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Hendrik Kerstens photography: the Paula Pictures

Hendrik Kerstens‘ series the Paula Pictures, takes his daughter as the photographic subject. I see many influences here, and find the relationship between father/photographer and daughter/subject to be a fascinating one. I wonder about the story behind each portrait - how it was set up, what she was thinking in that moment, whether or not it was awkward to be imaged by her father (especially those shots in which she is half-naked). She never seems fully understood - each photograph only a snapshot, seemingly insufficient to express the layers of her identity.

Black cap

Weep

Curtain

meet Benjamin

J’s sister heard meowing at her door the other day - found an orange cat eager to sprint into the apartment. She harboured him while she visited each neighbour on the floor to see if they had misplaced an orange cat, while she posted (very obvious) signs in all of the right places indicating “Found: Orange Cat. See Apt ___.” No one visited to claim him. Someone had let their cat leave - turned them out at the age of 6 months to 1 year.

Turns out this delightful orange cat is really that - delightful. Highly affectionate, gentle, sweet, well-behaved, house broken - but not neutered. How could anyone give him away like that? As soon as I heard about him, that she needed to find him a home since she couldn’t keep him, I had a strange feeling about it. And then when I met him that night, I fell in love. You can never predict when you will meet someone you have a connection to, and I knew it when I encountered this orange cat, that something was going to change. J and I thought long and hard about it; so surprised we were even considering adopting him. Adopting kittens was something we were going to do later on, when we were more settled - certainly not right before a four month trip to Europe and an unknown future academic year. But again, sometimes these things can’t be planned.

Long story short: we decided, against all odds, that if he needed a home, our tiny apartment is as good as any. We named him Benjamin. So what about my trip? Well J is staying at the apartment, and will now have some sweet feline company. And I have someone to get to know who will keep my mind off of my travelling fears for the time being. (Someone else I can miss on my trip; let’s not think about that part right now).

He has beautiful stripes and very pink parts (nose, paws, ears).

He is so affectionate that he reminds me of a dog in the way he energetically “bashes” your face with his in his enthusiasm. This morning when J and I woke up and had a morning hug in bed, Benjamin decided to come and snuggle in between us, so sweet I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I hope I get woken up every morning like that. His favourite spot is the window where he can look down at all of the activity. This is how he tends to sit, with one paw outstretched.

He is extremely smart. Had to reckon with his reflection in my full length mirror, gets his own cat toys from a plastic bag when he chooses to, explored every nook and cranny in our apartment within 15 minutes, is endlessly curious. So far, he can’t figure out why I am so enamoured with my macbook, and finds the moving pictures perplexing. Here he is watching youtube with me (his eyes are open):

I promise: no more gushing! I feel like I am in the honeymoon phase of a new relationship! Needless to say, I couldn’t have asked for a better non-human animal companion for this humble abode. I can’t believe he’s really here.

Travel updates

I apologize for being remiss on my posting - I’m 13 days and counting for my trip, which means my life has been filled with the tasks of purchasing VERY EXPENSIVE travel equipment (crying at cash registers) and learning about all of the exciting things I will soon be doing in other countries. This still surprises me, every day - that I am actually doing this, taking off for four months by myself. Finally making it happen. At this point I am in the fear and guilt phase of the planning process, wondering if I can really take this plunge and leave J alone for four months. Wondering if I am going to be happy living out of a backpack for four months. J can’t afford to come with me, so we will be communicating via Skype and mini-emails as I go from place to place. I am equally terrified and thrilled at the prospect of my massive trip. Here is some of my equipment - no matter how much packing/prep I do, it seems like I always have more on the todo/tobuy list. Luckily, I am able to borrow this pack from a friend of mine, at 55L it’s larger than I would have liked but might just be the perfect size:

The itinerary has become more refined, but I am sure it will still change (especially as I meet people):

