Category: Self-portraits

Thirty Days of Self Portraits

The previous couple of weeks I’d been getting myself into a very unhappy state of mind. I haven’t been feeling good about myself with many doubts and insecurities eating away at my self-confidence. I’ve also been in a rut creatively since I finished working on the fairy tale altered books. For me, self-confidence and creativity go hand-in-hand.

I think I’m a lot burnt out after a very intense year with too much stress and not enough vacation, and then I started a new part-time job. And while the new part time job is terrific and challenging, it means art and creativity get much less time than I’d like to dedicate to them.

To give myself something good to focus my energy into I decided I needed to get the creative juices flowing and begin a small project. I’ve chosen to do one self portrait a day for the next month. I started shooting a week ago today and I’m already at day 8 of the series.

Day 1: Losing My Head
Day 1: Losing My Head

Day 2: A moment in the sun
Day 2: A Moment In The Sun

Day 4: It's raining
Day 4: It’s Raining

Click through to flickr to view the rest of the series so far.

Some of the photos have been more creative than others, but it all depends on how much time I have available each day. I’m really enjoying working on this series so far.

Yuletide Christmas Gif

I wanted to shoot a fun portrait of Boris and myself to send out as a digital Christmas card. We finally got around to doing this the other evening but I wasn’t quite happy with the results. The portrait wasn’t creative or fun enough to suit me so I decided to take seven photos from the series and make them into an animated gif. I’ve never done this before but It was really fun figuring out how to put it together in photoshop. It was relatively simple too. And now you can watch Boris and I kiss over and over and over…

The tutorial I used is for Photoshop CS3, if you want to make your own animated gif.

Hiding Behind a Brilliant Façade

These were taken almost three years apart but they both capture a similar feeling. I decided to revisit this idea because I felt like taking a self portrait last week but wanted to hide my face and do something with an umbrella. I like the most recent one better because the shadow gives it more atmosphere.

Hiding Behind a Brilliant Façade

Some days are just like that...

One of the things they don’t tell you about being an artist is that it’s a lonely road. But only at times.

Birthday Levitation

Elevation

It’s my birthday today and I thought I’d mark it with a self portrait. I haven’t taken one in quite some time and last year I didn’t do a birthday portrait because I wasn’t feeling great. A year later and things are much better because I’ve made a lot of the changes and taken my life in a direction I’ve always wanted to go.

This photo didn’t turn out at all how I was visualizing it in my head, but I’m happy with it. I love my goofy facial expression and the magic of floating mid-air in my bedroom.

Ten Good Things About Moving

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Last Monday Boris and I moved across town into a larger apartment in East Van. Today we moved all the stuff I’ve had in storage for the last eleven months. That’s two Monday’s in a row we’ve spent hauling boxes around and I can’t be more glad that part is over. I love our new place though and I’m glad we moved.

We're Moving

Ten Good Things about moving:
1. Upgrading from a two room bachelor to a two bedroom apartment. Hurray for more space!
2. Finally having a small studio space at home for art making and housing art supplies.
3. Living in East Van which is a quieter, more interesting neighbourhood than South Granville filled with neat stuffs.
3. Sleeping in a bedroom at last. (The old place had built in Murphy beds and no bedroom).
4. Getting rid of things I no longer need and wonder why I’ve held onto.
5. Unpacking books and art I haven’t seen in almost a year.
6. Having about a zillion times the wall space than before to hang lots and lots of art.
7. Figuring out where to put everything and how to arrange the furniture in the new space. (I see Ikea in our future).
8. Paying a bit more rent than before for a much larger space. We really lucked out.
9. Ending up at La Casa Gelato every other day in the last five (so far) because we live SO close. (Always with different friends though).
10. Unpacking twenty-five Frogboxes and having them all go away at the end of last week.

Burn for no reason, like a lantern in daylight

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Burning

From the Free Will Astrology Newsletter:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “I burn for no reason, like a lantern in daylight,” writes poet Joseph Lease. I think that’s a succinct formulation of one of your central issues, Leo. Burning for no reason, like a lantern in the daylight, can be the cause of either failure or success for you, depending on subtle differences of emphasis. This is how it can be failure: When you’re mindlessly and wastefully burning through your prodigious reserves of fuel without any concern for the benefits it may provide you and others. This is how it can be success: When you are exuberant and self- disciplined in shining your light and radiating your warmth just because it feels so good and so right and so healthy, and without any thought about whether it’s “useful” to anyone.

How’s that for a kick-ass weekly horoscope…?

