seen but not heard

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

blackout/whiteout!

2009 for me, was a year of recovery, both physical and mental. I didn't feel like I made great leaps and bounds, instead I built a foundation. Economically the ground upon which this was built was shaky, but I was able to make things possible I never foresaw. I first shot with Jenn An a few months into 2009, a couple months later, she started filming with America's Next Top Model which ended with her tied for third place. My last proper shoot of the year was one of her first since the show finished. In that time, I could tell we had both grown a great deal. Among my Christmas gifts was a Canon 430EXII flash, a shoot-through umbrella and a light stand - I also picked up a set of radio poppers while I was at B&H right after Christmas. I got to use my new lighting setup for the first time with Jenn, for our shoot in my house-studio; we started working on a series of images using black and white spaces/clothes/objects for a stark, dramatic feel.

photography/prop styling/hair: laura kicey • model/wardrobe/makeup: jennifer an

heated © Laura Kicey, All Rights Reserved.

Not long after my first shoot with Jenn, I scored an amazing job doing all the photography for Cookie A's newest book (which is coming out in February!), Knit. Sock. Love.
Just as that project finished, I was pulling together sponsorship funds and shipping off on my unforgettable trip Iceland with Sandra by way of kickstarter.com in its inaugural year. My relationship with Terrain continued to grow through the summer, while they worked toward the release of their ecommerce site, meanwhile my construct entitled disintegration went into production and finally appeared on shelves in Urban Outfitters! The constructs also were published for the first time in the book Beyond Architecture. Throughout the summer, I took numerous daytrips with Goldberg, including the Poconos and orchestrated several styled shoots with a host of new and familiar faces, including a triumphant shoot in the Huber Breaker with Tanya, a double-model shoot with 28 Crash! Vintage, and an anniversary shoot with Kirsten and Matt at Laurel Hill. I also had my work appear on the walls of the State Museum of Pennsylvania and in the Skylight 307 Gallery in Philly, where I won an honorable mention.

In terms of my health, 2009 was my chance to devote myself to undoing the damage of two years spent in and out of the hospital, failed surgeries, a sedentary life with too many weeks spent on bed rest and an erratic diet supplemented with drugs and unpleasant treatments. I got a WiiFit last Christmas which helped me lose 15 pounds over the course of 6 months, and back in September I got an EA Active for Wii which kickstarted a stagnating workout routine so I was able to end the year having lost a total of 22 lbs, but more importantly I had regained much of my strength and stamina, plus I was able to stop taking all medications which was a huge victory for my system. I still have a ways to go to get back to my fighting weight, but feeling healthy and energetic in the wake of having sunken so physically low is an amazing feeling- one which I will not take for granted.

In the last few weeks of the year, I spent a great deal of time fine tuning the designs of not one but three books, which I am seeking publishers for in 2010. First and foremost, I completed the Iceland book exactly as I had envisioned it - as a combination of the piece I wrote and a selection of photographs. I also put together a book of constructs and a book of abandoned structures - which was rooted in my Living Rooms series which was shown at Cafe Estelle at the very beginning of 2009.

winterberry © Laura Kicey, All Rights Reserved.

We were struck with a record-breaking blizzard that dumped up to 2 feet of snow on Philly, just in time for me to go out and explore with my brand new 85mm f1.8 lens. Weeks later, dingy piles of snow are still lingering.

Just after Christmas, my dear friend Spatial K made a trip to the East Coast. I hadn't seen her in 3 years - and Goldberg and I met up with her, Navid, and John Curley for a jaunt around NYC, including my first ever visit to B&H. We had some delightful Belgian wafflery at Petit Abeille, then took a touristy turn towards the Brooklyn Bridge (which I'd never actually seen up close either) and Central Park to sate Navid's brother and father who had never been to NYC.

midnight in the garden © Laura Kicey, All Rights Reserved.

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As a means of avoiding the disaster that was last New Year's road trip + stomach flu, Goldberg and I stayed on NYE, made dinner and relaxed (=conked out before 9:30pm). For New Year's Day, I was invited by some flickr friends to bear witness to that most disturbing Philly New Year tradition: The Mummers.

rose parade © Laura Kicey, All Rights Reserved.

All reports indicated that the lack of Mummer funding on the part of the city has hurt the overall Fanciness of the parade. It also seemed to take a toll of the number of parade onlookers. Overall it was a far more mellow affair than I had expected, though I didn't visit the 2nd Street area, where they are known to get a bit more rowdy.

The urge to visit Delaware struck on what was the coldest day so far this winter. Goldberg and I were determined to do some exploring, even if only from inside the car. I wanted to revisit an abandoned flea market in rural Delaware that I first stopped at early in 2007, though I had passed it many times since. The winds bit at us, straight through many layers, and the tubs of odds and ends normally puddled with water, rusting with time and the elements, were frozen in blocks of ice.