• Leaving April 2nd
• 1 week in London
• Taking a cheap flight down to Spain - there for 3 weeks (Madrid, Toledo, Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba, Barcelona) - this part will be interesting. Spain is probably the most challenging country I will be eating in. For example - apparently salads, by default, usually come with tuna or ham on top. But despite minimum vegetarian restaurants, there are equal parts delicious fresh fruit and vegetables I am looking forward to.
• 1 month in France (WWOOF-ing, still need to make definite arrangements) - on the weekends, will hopefully visit parts of southern France. (Also attempting to become bilingual at the same time).
• And this is the part where it gets more fuzzy - 2 months left!: over to Switzerland
• a while in Italy (Rome, Pompeii, Milan, Florence, Bologna, down to Naples or any number of other places)
• up and over to Croatia (Dubrovnic on the Adriatic coast)
• over to Bosnia (Sarajevo)
• up to Hungary (Budapest)
• Austria (Vienna)
• Czech Republic (Prague)
• all over Germany as much as possible (esp. Berlin)
• Netherlands (Amsterdam)
• Belgium
• Paris, France
• then back to London and home! August 5th.

This is definitely a fluid path I weave, and because I’m a fan of slow travel a few countries may get tossed aside if I feel like hanging out in a given place for longer.

One of the hardest things is also leaving my job, which is the first real one I’ve ever had, so to speak. I am leaving my own office which I adore and have filled with all of my own marks of organization (or lack thereof). As I clean out my files, I realize how much I have nested there. It has been such an amazing position where I have been able to express myself creatively and have grown so much as a person. Also, for the most part my coworkers have become great friends.

With so few days left, I am filled with such strange feelings. I have no idea how people are able to leave their jobs and lives for more than a year for even more ambitious travel. From far away this trip seemed easy and simply exciting, but it is longer than I thought. I am putting myself directly into a situation where nothing is predictable - where at every turn I risk the safety and security of hiding at home. But I know it will be beautiful, and terrible, in all of the right ways.

Bringing you the very best of my kitchen experiments

So apparently this is the week of preparing home-cooked meals on a regular basis. Last weekend I powered through all of my home projects so I can focus on planning my trip (I am hours away from booking the flight!). With the extra time I’ve been flexing my cooking muscles for our health and sanity - I love being able to bring real meals to work with me. And in the interests of phasing out some of the plastic in our home, we’ve purchased two glass containers that are microwave safe. So far I really like how when you microwave it, the parts of the glass that you hold are never too hot. Also, it seems more efficient - cooking the meal itself, rather than the container holding it. No plastic chemicals, and beautiful. So highly recommend it - got mine from Home Hardware. So far:

Monday: Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits from Veganomicon

I had heard so many mixed revews of this dish on veg blogs - some people loved it, others hated it. J and I enjoyed it - but it needed more salt once it was done cooking. And surprisingly I didn’t find the biscuits were too soggy. I was so proud of this production! A real casserole with a white bean, leek, carrot, peas and potato stew. Replaced the white flour in the biscuits with whole wheat flour, ’cause that’s the way I roll.

Tuesday: Vegetable Fried Quinoa from Fat Free Vegan

(Here it is in one of my new glass containers.) Susan is a genius at creating healthy, low fat and delicious recipes. This recipe has virtually no oil (using lots of vegetable broth in the ‘frying’ process), has lots of bok choy, tofu, carrots, and mushrooms, and of course has the nutritional allstar - quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”).

Jennifer Zwick photography - Constructed Narrative and Anonymous Animals series

I am loving Jennifer Zwick’s photography. One of my new all-time favourite photographs is The Reader, 2005, from her Constructed Narrative series. Check out a larger version on her homepage.

and, detail:

It’s hard for me to explain why I love the photograph as much as I do. I think it reminds me of my childhood. I was an avid and hungry reader, and especially loved the library - visiting the library and finding new books to discover was a really exciting experience for me. I like the use of colour in this work, the sense of humour, the feeling of imagination somehow captured.

