Drawing EatSalem: Local Food Inspired Doodles

This is a piece I wrote back in 2014.

--I'm going to let you all in on a little secret, the person who runs the EatSalem.com twitter & facebook accounts was on vacation recently. Normally when that happens, another contributor will help out...my sister and myself did this time around.

Within the first few minutes my artistic side was inspired by the wonderfully composed images of food and beverages coming through the Eat Salem feed. In between posts, I started drawing...doodles mostly. I usually only draw for myself, so I wouldn't expect anything too...well, I had fun! Let's leave it at that!

More food inspired drawings...

Photography in Minto-Brown Island City Park, Salem, OR

Like many other people who grew up in Salem, Oregon, I've spent countless hours at Minto-Brown Island city park. As a kid I road my bike there, I had my senior pictures taken among the long gone fields of sunflowers, and as an adult the park has turned into the perfect place  for me to relax, exercise, and work on my photography.

At 899 acres, Minto-Brown Island Park is about 50 acres larger than Central Park in New York, and soon to be bigger with the expansion and the bridge work. Most of the land was comprised of two working farms up until the 1970s and parts of the park have since been a working city farm and tree groves owned by paper companies. Today, the park is protected by federal grants that protect and restore flood plains and wetlands. With so much history, and many hidden artifacts telling each story, there is so much to discover at this beautiful, expansive park.

The park is so complex, so beautiful and ever-changing that one day, as my boyfriend and I were taking photos of the park, I realized we can't be the only ones. There were others, just like us, roaming the park with cameras in hand, taking photos of green things, birds, and pretty sunsets. That night I searched Flickr, an online photo sharing site, and found I was right. There WERE others taking gorgeous shots of the very same park. So I started a group and invited everyone I could find to join. and what resulted is this. It is an ever-changing collection of how nature and art photographers see the park. My favorite part about the group is how the images change with the seasons. You can see with the archived photos, how the park changes through the year, and it is beautiful.

Minto-Brown Island Flickr Group

New members always welcome! 

(Signup with Flickr is easy, specially if you have a Yahoo account of any kind.)

Seeing Music: Light Photography & Guitar Playing

Seeing music....just an experiment I did last night after a bit of frustrated video making. So, can you see Danny Boy? That's what I was playing on my Diddley Bow in this gif I made.

To learn how to make your own Diddley Bow, visit DIY Spirit, part of DIY Studio. It is a lot of fun, and really makes you feel like the instrument is truly 'yours', because YOU made it.

Film Reels: Mädchen In Uniform

Film Reels - In which I catch up on my classic movies and then talk about them.

Mädchen In Uniform -(remake 1958)

There are two well known versions of this movie from Germany, but only one available on Netflix right now. I'd love to see the original sometime.The original was set after WWI in a Prussian boarding school for girls. So is the remake, but because it was made in 1958, some of the styles don't quite match the era.

The movie was very emotional and lovely. Historically, it is touted as being the first pro-lesbian movie and is important for having an all girl's cast. Personally, I was more affected by the main character, Manuela's, reaction and inability to adjust to the harsh Prussian school environment. She was known for being a sensitive and shy girl and the traumas of being in such a harsh place worked against her ability to mourn and deal with her grief over the death of her mother. This led her to become obsessed with the affections of the only kind teacher, and slightly forbidden attraction the two shared.

Setting the sexual attraction aside, it is very common for shy mild mannered people to become enamored with a specific teacher that shows them kindness. Especially in high-school, which can be a very rough place for shy people. I've seen it with myself and with others. I remember how devastated when my favorite teacher, the one I looked up to and felt was a positive role model, got cancer and died. I noticed a huge drop in my grades after that time. I also had a few friends who had their own personal favorite teacher that they felt they were almost friends with in high-school. It might be like finding a protector and confidant in a hellish scary place when you are not fitting in. For me it was a boost of confidence that someone thought my work was good and noticed my intelligence.

What I took from the movie, essentially, is that acceptance and love is more important than strict rules and guidelines in developing good adults. Rules have their place, but you need  love and compassion too. I recommend watching this movie, or the original 1931 version if you can find it.

Street Art In Salem

Update, 1/26/2014
Adorable bits of art are everywhere in Salem, I just didn't know where to look. I have photo photo on film, but I need to get a good scan before I can post it. So more on that later. :) I found this scary wall monster yesterday while checking out the old apartment window mural.

Original Article, 12/2/2013
There isn't a lot of impromptu street art in Salem. I'm not condoning vandalism* , but unexpected beauty is still beauty and its fun to capture it when it happens.This post will be dedicated to photos of art that is a part of the city. Statues and sculptures are beautiful works of art, I'm not dismissing them. I just want to highlight the more creative ways art is integrated into the city. These are more fleeting moments of art, because many are taken down or made of materials that can't stand up to the elements. As fleeting as they might be, they are still marks of humanity and imagination; maybe even a peek into another world, and deserve to be admired as art.

*Vandalism is the act of deliberately destroying or damaging property as per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. In some cases it is up to each individual person to decide what "damage" means to them and also what "beauty" or "art" means to them. Just some food for thought.

Update, 12/6/2013: Looks like I need to get downtown again! Someone is yarn bombing downtown light posts*. :) If anyone knows more of these projects please let me know so I can get out there and photograph them.

*See below for the photos I took of the yarn bombing on the block of Liberty downtown.