The house on the property has a porch piled deeply with merchandise, high over my head, with a narrow path reaching the door. It had never occurred to me to try the door before, just presuming that it would be locked as the sign said closed. Goldberg was standing on the porch by the door and I asked him if he tried the knob. To our surprise it opened. He stepped inside, I behind him and he called out "Hello? Hello!" and received no answer. When we fell silent, we could quite distinctly hear music - country music playing on a radio. The piles of stuff in the front room nearly met the ceiling, which was covered with lamps and birdcages. You could barely see through to the next rooms, and upon hearing the music, I panicked and had to leave the house. Goldberg lingered a minute. I regret not having carried on a bit, but I am not too keen on bumping into people in their own homes, no matter how curious I am.

gourmet © Laura Kicey, All Rights Reserved.

One final item - I've entered a SELF contest over at Artists Wanted, with a series of my hand 'portraits'. There is a juried portion and a public favorite portion, with prizes for each. If you have a moment, please go vote for me - HERE - you can vote once every 24 hours and there is no need to register. I appreciate ever vote I can get, so thank you! Happy New Year to both new readers and those who have stuck by, in this, my 5th year of blogging!

Labels: delaware, fashion, jenn, K, nyc, travel, winter, year in review

Thursday, February 01, 2007

second helpings

cut it out © Laura Kicey

As of two days ago I have been a member of flickr for two years. There is a great deal of hullaballoo over on the forums these days regarding the compulsory merging of your flickr and yahoo IDs. This personally does not pose much of a problem for me, my yahoomail is my main account. Though on my first re-sign in, I ended up having to re-enter my incredibly long and cumbersome password twice, which, I was told, if I was signed into my mail already, wouldn't happen. My biggest beef is with the cap on contacts and tagging. Currently 2,893 people call me a contact. Had I reciprocated all of those adds I would be very close to reaching the 3,000 contacts limit. True there are people who use the adding of contacts as a form of spammery. The same with tagging in order to get more hits. I use my tags for organization, storytelling, for future use as stock images, inside jokes, and an added layer of communication. Though I am generally not known to be an outspoken grouch on much of anything issue-y, this does kind of bother me. Knowing that other people whose work I follow, such as Rose and Olive and Merkley???, who are forced by Yahoo! to make large portions of their images available to only friends and family because of the NSFW content will only be allowed to share their work with a cap of 3,000 people unless they go through the added step of making a private group or issuing guest passes, that really pisses me off.

Maybe I am just ranting about this because what really crawled up my ass and died is not appropriate material for my blog. And I really shouldn't be thinking about it anyway. So I have been told. The above photo ended up being layer upon layer of appropriate for this day, week and maybe even this year. Not to mention ridiculously popular on flickr. And terrifying to my mother. In other news. The JOINTS hit the wall like a knee to the head this Sunday night, opening on Thursday the 8th. Mugshots @ 2100 Fairmount Ave! 6.30-8.30pm!! Free food!!

You. Know. You. Want. To.

rosette © Laura Kicey

And tomorrow Mr. D and I start salivating in preparation for embracing Wilkes-Barre with our mouths and eyes. K! We are coming!! Save some pork for me!! Use powers of positive thought to combat snow and ice!

Back to your regularly scheduled fretting about shit.

Labels: dustin, flickr, gallery, K, photography, travel, venting, winter, worry

Monday, January 22, 2007

auto pilot

Nothing takes the pleasure I get out of snow like driving.

shift © Laura Kicey

Prior to last weekend's wildfire of a show by the one and only Night Train, I was transporting the guitarist goods to destination: Lewisburg.

in tune © Laura Kicey

Somewhere in the wilds of Pocono, PA, snow starting belting us. Then stopped and all seemed well and good. until I made an unfortunate move on a solid sheet of ice and got hooked on the ass end of a tractor trailer. My first accident! My cherry (-colored car) penetrated! The sobs of ecstasy!

burst © Laura Kicey

Groan.

I was fortunate enough to be able to avoid getting behind the wheel for the remainder of the weekend which was spent, in part, photo-frollicking in the depressed towns of Berwick and Danville, PA.

the masses © Laura Kicey

While Danville maintained a certain quaintness, Berwick was just all out odd. Evidence of the difficulty of keeping businesses afloat in this town were apparent everywhere. The seeming complete lack of zoning put shops, industry and residences back to back with each other and mostly in completely inappropriate buildings. Business owners seemed to take every advantage of what they saw as holes in the marketplace and left themselves open to basically selling any and every thing. Their signage reflected this sentiment, with many shops ending their names with Etc., And Stuff, And Things and other vagueries. Others built onto their signs without foreseeable end. This worked for some but not all.

et cetera © Laura Kicey

Meanwhile back in South Eastern PA, things are shaking loose. Plans for the upcoming JOINTS joint are on a roll. Frames have arrived, postcards are coming. And financing to cover it all came in the form of two sales of pieces I have hanging in the Funky Lil Kitchen in Pottstown. From a complete stranger. VERY very excited.

