driving. The museum has a lot of high class, very expensive ivory and jade carvings, largely 20th C. stuff. I enjoyed seeing it, but it wasn't what I had hoped for.

Butler is an interesting looking town. We spent a little time looking around. Here is the tower of the Court House.

Detail on the front of the building:

Beautiful Lutheran Church across the street:

Robin and Charna with Darcy in her favorite position: looking for belly rubs.

We did a lot of dog walking over the weekend. Renee and I both needed the exercise.

Another summer day in November

Posted on November 8, 2009 by ruthek

One of my ESL students is a Russian Jewish woman, a doctor who left Russia because of anti-semitic persecution some twenty years ago, and went to Sweden to live . She now lives nearby and is close to me in age, only a few years younger. She's working very hard to learn English, goes to school four days a week and has at least one session with me each week. In spite of our language difficulties we have much in common; I enjoy being with her.

Taking advantage of another November summer day the two of us went for a walk in Frick Park. We talked as we walked, but it's harder to do both when you're not sure of the language, so we often stopped. My husband used to tease that I couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. I guess I can't walk and listen carefully to broken English at the same time. When I walk with my neighbors I have no problem, but I don't listen so carefully either.

Some of the leaves are still up there.

I like the way the little tree is framed.

Sitting on that bench it seems like you can see the entire park, or one of the trails, anyway.

Yesterday's crows.

Walking around Pittsburgh

Posted on November 2, 2009 by ruthek

I'm trying to post every day this month. My friend Kathryn says this is National Blog Posting Month. She's going to do it so I'll try also. I've been feeling guilty about how little I've been posting. Like Kathryn, I may be resorting to a lot of photos. Here are a few photos from some of my long walks.

Amazing leaves:

My backyard. Those golden leaves are making a carpet on the ground.

Walking home this afternoon I passed the site where the housing project was torn down and will eventually become a Target store. I was amazed to see all the crows. I wonder what they are using for landfill.

They flew away everytime I tried to get a closer picture.

Japan artist book FINISHED

Posted on October 20, 2009 by ruthek

If you think it's the greatest bit of prose ever written, get rid of it. That's common advice to writers and probably should be given to artists also. I fell in love with the idea of embroidering this tree on a piece of obi silk, and using it as a book cover. I spent all summer working on it. I should have just tacked it on the wall; the book would be better bound with something else.

So I'm not happy. Actually, I'm never happy with my finished work. Sometimes after it sits for months or years I like it better. We'll see about this one.

So that I remember, and you learn, I'll tell you what's in my head. First, putting a photo transfer on silk is not a great idea. I said that before, but now I have another reason: making it into book cloth didn't work. The fusible interfacing never fused properly. I had lots of trouble with glue coming through and you can see the lumps and bumps because of the lack of proper fusing.

Second the silk cloth is really too
thick, even though the glue came right through it. Folding it under to
make sure it didn't ravel made it too thick. I probably should have
just cut it and used some kind of fabric stablizer. This fabric was machine
embroidered on what would have been the right side of the obi and the
threads are carried loosely along the back as the color and pattern
changes.

I used archival foam board instead of the more commonly used davey board. It's much easier to cut. I made a mistake there also. Instead of cutting that 1/4" piece for the binding edge, and moving it 1/4" away from the large piece, I left it attached on one side just cutting away the inside foam and the other side. After I finished the binding it was still too stiff. It doesn't open as nicely as my earlier books.

I had trouble finding a good, heavy binding cord. My preferred cord is waxed, linen carpet thread; not beautiful enough for all that embroidered silk. I tried several other kinds of cords, none of which worked. In desperation I went to Michael's (not a lot of choice here in Pittsburgh) and got this silvery stuff. It pulled tight and did the job, but I don't like it. Finally, I had trouble drilling the holes and the back holes don't line up properly. The whole thing was too thick, but probably would have been better if I had used that 1/4" space technique.

100 Books Before I Die

Ruthe Karlin

Category Archives: Photographs