wrinkle in time

Before I got better, everything had to get a bit worse. Last time I showed my face around here, I thought I was on the upswing, however flu and an ear infection had to have their way with me, pushing up my exam under anaesthesia up another week, as I was still coursing with antibiotics. In desperate need of a bit of air, Shanners, Mr. D, Daniel and I revived me by trucking me out for an afternoon of tacos and public abandonment at Eastern State Penitentiary two weekends back.


guard © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

As Shanners is set to be photographed by myself and Mr. D at her wedding in 2008, we are priming her for being un-shy about having her portrait taken. So we took some stabs at her, and she left standing.


prisoner © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

This week was marked with the excitement of finally checking into the hospital to have myself examined by a doctor who knows what he is doing. Hospitals used to terrify me, despite the fact that both of my parents have in past worke and again now work in hospitals and health care. Some point in the past two decades I have managed to mellow out. Perhaps it was the outrageous French anaetheseologist. Or perhaps it was the fact that my brain went numb after they drew all the blood and made me pee in one too many cups. 16 hours after I had last consumed food or beverage, I went into a state of extreme calm , lulled by the one television playing reruns of Emeril and Rachael Ray, dazzling me with foods I silently was able to fantasize about but not eat.

Fortunately my modesty left with the first round of sedatives, seeing as when they rolled me into the operating room, there were no less than 10 people present. It was only the next day that I realized that the audience contained there in, was privy to my privates in all their unhappy glory. When I regained consciousness approximately an hour later, I started weeping uncontrollably for no reason I could determine. The nurse told me that happens quite a bit. The Hot Doctor strode out while I was still puffing and flustered, announcing the confirmation that I indeed have what we thought I had and that my fiancé had been called to collect me. In between the tears I started laughing that I really must have been busy to have gone and gotten myself a fiancé while I was knocked out, cos when I went under he was just my boyfriend. And then I cried some more. Underneath it all I was most worried because when my man and I parted ways, he was under the assumption I would only be away two hours, and then I would be back on the road home. Now five plus hours later, I was not yet standing and still connected to IV and monitors. This was most worrisome to me. I had also deprived Mr. D of his parking ticket, thinking I could get it validated.

I was deposited in my own private hospital room, ass flapping out the back of my gown, nibbling on graham crackers and in strode Mr. D to pour me ginger ale on ice. Never has soda tasted so good. I started crying again, apologizing for having him stuck there for almost six hours running now.

After drinking a bit, my strength and hunger returned in mostly full force. We started pressing buttons until we got a nurse to come in and take out my IV and then we made a break for the hospital cafeteria who could only serve us rice mysteries or cheesesteaks. No contest. With fries.


sargasso © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

Now up to speed, I continue building walls and plotting plots to unleash when I am feeling my whole self. I've had some other possibly bad news, but I am waiting for confirmation. I've also been asked to have one of my photos appear in a design book being published next year which is nice. My 30th birthday is on Wednesday and I am planning on being a Libra this year instead of a Virgo so that I will feel more celebratory and mended for the big day, rather than a frail old lump. Gotta start things off on the right foot. Or the left, whichever seems most natural.


craft © Laura Kicey. All Rights Reserved.

hip hip

Replacement! It is official, after wrassling with web hosting, domain, and email account issues I was wishing I could erase, with the help of some last-minute fancy Fußwerk from Mr. Diamond D, I have launched a hassle-free brand new spanky laurakicey.com which will suffice until such time as I can get the site I really want (and have already more or less designed) put together.

I may, on a whim, start posting a blog lite there, as in, same text but only one image, as it doesn't have full blogging capabilities, but I am undecided (and haven't been shooting for a bit to test it... its too damn schweaty out to even think about crossing the street). If you are feeling especially loving, link to me!


handle © Laura Kicey

In other news I have forgotten to detail further, I will have a piece in the Muse Gallery's annual juried exhibition, the theme of "Words", one near and dear to me. One of my Violet Hobaugh pieces will be making an appearance amongst the other 14 pieces in the group show. The opening reception is on First Friday, August 3rd, 2007 from 5-8pm. The Muse is located at 52 N. 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106. If you are in the area and like falling over drunk people and sweating profusely Old City style, come rub my elbows!

that type of girl

Fifty years ago, Max Miedinger gave birth to an unseen but omnipresent child, that is my (partial-pseudo) namesake. Helvetica, baby, you are looking good for your age.

Possibly readers scratch their collective heads at my choice, so in honor of reaching a half a century, I should like to shed a little light on the face behind the name.


well read © Laura Kicey

I admire the versatility of what the typeface embodies in its character. How people either love it or hate it and sometimes both, because it is at once modern, a throwback, invisible and the picture of clarity. I like that it is utilitarian. And safe. And anonymous. And perfect. And boring. I like that it can be all those things.


followers © Laura Kicey

As a photographer and designer I wish to disappear into content as effortlessly as this typeface. The power of being virtually appropriate in any situation is very liberating. Especially in terms of making photographs, being able to create an image of something that is beautiful and resonant, but not necessarily a subject I have a vested interest in is the ultimate freedom of expression.

Helvetica I salute you.

Everything you ever wanted to know about my alter-ego but didn't know how to ask.

Make no mistake, I don't use it fanatically. In fact I rarely do, with exception of my brand, hardly ever. But I have to respect its broad appeal. No shortage of work for that kid.

