The Artifact

Ever since the Kindle came onto the market I have been worried about the loss of the artifact. To be fair, I should have been already, with digital photo files overtaking the average household computer in place of plastic sleeved albums and hastily labeled boxes full of mismatched negatives and one hour photo prints. Something about the kindle made me worry for the artifacts associated with the creative act of writing. I look upon my bookshelves as ever changing sculptures of varying textures and colors and have, in my whole life, given away only a handful of books. (Not including those University Texts that I sold back to the bookstores at the end of the semester in the hopes of funding a nice dinner out or another months rent on a storage unit.)

A few months ago I started to understand the benefit of the Kindle. My sister, who appreciates the written word far more than I and has thusly collected a library that oppresses the small condo she shares with her husband and two cats, demonstrated the balance between maintaining the artifact and maintaining the art. There are books, she explains, that you should keep on hand. They are either sentimental or contain some specific purpose, such as sewing diagrams or imagery, that cannot be appropriately duplicated by the Kindle. There are still books that she wants to lay on a table and hold open at the crease with a weighted tape dispenser. Beyond that, however, everything that she can get on a Kindle, she does, and her walls have been unburdened of their over cluttered and sagging bookshelves and replaced with squares of paint color to be tested on the new space revealed.

I realized that I am surrounded by Artifact books. It's why I am reserved about the Kindle, even anachronistic. My books primarily have images. Books patiently printed with precise color plates from the likes of Leibowitz or Salgado. The Revelations of Arbus. The Americans of Frank. The artifact of these books, often printed under the careful supervision of the originating artists themselves. Seeing an image in print, be it on the wall at a gallery, in a quality book, or even on the pages of an art magazine, is an entirely different experience than seeing a low resolution image beamed to your optic nerves from an illuminated screen.

I often wonder how many family generations will be visually lost due to catastrophic hard drive failure. How many people take the time to print out their favorite images anymore? How many rely on the albums provided by Flickr or Picasa as opposed to the leather-bound tome on the coffee table? It might not be an issue now, it might not ever be. I may be completely off base. But it seems as though, at some point in time, the orphaned images, whether or not they are maintained in the protected servers of the world, will lose their identities. What images will we show our children and grandchildren in our sunset years? Where will the artifacts be? Or will we remember ourselves differently in the future and the artifact be a thing of the past, considered additional clutter from a wasteful time in human history?

All I know for certain is that I intend to continue taking images and printing them.

Wheel of Punishment

Now that the agree is official (I promise, I've seen the MFA conferred on my transcript and everything) the act of picking up my daily life begins.

Since I started calling in favors in about October of last year, I have landed four jobs and connected with some very interesting people. The jobs are intermittent but long running - writing as a book reviewer for a respected magazine, writing as a coauthor for a new photography text, working as an assistant for a well connected photographer, and teaching a wet lab lecture at a local community college - and together they provide just enough money to stay afloat until my student loans kick in.

But they don't offer me a daily routine in the least. As a book reviewer I write four columns a year. I get a lot of free photo books out of the deal (which is awesome) but very little pay and very little busy work. For the co-authorship I may very well be busy in a few months, but as of right now I am waiting for the flag to drop. The assisting job has been a great connection, but I don't actually work for him until March, so there is a great deal of waiting on that as well. And for the teaching, it is a entry level position that meets every other Friday for six hours.

All told, I am very excited about each opportunity. But I have realized something about myself over the last few months. I need to have something to keep me busy. The thesis was great for the days when I felt like working because it kept me dedicated and focused for hours at a time. But now I am listless and unmoored. I need something to keep me going until I get back into a steadier routine.

Which is why I created the Wheel of Punishment. It actually isn't punishing so much as motivating, but I reference Avatar: The Last Airbender (the TV series, not the upcoming Shaymalan farce) because it is so wonderful. (For those of you that are curious, refer to the episode "Avatar Day.")

