alameda on camera opens tonight

the Gala Opening for Alameda on Camera is tonight at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts for 7 -9 PM. i'm so excited to see the exihibit. whe i dropped off sxome of m work I was so impressed withthe quality of everyone's work. thisis going to be an incredable show! the link above will take you to they website where there are good directions. it's at the corner of Lincoln and Paru which is a major intereection. http://www.frankbettecenter.org/

spring at last or Seeing Grean

i've been so incredibly busy lately and the weather has been so fine, i haven't sat still long enough to write a blog in quite some time! this flower petal isn't even a spring flower! it's from the dead of winter -- which around here is not so dead!

the TV of Tomorrow show last week was FANTASTIC! what fun we had! mostly the techies kept to themselves and the artists kept together, even though we'd never met before. the show was a conference for folks who work in the development end of interactive tv. the idea was to explore the possibilities. in keeping with that theme our art all had something to say about tv and many of us imagined where it might go.

one piece was a robot that was peopled remotely. there was a tv screen with the person's face broadcast live and you could talk to her and she'd talk back. the robot could move around the room because it was wireless. this was created collaboratively by some art students. it became the intersection for the artists and the techies. being so overtly techie as a piece it was easier for the techies to approach.

the was also a student journalist there so i had my first newspaper interview. i wonder if her published anything!

on Sunday i drove up to Petaluma to pick up my art from the Aurora Colors Gallery and had a nice chat with the owner. in the car i switched out frames cuz i hated that Plexiglas and took that piece and two others down to Ben Lomond for the "Seeing Green" show at the Santa Cruz Mountains art center http://www.mountainartcenter.org/

so i will have three rather green pieces there- the show opens friday night with a party and goes for a month. i still have work up at the Frank Bette Center in Alameda. for now it's in their "Green" show and that will be follow by our Alameda on Camera work. all 40 photographer's and our vision of the city!

i'm printing out - for the fourth time - the piece for that show as i write this. it has a great story behind it which i will share when i post the image here. i'm reprinting it to get the sharpening just right. it's very textured and it looked to grainy, then too blurry, and then grainy again.

i ended up sharpening different parts of the image differently. over all used "High Pass", for which you have to make a copy of your background layer because it is a destructive filter and when you are done you blend it with the original layer. I have some of my own tricks that i've added to this hidden gem. i like making the hi pass layer black and white to avoid adding a color cast and playing with the blending modes and opacity.

i made a separate layer for sections of the picture that had unique issues. one part for example, was so deeply orange / red that it was loosing detail when it printed. rather than desaturate (which i'll try if this doesn't work) i put this part on it's own layer and sharpened it in such a way as to emphasize the hidden yellows. this created a more textured look and lessened the orange / red blow out.

it's coming out of the printer now. well i won't decide til tomorrow whether i need to keep working on this image. often the print changed a bit as it dries over night.

matting and framing

matting and framing has been the order of the day! I know it's not exciting but it has to be done! I had to ready 5 pieces foe the TV of Tomorrow show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. the show opens tomorrow and i dropped off my work today. I finished all my matting and framing before the weekend so i could relax! i continue to improve but i have issues cutting the mats just so, and more now the problem has been a silly math error in calculating the size of the hole! I know how to determine the size of the margin - i subtract the size of the image from the size of the matte and divide by 2. so if my image is 10 by 18 and my mat is 16 by 20 then i subtract 10 form 16, to get the difference of 6, which is divided in 2 because there are 2 margins on each side. and then subtract 18 from 20 and get 2 divide by 2 is 1. well that would be a bad looking matte if it were 3 inches on the sides and only one top and bottom but you get the idea.
I have started using light mattes. i've always used black, but you can't actually get museum quality mattes that are black because the coloring ruins it's archival qualities. It's still acid free and all, it's just won't last quite as long. so people really expect off white. I'm not sure at all i like the way it looks! but i did it for the show. I got wooden frames so i could put the real eye screw things in it and i even used archival matt on the back and taped up the back to the frame! this reduces the effect of pollution. were i to get better at the taping part it would really protect it well, but I'm still leaving tiny wholes so it's not fully sealed. I guess this is boring but artist have to do many things that are maybe not so exciting! however, tomorrow night i go to the artist's reception for the TV of Tomorrow show and i expect that will be very exciting!

yosemite!

i took a day trip to yosemite with three other photographers. it was incredible, getting up at 3:15 am, pouring coffee in my gut and driving down to the park and ride to pick everyone else up and then getting off the peninsula before rush hour, through the coastal range across the valley and into the foothills in time for breakfast! we ate at happy burger on rt. 140. It was still early when we got to Yosemite and it was cloudy on and off (and snowing on and off too!) so we could take pictures all day. we left around 4PM and i was home by 7 at the latest. it was 500 miles round trip.

this image is of yosemite falls taken with my lensbaby without the macro and with the biggest aperture.

anyway, hit the link above and you can see so unedited shots that a threw up on the web.

thanks to Thomas, Lawernce and Jen for being part of the adventure!

