Jacqueline Kory-Westlund

If I had a blog...

Well, I do have a blog. But.

You know how there are people who are food bloggers, travel bloggers, fashion bloggers, research bloggers, etc., etc., etc.?

I was thinking, if I had to pick just one kind of blogger to be, what would I pick? What do I often notice about the world? What would I want to share? The problem I was having, thinking about this, was that I know that as much as I like baked goods (for example), I'd probably get tired of writing about the same thing all the time.

Then I had an idea:

I could be a color blogger.

I could share things that are interesting colors. Nice arrangements of colors. Interesting patterns.

Not like the design bloggers or interior decorator bloggers or crafty people who share how to pick colors that go together in quilts or anything quite as useful as that.

Just colors.

Here are my colors for today:

(I'm not going to switch to only posting photos of things that are colors I like, mind you. This is a thought experiment. A thought experiment that might include more photos of things that are colorful in the future.)

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.

• Comprehensive list of my photography-focused posts
• Through the Student Lens exhibition

Sunset over Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

Magnolias

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.

VC women's foilists, January 2011

Winter picnic

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

Which is your favorite season?

Usually, I can't decide. But when my Hudson valley campus is decked out in full-blown autumn colors, my vote swings in favor of chill fall air, feet crunching through drifts of leaves, and myriad shades of red, brown, orange, and yellow.

Yes, I do, on occasion, meander across campus with my camera. Click for the larger versions!

Sunset Lake

View from the room

Branch of doom

Red glow tree