You might remember me writing about a great organizing self-help book I discovered last summer.  Though this may be a slippery slope, I recommended it to many of those closest to my everyday life: my husband, my boss, my whole team at the office during a training.  Surprisingly, I don't think I offended anyone, and I hope I didn't offend one of my colleagues when I asked to borrow my copy back from her today.

As I try to begin a new photo project, take on more responsibilities at work, and catch up on all the household chores we've let slide lately, it's been a rough road.  Post-it notes and stacks of paper have accumulated on my desk.  Simple tasks -- like signing out the conference room, for example -- have slipped my mind.  My to-do list has officially reached a length where I sit at my desk and wonder just what it is I need to do.

I tell this story not to advertise the book again -- the last name thing is just a coincidence, okay? -- but to point out how all this can stifle the creative process.  Unhealthy disorganization absolutely kills self-esteem, which makes beginning a challenging new project especially hard.  There are many BFAs in my cohort who spend "more time thinking about art than creating it."  Clearly this is a problem we all need to confront and deal with at some point.

The hardest part is, I know my lack of motivation/impetus to sing, play music, make art, open and sort the mail, keep the house clean, etc. doesn't spring from a lack of joy in doing those things.  Most likely, it springs from an imbalance in my brain chemistry, something I have to work hard every day to reign in.

Plenty of artists -- perhaps a disproportionate number -- struggle with this, and in many creative individuals a little chaos is even considered unique, inspired, non-conforming.  The reality is, for some of us it can be crippling.

So I am breaking out my book again, admitting my word isn't as good as it was a few months ago, and acknowledging that staying on top of my game -- and that means being happy, confident and productive -- is a hard process not without its backtracks and obstacles.  I have to imagine it's like and addiction in some ways: going through the steps, seeking support, and feeling like I'm swimming against the current of my natural state of being every day in order to stay in a good place.  But I just need to focus on the positive reinforcement I get from every forward step I take, no matter how slow the progress.

The other day I received an interesting email from my grandmother in response to my recent darkroom post. It began: “I just read your web site and was interested to learn about your development of a darkroom.  We had a darkroom in our back basement in the 1960's.” In fact, as I told her later, my father recently gave me the very enlarger he and my grandfather used years ago. While not new information, her email reminded me unexpectedly of the art school cliché, “you don't create art in a vacuum.”

While I typically heard that phrase in the context of reading ArtForum and visiting New York regularly, this time I thought of it differently. I envisioned my grandfather, much younger than I ever knew him, tucked away in the back basement with duct tape sealing out the light. So he crept down to the basement darkroom, too, latching the door behind him and making prints in solitude under the red-orange glow of the safelight.

I wonder about this darkroom and what he developed down there. Did he just love the darkroom process? Was making your own photos more common back then? Or did I just get a glimpse into another branch of the visual artists in our family?

I also remember, during my time studying painting in college, when my little sister said she “wanted to be an artist just like [me and our father].” At first I took offense, as if she had taken away some of the individuality of choosing your own path. However, a few years later I appreciate the interconnectedness of it all. Maybe she will become a painter, maybe she won't. Maybe she will become a world-class musician, accomplishing everything I ever wanted. Maybe she won't.

Before I start sounding like that Baz Luhrmann recording, let me get back to the point. Despite all my efforts as a youth to be unique and different, distanced and indecipherable, now I value sharing common ground with my relatives. My work doesn't always need to be out in left field. At times, it can be a legacy, a process I share with those before me.

Yesterday evening I walked home from work with a big smile on my face, feeling excited about recent goals. I suppose it all stems from a desire to be more outgoing – I'm naturally shy and reserved – but I've had a strong desire to reconnect with old friends, forge stronger relationships with new friends, and get myself and my art work out into the world.

In school, art professors stressed the importance of dismissing our shyness when interacting with the art world. One even told me having two drinks (no more, no less) at gallery openings was the key to effective networking. Laugh if you want to, but those of us who get seriously anxious about calling our friends on the weekend need to think outside the box at events that require us to project ourselves to total strangers.

While I haven't handed out business cards at too many openings lately, I have made a concerted effort to branch out in my everyday life. This week I did two things that bolstered my confidence and sense of excitement about my work. I submitted five photos to Lotta Art, an annual benefit show for Baltimore's School 33 Art Center. I feel really good about this regardless of the outcome,but if my images get chosen it will be a great opportunity for me to get out and get to know some more visual arts people around town.

Entering work into juried shows can be intimidating at first – until you realize there really is nothing to lose. If your images don't get chosen, so what? Obvious as it may sound, that concept took me a long time to internalize.

Second on my list, I just emailed a friend to talk about some brand new ideas I've had for my work. My new direction – should I choose to take it – will be much more personal than anything previous, so talking about it was just as difficult as having any other personal conversation (here we go with the shy thing again). However, once I clicked “send” I felt this great sense of excitement, as if my view of the world gained value with the act of sharing it.