The Wheel of Punishment consists of tasks written down on strips of paper that are to be completed when pulled out of a bowl. They range from doing laundry to submitting imagery online for stock sale. My intention is for the Wheel to be a two week cycle, so that my house will always be clean and orderly, I will work through boxes of accumulated stuff to determine what to keep and what to give away, I will be encouraged to write and shoot, and I will not be left idle.

This morning I pulled "Master Bathroom" from the bowl and proceeded to remove every element from the shower, vanity, and floor in our master suite so that I could scrub, mop, polish, and organize every surface. The shower curtain is currently drying on the banister and the floor mats in the dryer.

After the completion of what I could accomplish linearly for the first task, I drew the second - write. This isn't really a specific task, nor should it be. Showing up at the page, no matter its significance, is important to me being able to stay frosty with my writing. The intention with most tasks is to complete them before I move on to something else - as with cleaning the bathroom literally from floor to ceiling. With writing, though, the definitive "end" is more elusive. I am currently writing a fiction novel for fun, but I am certainly not going to be able to write the whole thing in one day, nor would I want to. I am trying to conceptualize more articles, it's true, but have none in mind. Besides, writing can extend to journaling, editing, fiction, job related, or even blogging. The important step being that I must engage in writing something. The determination of when that task is "complete" is up to my state of mind, I suppose. But when I am done here, another task awaits me in the bowl, so it can be a balance between what I want to do, what I need to do, and what I don't want to do. In this case I have already cleaned the bathroom and therefore know that it is no longer in the bowl, so I am not as reluctant to return to the bowl. I also don't feel as though I have much to say today. I am still thinking too much about yesterday.

What does not kill me . . .

I am taking issue with that saying. I understand the metaphorical implications, but I am tired of being tired, run down, in pain, and generally feeling useless. And that is just in relation to the surgery.

There are so many other aspects of life that have that same taste - that of being difficult, inconceivable, seemingly unfair - that the adage is growing weary. I am starting to wonder if the promised strength builds up over time, like banking karma points, or if it is more like a video game character that has a certain life span that can be replenished and then drained, but only in certain amounts.

I guess what I am wondering is if I have had a chance to recover from any of the obstacles of the last seven years to really get to take advantage of my garnered strength or if the repeated slap downs from the universe are in such rapid succession that the promised integrity has ultimately been squandered before it could be utilized. (And as a side note, wondering if we broke a mirror . . .)

But I have also realized of late that I have developed a thicker skin. I don't take it nearly as hard as I have in the past when prospective job leads don't call me back, or when odd little gremlins despise me based on where I received my education, or when really nice photographers don't think they have a place for me in their ranks because I am not really one of them. Eh. I have had successes, I feel like I am on the road to something that I will enjoy - be it working as a writer and finding temp work to pay the bills or actually teaching I can't be sure - but I have faith. Maybe that is the strength. Maybe the mythic fortitude comes in the form of slowly growing a skin to the point that you don't care anymore what lies on the sides, or even in the way of, the path but instead see with a precise tunnel vision that there is a goal, a light at the end of the road.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

I think the real genius of Dori isn't the inherent perseverance, but the inexplicable joy. I am going to try and maintain that despite everything else. At least until we lose the house.

Come on, New Decade!

I'm ready for things to go right. Seriously. Since we moved out here in 2000 things have not been unicorns and butterflies. We have had some wonderful times like our wedding or some wonderful trips and meeting new people, but we also seem to have had greater than our fair share of turmoil, loss, and frustration.

But that was then and this is now. Not just a new year, but a new decade. One ripe with the promise of a new degree, a clean bill of health (we're hoping), and abounding opportunities, so long as you know where to look and who to talk to. But I do, I think. So I have faith. I am trusting that if I continue to do, try, and persist that I will find a job and everything will be okay. But I have to keep the faith. I have to keep busy. I have to keep contacting people who don't respond until they do (while maintaining a delicate balance between being persistent and annoying.)

I have to. What else can I do? There is no purpose for me to be sitting here doing nothing. I am meant to do something, I am meant to work, I am meant to apply myself. I must have purpose. Simply sitting and breathing is not enough.