collection « KateWares

Tag: collection

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

The Alphabet Of Me

A while ago I mentioned that I have a thing for cool letters – the ABC kind, though snail-mail is always appreciated too.

Letters by City Art Photography.

Anyhow, I’ve seen several variations on this idea and I thought I would officially begin “collecting” my own alphabet. It will take some time, I am sure, but the “fambily” and I are heading to the states soon, so this seems like a good time to plant the idea in my head and begin. Until I have a nice assortment to show you, I thought I would leave you with this silly little exercise I found. If you have some time to kill, why don’t you cut-and-paste it into the comment section and fill in your own answers – I’d love to know a little more about you! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a million things to do to get ready for our trip – yikes! And so little time! Oh, well – that’s life. Have a great week, y’all!

Alphabet by Keri Coles Photography.

A is for Age: 41… eek, how did that happen?

B is for Book: most recently, it was “Bear (in the Big Blue House) Loves Bedtime” … *sigh*

C is for Career: Neo-Renaissance Woman and Supermom

D is for Dad’s name: Joe (Juozas in Lithuanian)

E is for Essential items to bring to a party: an extroverted frame of mind is pretty much all you need

F is for Favorite song or music: story songs (Shawn Colvin, Crowded House, Sarah McLachlan, Jack Johnson, etc.)

G is for Goof-off thing to do: Scrabble, Sudoku, Cross-Words, Tetris, Settlers of Catan, Facebook… I hide on the computer

H is for Hometown: born in Edmonton and raised in Calgary, AB, Canada

I is for Instrument you play: formerly – piano, clarinet, guitar

J is for Jam or Jelly you like: raspberry

K is for Kids: generally love ‘em – have two of my own even

L is for Living arrangement: detached two-story with big garden and separate garage, oh… and a husband, two kids, and a dog

M is for Mom’s name: Dee (Dzintra in Latvian)

N is for Name of best friend: a few besties, but the “oldest” is Semi (Yosemite in long-hand)

O is for Overnight stay in a hospital: only for baby-birthing, but day-stays for finger stitches and breathing problems

P is for Phobias: slight fear of many things (heights, needles, touching worms…) but nothing so intense as to be a true phobia

Q is for Quote you like: “There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.” ~ Coco Chanel … “A thousand words will not leave an impression so deep as one deed.” ~ Henrik Ibsen … “Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.” ~ Nikos Kazantzakis (I happen to love quotes)

R is for Relationship that lasted longest: romantically, with my husband (14 years)… platonically, with Semi (26 years)

S is for Siblings: 1 relatively recently discovered half-sister, Christina – yay!!!

T is for Texas, ever been? only briefly, during a stop-over from Mexico – we enjoyed the hospitality of some great people we met on our trip… they aren’t kidding about things being big

U is for Unique trait: the way I see the world

V is for Vegetable you love: fresh garden peas, carrots, potatoes, leeks, zucchini… pretty much everything I grow

W is for Worst traits: pessimism, disorganization, inertia

X is for X-rays you’ve had: left leg (dislocated knee) , chest (a kid sternum-shoved me and I had troubles breathing… scary)

Z is for Zodiac sign: Pisces, but I’m unusually analytical / mathematical and skeptical for my sign

Tags: alphabet, collection, letters, quiz

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Undone By Shoes

Hello, my name is Kate, and I have a shoe problem. No, no, no – it’s not at all what you’re thinking. I can easily walk into a shoe store and walk out with every single penny still in my bank account. In fact, I would much rather not have to buy shoes at all, if truth be told (perhaps this is why I have been using the same, often repaired Birkenstocks for well over a decade). Not that I don’t have a genuine adoration for my dark chocolate, knee-high leather boots and my midnight black, clunky Mary Janes, but I have no real desire to own a pair of Manolos (artistically beautiful as they are), and I would much rather have funky gumboots cluttering my closet than anything else.

Shoe artist Manolo Blahnik, photographer unknown.

And yet. While I may differ from the vast majority of my female friends (and perhaps a few of the males?) in my lack of fascination with ladies shoes, I do have one foot fetish, of sorts. My Achilles heel, as it were. (Okay, I have two, actually – one of which is receiving peppermint cream foot massages. But that’s not the one I’m getting at here.) This morning, as I was sorting through my son’s baby things, trying to figure out what to keep and what to donate, I was overcome with an overwhelming heartache…for his shoes. So tiny. So precious. So impractical, really. But all at once, I finally understood the whole “bronzing of the baby shoes” thing.

Our son seems pretty thrilled with his first pair of wee Converse, a gift from his super cool Auntie.

I mean, come ON! Aren’t those the cutest little shoes you’ve ever seen? No? Hmm. Well, what about these, then?

My friend Fee’s son’s Crocs – made to look like CROCODILES!!!

Isn’t that just about the greatest thing ever?!?! No? Is it just me? Really? Well, it must be a “mom thing” then, as I know I am not alone in my tiny obsession. However, as I do not wish to end up on a future episode of Hoarders, I recognize that I need to start getting rid of some of our baby things – even the adorable little shoes. But what do you do when you can’t bear to part with something that you absolutely have to part with? Well, in my world, you photograph it.

Baby shoes from both of my sons’ collections.

As you can see, we have acquired quite a collection of baby footwear through either gift, donation, or impulse purchase over the years. While my youngest has outgrown most of these, we are actually getting some not-just-for-decoration usage out of a few of them still. When the time comes, I think I will allow myself to keep the monkey slippers and maybe one other pair, and then pass the rest on for somebody else to enjoy. Because in my opinion, beautiful things need to be shared.

Tags: baby shoes, collection, Hoarders, Manolo Blahnik, Photography, shoes

Posted in Musings, Photography | 2 Comments »

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

One Percent Inspriation

We’ve all heard the phrase “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. (Though several of the people I know would somehow add at least twenty-five percent caffeination to that equation.) Now, I don’t necessarily want to be Einstein or anything, but if you take genius to mean “a person of extraordinary intellect and talent”, then that’s what I want to be. Seriously? Only ONE measly percent? I must be doing something horribly wrong then, because getting inspired is one of the hardest things for me to do.

Now, being a Da Vinci-like genius wouldn’t be too shabby…

Well, as I was sifting through my ample pictures for future posting on the site, I was reminded of why photograph a lot of my work in the first place. In simple terms, it’s to provide a short-cut to inspiration. No, I’m not suggesting that I have found some magical way to instant message my muse through pictures (though, wouldn’t that be nice?) It’s just that the mere act of looking at my past work often causes my brain to start working in a different way. A more successful way.

Maybe that’s what they mean by the whole ninety-nine percent perspiration thing. If we assume that genius and success are interchangeable, then maybe the creations you’ve made in the past somehow accumulate to ensure your success in the future. It’s the whole “Outliers Phenomenon” that my husband was telling me about. Simply put, author Malcolm Gladwell suggests that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. For me, reviewing my old work helps jump-start my brain to create new work.

But maybe we can also benefit from the 10,000 hours that other people put in. I am reminded of the collection of art cards and such that I’ve gathered over the years, which I will often look at to get inspired. Sadly, with the birth of my two boys and the resulting downsizing of my work space, they have remained boxed up in the basement. Until now. I decided that I wanted to have them handy once more, and though I don’t have the wall space to display they en masse, they would certainly look nice mounted on cardstock and compiled in book form.

Half of the art card collection – the rest are on the reverse.

“Why not just digitize them?”, you may ask. Well, it’s like when writers who spend a lot of time working on a computer change over to a pen-and-paper writing – their brains just start functioning differently. I want to see the collection all together – touch them, flip between them, compare them…and get myself off the computer every once in a while. So…do you have a short-cut you’d like to share?

Tags: 10000-hours, art cards, brain function, collection, creating, genius, inspiration, perspiration, process, short-cut, success