Early rousing this morning. The truck is being truculent... and not starting. Understandable if you were to cast your eyes on this beast--both visually and the odometer. Miles. Many journeys to Corning, to the dump, around Camp Street. R. bought it used to get us through a summer. Five years later, its still trying...though we have squeezed whatever was left out of the poor thing. So, that leaves me sans transportation this week...more time for Quest Diagnostics and the immediate work we are firing on . Lots of day turn-around deadlines this week to roll on. I have moved my appointments to take the lack of transportation out of the mix...and we will see. I did see a used VW bug on the lot at Maguires that given the price tag, could suit me, and R. could drive the minivan...but that isn't in the picture!
We worked with Kitty on her portfolio yesterday. There was scanning and resizing some of the bigger pieces--with a readjustment of the layout. Its coming together. I hope Kitty is beginning to feel better about herself/her work with this piece being leaned upon. Loved using the CS4 Photoshop and the new and improved "stitching" tool that joins scans together--in a really spectacular way (automatically drawing masks on different levels and the averaging the backgrounds to fit...). No lines or an real evidence they were multiple scans joined together. Remarkable.
Our treat was to see the newest Harry Potter which, without a doubt, transcended the entire series of movies (with Kitty questioning outloud, " do you think the other movies could be redone by this director "--immediately?).
I have been thinking of snakes and thistles. Pointed and sharp, slithery and smooth, poisonous and spiky, reptile and flora that often go unappreciated...and that somehow work together. I am working with caduceus (the wand of Mercury--patron god of Doctors and healing)and may play out a few images as it intrigues me. I was also reading bits of Milton Glaser's "Art is Work" book and was inspired and enchanted by his sketch process around getting to know Piero della Francesca--down to seeing every single picture Della Francesca did...and the sketch process he worked through from his interpretation of these images--to the next generation of those images which morphed to Milton being lovely again. Glaser said about his process:
"One morning after a number of aborted starts, I realized Piero could be thought of as nature. His paintings could be looked at as though one were looking at a landscape through a window. Once could take any part of the view and interpret if freely, acknowledging, as we do with nature that it would be impossible to replicate it.
This insight allowed me to develop a series of watercolors and drawings inspired by Piero that explored details from his works in a more analytical way."
This man, Milton Glaser speaks to me. I have a feeling that he is going to pull me into another zone. I just need to keep reading.