Hi everyone, I’m sorry that I’ve been silent for a few months. Between work, fixing up my new apartment and trying to find photographic inspiration, I was completely distracted. But things are calming down again. So, what’s happened in the meantime?
In January, I traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas for a glazing job. On our last day, we stopped by the Central Arkansas Nature Center. Ironically, almost all of the nature inside was dead and stuffed, and an exhibit about native wildlife attributed the destruction of the great buffalo herds in the 19th century to loss of habitat. Loss of habitat? Not proliferation of bullets? However, we did see a great exhibit of fishing lures. Some were handmade, others not, but all were beautiful and the inventiveness and playfulness of the lure designs was amazing.
Blizzards started rolling through NYC. This is the view from my new office/studio/guestroom. Hello Fort Tryon Park!
With an assistant, I glazed this Park Avenue lobby in various shades of cream.
It was time to experiment with a new pinhole lens for my Nikon D3000. I tried it for a couple of weeks and I really wanted to like it, but it left me cold. My photos bored me to tears. So much for that.
Next up, tackling the dining area in my new place. In NYC, some apartments have a dining nook, which is basically a glorified hallway leading from here to there, but widened out by a couple of feet to give the illusion that a table, chairs and family of four could somehow wedge themselves into this sorry excuse for a room. I decided to have a cabinet maker build a long banquette bench with storage inside and extra cabinets for even more storage at one end because in a New York apartment, storage is king. The distance from the wall on the right to the countertop on the left is just under seven feet. Here’s the before shot.
Here’s the after shot. Missing: bench cushions, table, chairs, and wall treatment. I’ll write a separate post about the process with more details once I’ve finished everything up; it will include the most fantastic table ever. It was such fun to design and pull this space together.
More blizzards. Central Park, lovely in the snow.
I glazed and gilded this little cabinet in a client’s entryway.
Thought I’d try shooting in color for a change, so I stuck a roll in a Diana camera and went out for a spin. This is the Little Red Lighthouse at the base of the George Washington Bridge, a few blocks south of my apartment. I love film!
Still shooting with my phone while exploring my new neighborhood. This is the Henry Hudson Bridge, which spans the Harlem River where it meets the Hudson River, connecting Manhattan to the Bronx.
Spent a couple of days matching switch plates to oak and marble.
Bought a film scanner, so I can finally scan my neglected negatives. These photos are from a September 2012 trip to the west coast, the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, that I’d never printed. When I left my last apartment, I left behind my darkroom, aka the windowless kitchen. I was so tired of setting up and tearing down my darkroom whenever I wanted to print that I hadn’t printed in over a year. Of course, now I miss it and want a darkroom again. I hauled all of the darkroom stuff here, but haven’t quite figured out how to create a darkroom in a place that’s full of windows. Stay tuned on that.
More color matching, this time light caps in a mahogany-paneled ceiling.
Did I mention how much it snowed?
And last but not least, I started a photo project on my iPhone using the Retro Camera app. Usually when I work in someone’s apartment, there isn’t much to photograph when I’m done, since the rooms are emptied out before I begin and my painted finishes are often subtle. So I thought it would be fun to photograph details of the rooms in progress. Here, all of the drapes are wrapped in plastic for protection, portions of the walls are taped for glazing and the floor protection has been pulled away to tape off the base boards.
That sums it up for now. I’ll be back to posting regularly. Thank you for reading and following me!
This Handcrafted Life 