November 2007 Archives

In September I told you some things I learned while writing my first grant application. Today I received word that I did in fact receive funding based on that application. I wasn't granted the full amount I asked for but the amount I received is significant enough to really help me take a step forward with this specific project and my photography at large.

After I sent my grant application in I took a hard, critical look at all the materials I had included with my application packet. I tried to review the packet as objectively as I could. In doing so I realized that my sample works were far, far weaker than I would have liked them to have been and that the structure of my project still needs to be edited and fine tuned a bit. I considered those two issues to be large problems that it in all likelihood would prevent me from receiving the grant.That is to say I was completely certain I would not be receiving the grant. So I was of course overjoyed but also genuinely surprised when I received the letter from the foundation today.

There are several layers to my joy. The first, obviously, is that a committee of strangers reviewed my work, my descriptions, my letters of recommendation, etc and came to the conclusion that my work is worthy of their foundation's financial support. Naturally that is a bit of an ego boost (imagine me channeling Sally Field's "You like me" speech). On another level though it makes me feel so good to have some confirmation that this thing, this making art and making a life outside of the usual or even expected path is possible. It's also small bit of validation for those of us who came to our art a bit later in life than others or who took different paths to find our way to this spot, this place, this way of being in our lives.

This is a bit more touchy-feely than I'm normally comfortable being but please indulge me and allow me to say that if you're one of us, one who knows the corporate path, the 9-5 path or any of the other expected paths isn't for you have faith that you can make a different kind of life. It will not always be easy, in fact its rather hard and can be quite stressful a lot of the time, but it is so worth it. It's worth it every single day.

Last week Jason asked if I had a megafeed that included all of the writing I do online since I write in like six different places. No, but I'm kind of working on it was the answer. Kind of sort of is the answer today. I put together a Tumblr blog that is pulling my writing feeds from five different locations. Some of these are very specialized and probably not of much interest to you if say you don't live in Louisville or don't have an interest in handwritten communication so you probably don't want to subscribe to that Tumblr feed. But I'm glad to have it. It's sort of an archive of my daily output.

If you're curious the five feeds are from:

Well, here, On a path
Consuming Louisville
Correspondence Notes
On a path media (infrequent updates about Movable Type & Macs)
Exposure

Two things that arguably could have been included in the Tumblr feed but were note are my Vox postings and my Flickr stream.

Sufjan Stevens is an interesting artist to say this least. I am fascinated by his latest project The Great Sufjan Song Xmas Xchange.

Here's how it works: write an original Christmas song, record it, and send the song to us (see below for instructions). Asthmatic Kitty will pick a winner, and that person will trade rights to their song for rights to Sufjan's song.

Just like a gift exchange, Sufjan's song becomes your song. You can hoard it for yourself, sell it to a major soft drink corporation, use it in your daughter's first Christmas video, or share it for free on your website. No one except Sufjan and you will hear his song, unless you decide otherwise. You get the song and all legal rights to it. We get the same rights to your song.

Now maybe he'll write a crap song that no one would want to buy for commercial purposes, and you have to write a pretty damn good Christmas song to win the contest anyway but the potential in owning all the rights to a Sufjan Stevens song is pretty significant.

This morning on my walk to the coffee shop I once again thought about how grateful I am to be living in my neighborhood and to have good health that allows me to walk all about it. On Tuesday we walked to vote then I walked to the bread store (Tuesdays and Saturdays are the only days high fiber wheat is made, yo). Yesterday Grace and I walked to the hardware store where I bought a new air filter for our furnace (I changed it when I got home go me for being a responsible house dweller) and this morning I walked to our local coffee shop where I'm writing to you courtesy of their free wifi and enjoying a really lovely cappuccino. It is a perfect fall day in Louisville.

On the walk to the coffee shop I saw two things that greatly amused me. First, someone's lost or discarded math homework dealing with the area of rectangles. Second, a little old lady in a tiny car with a front license plate that said, in dramatic script, "FEAR NO ART!"

While walking I paid a bit of attention to how heavy my laptop bag is. Oh, it's not crazy heavy but when packed with all of my stuff it weighs probably at least 8-10 pounds. That's not really much at all is it? No, not really but I definitely feel it when it's slung on my back. It doesn't make walking difficult or anything but obviously you exert a little more energy when you've got an extra 10 pounds on you. That thought brings me to acknowledging that my body used to have an extra 170 pounds more on it than it has now. Yes, as of this morning's weigh in I have lost just over 170 pounds. I don't have any deep thoughts on this accomplishment at the moment,  I have a deeply shallow one though: this accomplishment would never have been possible without the invention of Coke Zero. I honestly and sincerely wish I could send a thank you note to the scientists who perfected the formula. They truly made a positive difference in my life. Yes, I could have lost weight without glorious Coke Zero to drink but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun.