…with a little help from my friends

On a personal note..when I joined Facebook a couple of months ago I was newly divorced and socially isolated. It was uplifting to see my in-box fill with old and new friends, colleagues and students requesting to be friends or confirming their friendship. I’m excited about the diversity and breadth of communication that has grown on my home page. I continue to relish logging in to see the activities and creative endeavors that are taking place moment by moment. On February 15th the New York Times Magazine’s Medium section at nytimes.com/the Medium had an article written by Virginia Heffernan called “Being There the subtle art of the Facebook update”. Where she asked the question “what makes a great Facebook update?”  One idea she mentions is that  making requests gets a great response.  Heffernan recommended the site Smith Magazine, home of the six-word memoir; there are also entries titled “Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak”. They are very clever and worth checking out, you can even enter your own six-word memoir.

On the Design front..TYPOGRAPHY is a big buzz word these days; there are more typefaces than ever to choose from and the awareness is growing as to the importance of a well chosen font. Along with software programs coming well loaded with font selections, there are lots of websites that have fonts you can download for free or purchase. There’s even a site that allows you design your own font, using your personal handwriting and download it to your computer. At http://www.fontifier.com they provide a template and very simple instructions, for the price of  $9 you can be typing away in your very own hand writing within minutes.

This month in HOUR magazine I photographed Alicia Skillman, the new director of the Triangle Foundation. To read the rest of the article go to seekingHarmony-HourDetroit-March2009-detroitMI

Dale Sparage Ad

APRIL GREIMIN’S lecture this month at CCS was inspiring, she works in several different mediums, including architecture, video, paint, and photography calling these mixtures “transmedia”. In her lecture “Think about What you think about”. She listed the following to consider when creating:

• 1) Am I taking enough risk? 2) Is failure tolerated or even encouraged? 3) Do I explore the unknown? 4) Does what I do encourage people to grow? 5) Do I work with my head and my heart? Her website is Sooo cool, check it out http://www.aprilgreiman.com/MadeInSpace.

Speaking of websites if you’re looking for a website with a hip design and one that will grow your business too, check out Garo.ca, ask for Sam Techner, it’s a Toronto based company that does cool and ‘state- of- the- art’ sites.

This was Erika before she got cropped and  was moved to the beach.

Want to learn Photoshop?  Archive photos to hard drive or CD?  Scan prints to create digital files? Retouch old photos, or color black and white?  Create digital collages?  Create a digital portfolio? Photograph your artwork?

Prices vary according to project

Considering a Portrait?? Think about the following..a portrait can be a collaboration between artist and client.

• 1. Pick someone who’s work you admire. 2. Speak up about what your vision and expectation is for the final piece. 3. Keep an open mind, sometimes we have rigid ideas about ourselves and another can open our eyes to qualities that we may have missed.   Have fun and relax it’s only a photo.

Till next month I leave you with this image and words..sometimes we have to shatter old patterns and break open to gain freedom, then we  give ourselves the ability to reorganize in a new and better way.

“The unexamined life is not worth living..”  Plato