Who knows, maybe it does. I've always been a somewhat private person, more comfortable discussing ideas and opinions that didn't reveal much about myself. My art has reflected the same: intellectually interesting with minimal personal risk. As I get older and work to establish myself personally and professionally in a new city, I suddenly feel a need to be more alive. I want to take risks, I want people to know more about me.

In general, I'd recommend everyone take a few more personal risks. What do any of us have to lose? On the other hand, there is so much to gain by getting yourself out there: new relationships, new opportunities, a wider network, more of your art hanging in shows.

Immediately after lunch at work today I completely zoned out – no doubt a side effect of the joyous over-caffeination I experienced in the morning. I've been in a funk lately anyway, so I asked myself, what would make me feel better? What would enable me to put my best effort into my work?

Rather than lay my sorry little head on my desk (I like to remain positive in the office whenever possible), I broke out my MP3 player and put on one of my favorite songs. Whenever I feel down, all I need to do to make everything right in the world is listen to a fabulous a cappella arrangement of Coldplay's Fix You by James Madison University's Exit 245. It's on BOCA 2007, but I'm sure you can look it up elsewhere, too.

After then listening to The Last Five Years, my afternoon had improved drastically – clearly a result of these cathartic music listening experiences. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else daydreams about their everyday life as if it were a music video or Broadway show. I have done this since childhood, and these daydreams are what made me think I wanted to write music someday.

Any silliness aside, music is my lifeblood, and it's what I turn to whenever I am feeling depressed or uninspired. This evening I feel so inspired to make plans with friends, get together a group of people to play music at my house, and set up the darkroom for goodness' sake.

Whenever I listen to music and start feeling like it's opening a gateway to inspiration for every corner of my life, I hope everyone else in the world has something that makes them feel the same way. I always draw on it for energy and use it to build a foundation for happiness and balance. Despite a seeming lack of connection, I know I would not be inspired to keep producing visual art without music in my life, both performed and heard.

Creative expressions feed one another. What feeds your inspiration, even in the darkest times? What puts a spark into your everyday life and keeps you creative/productive?

And if you also have wondered what life would be like if every minute were a musical, please feel free to let me know.

Next post: darkroom pictures, progress, and tips!

Ever have one of those weeks when you just can't seem to get ahead?  Unopened mail accumulates on the table, you're out of necessities before you go grocery shopping, dishes pile up, projects around the house go unfinished (or unstarted).  Before you know it, you're cranky all the time, you wake up in the morning feeling like you barely fell asleep, and even your morning coffee isn't satisfying anymore.

Needless to say, creative work suffers under these circumstances.

Last Monday, I finally placed my darkroom supply order.  When a shipping confirmation informed me my package would arrive at the office on Friday, I immediately reconfigured my goals: by the end of the weekend, I would be making prints.

Then the flu hit our house.  While I somehow remained immune to the debilitating fever, headache, and fatigue the virus delivers, I sure didn't miss out on assuming all the everyday household chores; picking up discarded blankets, clothes, and juice glasses all over the house; and caring for my sick husband for six days.  Not to mention a week's worth of restless sleep.  My dreams of a functioning darkroom evaporated long before the FedEx man arrived.

I managed a number of accomplishments over the weekend, including a trip out to Home Depot, but I should have realized earlier that it just was not happening.  What began as an exhilaratingly ambitious goal had become an absolute impossibility.  Just like getting this morning off to a positive start because let's face it: starting out a Monday morning dead tired after an unproductive weekend just doesn't bode well.

That brings me to this evening, and just not wanting to post an entry to this blog.  And you know what?  I think it's just fine to be real about it.  I'm done mourning my weekend as if something died because life got in the way of an already-unrealistic goal (yes, I can be dramatic, all the time).  It's time to go to bed at 9:00 and get up in the morning ready to pick it all up again and keep going.  After all, that's what it's about in the end: the picking up and going, not the everything getting done on schedule. 

Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and eat my egg and cheese sandwich and go to work with a smile.  Then I'm going to come home and work on light-proofing the darkroom and setting up an enlarger table, and maybe by the end of next weekend, I'll be making prints in the new darkroom. 

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend Big Art Day, an annual event at Kutztown University that connects fine arts alumni with current and prospective students. As a recent graduate doing marginally cool things and eager to reconnect with my professors, I broke out of my reclusive shell and made the trip up to central Pennsylvania.

The whole day proved valuable for me in terms of networking, touring new facilities, visiting with old classmates and professors, and taking in presentations by fellow alumni. One of the kernels that got me thinking was the mantra we all hear as creative people: the most important thing you can do to help your craft is practice it every day. Write. Photograph. Sketch. Do something.

I really take issue with the image of The Artist as this bottomless vessel of inspiration, and It's important to acknowledge the struggles artists experience throughout their creative lives. We all go through times when we just have to keep doing it despite not exactly overflowing with pride at the work we're producing. It's this perseverance that sets successful artists apart.

