acrylic trees, yellow.

So I just painted a giant yellow tree on my bedroom wall/ceiling and created polaroid-foliage of sorts. Then I proceeded to take out old photos from frames (by old...i mean stuff from when I was 17. I always have tons of new pictures I want to print but then I get distracted with taking photos and forget to ever print the ones I liked. Then I just get complacent. But there are too many photos to take and too many things to do with my time and money, like make pizza from scratch and go to a steampunk dance party or tithe or something. but i do wish I made prints more often.)

it's crazy how fast new photos you like become old and boring. I just filled my frames with photos from naples- the pier, the sarasota and cambier drum circles, other things/people that inspired me this summer/december. But I feel as though that season of my life has come to a close, and soon I'll be wanting new inspiration up on my walls.

I regret not having tangible evidence of the last four years. I've taken thousands upon thousands of photos, but I've only printed about a hundred of those photos...and not even the good ones. When I die, and when my back-up CD's and external hard drives become useless, there will be no evidence that a woman named courtney ann potter walked on this earth and breathed inspiration and made pretty pictures. maybe that's why the Teacher declares "everything under the sun is vanity!" Oh, but I do hope my pictures are in heaven! I do hope I can take pictures in heaven!

I'm having one of those rare days where I feel like there is SO much I want to create and i just don't have enough time to do it. I actually have LOADS of time right now, since classes haven't started yet, but that loads feels like nothing. which is why i'm blogging at 2:30 in the morning. creativejuiceswontstopgushingoutofmybrain

i just rearranged my room, prior to painting a giant yellow tree on the wall. it's not square at all. i put my bed in my closet and a mirror in the corner my chair in the off-center and it's lovely and wonderful. if i was all about math or econ, rearranging my room would be a waste of energy, but i'm not all about math or econ, am I? "and it was good."

don't know if i'm ever gonna be able to put photos on this blog. i know how to do it, but i'd much rather rearrange my room. although there are some wonderful steampunk photos that i would love to make public.

where did the semester go?

so the last few months since patagonia have been a blur, and i just haven't updated this. quite frankly i haven't made many pictures since patagonia. i've been playing around with my holga (birthday present from colleen) and polaroid, but i definitely haven't gotten around to developing film and/or scanning polaroids. i will soon, i promise.

patagonia...i can't even describe the immensity of this trip, and the hard fall afterwards. whenever i taste a little bit of heaven reality puts me in to a state of shock, and this april was particularly arduous. but patagonia...patagonia was one of those trips where I found Joy, and I haven't really reached that level of God-sent cheerfulness since then, though RUF Summer Conference really renewed my spirits. I don't think I've written about Patagonia because words can't describe the poetry and bliss of my experiences there...the quiet adventures, the rugged beauty of my surroundings, the simple joy of creating again...it was one of those times where the beautiful form trapped inside of my body escaped and expanded ever outwards. It was one of those times where I got outside of self...but not in a negative, detached way. it wasn't the dreadful kind of body/mind/spirit separation that comes during in tragedy or frustration...it was the blissful kind that comes when you are so naturally absorbed in being and meaning who you were supposed to be and mean that you forget that you used to try real hard to be and mean someone. the kind where you feel like every particle in your body is the same as all of the particles outside of your body; you are connected to everything in the universe and you are connected to God. You know and feel known by God. This is the closest I've felt to the garden before adam and eve were banished. The curse has not yet ruined my relationships. The curse has not yet made work toilsome and creating difficult.

when i think of patagonia, i remember the graveyard. where i lost myself to my art and to nature.

april was hard because anything less than that was so inferior. i had mono, school sucked, my family was really struggling, adventure was no longer built into my environment. i was constantly overwhelmed, stressed, bored, or idle. I've been thirsty for Joy again. Rest. I didn't really remember that Jesus said "Come you who are weary and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Or else I remembered but then denounced its truth and tried to be my own saviour. it really didn't work, either.

