revealing my process

although i'm home sick today i'm not so sick that I can avoid getting bored! so i started thinking about this blog, how i've used it in the past, how it's changed and then, really how do I want to use this platform? I started out just learning to blog, emailing pictures and upload pictures, and getting it to look right. because I was teaching elders i used it to teach in a way. and my posts were about my process and my many experiments with transfers and mixed media.
but then so much of my time was involved in promoting my business, learning marketing etc. that I ended up using this for little more than announcements. boring!!!!
so I want to go back to discussing my process, and what i'm working on now. some people say an artist shouldn't reveal too much. it takes away the mystery or someone might copy your work. but when I explain my work at an art opening or something, people are really interested. and I don't believe my work can be copied as I have a u Kaye view of the world!







like this shot, currently on display at City Art, was taken while looking straight up, weaving with the light morning breeze to try to stay with the leaf.






and this one, also currently hung at City Art, is looking straight down while on my hands and knees in the gutter. it too is a leaf and they were both taken with my lensbaby but with many differences.

the one on top, called "weekend away" was taken on a clear, bright morning which creates more contrast and makes a work seem exciting. I also set it up for a short depth of field, or at least more than the second piece called ancient way. ancient way was taken on an overcast day, so the light is more even, often called wrap around light, and it was taken at a greater magnification, so we feel inside the leaf as distinct from looking at the leaf from the outside in weekend away.

Some people think that the lensbaby is doing all the work here, but i have added the experience of my years of macro photography to the mix.

so if you go to the lensbaby site you will see that the original concept was to have a lens with a sweet spot of focus surrounded by soft focus in a lens that was mounted on a device that focused by squeezing an accordion box. this set up also allowed the sweet spot to be moved off center by squeezing the lens unevenly.

when I use the lensbaby I attach various adapters to work at the micro level and I set up the speed and the aperture to create different results. the speed and the size of the opening in the aperture are two settings that control the amount of light coming in to get the right exposure. if you use extreme settings you will get different effects. it is the effect of time and angles. if I had a very small aperture I would need a slower speed to give the light more time to expose the same amount of light as if I have a wide open aperture and a faster speed.

the effect of the first can be imagined if you think about truly long exposures where the camera records the location of light over time, resulting in beautiful streaks. at a less dramatic setting that is what's happening in weekend away. the exposure is a little long so the movement of both the camera and the leaf paint the passing of a little extra time. compare it to ancient way which is very still.



Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:Berkeley

Kayla's Open Studio Oct 13 & 14

To all my Art Lovers and Friends:
Yes it's been a whole year since the last Open Studios here in San Francisco.

Next weekend The Sunset and surrounding neighborhoods will be having Open Studios. Come see my most recent fine art photography, which focuses on the spiritual in the material world. I also have some handmade books, and wall & window hangings that utilize my photography.

Kayla's Open Studio
Oct 13 & 14, 2007 at
2169 20th Ave., San Francisco, Ca, 94116

Part of the fun of open studios is seeing works in progress. I have been experiment with many forms of mixed media and going through and exploratory and playful period with working with encaustics, polymer clays, incorporating real objects of nature into these works. Feedback on these experiments is very valuable to me so come see the process and give your opinions.

Because i have been diagnosis with a second serious bone marrow cancer and will have to go through a bone marrow transplant soon, i feel a strong urge to share my work this last time before i undergo this procedure which will likely keep me busy for the next year. I feel that the work that I've done will be complete when it hangs in homes and spreads the joy! I will continue making art - it brings me so much satisfaction - but i will not have the energy to have open studios or continue to submit to galleries for quite some time.

So please come by. Prices are deeply discounted to facilitate spreading the deep connection with nature that i hope my work creates. 10% of sales will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/ who do so much to support research and public understanding of bone marrow diseases, while providing practical assistance to patients and family. I love this organization!