In other news I am going to a wedding this weekend. In a fire hall. In north-central PA. It will likely be one of those can't-take-my-eyes-away-from-the-spectacular-bizarreness affairs. Which means I am looking forward to it in a sick way. To wash it down, Mr. D and myself will be scooting out to Hazleton to meet and speak with the artist Joseph A. Woitko, whose work we accidentally encountered while getting lost in Beaver Meadows a few weeks back.


swallow © Laura Kicey

Also I will be having an opening during the second weekend of June at a boutique in New Cumberland (outside Harrisburg) where my work will be shown for the month of June. Dustin's show follows in July, with an opening reception the second weekend of July. More details to come.

Randomly my photo of the Israeli band, Monotonix from last August turned up printed and uncredited in Time Out, Israel. I wanted to contact the publication but all emails to Israel I have attempted to send have bounced back, sending to editor@timeout.co.il and studio@timeout.co.il
Anyone with some guidance on how to get in contact with them would be much appreciated.


dissonance © Laura Kicey

This will be my last week of full time employ as a graphic designer. Over the last week, bits of my well-crafted plan have gotten slightly snarled in the fray, however, the revised schematics include a more profitable end, and my face behind a camera. Fingers and eyes crossed.

at a loss

Usually being fully cognisant is the recommended state for drivers to be in. However, when I switched into autopilot on a Saturday afternoon somewhere on the Northeast Extension on our way to Trevorton for Easterly consumption, I missed my exit and stumbled, once more, managed to land smack dab in the middle of someone else's madness.

Mr. D concocted an alternate route that took us up Rt. 93 and through Hazleton, the most racist city in the US. He had told me it was a fascinating place that we should shoot, and while I believed him and had quiet fantasies about moldering abandoned buildings, to see with my own eyes I knew would be a special thrill.


truth justice woitko © Laura Kicey

Before we got to the city, we rumbled through Beaver Meadow which was truly its own flavor of special. I almost caused us to drive off the road (accidentally, I had already driven off the road with purpose a number of time already) when we spotted a mindblowing cluster of sculptures in the woods across the street from wild arrangements of garbage and handpainted signs with a pickup truck with the words HOMELAND SECURITY painted on the side, with large chartreuse plastic 'aliens' at the wheel and cowboying it in the bed of the truck.


abomnible © Laura Kicey

Vegas' wow factor has long worn off and this... uh.... display at a random residential corner in Hometown America was enough to stop us in our tracks. Its intensely exciting to run across these largely ignored but obviously amazing things. Just when you think you are lost, that is where we find it. Joseph A. Woitko, you and your likely underappreciated genius, I salute thee.


......................

One might have suspected I was dead from the level of activity over this way, but I have been actually at my most alive and kicking, if not shooting of late. I took a major step forward professionally last week. The repercussions of which I don't think I can fully appreciate even at this moment with things in the works as they are. While I haven't fully left my design job, I am not going to be a full time employee for much longer. Instead I will be there a few days a week so that we all might enjoy pork products back on the homefront and the remainder of my time will be spent marketing my photography and learning how to make this blog a more useful tool.

So I will be packing up this particular url and nesting the bits in laurakicey.com at the end of my redesign extravaganza.


peel © Laura Kicey

This rather grand move has been a mostly unspoken wish for some time now. Flickr confidence can only go so far... its more like getting drunk and talking to hot girls, and once you sober up, asking yourself if you can really reach the same level of bravado? Well, I can't think I can't any more. Up there with some of the greatest risks I have taken of all time, I am going to lean a little lean on my camera and see if it can hold me up.


my name is no man © Laura Kicey

I've had a fairly fantastic run of luck and a fairly high level of the intangible internet infamy. Its time to put this in more hands and on more paper.

livewire

Hot off the e-press is my temporary revamped simpleviewer design portfolio. Live as of this afternoon.

See it here!

turning the other cheek

It seems too much to ask, in this particular snowy winter season, for me to just get a simple cold. Having but a week ago finished my antibiotics from mystery infection number one, last night I start getting a weird ache in my wisdom-tooferless jaw. This morning the cold splash of milk washing over the teeth accompanying the morning cereal sent Rocket O' Pain shooting through my brain... and even the three minute walk to work made me shudder as my cheeks chilled outside-in.


grin and bear it © Laura Kicey

Mr. Dentist gleefully announced that additional stress I may have been experiencing in the last week or so (better known as My Lump, among other things), may have caused me to grind the choppers and weaken something and cause the hyper-sensitivity. This particular culprit tooth, has a receding gum line and a little root exposure that has never much bothered me... so he resurfaced it, with the grim additional note: there is about a 20% chance that your nerve is dying and your tooth is 'going bad' (and all the cash you are forking over to resurface said tooth will be pointless when we give you a root canal next week). Oh the pleasure. Meanwhile Lump hasn't even decided whether or not to completely stop being a nuisance...

Meanwhile I am working on some other projects outside of work-work and will be releasing a new and improved design portfolio section on my website shortly. Also of note, next week is Mr. D's Big 28!! And the article/interview on moi will be coming out on LifeStyle Magazine on March 7th! Meanwhile I have barely shot anything aside from design projects (as you will see) and am getting restless and twitchy fingered.

Now I return to biting my numb tongue and fat lip....