i'm moving on. by God's grace, I have a better conception of my total depravity and Jesus' total perfection. My sin and frustration and shame have been transfered to Jesus, and his obedience and glory have been transfered to me...and now I am a royal daughter of the King! I'm always going to sin and struggle, but the joy comes in knowing that I don't have to "figure it out" on earth and reach perfection now. Earth is just a drop of water in the vast ocean...and God has promised me a restored relationship with Him, with others, and with my photography and myself in heaven. All that is sad WILL come untrue...not now, but one day. And that happiness will be everlasting. and it's starting now...slowly. the whole 'already not yet' thing.

i'm too tired to write more, but i'll try to make things more cohesive later. i have a lot i'd like to say about creativity and my pursuit of photography and how i'm seeing it fit into the creation/fall/redemption/consummation theme. i took a covenant theology seminar at conference (and a heaven and hell seminar) and they were SO enlightening, especially applied to my work and my art. I'm really excited to see where God is taking me with this new understanding...

oh and i'll post pictures too. and i'll write more about my new job. ahhh so much to do....

lagging

notable events this week:
-we got a hamster
-i had amazing fellowship this weekend with kathy and julia and other folks that i haven't seen as frequently as would like
-i had a portfolio review and got a lot of good advice/direction
-smoked more hookah on friday/had a night out
-discovered an affinity for modeling in studio class....hahaha

unfortunately, i only had my camera with me for some of those things. enjoy...











I'm a bit behind on updating this, let alone shooting. I have a couple of polaroids laying on my dresser that need to be scanned. The novelty of the semester is wearing off, admittedly, and it's seeping into my art. I'm going to actively counteract this...I'd like to simply "play" more and bring my camera with me.

I've had a lot of clarity in the past two weeks as to how I'd like to spend my last semesters here at Carolina. And what it means to be a Christian woman in photojournalism. Some pretty cool stuff...I'm excited. Expect a more detailed post later. I need to go find more pictures.

seeds

kirk told me that I need to put my energy into my art. I waste a lot of mental and creative energy just...thinking.

i agree, but then i look at other posts and i disagree. the thinking can help. and the thinking can be important. but i need to just DO.

on another note, I love holgas, polaroids, lensbabies, and southeastern camera in carrboro.

deep thinking

"We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone...Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you're in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you're losing time." --Pirsig, from zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance."

I've been thinking a lot about photography lately. Sometimes my over-analytical mind can get the most of me, but recently I've been contemplating the merits of, well, thinking. While making pictures is an important part of the art, it's probably only 10% of the work. If I didn't read books, have conversations with other artists, journal, and pray I don't think my photography would be where it is now. I feel like so many photographers these days can be "snap-shot" photographers...shutter happy and relying too much on the post-production. What about the pre-production? What about using your mind? What about using your heart and letting that shape what you see?

It's a very circular, organic process. You find something beautiful- a dilapidated barn, a morning frost, a laughing roommate, an interesting reflection, a moment- and isolate it in time. You make a photograph. You make many photographs. Then you put the camera down for awhile and carry on life...broadening your horizons in the nitty-gritty realities...having good conversations, reading under a tree, eating with the family. You bring all these things to your photography and bring your photography to these things. Then you go back an edit your pictures later. It's a brutal process, like being naked in a room...you see all your flaws in your art and get frustrated that your vision didn't translate as beautifully, as transparently in your film. You think some more. You read some more, underlining texts and letting new thoughts enter. Letting them steep. Then you let inspiration guide you and you make more photograph. It's a circle. There aren't twelve easy steps, but many overlapping parts. That's why I say I'm a photographer even when I put my camera down.

Then again, I think there is a lot of fear in there...because maybe I don't pick up my camera enough. I'm not that girl who always totes her camera. I tried it for awhile...I can be that in spurts. But I get tired of it...because I need to go think. Maybe I'm too comfortable doing that.

about time for a photo blog

As I've delved deeper into my relationship with photography I've been surprised to find it's like any relationship: full of peaks and troughs. This past semester photography and I weren't doing so well...we were far from "breaking up," but I had a lot of qualms with him and experienced a long dry spell. I'm coming out of it a stronger person, but I feel the need to proactively rekindle my love of this art. I hope to attain a certain level of accountability by this blog. And I hope to bare my soul to you as I relate to the world around me, and as I relate to photography.