new pendants photographed with panasonic DMC - FZ35, sent to my email on the iPhone, processed again via ScratchCam, then 100 Cameras, then sent back to my laptop and tweaked in photoshop with bumped up contrast, gaussian blur, reduced hue, bumped back saturation, cropped.
and yes, the new line of pendants - tokens of love and affection - are now available in my etsy shop, here
photo of gathered rainwater taken this morning along the river trail with my iPhone - app used is ScratchCam, sent to my laptop and further edited with photoshop (changed contrast, lighting, saturation, hue, focus, cropped, resized) the process is winding, the end result is different every time.
i wanted to write a little thank you this morning to each and every one of you who took the time to write a comment about my "novella", as one reader called it (i love that!) that i posted yesterday. i'm not sure where that all came from - but it did bubble up from somewhere, and it had been a rough night of sketchy off and on sleep, it was a difficult morning getting out of bed when the persistent rainy weather has made these bones ache more than usual. all of that paved a mental road that led to the post i wrote yesterday, which you have to admit is unusual for me - the venting, the complaining. i do like to keep things pleasant and peaceful here, as much as i can. i am human, i do have emotions, and i feel things very deeply. i am the author of this blog, this place you can come and read what i share if you like. and if you don't like what i have to say, if it rubs you so rawly that you feel a need to write and say that you won't be back - two of you said this, if you are still reading - then, by all means, go find another place where you will feel rewarded and welcome. i don't keep this blog as a place where i expect everyone to write and tell me how wonderful they may think i am; that's a very saccharine and artificial approach to life that repels me as much as it ought to repel you. i like to keep things open and authentic here, which means that sometimes i will out of nowhere write about feelings that are not all rosy and sweetness and fluff.
i don't know - maybe i need to pull that post, maybe i ought to close the comment section. there are naysayers, clearly, who do come here to read - to make themselves feel better, unless of course i've touched a nerve and triggered a response that makes them leave a comment for the very first (and last) time. but if i pulled the previous post, if i closed the comment link, i don't think it would be in the spirit of what i strive in this life to be. i've always been up front with how i feel, and there have been many in my personal life who've suffered the consequences. i am not easy. i am not compliant. i am who i am, what i am, and that is sometimes difficult for those in close proximity. you out there who are reading this, you who come here to see the photos, to read the words, to view the artwork, will sometimes get a mixed bag of contents. most of you will appreciate the ebb and the flow. some of you will not.
blogs are funny things. ten years ago, i'd never heard of one. never did i dream that i'd be making so public much of what i'd kept so private, in the past. i live a quiet life, doing what i feel is the right thing to do. placing myself in a fish bowl for all to see, for all to accept or to reject, is something that would have felt completely foreign in the years i lived without a computer, when i functioned with the telephone and the postal service serving as my only means with which to communicate. these days, i still live a quiet life, i still work alone and live alone and spend my time making artwork that i continue to sell for a living. but in the past twelve years, i've become more of a public person through publications, through teaching, and now, through this blog. i have to try to maintain that fragile balance of public and private, i must walk the thin line that divides my life here at home and the self that is thrown out there for anyone to view, to read, to judge, to accept, to spurn. it is your choice. i'm ever grateful that you continue to come back here to read, that you let me know you are there, that i have a loyal following, that i am able to work from home, to write about it, to share with you my ups and my downs without (usually) having to defend myself for being sometimes a little too open with how i might be feeling on a difficult day.
i've heard from so many of you in the last twenty four hours.... i've received private emails from those who wrote about the photographs, each of them very supportive and deeply appreciative for what i do here. their letters were understanding and grateful, and they will keep coming back to visit here. i am more grateful than i can say that they each took the time to write. as for those few of you whose exposed nerves i seem to have jabbed, i truly hope that you'll be able to find the solace you seek, wherever life will take you. and i hope that somewhere along the way, you were able to find a little peace here. maybe a little. i do wish you well.