Frank Bette Center

I have discovered this great place in Alameda called the Frank Bette Center for the Arts. I love this place! I took part in the Alameda on Camera event last weekend - the show will be in April. And in March starting tomorrow night, I will have a piece in the show called "Green."
the hype:
"The color green and... "green behind the ears," money, lettuce, salads, greener pastures, wealth, grass, parrots, jealousy, new, spring green, green eyes, "eat your veggies," summer green, green eggs and ham, clover, luck, Irish, St. Patrick, Greenpeace, Green Party, bowling greens, Green Bay Packers, field of green, green apples, fried green tomatoes, green hills, green belt, green algae, acid green."

I'll upload an image of the on accepted into the show maybe Sunday! I just saw how late it is so i have to go, but first wish me happy birthday!

i will be in Abstractions show in Aurora Colors Gallery

I'm so excited! i'm going to be in yet another Juried Show and this one is in a Gallery!
kayla garelick will be in an upcoming exhibit at Aurora Colors Gallery
"Abstractions, Color & Texture"
Feb. 24, 2007- March 24, 2007
Opening Reception Saturday Feb. 24, 2007 6:30pm-8:30pm
Free with Refreshments!!!

Aurora Colors Gallery
145-A Kentucky Street, Petaluma, CA94952 
707-762-0131
http://www.auroracolors.com/AC/

Local San Francisco artist from the Sunset District kayla garelick, of daydreaming arts, will be participating in the "Abstractions, Color & Texture" art exhibition at Aurora Colors Gallery. kayla's piece "one leaf" is an example of her ability to use the camera lens to create abstract re-interpretations of the world around us. kayla's work, inspired by her fight with leukemia, creates a sense of awe for the details she sees. Her subjects are the from nearby Ocean Beach and Fort Funston, where Kayla transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary. Don't miss this show!

water water everywhere

the winter beach is so fascinating, the delicate colors reflected in the surface of the water contrast with the reality dangerous high surf from winter storms. my photo shows the light playing on the thin film of water over the sand as the wave washes out. the link is to the annual maverick surf competition where they sometimes confront 100 foot faces on the waves!
the detailed story of the most harrowing year yet is told by SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGQCNS3NM1.DTL
in making this final image i had to return to the beach repeatedly to study the colors i saw. the camera, set on automatic white balance, had interpreted the colors differently than i. and when i first attempted to print the blues shifted darker and even more saturated than i intended. by the time the print came out my memory had faded. so i returned several days in a row at the same time of day so that i would not be influenced by the camera or the printer I i finally got the colors i wanted.

Using Photoshop

This is another of the images i created for the TV of Tomorrow Show. I thought i'd write a little about the process. it was very heavy Photoshopping!
Each image has three main components the model (guess who!) who crawled through a window multiple times, the monitor, and one of my art images. I first had to made fantastic selections to remove the model from the background. I don't use selections in order to place the image in a new background often. It's much more sensitive work than selecting part of an image to make a mask where the edges aren't critical. So i spent hours on it! In the end the best tool was using a paint brush in quick mask. I used my pen tool extensively and it's so much easier to draw well with that. I also had some frustration with selecting the real black screen out of the monitor. I don't have a steady enough hand for those long straight lines so i'd click the paint tool at one end of the screen, and then shift click on the other side to create a straight line between the points. well alot of the screen wasn't really so straight, it has a slow graceful curve to it!

When i brought all the elements into one image i used multiple layers of the art and the model in different blending modes. I created masks for each layer using a combination of gradients for a slow fade in or out and the pen tool for detailed work. In one of these images i used six different layers just for the model! some would be "color burn" or "overlay" but just letting the blend happen on her foot and hand, letting it slip over her shoulder a bit.
finally the forth element is the background. All of them are other art photos of mine. in this one i used a very new early morning blue waves shot to contrast with the deep orange poppy.
So it was fun, great exercise for the OCD side of me!!

