Archive for the ‘website’ Category

keeping up appearances…

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Last summer while cleaning out my aged father’s home I happened across my mother’s manual for life…Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette published in 1954.  I grabbed a spot on the sofa and began to leaf through this treasure of civility.  Not too far into this tome and I was laughing till the tears came. Much like watching old 50′s re-runs on TV this book is a living testament of those very proper rules  so important mid-20th century that today are often comical, ridiculous and/or surreal.

It was then the idea began to ferment about doing a narrative series on the etiquette of my youth.  This spring I created a few screens and began to screen-print vintage linens  with these stories. The first piece Keeping Up Appearances #1  is now up on my website. I incorporated dye-painted & screen-printed dinner napkins, dishtowels and hand-woven samplers in this piece that speaks to women chain smoking in the office and discreetly eating candy  at one’s desk. Within the text collage is also wisdom about how to properly show interest in a prospective mate.  We would never want to be improper!

I have just finished designing the second piece of this series with more in the works.

Posted in new work, patterns, surface design, website | 4 Comments »

adding categories…

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

It all started when I thought it was too early to start dinner. Now it will be a late dinner. I had for some time wanted to add categories to this new WordPress blog. So first I researched it  and  started in with my categories.

About an hour into it discovered I have 23 pages of blog postings! Yikes. They go back many many years.

So I have categorized just 2011.  Maybe next time when I really want to kill time I will tackle 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and beyond…

Until then I have fish to fry!

Posted in website | No Comments »

before/after

Friday, April 1st, 2011

I must admit  it took a little attitude adjustment on my part to embrace the new white background on my website.  Somewhere in time I got seriously hooked on the black background which I since learned from Gloria at GloDerworks is really bad on the eyes. Hmmm…maybe that’s why I had cataract surgery in my 60′s?!!!

She showed  me more and more designs of the header artwork and I kept asking for a little more black, a little more gray please. The woman has the patience of a saint!  She sent more & more designs  while trying to humor me and my affinity for the black background. Finally my husband put in his two cents worth and after 40 years of marriage ( this Sunday!) I have learned sometimes his point of view can be quite valid!

So I got out of my own way and began to look at the new site with new eyes. And now less than a week later I LOVE it.

Shortly after it went live aforementioned hubby stated he was off to the paint store…for what reason I did not know!  He came home with a gallon of super duper white that is supposed to cover everything including BLACK walls.

You see several years ago he painted flat black the wall where I photograph my work .  It worked miracles especially when I started making work with wonky edges.  And I chose not to crop those images in PhotoShop to make the negative space around the edge exactly the same black as on my website. 

Today the paint was dry enough for me to ferret out the 9 pieces of wonky edged work and photograph it again. I just finished posting the new images to the  site and while the paint white is not the same as the web white…what me worry?!  No!

It’s done and I am happy once again.

Posted in new work, photography, surface design, website | No Comments »

the tall girl….a work in progress

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

My Tall Girl Series: A Body of Work is complete. It has been finished for nearly 2 years,  had its debut exhibit with two more coming up this spring. I have given my TG PowerPoint presentation to 7 groups and sold a lot of books.

And yet it continues to be a work in progress. Huh? the reader might query. The work in progress is how I am personally affected by my deeply personal truth being out in the world. 

The past two times I have given the presentation have felt …oh I am so sick of  this tale!  No doubt that is a large part of why I am not accompanying the exhibit to its next two venues.

When the new website was live it came to me rather quickly that I did not at all like the details of my story splashed across the internet. I had a few comments on the handy-dandy feedback form that the links did not work to most of the pieces. That was intentional. Even in designing the site I was aware of my personal privacy and how much I wanted to blast into cyberspace. Being live for just over 24 hours re-affirmed my need for privacy.

So I have amended the Tall Girl Series: A Body of Work  gallery to include a preview of just four images.  There is narrative, a fullview and detail shot of each of these four pieces which are integral to the story line.

I still believe this is a story that needs to be heard. Every single one of us has something in our past which has molded us into who we are in the world today;  and for so many these truths are painful, tragic things that happened to our bodies. 

The purpose of the series was my personal healing. It’s purpose today is to encourage others to do their own healing, to speak of and expel their own story from their body. Believe me when I say it takes a huge toll to hold on to old sorrows.

I was blessed with a very sensitive spirit and also the courage to tell my story.  I am also blessed with the intuitive sense that the story can go on now to inspire others, without my active involvement.

So go on Tall Girl and fly…I have art to make!

Posted in tall girl, website, wisdom | 2 Comments »

the site’s (a)live…

Monday, March 28th, 2011

rusted roof, santa cruz island, ca

My renovated website is live!  It’s been a wild and crazy few weeks since I decided to take the leap and have it upgraded by people who do this for a living.  I have finally realized that doing it all is no longer my mantra.

That said I have been duct-taped to the chair all day doing it all, tying up loose ends and preparing my big announcement. So this post is primarily for those who came here looking for something.  Here it is!

After I  dust off my sewing machine and actually stitch again I will post  more substance. For now I am over the moon with my new web identity.

Thank you Gloderworks!

Posted in website | 1 Comment »

"someday" is here…

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

I am by far one of the world’s most organized people. This is the reason organizations always tap my warm body to organize their stuff.

Currents #6, detail

©carol larson 2009

 

So you cannot imagine how frustrating it is to me that I have so wantonly ‘filed’ original digital images of my work. Several years ago I took a one day community ed class at the local junior college on digital photography. The instructor stressed over and over and over again about saving the original image somewhere other than the PC (or Mac) so that if the computer crashes or is stolen one still has their images.

I started doing that right after class. I saved them to CDs which are somewhere in this office! Later a friend literally drove me to Staples after a SAQA meeting and instructed me to buy an external drive, as she had recently lost a lot of data on her own computer. I thought she was a bit pushy but complied…after all I was raised to do as I was told! Ever since then I have been religious about saving files on the external drive.

As I began to send digital images to the external drive I did it with no structure at all. So I have several files of Tall Girl images, both for web and print.  I have duplicate files of many pieces of my work. I have unnamed files. I have files with improper names; that is giving an entire group of images the title of the first image. All the while I have been thinking someday…I would go in and organize the files.

Well, someday has arrived and it is now!!! With necessity being the mother of invention, I spent most of yesterday culling, sorting, deleting, re-naming, etc.  What prompted this impulsive act of organization? Necessity.

After several months of pondering the streamlining of my website I eventually decided to have it professionally designed. And what do I need? I need images. I need original images of all my work to resize. Yesterday I found, titled and resized at least half of the images. Today the scavenger hunt begins for the rest. Who knows…maybe I will have a page of early work that is all smaller images! It could be another design element…

There is no stress though. It is a lot of work now for a lot less later.  Initially I took a HTML class and then a Dreamweaver class and built the current site myself. I still get compliments on it although I know it has a lot of flaws.  I am really excited to be taking this step forward, to allow the pros to do their job and allow me to get back to mine…making art! It is no longer necessary for me to do it all.

Posted in photography, procrastination, website | No Comments »