blythe hill: February 2012

Friday, February 10, 2012

My new job (!!)

A couple weeks ago, I shared with you that I was pursuing a job I really wanted, and last week I snuck into the bottom of a post the news that I got the job; I'm ready to share more of the exciting details with you today.

The company I'll be working for is a trend forecasting site used by creative people and companies around the world. It's one central spot for creatives to find color, material/fabric, and fit trends, as well as runway photos and analyses, and a gallery of over 2 million images to create storyboards from, and a place to make and save those storyboards. Their client list includes a variety of large and small companies.

Starting Monday, my role will be training new clients how and why to use the site according to their specific needs, as well as overseeing 100 existing clients and finding new ways for them to maximize their experience.

It's exciting to me to begin this new chapter and work in such a creative and fast-paced environment. I've been on the hunt for such a job for quite awhile now, so we'll see how it goes! I'm hopeful that it's a great fit for me and I for it!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Dinner on ice

I'm visiting some of my favorite people this week in Wisconsin-- I decided on a whim to take a last minute, "last hurrah" trip before starting my new, full time job next week (when traveling will mean using up vacation days). Tonight we packed up dinner, tea, and cookies, and had a picnic on top of frozen Lake Kegonsa. It took about ten minutes for the wimp in me to calm down about my fear of the ice cracking and swallowing me in a swift gulp. (Needless to say, this did not happen).

More to come...

Friday, February 3, 2012

SEEING- Week 1: 100 Photos a Day

I posted last week about taking Shannon Leith's SEEING class (you can read that post here), and I mentioned in my post that the class is a ten week experience: our first day was a seven hour group class, and our first project was to take 100 photos a day for the seven days of week 1. We then met individually with Shannon for one-on-one sessions to look through the photos, discuss our experience with the project, and filter down to our favorite 5 or 6 images--- the ones that spoke to us the most.

I came to our time with about 700 photos, but neglected to make time to edit the massive quantity of images down to 10-20 favorite images, as she asked us to do prior to meeting. Ever the gracious and adaptable mentor/teacher, Shannon looked through all 700 of my images with me and had me select 3-5 faves from every 100 photos (so, 3-5 for each day I shot). From there, she had me eventually pick out the 5-6 images that spoke to me the most-- the ones that would make me the saddest to delete, the ones that made me feel the most joy and/or mystery. The above six photos are the ones we came to in my mentoring session with Shannon yesterday.

The thing that comes to my mind as I look at these photos is an incredible and deep sense of life and light and stillness. The other thing that comes to mind, when I face the "Publish Post" button below this entry, is fear. There's a good chance people- or even you, reading this- won't "get" these photos. They might look boring or strange or too abstract or mundane. I then have to recall the words Shannon spoke at our group session last week:

"Moving toward your unique vision can be a really lonely experience
because no one sees the world the way you do."

I say that, and I post these photos, to encourage you to step further into your own vision for your life and your art, and yourself. No matter how you live, there's going to be a certain margin of people that won't understand you. Some will try and fail, and some won't even try but will make their own assumptions. A small number might see you and get you, or at least see you and be encouraged and encouraging to you without ever getting you, and that will be a rare and beautiful experience.
Why not then live the life (and make the art, say the words) that help you see the beauty in the everyday? The art and the life that reflect the beauty you see in your everyday? It might be lonely, but it is vibrant, and brave, and alive.

Read more about SEEING here, or visit Shannon's site here.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Valentine's Gift Ideas

There are plenty of things to dislike about Valentine's Day: Hyper-commercialism. That aisle at the grocery store, or Target, or a lot of stores, where pink and red and hearts dominate. Hyper-attention to your very single status. Unwanted stress on a delicate, newly budding romance.

In spite of all the reasons to hate it, I love Valentine's Day. I say this as a very single woman, btw. This is my first Valentine's Day in four years that I'll be spending alone, and instead of dreading its approach, I'm surprisingly excited about it. Remember elementary school? When you get excited about the cards and the candy and the chocolate? I have the same sort of excitement, only not about any of those things. I'm just excited by the fact that at its core, apart from the hyper-commercialism, Valentine's Day is a holiday completely centered on love. Let's love. Period. It's maybe a little sad that we need the reminders of some holidays like this one and Thanksgiving (reminder: be thankful), and sure it's a little sad that love to a lot of people equals red and pink hearts and chocolates and roses (but hopefully not only those things), but maybe we, just by human nature, need to be reminded every year, and hopefully the annual reminder spills into our lives many many other points during the year.

All that to say, here are a few fun, less run-of-the-mill Valentine's gift ideas, for those of you who have someone to spend the day with, or are looking for ways to make a friend feel the love this year.