Posts tagged "art"

Note:

At present, I write here infrequently. You can find my current, regular blogging over at The Deliberate Owl.

I've posted a decent number of photos on my blog so far. Although one could feasibly wander back through my archives to view them, I'll spare one the trouble -- here's the collection.

pink clouds on a pastel sky, smoke rising below from a volcano, lit from the last sunlight of day

Sunset over Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

a pair of pale pink magnolia flowers in the sunlight

Magnolias

tracks in the sand made by GROVER2's tank treads

GROVER2's first field tests on the beach.

Comprehensive list of my photography-focused posts

  1. Digital Moments – from road trips, autumn, and baking in 2012
  2. Indiana: Winter, Spring – photos from the end of winter and start of spring in my current corner of Indiana, in 2012
  3. Watching leaves turn - a series taken through my bedroom window at Vassar my senior year, showing the seasons changing in 2010-2011
  4. Trip to Wallops - photos from the NASA Goddard Engineering Boot Camp 2011 trip to NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Assateague State Park
  5. Fencing, thesis, snow - several snow-themed photos from winter 2010-2011
  6. Autumn Colors - a collection of autumn-themed photos at Vassar, fall 2010

I should also note that nearly all the photos that ever appear on this website or on my blog are photos I've taken.

three VC women's foilists sitting in green chairs, backs to the camera

VC women's foilists, January 2011

a flock of round picnic tables, cream-colored umbrellas shading benches of snow, with the buildings of Cleveland rising in the background

Winter picnic

laptop, piles of printed papers, a robot programming text, a highlighter, a flash drive and a pen

Ingredients for a paper

Through the Student Lens exhibit

In the spring of 2011, I got an email about the upcoming Through the Student Lens exhibition that would be held in Vassar's Palmer Gallery.

I almost dismissed it offhand; after all, it was just another solicitation about some happening at Vassar, right? We get a lot of those. But I was in the middle of my last Vassar semester. I'd been thinking a lot about my time there (what close-to-graduating senior wouldn't be?), and I realized I could probably contribute something to the exhibition. This was about the same time that I decided to write a piece for the Vassar 150 memories website. My experience at Vassar was just that: my experience at Vassar. No one else would know what it as like unless I told them. Or, in this case, shared photos.

I dabble in photography. I'm not an expert; all I have is a hand-me-down digital camera that's at least six years old, probably older (for a digital camera, that's old). I've never taken a photography class. I just try to capture the feeling of particular times and places, since it's the feeling of a moment that I know I'll want to remember later.

The photos of mine in the exhibition are Lake Mirror and Circle Time.

The first is of Sunset Lake, taken during just after a Fourth of July picnic in 2009. That was my second URSI summer; it was also scant weeks before I traveled south to Australia for a semester. The photo captures both the sunshine and happiness of that summer and the quiet reflection I associate with change -- in this instance, being on the cusp of going someplace completely new, leaving my friends and family behind for four months of adventures on the other side of the globe.

Vassar's sunset lake in July, water still and perfectly reflecting the green trees and a puffy white cloud

Lake Mirror

The second I took just before one of the fencing team's home meets last fall. It's a calm before the storm photo; the quiet moment before an intense day of competition begins.

calm before the storm: circle of chairs in Walker Bay 5 before an intense day of fencing competition

Circle Time

The Vassar Miscellany News posted an article titled "Student Photo Exhibit Captures Generations of Experience" on the exhibition on Oct. 27th, 2011. Alas, the article is no longer on their main site. The archived version of the article is here.

You can look through more photos from the exhibit on the Vassar archives flickr stream.


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Close up of several colorful buttons

Buttons and pockets

Two years ago, I decided it would be cool to have a coat decked out in buttons.

Then I thought, wouldn't be great if it were really colorful, too?

Haven't I always wanted a coat with infinite pockets?

a zippered orange pocket above a flapped grey-green pocket on the side of the patchwork coat

Coat creation

And so the Patchwork Coat Project was born. I picked up a purple suede coat from a thrift store to use as a base. My sister gave me a fantastic selection of unique buttons, and I nabbed a few more myself. I began collecting scraps of fabric: old shirt sleeves, halves of socks, leftover bits from my grandmother's quilting projects, the pocket from an ancient pair of jeans.

