Archiving your work – the Old Skool Way January 12, 2009

Most of my friends know that I can be a bit of a pack-rat. It’s a trait I got from my family – so I got it honest. But as of late, I’ve been purging around here – cleaning out closets, going through boxes and just simplifying in general around here. I filled 3 laundry baskets of with clothes, separated computer cords to take to the Goodwill – hopefully someone can use those, and about 87 cosmetic bags from the freebies from Clinique. I even found a Syquest drive from 1997 – the discs are only good for use as coasters at this point – Remember when 280 MB was a huge amount of storage?

Anyway, in a box in the back of my closet, I found a box with stuff from college. Inside, I found slides and photo negatives of stuff I’d done in Drawing I & II and Design I & II. Somehow, back then I had a wise professor that had the foresight to have us take our artwork to have it photographed for posterity. I gasped when I found this stuff. Immediately I began scanning the photos to put them in my archives of work.

I don’t know how stuff is done now – that is, if having work photographed is still the norm as I’ve been out of school for a little over ten years. But, to all design students out there, take your stuff and have photos taken. Or do it yourself. Don’t just rely on a hard drive or a disc to store your stuff. Have hard copies – slides or negatives – of your stuff. You never know when a hard drive will die on you – or fires or natural disasters – I have a friend who lost all her photos in Katrina, for example.

I am so thankful someone told me “Take it & have it photographed” – who knew?

I haven’t posted in a while, but I’m alive May 29, 2008

I haven’t posted in a while as spring has sprung and summer is on the way.
I confess, I have a terrible case of spring fever and have taken every opportunity I can to get away from the computer. I’ve kept myself rather busy with two projects I am completely passionate about – that is when I’m not tied to the computer:

(1) working in the yard – I have had a nice flowerbed out front since I’ve lived here, but this year decided I wanted to expand it and that’s just what I did. I now have rose campion, hollyhocks, Moulin Rouge (red) sunflowers, moonflowers, sweet pea, day lily, zinnia, iris, asian iris and 2 mystery plants that I was generously given. I’ve always wanted a real herb garden too – so I made that dream a reality this year with basil, chives, mint, lemon balm, bee balm and oregano. There is nothing quite like walking out the door, clipping fresh herbs from the yard and cooking with them!

I have a dear friend who is a landscape architect and I’ve really come to appreciate the skill it takes to keep each plant straight, it’s individual needs and what looks good next to what. I guess if this graphic design thing goes by the wayside, I’ll at least be a glorified gardener of some sort – I’ve extensively enjoyed the challenge of designing this garden – with the help of a neighbor – and it’s really been amazing to get outside on a big canvas and create something beautiful with a palette of plants. I dig it, pun intended.

(2) My second project is one I’ve been dying to start for a while. Being a child of the 1970’s, the majority of my childhood photos are documented on slides. This year, I finally got my hands on them and am in the process of scanning them in and saving them to a hard drive. I have this massive fear that something horrible (fire) might happen and all those memories would be lost forever.

I have 15 boxes containing slide trays sitting here behind me in my office – I’ve scanned in one full box so far. That took me a whole afternoon on a rainy day. But I know the task and the time spent will be worth it. My eventual dream is to make DVDs of them and distribute them to my family and put an extra copy in the lockbox at the bank.

Yes, I’m anal retentive.

Anyway, I’m alive. I’m either digging in the dirt, admiring the garden, harvesting seeds for next year or scanning in and documenting photos. Not too terribly exciting, but it saves money from going out and I have goals that will be finished by at least winter time.

Enjoy the summer!