Just Some Photies

I haven't posted for ages so I thought I would just put up a few photos on here. Nothing spectacular, it's just that I'm super excited that I have a new phone and the camera on it isn't half bad. It's not great, either, so I'm still going to be using my actual proper camera.

Where you LEARN to save

Just want to take a private second to mourn the passing of the bizarre sign board outside the Dollar Scholar ("Where you LEARN to save"). The store has moved to smaller premises, because let's face it they probably do not make a whole lot of money. Anyway, this thing always had something amusing written on it, I will miss seeing it. Also, why can I only find two photos? For shame!



Edit: Found another photo I took. And nicked one from the internet. Sorry, internet.

Likes: Lakes, Lighting, Ladies

Came across a stack of postcards and pictures I had up in my room year before last. I like to have pictures up around my room to have something inspiring to look at, optimistically hoping this will lead to creation of great works, masterpieces etc. More than that it's just nice to collect images that resonate with you, know what I mean? I guess this here assortment of disparate pictures must represent a cross-section of my aesthetic taste, but I don't know what you'd say about that.

Wolfgang Tillmans, Hallenbad, (Detail), 1995

Cristy Road, Excerpt from Indestructible, 2005

Eva Bodonhoff, 20th October 1998, From the Series Go-Sees, 1998

View From Kinder Scout, "looking west over Kinder Reservoir from this wild Peak District Plateau"

Leonid Pasternak, (1862-1942), The Painter's Sons, Boris and Alexander

Mike Nelson, Untitled No.22 (High Plains Drifter)

Alan Majchrowicz, Lac de montagne, Alpine Tarn, 2003

Annie Liebovitz, Karen Finley, Nyack, New York

Follower of Rembrandt, A Man seated reading at a Table in a Lofty Room, Oil on oak

William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennessee, 1965

Tate Weirdness

I was in London last weekend and stopped by Tate Modern while I was there. Something was afoot in the Turbine Hall. (For those new to Tate Modern that's this huge entrance space where they show very large pieces and installations. ) I always seem to arrive while they are in the middle of removing one artist's work and installing another. Don't quite know what I happened upon here. I think these people are developing some sort of dance piece to follow the patterns on the floor? Who knows.






Hey, that guy stole my dance move! Everyone knows the trouser leg thing is copyright yours truly.

Famous Public Service Building at Night

Famous Public Service Building by Night, Denver, Colorado

Some favourite vintage postcards of mine. I like to pick them up from bookstores and junk shops and the like, it feeds my general status as a postcard superfan. Postcards are the best. Rectangles of joy and love and friendship and beauty! I do not have many vintage postcards, and they don't have a theme or anything, just ones I like the look of. The one above is my ultimate favourite, by the way. "Famous Public Service Building by Night"!!! You know? Here is what it says on the back:

"The Public Service Building is one of the striking features of Denver; it is of a pure white, brilliantly reflecting the thousands of lights covering its surface in graceful designs so that it stands out even in Denver's brightly illuminated business section like a flashing diamond, justifying its title of the best-lighted building in the world."

Isn't that wonderful? (Anyone been to Denver and seen this marvel personally?)

Rise Studio, Rapid City, SD

The Parrot Jungle, Red Road, Miami, FL

Old Mission Bells, San Diego, CA (and reverse)

From Mexico (and reverse)

Quieted

A couple of pictures I took recently in the Portland Art Museum. I don't know if you're allowed to take photos in there, (or any art museum?) but I figured no one would mind if I was mostly focusing on a stairwell. The light was so lovely and bright and calming and blue, I wanted to commemorate the moment.

Boozin' (is Pretty)

I took this picture the other night while I was out with some pals at Dots, a local favourite bar. They do excellent cocktails, they have fuzzy velvet wallpaper, cool bar staff (my fave reminds my of Joni Mitchell), kitchy artwork, hipsters. You know, Portland stuff. And they do the best sloe gin fizz I have tasted. On this particular occasion I drank too much whisky with beer chaser and got wasty-faced, but oh well.




I have recovered my hangover now, who wants to go back to Dots??

Powerlines

Walking along the Springwater corridor last night, a lovely clear January evening.

Dwellings What I Have Dwelled In

This post is a little self-obsessed, but I hope you will indulge me based on the universal human desire to poke around in other people's stuff. Goodness knows I request a nosy in my friend's rooms when I go to their houses, and enjoy it very much.

Here is the room I live in right now, in our cosy little house in Portland. I have what I consider to be a reasonable amount of things stuck up on the wall by this point, although I expect to add more. I like a lot of stuff up on the wall, especially prints and the like.



This is one of the very best rooms that I have lived in. My last house in Norwich, also known as The Deep Freeze (a bad-ass nickname rooted in the fact that our heating didn't work very well) was also one of the very best houses that I have ever lived in. Truly, I continue to be blessed by very wonderful friends who consent to cohabit with me! I lived here for two years so I had plenty of time to accumulate stuff on the walls, and it was a cute attic room with gabled ceilings. A perfect nest.



I loved my room at Reed, too! That was also a top floor room with a view out into the branches of an oak. Plus all this dark wood furniture and exposed floorboards. And in one of the nicest dorms on campus.

So where do you guys live right now? Do you like it? Do you LOVE it?

Lesbian Romance Tuesday

Fabulous new Chanel ad that I thought we might all enjoy looking at.

Karl Lagerfeld, 2009

It apparently references the famous love affair between famous historical lady-lovers Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West, which is nice.

Red Roofs

My Dad sent me over some great pictures of Lisbon - my folks went to Portugal a couple of weeks ago (lucky buggers, oh well I am in America so we all get to be foreign). The one in the middle is a giant elevator thing which sends you up to a walkway to the top of the hill. Pretty damn cool.

Some (Very) Amateur City Photography

Had a bit of a wander around Portland yesterday taking pictures, ostensibly for an art project but also because I like wandering about cities, and also because I especially like wandering about Portland. I Heart PDX, for reals.

This is a terrible picture of the view from the bus that I take every day to university, as it crossing the Ross Island bridge. I never get tired of this view.

This is a parking lot.

Lanterns at the Portland Art Museum.

Posters at Music Millennium on Burnside.

The Big Pink

Chinatown

A hilarious and random 24-hour art exhibit called the Church of Elvis, or something? You feed it a quarter and it tells your fortune and says funny things to you. It's on 4th and Couch, I would recommend a visit.

Union Station

So last time I saw this building it was painted blue and it was several blocks away... they moved it. On trucks. Crazy American houses made from wood.

I really like this bronze domed tower block.

A Benson bubbler.

A single Benson bubbler.

And finally, I cannot refrain from taking dozens of out-of-focus pictures of Stumptown mugs. Look at that lovely shiny red mug right there. Yum yum.