The base coat flared out in the front and didn't close well, so I had to add a good amount of fabric there. Still to do is a better lining. I also added buttons and loops so the front could be fastened closed.

front of a very colorful patchwork coat

buttons and loops on the front of a patchwork coat

The sleeves, similarly, weren't long enough -- like the cuffs I added?

side view of patchwork coat

the back of a very colorful patchwork coat

Nearly all the sewing was hand-sewing, too, given the fabric involved. Plus, I think it looks better.

closeup of stiches

closeup of buttons, patches, stiches

part of a coat collar

The coat doesn't quite have infinite pockets, but with twelve and counting, it's coming pretty close.


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I designed and painted t-shirts as gifts for some family and friends. Each shirt's design reflected something I knew the recipient would appreciate.

Movin' right along

This one's the masterpiece. My dad appreciates The Muppets—I remember him singing along with Fozzie Bear and Kermit when I was a kid. The song Moving' Right Along was one of his favorites. And so, I present the shirt that, at first, he didn't realize was hand-painted!

t-shirt with text movin' right along and painted pictures of fozzie bear and kermit the frog

close up of t-shirt with text movin' right along and painted pictures of fozzie bear and kermit the frog

I love grammar

For my sister, who had studied languages and enjoyed being a grammar nerd, I made a purple shirt proclaiming "I love grammar." Simple, effective.

t-shirt with text saying I love grammar

I've got soul but I'm not a dualist

One of my college friends, who had studied cognitive science and was staunchly against the philosophical position of dualism, happened to be a fan of music, too. He would sing along to The Killers' song All These Things That I've Done, changing the lyric "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier," to "I've got soul but I'm not a dualist." Yup.

t-shirt with text I've got soul but I'm not a dualist

The airlock is ajar

After I played Mass Effect for the first time, I made this one for myself featuring the character EDI with one of the funnier lines she says in the game.

t-shirt with a picture of EDI from Mass Effect and the text 'the airlock is ajar'

That's outside the scope of my project

Engineers frequently have to enforce constraints on the number of features that other people try to add to their projects. The phrase featured on this shirt was no stranger to my husband, Randy, who used it quite a lot... That's outside the scope of my project.

gray shirt with black text saying that's outside the scope of my project


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View from the room

During my senior year at Vassar, I periodically took photos through my bedroom window of the trees and the courtyard area between all the senior apartments. The end result? This series, showing the seasons changing throughout the year. Photos are unedited.

trees are still green!

September 10, 2010

mostly green still!

October 8, 2010

rainy day

October 15, 2010

trees are turning red, carpet of yellow leaves

October 26, 2011

two days later: half the leaves are gone!

October 28, 2010

it was a blustery day - red leaves in the air

October 28, 2010

carpet of brown and red leaves, bare branches

November 5, 2010

bare branches, red tree behind, blue-gray clouded sky

November 17, 2010

First snow! Some ground still visible, pale clear sky

December 15, 2010

old snow everywhere, gray skies

January 11, 2011

fresh snow storm! everything is white

January 12, 2011

one of those rainy snow-slush days

January 18, 2011

even in winter with the ground covered in snow, there are blue skies sometimes!

January 25, 2011

tired of snow yet? a nice bright sunny day

February 10, 2011

the world has melted! gray spring day, still bare branches

March 11, 2011

evening light-rimmed clouds behind the branches of the trees

March 11, 2011

grey spring day, but at least there's some green on the shrubs!

April 13, 2011

that's more like it: buds and leaves on the trees, green grass, blue sky with puffy white clouds

April 29, 2011

the same beautiful spring day: it's all sunshine and puppies!

April 29, 2011

If I did this kind of series again, I'd make a point of putting the camera in the same place every time, and taking photos at set intervals. I think it still turned out pretty cool.


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