Artist statement found on her official site:

My constructed-narrative photographs are nonlinear short stories. They focus on bizarrely adventurous young girls populating beautiful but uneasy worlds. To create these images, I draw from childhood fantasies and memories, then construct life-sized environments. By pushing these scenarios to an extreme conclusion, the girls become metaphors for our hyper-real childhood selves, where remembered emotions become stronger through time

(Another interesting work from the same series is The Explorers, complete with a behind-the-scenes blog documenting the process of its set-up and construction.)

Jennifer Swick also created a really fascinating series: Anonymous Animals from 2004, altered found photographs.

The very act of masking someone’s identity, making them anonymous, necessitates that they have an individual identity to begin with. Eyes are often seen as “windows to the soul.” Aren’t photographs like these associated with victims of a crime or trauma of some kind? There is something disturbing about the covering of the eyes of these animals - without their eyes they do seem objectified, somehow inanimate. By constructing photographic portraits in which an inanimate, anonymous animal is seemingly victimized by the camera (or some other unknown experience) - Swick seem to assert their life, value and sentience. When she photographs animals who are in action - barking or in seeming movement, a different effect is created. There is a lot to unpack and write about with this work, I find it very successful and interesting.

I have a history: old photographs

I was recently given pictures of myself as a child that I had never seen before. I uploaded the best ones to Flickr. They have that beautiful faded quality of old photographs and some have interesting angles. Here are some of my favourites:

I think this is one of my earliest memories:

I get to officially join the Santa-Clause-Is-Terrifying-Photograph-Club:

My father and I:

My sister - one of the most beautiful pictures of her I have seen:

So much I never knew I needed [wanted] to read, but oh do I

Things have been so perplexing lately - I hate not knowing what’s ahead. I am waiting to find out about three masters applications, am still unsure about when I’m leaving for Europe (April or May? yes - this April or May!), and I don’t really know what city I’m going to be living in next year. On top of all of that I feel like I have so much reading to do to prepare to enter a new discipline. While Communication Studies has connections to Art History, I feel like I have some catching up to do on major thinkers, theories and ideas in connection to media studies and cyberculture.

Inspired by Matt Webb at his wonderfully eloquent blog I discovered recently (like a breath of fresh air, I may do some reading through the archives to get more oxygen), I am setting out an ambitious goal of 2 books per week. My rule is that at least one of those books has to be “serious,” whether it be one of those supposed ‘classics’ I have always meant to read, or whether it be towards my degree. I have also found plenty of online essays and blogs to keep me busy with building a foundation of knowledge about the discipline.

I have been keeping a Google notebook for a long time entitled “Reading List,” where I stick the bits of reading recommendations that seem interesting that I pick up on my jaunts along the web. Just as an example, Matt Webb himself has some great recommendations. There is so much in that virtual notebook of mine, but eventually I will cobble together some sort of priority list. Or maybe I will just grab books as they fall here & there as I fancy, like catching glowing leaves. Let’s just say that it seems like the more I see what I’ve been missing out on, the more I think I have a lot of catching up to do.

So far I am in the middle of Kafka’s The Trial, which I am finding quite brilliant, and have already finished the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami which I enjoyed but admittedly found questionable. Enough of that for now! I need to get my feet wet with Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari, Chomsky, more Foucault, Cixous, Borges, Calvino, Vonnegut, a little Umberto Eco (though I thought I’d never go there) and more… I am excited to get started! I have at least a month or two to read as much as possible until I am off to Europe. I can only bring so many books with me; can only hope that used bookstores will have copies of things on my must-read list so I can continue the journey until I am in school again next fall.

(image is CC, via gregw)

What else don’t we know?