By the end of Big Art Day, I knew I had to get back in gear. As a somewhat intellectual artist, I constantly have to fight the inclination to put the cart before the horse. Unlike folks who always keep busy in their sketchbooks and feel most comfortable experimenting visually, I like to produce art within the structure of An Idea. While I've created great end products, the in-between is often lacking. After all, no one can expect excellent ideas every single day.

This calls to mind an entry in my paper journal from my first VISTA year. Coming out of college, my VISTA program felt like the hugest challenge I'd ever accepted. Despite my insecurities and wonderings – “what if I don't do enough, can't do enough?” -- I came out of my year of service far more confident than I had arrived. As time went on, I realized the value of remaining. Most endeavors don't require you to be a superstar, they require perseverance and consistent hard work.

For my work, this means accepting the ebb and flow of creative inspiration. More specifically, it means committing to updating this blog on a schedule rather than fussing about people potentially discovering it during a down time. It means taking photographs every day even if I don't have a strong idea for a project. Maybe it even means selling some of those “every day” photos to support my increased production.

None of this is particularly difficult, it just requires daily attention, something we may at times be hard pressed to provide even to our significant others. But it's the most important part of the creative process – not selling work, getting gallery representation, being awarded grants, nor thinking of the Best Idea Ever. Nope. The true success, the sole path to all that other stuff, is keeping the momentum going even when things aren't great.

Photo from expired 110 cartridge film.  I try to take photos with my Focal Micro 110 every day.

An art/living space theme seems to be developing lately, so why not continue it this evening?

When I got home from work today, I had a sudden inspiration to hang pictures that have been leaning against our walls for weeks. This is par for the course, as I tend to live with bare walls for months before I reach a breaking point and rush to hang pictures everywhere. Right now I'm waiting for my husband to come home and admonish me for not measuring to make sure everything is evenly spaced.  I was just too excited!

Centered on the wall or not, it makes a lot of sense to populate your living space with your art work and images that inspire you. I once had a drawing professor who, aside from making my life miserable, gave some pretty good advice: hang your work up on the wall – even (especially) if it's unfinished – and live with it for a couple weeks before revisiting it. Seeing a piece from varying distances, in varying lights, and in a setting that's not your studio/work space can open your eyes to aspects you may never have seen otherwise. Seeing your own images “displayed” alongside postcards/prints of work you deeply admire can also teach you a lot.

Now, there are some occasions when putting stuff away for an extended time is necessary to the creative process.  Take those year-old photos I just dug out, for example.  Overall, though, hanging your art up not only gives you bonus decorating points when company comes over, it allows you to evaluate it on a longer term than “this is done, let's stow it and begin the next project."

While photos usually require less process than drawings or paintings, that makes it easier to put them out of sight and out of mind. If you've got framed work, hang it up! As soon as I get some cash together for prints, I'm going to hang up as many raw pictures as I can. Like a good song, you should notice something different, new, and intriguing about a photograph as you look at it more often. And how better to get to know your photos than hanging them in the hallway?

Do you agree, or are you put off by the idea of living and breathing your art work to the point where it nags at you while you're brushing your teeth? How do you evaluate your images and make sure you're giving them enough face time?

Though progress is slow and steady, I've been exceeding goals left and right on my way to creating a basement studio. My reorganization isn't limited to the basement, though. Getting organized involves the whole house. This weekend I finally unpacked my big cardboard box of old journals (the earliest dating back to 1994) and put them on a bookshelf for easy reference. Next to these fabulous pieces of personal history sits a book of a different kind: my Reclamation artist book.

As often happens when I am cleaning/reorganizing, I simply had to sit down and leaf through my handmade book to experience it anew. It totally blew me away. For the past year I've been experiencing my photography on a computer screen or in a paper mailing envelope from the color lab, and I found it inspiring to see my photos beautifully presented and complemented by deckled edges and compelling text. In fact, just now I stopped typing to sketch out a new idea for presenting my new digital work alongside journal texts.

I won't go on (too much) about this book tonight. Know that I could because it's just that awesome. Over the course of two days I poured my heart and soul into it, expending way more money and labor than I ever could have imagined. That weekend I carried it on a trip to Boston, hugging it close on the T so it didn't get damaged. At my wedding, our best man recalled in his toast that trip we made to visit him in Boston, how I sat on the floor of his apartment trimming my prints just so (leaving just enough white so the viewer would know they hadn't been cropped) and carefully installing them in the pages of my book.

In this age of digital convenience, we'd all do well to remember where we started: pulling film off the reel, making contact sheets, and accumulating boxes of 5 x 7 prints. Something is lost when our work isn't tangible. It's too easy these days to process, evaluate, and display photos electronically. They still take on a whole new meaning as prints, and a whole new meaning again as lovingly presented, tangible works of art.

What is the biggest realization you've had about your work lately?  The most inspiring presentation?

I got to thinking a lot about our house during my week away from home in a condo in Vermont. It felt wonderful to exist in a space populated only by the things we needed. My mind was clear, my ambitions strong, my optimism fully out of its shell.