I will be in the TV of Tomorrow show!

I'm very excited to announce that my images will be part of the TV of Tommorrow show (link above) being presented by Tracy Swedlow's InteractiveTV Today [itvt] http://www.itvt.com/
I created a series of images for the show about the future of TV. These images tell a story of the future TV which will provide immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!
The TV of Tomorrow Show, March 13th - 14th (Tuesday-Wednesday) in San Francisco, California at the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts http://www.ybca.org/ . The event will present the most thorough examination yet of the emerging interactive multiplatform TV space, will also include [itvt]'s inaugural Awards for Corporate Achievement in Interactive and Multiplatform Television. The event will focus exclusively on the delivery of interactive TV on multiple platforms (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV, wireless, Internet TV, DVRs, handheld devices, iPods, game consoles, etc.). My work will be projected as part of a curated exhibit of contemporary artworks that exemplify the theme, "TV of Tomorrow."
OMG!!! i just checked and the early registration fee is $744.12!!!! Therefore i expect that all of my fans, friends and family to attend. order tickects early!

interactive TV

i recently heard about this show about the tv of the future put on by an organization that promotes interactive tv. my daughter had give an image of mine as a gift to the parents of her girl friend where she stayed over christmas eve. the friends mom is the organizer of the event and the have a juried commutation that results in your art being available for sale at the show. so i submitted a few pieces. now i know how come i don't think of my self as a conceptual artisit! the piece had to be about the future of tv, and had to have a tv or computer monitor in it. so this is one of the pieces. and this is what i said about it:
The future of Interactive TV is more than recording a show and watching it later or playing along with a game show. Even with PS3's technical advances, and even with Nintendo's Wii new motion-sensitive controller, I dream of more! I daydream of immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!

the winter beach

this is the first winter i've been this close to the pacific. I can go every morning just to watch the waves. It so exciting the way that the sea rises and reduces the beach. there's really no place left to walk, even at low tide you can get cut off. I went down from the bluff at fort funston through the beach access and followed a young fellow as he scampered over some rocks to the next section of beach. by the time i'd picked my way over the rocks, he was long gone to the next section. then the waves were coming fast and high and the rocks i'd just climbed over were under water! now i'm not so agile any more and i got kinda scared as i climbed over a higher section of rock and slid down the other side on my tush. with the seat of my jeans wet and sandy i saw that a cement protrusion was about to become a major roadblock if i didn't hustle! the tide was coming in fast so i jogged down the beach past the cement ruin to the safety of the bluffs! fewie! so this dizzy shot is fitting cut that's how i felt as i worked my way back up the bluff.

time moves faster when the days are so short!

I just can't keep up when the daylight hours are so short!
But i did make it to the beach and got some wonderful flowers before it got too darn cold. this one is a more delicate yellow. others that i took were so deeply yellow that i could not get a good shot, it must be a limitation of the digital format cuz it's maxed out on the yellow and all detail was lost in much of those petals. This one was much more delicate. and i call it follow home because i feel like i could crawl right up in there!

show at Adath Israel was a great success

i was so busy getting ready for the show at Adath Israel, my local synagogue.
it was a great success!
i donated my latest mixed media project (pictured here) to the raffle. we raised over a hundred dollars through the raffle and more through sales. i donated 10% of the proceeds to the shul.
this was such an exciting event for everyone involved. the new Rabbi, Joshua Strulowitz, is revitalizing the community by starting educational opportunities, bringing in families with young children through a play group, and creating more opportunities for socializing - this show being the first of many events to come.
i was thrilled with the feedback about my work and having a chance to sell a few things - to know my work is out there. the toughest part was the artist's talk. I spoke directly about the spiritual connection i feel in my work and that's hard to talk about. i don't have words for that. everyone listened and i got through it.

the wall hanging is made with a lovely gold material i got in and India Saree shop in Berkeley (but it is much heavier than a saree). the image of a flower was printed on silk - a luxurious silk with some texture -and the hebrew words were printed on silk as well. the Hebrew says "east" in English because it is to be hung on an eastern wall so you know which way to face when you pray at home. The silk is from colortextiles and it's called silk lines.

now i know how Jackson Pollock got his start!