Go here if you want information on my disease (MDS):
http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=55442

My Heath Story and more information on MDS and Bone Marrow transplants:
http://daydreamer.pnn.com/2713-health-and-wellness
See some of My Art: http://daydreamer.pnn.com/2103-the-art-page (explains spiritual connections and http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/ discusses process

October 13 - 14th 2169 20th Ave., San Francisco, Ca. 94116
use google maps to get directions: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&time=&date=&ttype=&q=2169+20th+Ave,+San+Francisco,+San+Francisco,+California+94116,+United+States&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=71.064097,111.972656&ie=UTF8&lr=lang_en&cd=1&geocode=0,37.747299,-122.477098&ll=37.747355,-122.476251&spn=0.008908,0.013669&z=16&om=1

Noe Valley Show at Gallery Sanchez Opens

The opening at the Gallery Sanchez in the Noe valley Ministry yesterday was a very nice event. I really enjoy working with this group of artists from the Sunset, we are an interesting mix of ages and life experience. The space is really lovely, hi ceilings and loft feeling with out being overly religious. Although The Noe Valley Ministry is a church with crosses etc here and there, it's also an active community center where various groups meet including a Jewish Group and the have regular musical performances. I also really enjoyed having time to talk in depth with the other artists about our plans and dreams.
This piece, One Leaf, is part of the show at Gallery Sanchez. It was taken on a drizzly / foggy day at Fort Funston. It's special to me because of the subtleties in it. The smooth shading indicating the shape of the leaf in the softened background and the intense yellows and oranges on the leaf edge as the plant reacted to the pressures of the weather on the bluff. The part that clinches the deal for me is the curve of the edge and how seductive it's path through the image is.

"Peaches and Cream" at FBCA

So the latest show at Frank Bette center for the arts is Peaches and Cream." I submitted a classic of mine (read not made in the year since i moved tothe sunset district). I call it bite because it integrates the natural "imperfection" which is nature getting along fine, bugs gotta eat!

Hall of Flowers show a great success!

I really had a wonderful time at the Hall of Flowers "Art on the Avenues" show. I really hope it's not the last one - it went so well! I sold some small things and one of my silk wall hangings so that i covered the money i spent on new frames for the show! not exactly a profit but there was so much more than money that i profited from. It's an incredible learning experience to Put together 32 new pieces for the past year and see how your work is developing. and then to spend two whole days looking at my work and the public's reaction to it. WOW. I can see where i will be heading next - but alas there are no words for what i saw!

Hall of Flowers Show this weekend!

June 2nd and 3rd from 10 am to 5 pm, at the "Hall of Flowers" in Golden gate Park which is on the corner of Lincoln and 9th Avenue. It's the Annual Art on the Avenues Show by the Sunset Artists Society, I'm so excited I have over 30 new pieces - all made in the last years since i've moved to the sunset. It seems like I've been so productive since i moved here and i wasn't finding time to frame everything so this forced me to! All week I've been matting and framing and this morning i finally got them all in boxes to take over and unload later today. I'm so excited! Everyone should drop by and see my new work!! Oh and there are 18 other Arts whos art iss pretty good if you ask me! it's a juried show after all.

upcoming Sunset Artist Society show

Once again i have Juried into the Sunset Artist Society annual Art in the Avenues show at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park! hurray. I will have all new work this year!! and new pricing structures. I'm celebrating my first full year living and working in the Sunset with work created since the move. Most work will l be hung publicly for the first time! So everyone has to come and see my new and exciting work. Date June 2 & 3rd 10am to 5pm; Place: The Hall Of Flowers at 9th and Lincoln, San Francisco, this show is so exciting and this may be the final year as the show's organizers burn out!!!!! will others pick up the torch and keep this annual event hopping? will i be here in the Sunset another year???? should i get involved organizing????

time flies when you are busy!

this is an image i love from that raining sunday morning in Alameda.

I have been so busy i haven't even had time to post to say how busy i am!
my work is hanging again in the Aurora Gallery in Petaluma, this time in a show called May Day All Things Bright and Beautiful, again in Alameda at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in their Earth, Sky and Between exhibition, and i continue at the San Francisco Hall of Juvenile Justice in the school lobby. Plus i have two found art pieces in Brooks College in Sunnyvale. my windows and my cabinets with the silk inserts. frank Beete and brooks College opened this Friday and Aurora Colors the Sat. night before that.
wow!

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.

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!

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.

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.