Maybe I could attribute some of these feelings to spending every day skiing and enjoying fantastic scenery instead of showing up at the office. Who knows, but I came home with plans: hold on to your hats, folks, I'm cleaning out my basement.

Once I returned home I immediately realized why I haven't purged the whole house before: it's hard, it's intimidating, it's overwhelming. For someone with ADD like myself, it's impossible to know where to begin. Not to mention the basement is downright cold and dank this time of year. I voluntarily face these realities now not just because my parents will soon drop off a truckload of my childhood possessions, but also because there is another possibility in the works. There is a reward, a dedicated art space at the end of this tunnel.

Freed from the shackles of clutter, I can focus on populating my space with only the things I need. And at this point I've come to realize I do need a place to store, display, and create art. Everyone does. Imagine going to work in an office every day and not actually having your own desk. Or imagine your desk chock full of junk that's never going to help you get the job done. Our creative space is just as important to developing good work.

More on this to come as the project develops, but for now...before pictures, anyone?

On Thursday evening I'll get into my specific plans/wants for the space, so keep following along. If you have a basement, you can do this too! Already have a fabulous art space in your home? Please share!

In the third week of the year, you can find me with my husband and in-laws enjoying prime skiing conditions in northern Vermont. When we arrived Saturday evening, one of the first things I did after unpacking the car was sit down on the couch and leaf through the Oaks 12 Journal. The journal, kept throughout the years by visitors to our condo, is a running narrative between 5-10 active journalers. Part of the magic of coming back to the same room every time is finding another year of writing from fellow residents.

Before anyone asks what this has to do with photography or fine art (it's a stretch but I'm on vacation, after all), for me it's all about the interplay of text and images. The topic has lingered on my mind lately because I made a New Year's resolution to send five photos to print from my latest work. I haven't done it yet, but I have populated my "idea notebook" with sketches for combining these very personal, domestic images with journaling.

Returning to the Vermont journal reminded me of the power of documenting personal histories in our own words. Every year I bring my camera and most photos just take themselves around here, but the way we weave a story into a place separates this experience from any other beautiful landscape. Here is where two tween girls who have never met in person, Gillian and Taylor, are making youthful memories and writing messages to each other in the journal. It's also where a grateful husband bonded with his wife and two little boys as she recovered from a battle with cancer. My husband spent childhood winters here and later proposed to me on the slope during New Year's fireworks.

So while I'll continue to take beautiful photos, the interwoven stories in the journal will create a richness of memory we could never achieve with pictures alone.

Most days of the year I try very hard to stay on-topic with Words + Images no matter what else is going on in my life.  As Christmas approaches, though, I feel silly being that rigid.  Instead, I'm going to share what I did yesterday: namely, make enough cookie dough for over 120 chocolate gingerbread cookies.  Around 100 of them will be given away during our travels to visit family, and the other 1/5 of the dough is safely hoarded in the freezer for when we get back.  They are some of the most delicious cookies I've ever had.

The recipe that inspired all these cookies?  I found it in the Baltimore Sun.  Since old articles are impossible to find on their site most of the time, I'm going to preserve and share it in its original form.  Enjoy, have a wonderful holiday, and let me know if you try the cookies!

(12/3/2008)
Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

Cara Tana found this recipe years ago in an issue of Martha Stewart Living, and it's been one of her most requested cookies ever since. "They smell wonderful when baking and they have never failed me," she wrote to us. "The best results come from really chopping up the chocolate. Not pulverizing it, per se, but really chopping it up while still retaining some bigger pieces." This makes a very chocolaty, gingery cookie, full of strong flavors.

(Makes 2 dozen)

7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate(I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet baking bars)

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1/2 cup dark-brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup molasses

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw, and I'd highly recommend it)

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Chop chocolate into 1/4-inch chunks; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cocoa.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and grated ginger until whitened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add molasses; beat until combined.

In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 teaspoons boiling water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking-soda mixture, then remaining flour mixture.

Mix in chocolate; turn out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Pat dough out to about 1 inch thick; seal with wrap; refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or more.

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Refrigerate 20 minutes (I skipped this last fridge step, but I did split the dough up into smaller quantities and keep them in the refrigerator until I needed them so they'd stay firm). Roll in granulated sugar.

Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Back in the day when camera phones were first becoming popular, I just had to have one. I'll admit up front to being a gadget person, but it was more than that. The opportunity to capture pictures anywhere I carried my cell phone really impressed me. In fact, I justified the cost (a whopping $70) with all the times I had wished for a camera when confronted with particularly humorous or memorable situations.

Ironically, those early camera phones lacked a lot in terms of their ability to produce “usable” photos – images I could take to the one-hour photo or even print out on my home computer.

The real revolution came when my Lumix replaced the bigger, clunkier digital camera I had been carrying. The Lumix fit in my pocket or purse no matter what the occasion, freeing me to take high-quality pictures whenever (and wherever) I deemed it necessary.