i've been writing this blog for over six years. six years! it's hard for me to believe. i've openly shared with readers my ups and downs, my artwork, my raging insecurities, my love of nature, my love of friends and family, and with all of that i share countless images that take me a great amount of time to post. when i take a photograph - and i often take many photographs of one thing to reach the final "one" that i like - there is a process that consumes hours of my time. the same goes for listing a piece of jewelry: i struggle to take photos from a variety of angles, making sure to catch the light in a gemstone, an angle of a charm and how it dangles, the detail on a part that rests alongside the neck, the length of a piece and where it falls when worn, the color of ribbon, the mood and emotions that are so deeply woven and ensconced into each and every design. after i've taken 20-30 photographs of one single piece, the editing begins. this takes hours - literally, hours - of sitting here at the laptop and bumping up or down the lighting, changing and cropping the size of the photo, the contrast. sometimes one tiny part of a necklace will be out of focus, and i sit and very finely focus on just that one small bit, making sure a word is popping out into view and catching one's attention. sometimes there are flecks of dust, or an errant walter hair, that must be removed. often lighting is horrid, as is the case throughout winter; i hurry to snap photos early in the morning before the winter sun sweeps straight into the window and spills across the desk, where it resides in stripes until the end of the short day, when it sinks without fanfare behind the western mountains. if i'm trying to take any sort of jewelry or art photograph between sunrise and sunset, it is a matter of finding a spot where the sun is not direct (too harsh), yet where the light is bright enough to capture details without the image being blurred from too long an exposure. yes, i have a light box. yes, i hate the thing. photographs of jewelry taken inside that box seem sterile and void of any emotion; too, i gave my tripod to my son robin because i never ever used it - until one desperate, dark afternoon when i realized i could use that box but needed the tripod i had given away. life is so much like that for me: i realize all too often, after purging and sending the bulk of things i'd not used in years, that there are times quite a few of those things pop into my head as something i'd like to once again incorporate into my art, into my life. gone. the antique measuring tape (which never ever surfaced, thank you very much says the dog with the bone), a canvas painting, some length of trim... for those things, i must learn to just let go. but, for this - for the blog that takes so much of my time to write, to share? what to do? i spend hours and hours and hours writing and editing and uploading photographs, most times an entire morning and part of an afternoon. five hours is not unusual. and all of this, for readers, absolutely free. i pay $150.00 for a years' worth of membership to typepad (double what i used to pay, two years ago, for the very same service. go figure) because i like the little extra ability to tweak the design of my blog. why? i like to share my world with all of you. i like to show what makes my heart ache with beauty, what excites me about creativity, what it feels like to be sad or elated, confused and angry or unabashedly joyful and all things in between. i like, just as much, to hear back from the world that sits on the other side of this computer screen; i like to hear and receive feedback, i like to know there are those out there who get what i have to say, who appreciate it with depth and with truth and with deepest gratitude. (i even like to know if and when you don't, as hard as it may be to read those words). i don't get paid one dime to spend the time that i do on this blog. no one forces me to sit here and write my heart away, and i'll be the first to admit that i ask for the loss of creative time away from the studio when i spend it sitting here writing and pecking away at this plastic keyboard. peck, peck, peck. delete, delete, tweak, upload, hit the post button and poof, there is my open heart in lights right there on any screen in the world that wants to find its way into this tiny world of little old nina bagley.
whew.
rant. this is, i am beginning to see, a rant. i don't mean it to be, but i swear i don't feel like reading back over anything i've written, because it will once again be delete delete delete then a huge regret for hitting that "post" button in the end. for sending my emotions out there for all to see. i've gotten myself in trouble a couple of times that i can remember, and the backlash was horrid, acidic, and lasted quite a while. i've learned not to mention politics here, or the particular brand or strength of my religious beliefs; i've learned not to mention conflict in the jewelry designing world (as micro small as this world happens to be, so small. a little pond out in the middle of a vast rolling meadow as seen from out of space, that small), i've mostly learned to keep my mouth shut about anything other than my own emotions that involve no one else, about anything that creates any conflict at all. i've tried to continue to share with you what makes me feel good about what i do - the design part of it, the inspiration behind a piece, the excitement about being "on a roll" with a new line of things, a new look. i've tried to maintain a freshness here, although to me it often seems and feels as if what i'm doing is the same old thing, the same old words, the same old jewelry photographs over and over again. a leaf with a beaded pattern of rain across its veiny surface. a rock that is in the shape of a heart. my open palm, holding something, anything. my feeling of isolation, my gratitude for a quiet life. the conflict that arises within that one sentence alone. the trials and tribulations of owning a very spirited dog named walter (who challenges me every single day, who summons just as much love throughout every hour of every passing day). the devastation of loss, of grief. the dealing with that. the forced, raw growth that comes from it. the mixed package of being a single woman at the ripe age of 55 who lives out in the middle of no freaking where. the parts where i tire of being the only one to walk up and down the stairs with that overloaded laundry basket (where is my laundry fairy when i need her?), to cook the dinners that i consume, to straighten the house. the only one to walk up and down stairs loading the luggage into the car. cleaning up the glass alone when burglary strikes. the only one to pay the ever looming bills. to bring in the money that pays all of those bills. the only one to sit at this desk and bang away at the laptop keys as if it is a wise thing to do with my life, sitting here venting to the world. when i take a bit of time and back away, whether it is to focus on much needed work that will bring in the necessary income to pay the rent, to pay the lingering dental bills, or whether it is because i simply want to spare you the numbness that comes from reading the same old watered down thing, it is a choice that i make to step away and not post for a few days, a couple of weeks. and, inevitably, i begin to receive comments and emails asking where i am, asking what might be going on. sometimes i wonder if the thoughts that i'm thinking as i walk along the river are thoughts that i am thinking directly for the ones who read this blog, rather than for myself.