LAB is taking off. Most pleasing. And the vernacular design itch has been transferred from Joseph to me. I love this things Tibor Kalman and Kerrie Jacobs wrote that Mr. Robertson posted on LABlog. Look for more on vernacular design in the next issue. Also for the next issue, a call for entries:

Posters & flyers— we want to see ‘em. A pack of design ninjas will pick the best of the batch and we’ll include them in an upcoming issue of LAB.

Here’s the only rule:
The poster/flyer must be designed by you. No found objects, please.

How to submit? Send a PDF (or .jpg) of your design via our contact form. Please be sure to include contact info. Bonus points: post a picture of your creation in its natural habitat to this flickr group.

Curious about usage rights? Check out read the fine print

Be sure to add the following tag to the photo (for flickr):
LABproject03

Next weekend, the D and myself are to be Most Esteemed guests at the Parental House of K in the Northeast of Nowhere, PA. We will dine on Special Hot Pot and wrassle cats, possibly thumb wrestle cat with opposable thumbs.
And then, adventures in Coal Country. Followed by next Sunday, our show goes all the way up! Stay tuned.

Labels: abandoned, centralpa, daniel, dustin, gallery, K, music, publicity, show, travel, winter

Monday, October 23, 2006

blood out of a stone

Of late, every nook has been filled with meetings of new and old. I never properly sat down to write about K and Ranjit visiting. While we were not complete homebodies while they were here, we didn't cover oodles of new ground... and I think all of us needed some rest, time to catch up face to face. There was much talk. And much eating. And a breakthrough in the explorations of the asbestos factory. We stumbled upon an unexplored second and third floor in another building. We breathed fresh air elsewhere, Manayunk, Fishtown, Chinatown, Chestnut Hill, Reading Terminal Market and all around in Ambler.

idolatry © Laura Kicey

The summer squeezed so much out of me, I felt like I was done. I was ready to walk away from this life, start over somewhere else. Convinced there was little left for me here and I had drained the well. With the relocation of Mr. D to the Philly area coinciding with having numerous brushes with new people full of zest, I am discovering a wealth of places for future adventures along with the possibility of joint creative endeavors... and ultimately reasons and ways to keep doing what I am doing without losing it.... my mind or my creative edge. Every Autumn, I am new again.

quarter horse © Laura Kicey

This last weekend was no exception. A new non-flickr photofriend, who has a penchant for prying boards from windows and making her way into pitch black abandoned homes led D and I on a fantastic adventure, punctuated by hundreds of worthwhile thorn jabs.

Every one was worth it.

She and her friend had been to one of the two houses we explored a number of times. From items they discovered, including letters, documents and photographs, they had pieced together the history of a man, 6 years dead, and snippets of his life.

finery © Laura Kicey

From his work as a photographer for the armed forces during WWII from negs we saw in teh house of aerial views of planes in formation, to his love of breeding dogs, and phtography in general. His wife Floss, had died some years before him and the house had been abandoned for at least 6 years.

range © Laura Kicey

His bathroom, kitchen, and cellar contained products that have long been out of production. Painting a fuller picture of a widower, ailing and alone. The accumulation of his wife's old clothes, the bottle of whiskey in the hall, the dishes set out on the counter to dry. Christmas decorations on the floor.

nausea dizziness fatigue © Laura Kicey

I had never really been inside a proper residence that had been abandoned like this. The truck stop motel was a different brand of melancholy. The remains of people who were nowhere, whose stories were strewn across state lines and their underwear and hot plates gave away few secrets in the anonymous rooms.

The knowing. Being able to glean so much from what was left behind. Seeing the things this man was devoted to. His hobbies, his wife, almost being able to watch his decline, seeing the toppled walkers in the various rooms. One half expected to see his laying there, wasting away on the bare matrress in his bathrobe, on oxygen.

head over heels © Laura Kicey

It bore a very close resemblance to Saturday's Market in Middletown. And while it is hardly a long trip from Philly, the crowd was identical to the one in Central PA. Most unsettling. And visually thrilling, without having to fill the gas tank so much.

hot lips © Laura Kicey

Welcome to the renaissance. I know I still have readers. And enough people have been complaining to me that I haven't written, so I hope this will tide you over for a spell. This weekend the D and I will be Central PA galavanting, mini-roadtripping, hitting some unexplored territory in the depths of Nowhere. Stay tuned.

Labels: abandoned, dustin, K, photography, trespassing

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

here comes trouble

toe jam © Laura Kicey

In T-minus two and a half days, one of my very bestest (and most geographically remote) friends is coming to stay with me for several days. When we get together, typically, good things happen. This being said, we've only hung out five times in the year I've known her.
Last I saw her was when I stayed with her in San Francisco in June.
I need my Vitamin K!!!

We will be having an almost complete reunion of the photo posse gathered in this photo from last Winter:

no time for reflection © Laura Kicey

No Eddy, but the now-famous ranjit and Mr. D

I can feel my creative juices pumping... or it could be the surging of the "HOW ON EARTH AM I GONNA BE ENTERTAINING FOR FIVE DAYS' fears. So this is why I have been absent- the plotting, scooting and vibrating with urgency is cutting into my online socializing as well as my shooting time.

Labels: K, photography