Well, on Saturday, as we were celebrating many birthdays over butternut squash soup and Portal cake, tragedy struck. After years of flawless performance, the LCD backlight on the Lumix – which has no viewfinder – quit mid-event. Now you see it, now you don't. I switched the camera on again after leaving it on a side table and...nothing. The most painful irony struck when I realized I could still take pictures, I just couldn't see them.

So, after an eventful two years, that camera and I are calling it quits. Luckily this has all transpired very close to Christmas, so certain nervous, idea-less husbands in this house are less than traumatized (more on that in a couple weeks, I suspect).

Meanwhile, I'm camera-less for the next week and a half. Granted, I still have the D80, but it's more valuable, less pocketable, and sometimes just overkill for the situation. I am amazed at how quickly I built an expectation of images at the ready. My hard drive is densely populated with images of funny scenes in the office, ludicrous and/or striking sights along my (walking) commute, and delicious meals I have made. The thought of losing that capability for over a week drives me more than a little batty.

Luckily, I still have my camera phone, whose technology has come a long way since the bulky, low-res model I owned years ago.

Over the holidays I happened to meet an old friend of a friend, described and introduced to me as “also into photography.” I feel like an expectation comes with meeting another artist that we will automatically forge a connection based on our shared occupation. This woman happened to live in New York, drawing and taking photos and working behind the scenes for the popular ARTstor digital image database.

As I stood in the front foyer at my in-laws' house, somewhat enamored and thinking how much this new person reminded me of a friend in Baltimore, I thought for a minute about my path thus far. I always wonder what impression I make on people who are much more cut and dry Artists than I am. Do I look like I've copped out by shunning the New York art universe and making my own way in a much smaller city? Should I be applying for a job at the BMA next year, visiting DC more often, looking for residencies, considering my current day job a step along the way or even a stall point in the process?

Much of my motivation to join AmeriCorps stemmed from a disconnect I felt, the lack of desire to move to New York, keep up with the gallery scene there, try to “make it” in the capital of the art world. Art students (or this one, at least) feel a lot of pressure to focus on New York, on the big biennials and the new superstar artists. After college,, I'm sure there was a mass migration northward to test all the skills we'd learned not just at making art, but also shamelessly marketing and selling ourselves to galleries in Chelsea. And then there was me, following my husband to a career in the Baltimore/DC area and looking for a day job I could fall in love with.

Sure, working at a museum or gallery would be great, in theory. But just because it's an “art job” doesn't mean it's going to be ultimately fulfilling. I'm sure that was on my mind when I wrote the following in my AmeriCorps*VISTA motivational statement: “My career should be something that makes me proud, something I can't stop smiling about, when I'm doing it or when I'm telling others about it.” After years of working in retail, I knew a day job was never just a day job.

Right now I'm involved in a career path I'm willing to petition the President about. Honestly, no matter what some of my art professors may think of my progress, I feel extremely lucky to say that. I'm still taking pictures, still entering juried contests, still looking for grant money, still thinking and writing about my art. I'm also serving my country and extremely proud to do so. When my term runs up next August, regardless of what I choose to do post-VISTA, I will be a lifelong advocate for national service. My experience over the last year and a half has impacted and changed me tremendously, set me on a path I never would have expected in the months preceding my college commencement ceremony.

Again, I feel truly blessed to be here. My path as an artist may not be the stereotypical image of success, but that's okay with me. I feel great when I come home every evening, and that's what matters. Artists or not, it's what we're all looking for.

Today the deadline passed for the Towson ARTS Collective “Travel Exhibit: Where have you been?” Within the week I have nominated myself for the Baker Artist Awards and submitted more creative non-fiction to the Urbanite. I marked the travel exhibit deadline on my calendar and set a pop-up window to remind me two weeks in advance. I narrowed down my travel photographs to four favorites.

On Thursday, with application in hand, I decided not to send my work in. Suddenly the idea planted itself in my mind that these were just travel snapshots, and it was just coincidence that they had been taken by a photographer with a nice camera. Sure, they looked great, but that didn't make them gallery-worthy. And could I write a convincing artist statement to accompany them?

At the time, my decision seemed informed and practical. After all, if I send my work for an exhibition in the future, did I want to be remembered as that woman who sent in her honeymoon snapshots for the travel exhibit? It was only prudent to hold work that wasn't intellectually up to par.

I could have predicted the regret I'm feeling now. How often I forget, I usually have nothing to lose by applying to something. My travel pictures may or may not be worthy of hanging in a gallery, but how will I know if I don't offer them up for consideration? There's no use mourning an opportunity come and gone, really, but I do need to remember this experience for next time.

Sometimes it just gets difficult to keep marketing my work and putting it out there because it demands a certain level of egotism, self-assuredness, and determination that these images warrant the world's attention. I heard it on my first day of Introduction to Photography back in the day, and it's true: everyone wants to be a photographer, and sometimes it seems like anyone's success is more or less by chance.