now i know how Jackson Pollock got his start!
he discovered that the paint companies were ripping him off by making it seem like the paint cans were empty when in fact there were gallons of paint left inside. but the only way to get the paint out was to poke holes all over the cans and whack them, throwing paint every which way in his studio. some of it landed on a canvas and he kept it a secret cuz he figured punching holes in the paint can was probably a copyright violation for reverse engineering them!

similarly i now have Pollock-esque scarves having discovered that those "empty ink canisters from Epson don't have a few drops left when they tell you it's empty. there's the whole Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in there!
i started out all controlled taking little drops of pigment out of the holes where the air locks are on the bottom. but soon they were leaking everywhere - especially that crazy cyan. soon enough i was feeling my anger boil and my sense of humor take over and i started whack the so called empty canister onto the silk scarf i was working on.
talk about abstract!

well it won't sell but i will wear it proudly to proclaim that i did not reverse engineer it, i got what was rightfully mine!

in this drawing (from MOMA's website - follow link in the title to this post) Pollack has discovered that the black and sepia ink containers have hidden reserves of ink the company never intended he be able to use. just pay for.

Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). Untitled. (1951). Black and sepia ink on mulberry paper, 25 x 38 3/4" (63.5 x 98.4 cm). Gift of Lee Krasner in memory of Jackson Pollock. © 2006 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

fort funston

at the south end of Ocean Beach in San Francisco is some beautiful dunes that rise suddenly out of the beach. at the top a fort was once built and garrisons were dug in and we were safe all during WWII. of course the army sort of tore the place up, but it's been turned into a park and many areas are being restore - with native plants and protecting nesting birds. I love to walk up from the beach, winding through the dunes and turn around and go back before it get crowed with dog walkers and deserted army structures. This is where i've been taking pictures on my morning walks.

do you shot like a fashon photographer?

recently someone asked me if i shot like a fashion photographer. They pictured me clicking away rapidly. i guess there thought was i'd be more likely to get the shot that way. It really gave me pause because i think it told me something about how my abstracts are perceived, or at least by this person, who seems like a regular person. I thought that the idea "photographer" for most people is a glamorous one, seems like an easy job capturing beauty. I know that even fashion photographers work very hard, i'm not saying i think their work is easy, i think it's perceived that way.
I think this may be because the average person taking a picture has a light weight point and shoot. they take pictures holding the camera in one hand, with out getting down on their knees or climbing up a ladder to get the shot. and they don't fuss over focus or aperture.
also for them it seems that the final shot must be due to sheer luck, because that's how it is for them. if the shot comes out they were lucky.
My work is not glamorous, easy, or a matter of luck!
I take a moderate amount of pictures very, very slowly. I usually have to hike to my subject, get up before dawn or go out in the rain, fog, windy storm to get the light and wetness i want. i get down on my hands and knees because the most interesting stuff is way down low, or it looks better that way. My cameras used to be so heavy, with my arthritis i could never do it now! I love digital for lightening things up, but still what i'm wielding weighs three or four times what the point and shoots do, what with lenses and all. So my wrists really begin to ache.
Some of my process i think is interesting. when i do macro i focus by moving my body the minutist amount. if i breathe the focus is lost. so i end up holding my breath alot. So i'm down on my knees in the mud or the damp sand curling up with a plant or rock or whatever, holding my breath and swaying tiny, tiny bits! Every now and then i exhale really hard - cuz i got the shot, but then that fogs up the camera's viewfinder. (then you may see me lift the camera over my head and wave it to clear it while i freeze the rest of my body to hold the place.
for me, getting the shot is not luck. i plan every shot i take. i take variations because it's hard to tell what exactly the shot will look like - how to best communicate what i'm trying to say. I compose the shot; as i teach my students, i look at everything in the viewfinder to make sure i have the subject where it should be and there's no distracting elements or relationships that will look weird in three D. (like a telephone pole coming out of someone's head!) i track the light so i know i need to change my f-stop or speed, and then i focus.
yes even with those blurry abstracts i spend a very longtime focusing. it's really hard to get just the edge of the leaf in focus! I work with an extremely small depth of field (which is why breathing can blow my focus). and with the lens baby i'm not twisting the nob i'm squeezing the bellows toward the camera, which takes more hands than i have to hold it perfectly still while i squeeze off the trigger.
I guess this explains why i get self conscious when i shot with other people around. I look strange working!