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen

Shelter

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

~ Marge Piercy

52 Weeks Blurb Book

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I feel as if the summer of 2009 has been a very satisfying one as far as finally accomplishing some of the things I’ve been meaning to do for years… The collage post cards were one of those things I’d been thinking about forever, and publishing a Blurb book was another. Finally both are a reality, and it feels pretty damn good.

52 weeks blurb book-2
52 weeks blurb book

Because I plan to have a show of the 52 Weeks self portrait series I decided I would produce a self published book using Blurb as part of the process. It felt like the first step in narrowing down the selection from the 52 images (which is too much for a show), and also figuring out whether it could actually work as a show at all. I really struggled with that last part because I experimented quite a lot with different styles and techniques over the course of the series and felt it wasn’t very coherent as a show. Showing the work to a new group of people helped me see it more clearly and convinced me I wasn’t crazy about showing the 52 Weeks photos in a gallery.

The blurb book features only a small selection of the 52 Weeks photos. I chose what I felt are the best and most creative work, while trying to keep in mind how these will work together/compliment one another both in book form and hanging on walls. The 12″ x 12″ copy I ordered this week will work nicely as a one-off portfolio of this body of work that I hope to shop around while looking for a space to show. If you have any suggestions for places that could work in the Vancouver area, please let me know.

The 52 Weeks book can be purchased online through blurb.com. The size is 7″ x 7″ and comes in softcover or hardcover with dust jacket. Click the blurb badge below to see a sneak preview or purchase it on blurb.

A Year of Self Por…
By Rachael Ashe

Other Blurb books I thought were cool:
Masque de Gaz | Geoffrey Nicholson
The Devil’s in the Details | Laura McCabe
BenoitP | Benoit Paille

Getting an Arts Career Boost with Chris Tyrell

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Week 39 - To Do List

It’s funny how the things you want most out of life, the dreams you dreamed as a child, are often the very things that escape you as an adult. Maybe it’s because life is busier and more complicated as you grow up, and some childhood dreams don’t seem to align with the need to make money.

I’ve often felt this way about my desire to become an artist, and so I’ve always left it sitting somewhere on the backburner, somewhat neglected and playing second fiddle to all the other things in my life. I’ve never actually trusted my artistic talents enough to provide me with a source of income, and so I make money some other way.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say with all this, except maybe to express how much I’ve struggled over the years with wanting to be a real live artist who also makes money doing what I love.

If you are an artist with similar struggles, I highly recommend taking a workshop with Chris Tyrell as well as buying his book, “Artist Survival Skills”. I recently completed his excellent four-session workshop, Professional Visual Arts Career Management, at the Alliance for Arts & Culture. (Download the PDF with a detailed course description.) It is just the thing every artist needs to clarify goals, define a personal idea of success, market your work, and all sorts of tidbits on how to develop your arts practice as a business. These are areas I’ve always been lacking because the business of art doesn’t come as naturally as the creation of art.

The photo I’ve included at the top of this entry is called “To Do List” and is part of my self portrait series “52 Weeks“. I created the shot at a time when my to do list was feeling particularly long, just as it is now. I’m putting the business of art back on my to do list and hope to write more about the steps I take next. If you have any tips or suggestions please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from people about what has worked for them.

Gathering only the influences you want, and shedding the rest.

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Yellow shoes. Red tights.

I love the horoscope from Free Will Astrology this week:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Dear Rob Brezsny: I really didn’t like a recent horoscope you wrote for me. I’m a Leo, and although your oracle was sort of true, I didn’t want it to be true, and furthermore I didn’t want to lend my belief energy to help make it true. So I went hunting among the other signs, hoping to find a different horoscope that appealed more to the healthiest aspect of my fantasy life. I settled on the ‘scope for Cancer, as it piqued my interest with just the right hopeful twist, and provided a highly motivating kick in the butt. Thanks! – Picky Choosy.” Dear Picky Choosy: I approve of your efforts. These days I would love all of my Leo readers to be as imperious as you’ve been in gathering only the influences you want, and shedding the rest.

On that note, I’d say the horoscope for Cancer also applies:

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The joke goes like this: “Why is a math book so sad? Because it has so many problems.” But of course that’s a distortion of the truth. In fact, the math book loves its problems. Its problems are its reason for being. Besides that, all of its problems are interesting challenges, not frustrating curses. Best of all, every problem has a definite answer, and all the answers are provided in the back of the book. Now here’s the most excellent news of all, Cancerian: I think you’ll be like a math book in the coming weeks.