i've just in the last couple of days begun reading the journals of a much-loved writer/actor/artist named spalding gray who tragically passed away back in 2004 (sadly, he took his own life - in true spalding form, a dramatic death that involved jumping off a staten island ferry into freezing winter nyc harbor waters. i'm still not done with my grieving over that one). i had followed his work as quite the ardent fan; the films of his monologues Monster in a Box and Swimming to Cambodia were brilliant things that i owned in vhs form and watched over and over and over again. i once even paid dearly for and owned a signed copy of one of his books that sadly went the way of broken relationships. when visiting my favorite bookstore in all the world a few weeks back, i discovered that a copy of his journals is now out in beautiful hardback form, and snatched it up. my winter reading is now fits and starts of spalding, who bares his confused and conflicted artist soul across his journal pages. a lot of what he has said thus far rings so very true for me, in regards to posting a blog, in regards to much of how i feel; "accept yourself and move toward what you want to do. there is nothing else in the world but this", says he, and i stop in my reading tracks and say hmm... then i read a little more. this is one of those books in which i find myself removing the cover so that it will not get any more creased than it was the day i brought it home, clutched to my chest, from the store. "How forced i still am. my whole mind is a running commentary on all that i do. i can't turn off the comments... walking through central park the wind... the not too cold wind and the distinct shadows remind me of early spring, late winter (where the season is just ready to give itself over) i feel the wind in my face and i think i'll cry and i do and see...am aware of the way in which the first tear out of my left eye has caught and rainbowed the reflections of the afternoon sun". see what i mean?
anyway.
back to writing a blog. back to sharing my photographs, my writing, my artwork, my world. it hurts a little, stupidly so, when i spend a lot of time writing one of my posts and then receive comments from readers who surface from silence to ask what camera app i'm using. some of you have been reading this thing since its inception back in december of 2005; some of you i never hear from, but i know that you are there, reading in silence, from the corners, from the shadows. i have one reader who posts a comment every single time i post - lovely words of encouragement and appreciation. even though she is a friend (thanks, in large parts, to our frequent pen pal communication), and we are often in touch outside of this blog, she continues to post comments because she is that sort of person - thoughtful, heartfelt, giving, real. she doesn't write to ask about a technique. she writes, unselfishly, to offer support and to let me know that she is there. i'm always so grateful, for that.