I think it's important to touch on these feelings from time to time, however briefly. I'm not at a point in my life where I experience a whole lot of self-doubt, but it happens to all creative people from time to time. We need to acknowledge it and move on, knowing not every submission can be perfect but at least we're getting feedback and getting our name heard. Art isn't a perfect display, it's communication. It's taking an image and preserving it just as you saw it, making it special. And there's certainly no reason to hide your work because you don't think it's “good” enough.

A rough draft of a piece of creative non-fiction inspired by the Urbanite's "invention" theme:

My eye caught on a specific pile of dust on the floor. Through some bizarre pattern of foot traffic or air currents the threshold to the upstairs bathroom serves as a catch-all for lint, dust, and tumbleweeds of cat hair. I ran for my camera.

With my belly on the oak floorboards I spun the aperture dial to let in plenty of light, narrowing depth of field and intensifying the pure, white sunlight making fuzzy highlights on every stray hair.

Of course for a time I troubled my mind over the validity of photographing the intimate details of my house. I expected most photographers proved their worth by way of innovative subjects, new places to shoot, seeking and finding. In the end I couldn't deny my captivation with domesticity. I stole many sunny mornings before work to document the quality of light across the floorboards, the particular arrangement of a stack of library books on the table, crumbs, a dish out of place, a warm halo around my bedroom lamp exposing a deep, blood-red wall.

As I fumbled around on the floor to frame my shot I was briefly concerned about getting my sweater dirty. Had this much dust really accumulated in a week? With each smooth motion of the shutter I reinvented my space. I saw my home anew. At once I wove an elaborate story and documented my surroundings simple as they were.

I continued on my way eventually, replaced the lens cap and vanished into another household project. Those images I created stayed frozen in the camera, waiting to be pulled out and pressed and polished, made into something altogether unique and not at all the mundane bits of dust settled on the floor.

We just arrived home after a three-day weekend with family in Pennsylvania. While it feels great to be back in my house at last, being “home” in October was absolutely intoxicating.

Climbing around on the red rocks of the Tohickon Valley with my husband and sister, I couldn't get enough pictures. Water, orange and yellow leaves, gravel roads, shale cliffs. While I lived there I hardly took pictures of my surroundings, most likely because as a teenager I took it for granted. Really. Here is the driveway I traveled up and down every time I went to school, work, Doylestown, boyfriend's house. Alongside it, a road nearby:

This weekend was full of small details: weathered wood, leaves crunching, the algae-on-wet-rocks smell of the creek. I delighted in each picture I took, and even got my 10-year-old sister to bring a camera out as well.

In the end, though, the treasures on my SD card at the moment are the brief video clips. These capture the essence of walking, driving, even sitting on a protruding rock in the middle of small rapids in the Tohickon. I hope short clips like this will preserve as well the unique smell and feel of my original home. Overall, we had a delightful trip. It will be hard to return to work tomorrow, letting it all drift out of our minds to be stored in these pictures, both moving and still.

I've been sticking with the book I found in the library, It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys, feverishly digging through a cardboard box full of every journal I've ever owned to find the elusive blank notebook.  I found one, an old black Mead "Grad" composition book, not like the marble ones I started with in my Harriet the Spy days but a college-ruled one of the variety I obsessed over in high school.  Perfect.  In it I began to complete the writing exercises in It's Hard to Make a Difference as studiously as if I were on one of my regular spurs of inspiration to learn a new language or to pick up the piano.

Though it's been difficult lately, I'm interested in keeping my heart in this self-help book, this time, because it seems to speak to my particular situation in a way no other has come close to doing.

For one, It's Hard to Make a Difference tries to debunk the myth that creative people, including visual artists, are inherently disorganized, their chaos somehow feeding their inspiration.  This is a familiar image.  The professors and visual artists I respected most in college existed in tiny basement offices, surrounded by dusty stacks of books, desks piled high with papers, old rickety shelves and file cabinets, student work mixed with their own and balanced upon any spare real estate they could find.  Many of the most powerful role models in my professional life suffer from overwork and lack of order in their workspace, a plague that only serves to perpetuate the idea that visionary, influential people necessarily exist in a whirlwind of chaos.

For those of us who find this claustrophobic and stiling in their own space, there is hope.  Organization does not always equal unoriginal, uninspired.  For the first time, I am connecting leisure time and creative work with organization and neatness.  All this time, I have blamed my busy schedule for my lack of initiative.  As it turns out the problem is, as with so many things, that I cannot get my life in order.

After tallying up the financial, emotional, professional, and creative (new addition duly noted) toll of my inability to reign in my mental disarray, I'm ready to commit to change.  It takes me months to deposit checks to my bank account, and I've misplaced them completely more than once.  For someone earning 105% of the poverty line, this raises a big red flag. I feel I will never attain true direction or productivity in my creative work until I get organized.  Every day I feel tormented by clutter, projects unfinished, plans never realized, and it keeps me from indulging in meaningful projects outside of my job.

Little by little, I am trying and working and making slow progress.  I really want this to be the "once and for all" that begins a change in course.  There have been many "once and for all" turning points, though, so I need to keep my optimism in check and remember to be a little hard on myself, knowing good intentions have never gotten me anywhere in terms of my disorder.