• Animal Minds - National Geographic Magazine. “Brainy fellow creatures show that humans are not alone in their ability to invent, plan, or contemplate.” Interesting article with examples of observed animal cognition.
• At the core of snowflakes, bacteria - Los Angeles Times. “Moisture must cling to something in order to condense into precipitation, but scientists were surprised to learn how frequently that something is bacteria.”
• Happy Meat on the cover of this month’s “Good.” While I have been enjoying the magazine Good for a while for many reasons (one of which was my perception that it was honest and critical in hopes for a better future), it looks like I might have second thoughts after their recent questionable coverage of “happy meat” and a cover shot I find insulting.
• Swimmers’ Sunscreen Killing Off Coral. “Danovaro says banning sunscreen won’t be necessary, and points out two simple things swimmers can do to reduce their impact on coral: Use sunscreens with physical filters, which reflect instead of absorb ultraviolet radiation; and use eco-friendly chemical sunscreens.”
• Coral Reefs Vanishing Faster Than Rain Forests. “For the last two decades, Indo-Pacific reefs have shrunk by 1 percent each year—a loss equivalent to nearly 600 square miles (1,553 square kilometers). That makes the rate of reef loss about twice the rate of tropical rain forest loss.”
• Fish can count to four - but no higher - Telegraph.  “We have provided the first evidence that fish exhibit rudimentary mathematical abilities.”

Couscous with peas and onions

Since we have made this meal 1,000,35452 times already, I feel that I have to share. I just love the simple and delicious way this whole wheat couscous is flavoured with the caramelized onion and other ingredients. It is also really fast and easy to make. For me, it is true comfort food.

Couscous with Peas and Onions from Moosewood Restaurant: Low Fat Favourites

1 1/2 cups finely chopped onions
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup fresh or frozen green peas
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh sage
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups water
1 cup whole wheat couscous
salt to taste

a few fresh sage leaves
lemon wedges or balsamic vinegar

Combine the onions and oil in a heavy skillet, preferably nonstick. Cover and sauté, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned. Add the peas, sage, salt, water, and couscous, cover, and cook on low heat for about 5 minutes, until the peas are tender but still bright green and all of the water is absorbed. Stir the couscous with a fork to fluff it. Add salt to taste.

Garnish with a few sage leaves and serve with fresh lemon wedges or pass a cruet of balsamic vinegar at the table.

Advertisements or public art intervention?

I was in Toronto last weekend visiting my sister and mom. It was tons of fun and delicious meals, as you can see in my recent Flickr pics. We also did some homestyle cooking - and it’s my observation that, after trial and error, Dreena Burton’s Creamy Leek and Potato bake is the best thing to make for my family. Everyone loves it!

Anyway, as we made our way around the city on the subway, Ashley pointed out several advertisements she had noticed that seemed curious. I found them absolutely fascinating!

Hee hee - “Thanks, Obay!” As soon as I began to pay attention to these advertisements (my eyes normally gloss over advertisements of all kinds), I became more and more interested in how they seem to disrupt and subvert many paradigms. First of all they are designed in a traditionally glossy, promotional style to the point that you would barely notice them as being out of the ordinary unless you read the text and really think about what it says. Since to me these advertisements struck me as a form of interventionist public art, I wondered how an artist or group of artists could afford the cost of putting these works in such overt public spaces. The advertisements, as mysterious as they are, manage to disrupt the contemporary ease many people seem to have in taking pharmaceutical drugs. They also deal with the issues of blindly accepting advertisements that you see around you every day. In their use of the term “Obay” or obey, they challenge the viewer to think for themselves.

Surprisingly, I found out that the advertisements (which have apparently made their way into Ottawa buses as well) are for Ontario Colleges! Apparently on some advertisements they slapped this yellow sign up on them to explain the “joke.”

CNews writes, “Colleges Ontario announced yesterday Obay isn’t a product, but a marketing campaign to get parents’ attention. Research has shown parents favour university over college for their children three to one, said Howard Rundle, president of Fanshawe College.” So the ads are intended to encourage parents of children to allow their children to make their own decisions for post-secondary education, since they tend to pressure them to attend university. Bizarre way to promote college, if you ask me. And despite the fact that it was done as a form of advertisement, to me this campaign still functions as art.