there are times, like this morning, when i question the time that i invest in ornamental. time spent writing and publishing these words could be time spent writing privately in a journal, or writing words for that book which refuses to surface... simply because by the time i'm done here, it is time to move on to the studio to make jewelry to sell. after my morning walk (which i've skipped today), after writing a post, after working on photographs - whether for income or for here or for my own - there seems little time to devote to writing words for a book, when i don't know what to share, to write, to say. i try to imagine my having something to offer in book form that hasn't been said before. i try to do that here, as well, even when i meet myself coming again back 'round a bend in this road. i like for my look to remain my own, for my writing style to remain mine as well. yes, my work resembles what is out there, so much of it now. yes, the photographs resemble one another, from each one to the next. but they are mine. i snap the photos, i use the apps, i transfer the photos to my laptop so that i can edit them further in photoshop. i could tell you which apps i use - but after thinking about it, i grew perturbed that the prevailing gist of yesterday's comments towards the end were not about the writing or the content of the photos, but about which apps i use. i realize i set myself up for this by posting what i did yesterday, by showing the original photographs then showing what i had done with them. initially, in the evening as i cooked dinner, i wrote a couple of folks back to explain my process - but upon waking up this morning and sitting back from myself to observe my emotions, i realize it is something i really don't want to share. does this mean i stop sharing the actual photographs here? does it mean i don't post them at all? i am quite the visual person, though, and the photographs serve as triggers and prompts for the very words that i write. that's my process, here: i capture an image, and tweak it a bit, then i write. i post another photograph, write a little more. and i think this is an approach, i know it is, that i use with my jewelry and art book work as well: a component rests on my studio table, or is tucked away inside a little drawer. i see it, i run across it while searching for something altogether different, and an idea is born. i work with some gemstones that convey that emotion for me - a drop of rain represented by a crystal drop, a rainy day doldrum revealed in a remnant of silvery dark grey velvet. a bundled bit of wrapped fabric and wire, and some stitches of embroidery thread convey time, and a very direct connection from the artist to her work: taking the time to hand sew a few running stitches, or x's, into my pieces speaks volumes for the way i want my artwork to speak for itself. there may be beads hidden on the flip side of ribbon, there are usually words on the back sides of pieces that will be seen only by the one who wears the work of art. the words grow warm when worn next to the skin, and then become a part of that person who wears my ornaments. i want my work to be the consummate expression of what and who i am, of how i reach out to the rest of the world. and i do that with this blog, as well. if i want to share with you what beads i've used, where i've found them, i'll tell you when i write about a piece. if i want to pass along to you the apps i use for certain photographs, i'll tell you that, when the post is written. if not, i guess it means i really don't feel like sharing that information, if i've not initially said it right up front. i can't really say that the apps are the end-all results of what i show here, anyway; i take one app, play with it, then layer it with another, then carry that image over to my laptop where i bump up or down the lighting, the focus, the glow, the dirt and dust and specks. it is a sometimes tedious process, but one that i relish, and it is one that i've mostly taught to myself, and a look that i'd rather not send on down the assembly line. selfish, yes. arrogant,perhaps. but i'm being honest here, and for that i'll suffer, of this i am very sure. it's happened before. it'll happen again, if and when i publically air a stance i take, an opinion i hold.
i just want to remain true to myself, apart from whatever else i see out there, without being watered down by reflections of the artist and the person that i strive, on a moment-to-moment basis, to be. this online world makes it oh so easy to have a "look" that then becomes a look for the next person, and the next; and then that person somewhere down the road claims a look as his or hers, calls a technique his or her own, proceeds to teach the class, writes the book, sell the work that he or she sends out into the world. it all becomes homogenized - the art, the jewelry, the books, the work. the apps, in particular, are certainly not mine to claim; i am not the one who developed them, who programmed them for anyone to purchase and use. whatever i choose to do with them, the look that i strive to collectively and ultimately achieve, i hope will blend into a look that is still recognizable as - well, as my own.
all of this makes me sad to write. i've spent another morning trying to express myself, my dilemmas, my concerns, and can only imagine the repercussions, the ripples in the surface, that these words will invoke. i don't do this very often - not anymore. the price is too high. apparently, i've earned a reputation in this particular art community as someone who speaks her mind at all costs. i do try to remain open, though, and true. it is not always an easy thing to do, when contemplating how much more pleasant things would be if i would just keep my irksome feelings to myself.
when i send these words - polite words, but firm - out into the vapor that exists beyond the windows that face the quiet wooded hills before me, i have to be willing to face the consequences of an inevitable reaction. there will be words, and those words - the reactions - are far better than the silence that is so often what hovers, like wet wool or cotton.
sigh. at least i will know i've been heard.