I will write on another topic next week, but expect this to be a subject revisited in coming Words + Images posts as I explore the relationship between creativity and disarray.  Also, I am interested to know: do you feel a sense of chaos in your daily affairs and your workspace?  How does this affect your capacity to reach your creative potential?  Feel free to visit the comments section of this page to let me know what you think.

Frustrating days happen.

On this particular evening, I made a positive decision to quit stalking angrily around the house and walk to the library. Walking has always calmed me, mellowing my mood with each footstep I seal against the pavement. No matter what, a solid walk always injects a certain feeling of openness into my chest, drawing my breath toward the sky.

I've always loved to lose myself in the library, hiding away in a corner and running my hand over the uneven rows and columns of spines, delighting in the unlikely juxtaposition of subject matter in the nonfiction section: knitting, wine, bathroom remodeling, crafty handbags. Somewhere in this odd commingling of volumes my fingertips come to rest upon a book titled It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys.

This title describes me in such an essential way I have to pick it up. It is full of language-based exercises such as making lists, thinking of life in terms of straightforward descriptions. I figure it's worth a try since I'm certainly not going to complete the series of visualization exercises in 4 Weeks to an Organized Life.

While I'm in the library my husband calls to ask what sort of soda he should buy at the store: root beer, cream soda, or berry lemonade. I debate sending a text message from the lobby after I've checked out this new book along with a copy of Stitch and Bitch, but think better of it. He can figure it out. I still need to walk.

My brisk yet meandering journey leads me down Union Avenue, past Formstone and brick and cedar shingle houses. The city possesses a nourishing beauty I can see and hear and breathe as my feet put square after square of sidewalk behind me. When I walk alone I see through the lens of Writer and Photographer, my mind constantly cataloging snippets of images, words, phrases. Rough, weathered brick; crumbling stone surrounding an archway of rusted steel; a clamoring bell urging railroad gates to lower into place as the Light Rail slides into the station; Dick Cheney's face in blue stencil on the sidewalk under the JFX; the cool, dark underside of the expressway contrasting the cars speeding along hot asphalt overhead.

Suddenly there is a young hipster girl in front of me carrying a green bike with one tire removed. The bike is carelessly draped across her back and she is walking briskly, her t-shirt soaked through with sweat. I tuck this away in my memory, too: her damp, almost-black curls barely held in check by her headband; her determined stride, powered by lean muscles concealed beneath the soft, milky skin of her thighs; the careless ease with which she carries the bike frame on her petite body.

Hipster Girl is still walking, starting up the hill toward Druid Hill Park when I turn toward home. I wonder where she is going with that half-dismantled bike, whether she is a figment of my imagination. Eventually I come up out of the valley and resurface on our street, my shirt damp from sweat, my feet passing under familiar sycamores.

This weekend we spent a three-day weekend in Brigantine, NJ for some well-deserved beach and family time.  I debated taking my whole camera bag, supposing that my purse-sized Lumix would do the trick.  In the end, though, I almost always end up packing all my gear in case I should be overcome by a sudden urge to take pictures that require Camera Raw, 10 megapixels, off-camera lighting, or a tripod.

Nothing like a relaxing weekend at the beach, enjoying the company of six people crammed into a two-bedroom bungalow.  Oh, and some ambitious photography projects on the side.

Predictably, I was somewhat disappointed in myself when I returned home with no pictures, but I'm left to wonder: do I beat up on myself too much?  Like in every other aspect of my life, do my high standards hinder me more than they help?

In college, I had a professor who firmly believed visual art -- and painting in particular -- should be our whole lives.  Unless we walked/ate/slept/dreamed painting, we could not call ourselves true artists.  This mentality dealt the final blow to my enthusiasm for a visual arts degree in large part because I gave up on some big dreams earlier in life because I couldn't bear the thought of that fierce intellectual monogamy.  Now someone was trying to force it on me, something I just couldn't swallow.

The bottom line is photography will never be my whole life.  Nor will writing or music or sewing curtains for the spare bedroom.  Sometimes a walk on the Atlantic City boardwalk is just that, a walk on the boardwalk.  No analysis, no careful and particular observation, no being left behind because no one wanted to wait for me to create the perfect shot.  There will be weekends for that.  I can plan a whole series of work around the Jersey Shore, allot entire weekends to my images.

Maybe it's also okay for me to come home from a weekend at the beach with no photography to show for it.  Maybe, for this weekend, I was defined by my place in my family as opposed to my place behind the camera.  While I sometimes envy people whose cameras are a permanent part of them, even they go through dry spells.  I'll never be shooting constantly, but I hit a pretty good rhythm with consistency.   Some days other pursuits just take precedence, and that's an important part of how I live and work.

This isn't something I should feel guilty about.  I am not a single-minded person with a perfectly crystallized identity and direction to my life.  I am a grazer who wanders through and past just about everything.  I used to beat myself up over this part of myself, but I've come to know its unique pleasures and advantages as well.