working with Hebrew letters

I with now that i had a Hebrew word processor on my computer. I've always relied on the very simple set up on my Mac to write in Hebrew, but now I am struggling with it's quirkiness. I have these cards that i want to add Hebrew test to, and it should be simple enough to write it up, print it on velum and put it on the card. however, even tho i have Hebrew fonts and a computer capable of typing backward, i'm pulling out my hair as it does weird things. mostly textEdit refuses to leave the punctuation where i put it and it messes up when ever it starts it's own new line. At one point i tried to see if i could use illustrator (it couldn't find the Hebrew fonts) or Photoshop. Photoshop is ultimately the right program to use because it doesn't even think about moving the test to a new line, it leaves that to you. but i'm going to have to retype everything i typed today, because it can't think in a reversed direction. so if i copy and paste a line of Hebrew text into it, the letters are all facing the correct way, but every word runs backward. I think it's because it took the sentence and ran it backwards.

in English it would look like this: !taht pots uoy yeH
so you can see that's a problem!

I've been want to make these cards for a while and now i have a show in my synagogue for Chanukah, so i have to get them done!

my biggest transfer yet!

this work still in progress. yet i really wanted to share because i feel it's going so well.

it is on a 16 x 20 canvas board with the transferred image on top of handmade paper that is very textured. the ink has been transferred from an image printed with ultrachrome K3 pigments onto Epson's enhanced mat paper with Golden's Soft Gel Gloss. additional technical aspects of this transfer are discussed on an earlier post, the link above (in the title) will take you there or click on "doing transfers again" in the side bar.

if you look closely you can see areas where the image is very clear and other areas of "distress". i hope i sharpened the photo i took of it enough so that you can see what's going on. there are several different kinds of distress. i have to decide what part is effective and therefore should leave alone and what part is distracting from the effect i want and therefore i should continue working on those areas.

When i'm done with that i plan to continue layering media. i have additional handmade paper, natural elements, and perhaps a cyanotype or cloth elements. i can't describe the final work and i'm not fixed on one result yet. but i want the viewer to feel as though they are standing under that mimosa tree in the rain with me!

Transfer Technology Workshop for Photographers and Artists

daydreaming arts' announces another
Transfer Technology Workshop for Photographers and Artists

Whether you are a fine art photographer or an artist who would like to incorporate photographic images into your work, transferring photography and other images to unique surfaces will awaken your creativity.

At this workshop you will try several methods of transferring inkjet images onto canvas, watercolor paper, wood, glass, cloth, and found objects. We will take a look at the methods that work best for photographers and mix media artists, preserving your color intent, creating archival works of art, and integrating transfers into your current work. Some processes require heat or water: some need a great deal of rubbing and some need none at all. You can mix media to create different effects on different surfaces.

You will learn the how transfer technologies work, what media and processes influence the results - and why. A process can retain a sharp image, or create a distressed look or even a stretchy emulsion. You'll gain information about the properties of the media and how too experiment in ways that work toward repeatable results! At this workshop you'll create several projects using different methods.

You will come away from the workshop with several completed projects and the ability to ask the right questions to develop a unique process that meets your artistic needs.

Come ready to experiment in a nonjudgmental atmosphere designed to inspire and motivate!

This workshop was developed at the suggestion of many visitors to kayla's show in June. During the October Open Studios this came up again. It's essential to keep the workshop small -- so sign up early! the workshop is likely to fill up fast!

Workshop details:
Cost: Early registration by Novemeber 10th fee: $65.00; materials fee $10.00*
When: Sunday November 19th: 11 am to 4 pm
Where: daydreaming arts studio in The Sunset district in San Francisco.
How: e-mail kayla at: kaylagarelick@mac.com

You will receive an e-mail with payment options and a list of tools to bring. daydreaming arts provides transfer materials and receiving surfaces. You may bring your own ink jet prints, use my images, and if you sign up early, you may send images that will be printed onto special transfer papers for use during the workshop. You may want to bring some surfaces with which to experiment.

About the workshop leader:
kayla garelick is a self taught photographer and mixed media artist who has shown her work locally in San Francisco, Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and Richmond. She has experience teaching adults, teens, and children. She has a Masters in Education from Bank Street School of Education. For more information please see her resume at: http://home.comcast.net/~daydreamingarts/resume/artistsResume.htm
kayla believes in experimentation and problem solving. She shares her explorations in a running record in the blog: http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/ . Her mom is a scientist who has taught her the importance of record keeping and patience!


kayla garelick
kaylagarelick@mac.com
daydreaming arts
http://daydreamingarts.home.comcast.net
http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/

*a separate materials fee in necessary for retail tax purposes.

dizzy on the beach!