yes, it's a little blurred, and yes, i've touched it up a bit with an iPhone app. who knew i'd be using that thing for imagery as much as i now do? but i carry the phone, slender and light, along with me on our every morning walk, so it is all too easy to slip it out of my pocket, hit the camera tab, and take a photograph of something i'd not ordinarily be able to capture on film. for the last few mornings, there've been several elk right next to the trail - right next to walter and me, in other words, or blocking our path. these animals are huge, and quiet, and i'm not ever sure if i should try to skirt on past or turn and head back to the car. so beautiful, are they, so big and so much a part of these deep, rich woods.
yesterday morning as we made our way back home along a quiet road that skirts through rolling pastures filled with grazing goats, the fog made the usually familiar vistas seem other worldly and foreign, bathed in milky pale light. i rarely ever pass another car, and it was easy to come to a complete stop right there in the middle of the road, pull out the phone, and capture this new land to carry home with me. from that image, i tinkered around and came up with this:
i look at this and think i might have stepped back to a time when there were no stripe in the road, when there was no asphalt at all. it's easy to imagine this, anyway. the fog was just as thick, even thicker, when we got to firefly road:
we've been walking this road a lot this month, since the rain has taken over and i don't want to spend 15 minutes driving one way just to have the rain come down the minute we step out of the car. firefly is steep, though, deceptively so, and i do love to have the energy and the sounds of the river at our side. the quiet where i live is tangible, something i can just about reach out and touch. i think you can see that, just by looking at this milky photo taken on a foggy, milky day. from that image, i went to this: and also to this:
and upon pulling into my drive, i captured this:
which transformed into this
and then to this.
it's almost like looking into a gazing ball, or down a well that reflects an image in the water of the sky, and of yourself looking down into that world that is of something else, that is purely of reflection and contemplation. and writing this brings to mind a passage from the beloved novel Cold Mountain, (set as the crow flies perhaps 25 miles from here) where ada is instructed to lie down and gaze backwards into a well to see what her future would bring. it brought love, and loss, and life. that's what i see when i look at the photo of my driveway, above. i see all of those things, in that light. and today, i take the emotions that i've strained through threadbare cheesecloth into memory, and i work with what remains: the light, the love, the loss, the life. that's what i do, as i work quietly away on a winter day, in pale light that is filtered, in light that is not of this world of the here and the now: i work with the memories of light, and life. xo
you'll remember my post i wrote a couple of weeks ago in which i mentioned a ball of red yarn - walking through the woods and leaving a trail. i was tempted - believe me, i couldn't wait to go get some red yarn and wind it through the rhododendron, and along the edge of the river. i started worrying, though, about some poor animal trying to eat the string - and worry won out in the end. a red thread nest? now, that would be a stunning find and an incredible work of art for some little bird to execute. i've settled,
instead, on making ornaments as valentines for nature. picture tying a red silk ribbon onto a branch at eye level, just next to a trail that is frequented by you and by others who are strangers. imagine coming upon something like this out in the woods - a bit of metal dangling and swaying in the breeze - words that draw you in - simple words - a simple haiku. picture the little quartz drop glittering in the sun, like a bit of lingering rain after the storm has passed. i love this notion. i love that you could write your own haiku across the back with a sharpie pen, and love that the copper will tarnish with age and with time. i love that you could rub the back with a bit of fine steel wool to remove the old haiku, to replace the words with the changing seasons. i love that the red silk, symbolizing the common thread that eternally connects us all, will eventually fade in the sun, in the rain, in the snow - but oh how soft, like a whisper, it will be....
i'm calling this my red thread haiku project. there are a few of the ornamental poetry pieces for sell over in my etsy shop - each bearing an original haiku that i've hand engraved. no haiku is the same; i compose them at the moment that they are inscribed across the copper. i'd love to see what others choose to scrawl across the backs of the one or ones that they purchase; i'd love to have haiku appear here that folks have shared. they are such simple, easy little bits of beauty to write - focused on nature, how could they be anything but beautiful?
red ribbon flutters
crimson bright against the woods
cardinal loves this...
i'm very excited and pleased to share with you, as well, some news about an upcoming retreat i mentioned in an earlier post - one that is very much in keeping with that wonderful concept of red thread. my good friend and creative coach lesley riley is hosting the red thread retreat, and i will be there too, along with fellow artist and pal claudine hellmuth; classes will be intimate, in a beautiful setting along the potomac river, three classes in three days. lesley will be revealing more information in the weeks to come... xo
(for more reading on the red thread, you can visit here.)