Even if to the outside world it looks like I'll never get my act together.

Most people with visual art degrees don't end up "using" their degree as a primary career.  While I would argue the meaning of "using" any kind of college degree, I certainly can't claim to have landed an "art job" after graduation.  I've taken what I feel must be a common route and begun a career in the non-profit sector.  (As a side note, that explains my disappearance for two weeks as I most certainly did use my degree to help write 17 grants to help local schools).

Sort of disenfranchised by the "art world" and sick of feeling like New York City was the center of everything that mattered, I struggled in my last semester of undergrad to figure out what "career" really meant to me.  I knew one thing: it didn't mean money and corporate success, though I know I could succeed in that sense if I had the inclination.  So I signed on for a year of AmeriCorps*VISTA (think domestic Peace Corps) and found a niche in a quirky but awesome non-profit here in Baltimore.

I made a choice.  Plenty of my former colleagues are probably sucking up to galleries trying to get representation, and I know a few have found very well-deserved success.  But I made another choice and created a different identity for myself.  Now I have a choice again.  My VISTA year is ending, and as of August 15 I am no longer property of the U.S. Government.

What will I do?  I have a choice to stay in the vein of urban public education, stay in the vein of urban youth, stay in non-profits, or start over entirely.  This process of reinventing myself every year or two has to stop.  For one, I have a lot of trouble concentrating on the "fun" side of life when all I have done for the past six years is change concentrations, schools, jobs, and towns.  By signing on for a year-long contract position, I've forced myself to make another choice and another change.

Though my diploma calls me an artist, I could be happy at any job and do well almost anywhere I landed.  The question is, how many of those jobs really matter?  Last night as I was falling asleep I thought of all the children I have gotten to know in Baltimore this year and wondered where they were sleeping, what their houses were like.  I wondered how, having done so much, I can just walk away, another college-educated white person who has done a year's time in the inner city trying to make the world a better place.  That's not me.  Personally, if I believe in something I want it to be a way of life.  I can't walk away from all those children to work in the coat room at the BMA, or even to be an office manager at Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.  Can I?

Again I'm at this crossroads with my career, wondering which identify I want to run with this time: the visual artist; the nerdy kid who loved physics, calculus, and psychology (though not necessarily in that order); the writer; the Habitat for Humanity volunteer; the underpaid non-profit employee who worked overtime with a team to put in $250,000 in grant proposals last week; or the woman who worked tirelessly in a public school in Baltimore for the past year.  Somewhere, sometime in the next few weeks, I'll find it.

Though I very rarely think in pictures and most often tend to have a steady stream of words and music running through my head, the times when I do think almost exclusively in images are often memorable and emotionally charged.

One of those times happened this weekend, near the beginning of another long car ride up to Pennsylvania.  Doug was happily rocking out to DC 101 and I wanted to use the 110-mile commute to hack through another Jonathan Kozol book before seeing him speak on Wednesday, so I put on headphones with wordless music.  Shortly after merging onto I-95 North I was jarred from my book by Doug urgently nudging my arm.  I scrunched my eyebrows and removed one of my earbuds.

"I just saw that car flip over, like, four times."

Absorbed in words on a page, I had missed this.  A BMW Z3 lay upside down in pieces on our side of the median, a special delivery from the middle lane on the southbound side.  As Doug pulled over onto the left shoulder, leaped from the car without shutting the engine off and began running toward the scene, I saw the driver of the car climb out the window and step away, like race car drivers do after their cars flip end over end into the center of the track.

I turned the key to off.  What if there was a passenger?  The first image I saw was of this man frantically calling for help, asking someone to save a passenger who was already dead.  The second was of myself, small and broken on the grassy median, torn to pieces by anguish and tragedy I had been forced to witness.  I knew I would cry, I knew I would be unable to stand.  I thought of Doug, running to the side of the car and being one of the first to look inside.  What image would he see?

If for no other reason than I did not want the burden of those images to be his alone between us, I grabbed my phone from my purse and got out of the car.  I joined a growing procession of passersby who had parked on both sides of the median and were jogging to the scene.

Before I arrived, I was met by Doug jogging against the flow, back toward me.

"He's fine."

Personal affects and pieces of the car, small and large, had been scattered about on the grass.  The tiny car had been launched over two lanes, a guardrail and most of the median, flipping several times and landing upside down, and somehow the sole occupant had walked away with no injuries.

I turned around to see one of the strangest sights I have ever encountered.  The number of people who had pulled over and began walking or running to the overturned vehicle was eerie, inspiring, and heartbreaking.  In this moment we had all seen our own lives flash before our eyes, and as we waved each other on and announced the shockingly positive outcome of this sudden chaos, I'm sure that image remained etched in our minds as we made our way back onto the interstate.

None of the images of those few minutes will escape me.  Not the ones my worried mind conjured, not the real image of the wreckage, and not the gathering of so many human travelers concerned for the fate of one of our own.