Rants and Raves - Anecdotes
A casual blog reporting on the life and times of Caroline C. Blaker
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Having a baby - in like, 5 seconds
Hi Friends,
As many of you know, and some of you do not, I'm due to deliver a baby boy in about 12 days. I've been doing my best to stay active and busy during this time - sorta "business as usual" approach - but as you may be able to imagine, some of the physical limitations that now govern my decisions are making me tired, restless, and less able to push forward than in previous days. I've got an extra 30 lbs limited solely to the frontal abdomen that are consuming resources, weighing me down, throwing me off-balance, you name it. The good news is, it's only temporary. The other good news is - the joy of being a first-time parent for me and my spouse is just around the corner. In the coming days before I go to the hospital, I will expend as much energy as I can find to do art, this website, keep you updated on everything, etc. I just don't know how long I have, and I want you to know that I think about writing to you every day. I'll be a mom in a minute, and a whole new lot of topi...
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New website design is live!
Hola everyone! I'm pleased to finally be showing you the design I've been working on for months for this brand-new look and feel for carolinecblaker.com. In the spirit of "The cobbler's children never have new shoes," often does self-serving work of professional web designers and developers go un-delivered. We are not always our own best clients. Suffice to say that some upcoming events, including the shedding of an old web server and a baby due date fast-forwarded this project on my list. It's now live, at least in a skeletal, many-features-coming form. I know, I know, "Yeah Right!" Actually - many features that you cannot access are already installed - but there are reasons why they're not live yet: like they're not flushed out visually, or they need a tiny bit more development time, or going live to avoid a complete shut-down of the site was more important in the interim than their addition to a dev to live environment site. For those who don't speak geek - I've set myself up to be...
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The logo: What you don’t know about it
Two-dimensional design is a notoriously difficult class for incoming freshmen at any art school, and here I found myself; second semester, under the tutelage of one of those "never gives an A" teachers, learning the basics of radial and symmetrical designs in black and white. Oh, and three days prior, I had been diagnosed with Mono(nucleosis) as every college student at some point is: first, you drink your neighbors water instead of your own, never mind that this person should not have been out in public let alone working at the phoneathon. Then, a month later, there's a brick wall that hits. You go into medical services and get a blood test. Then, when they call, they obey every paltry privacy rule (a practice on which your friends report conflicting adherence) in urging you to the third degree to show up at once so they can break the bad news to your face, as if you already did not know. If you're a sucker like me, you also gave blood a few days before; blood you really could use rig...
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What? This is a Twitterscape?
Yesterday I sent 9 of the preliminary "Twitterscapes" off for printing for the upcoming exhibit. My printer called me three times out of what he called "confusion," though I read in it disbelief. My art printer (one of the best fine art printers in New Mexico,) who spends days at a time immersed in fine art, could not fathom why I wanted to print these, nor could he tell if I had sent him the correct images, or if I had just gone crazy. He may have thought he got a set of images that were corrupted. Of course, the images I sent him don't look like Twitterscapes, or fine art. They look like mistakes. Explaining to him that these were the visual clues I had for developing Twitterscapes in-process seemed to clarify a bit, though he still appeared to think they were not worth printing, or at least not well suited for it. Hm. I guess he doesn't see a lot of conceptual art. They are a bit strange, but conceptually they are some of the richest images I have ever made. Moreover, the strong...