The Kiss

I Tawt I Felt a Kiss!!!!

I’m working on this painting, started just before the holiday break. It’s took one session to set up the still life and do the drawing followed by one painting session.  Each session is 3 hours. After deducting set up and clean up, the working time is probably just over 2 hours.

After 3 or 4 years of painting, I feel like I’m finally progressing. I paint once a week, at most…so it’s hard to make fast progress at that pace. In my mind, I think it would be fun to commit more time because I know that the more practice, the better and faster I would get. It’s not going to happen. When I was younger I used to think that I would retire to painting…so I can look at these years as a jump start and not lament the lack of time now. Of course, will I ever really retire? My dad, at 83, has not and my grandfather at 94 hadn’t either.

Christmas this year was fun, and it was missing something. No details.

It’s hard to believe we are days from 2010. I love opening my studio to the public and Friday, January 1st is another one of those days. What is it I like about having the public come in? I enjoy people. They add warmth and humor, plus, if I listen closely to what visitors say, I learn a lot.

This Friday I’m planning on showing the pdf presentation I put together of our trip to Vietnam and China. I’ll be interested to hear the reaction. I don’t think the photos are the most amazing but I am content that they give the impression of our trip.

It’s Monday morning…a new week which will include a new year. For anyone reading this, I hope 2010 is filled with all that inspires you as well as health, humor and happiness.

Christmas Eve

Winter Lights in Boston

It’s Christmas Eve . Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate Christmas.  Happy Chanukah  (although it’s already concluded for this year, 5770). I love to celebrate and the days getting longer gives me a feeling of optimism and certainly reason to celebrate. Next week we welcome 2010. It will be a good year.

When I think of 2010, I like the year for how simple it will be to sign. This may seem strange but I sign and date all my work that I sell. I have to sign thousands of pieces and certain years are easier and smoother, while others are more awkward. For example, 1988 was a pain. Try writing ten 8′s and then write ten 1′s. The 1′s are so easy. A straight line. In 1988, I was selling thousands of hand painted magnets and pins from my pushcart in Faneuil Hall. It was a crazy time for me as I drew and painted for the better part of most days while I sat in a tall director’s chair selling my work for the thousands of tourists and visitors to the marketplace. I learned sooooo much about being an entrepreneur. Now in 2009, I’m signing thousands of “fusion foto blocs”. 2009 was easier to sign than 2008, and 2010 will be a gift, followed by 2011 which is about as dreamy as it gets, until 2111. I don’t think I’ll be around then.

Strange thoughts for Christmas Eve…but they’re my thoughts and that what this blog is all about. The beauty is, so far, there are no followers so I can ramble on and not worry about the repercussions. Of course, I do have to be careful because this internet stuff will be around forever and who knows who may find this information someday, perhaps in 2111, and find some significance as to why someone would ramble on about writing certain numbers on Christmas Eve.

xoxoxo

I love Technology!

My teacher at the Apple Store

Yesterday I thought about blogging but I wasn’t home long enough. Last night I got online to check  my email and clicked on my blog to see how many hits. Why is that SO much fun? It’s almost like a test of popularity…as if to say…if I have a lot of hits, I must have a lot of friends? I wonder if I had had a blog in junior high school if it would have helped diminish my insecurities? Desktop computers weren’t invented yet in 1970.

Two days ago I was talking about the iphone and the beauty of visual voice mail. It was hard to remember what it was like having to listen to 18 messages before we got to the one we wanted. That was just 3 years ago, and for our home phones, for the most part, that’s still the system. I find it incredible that new technology is quickly adapted and then we forget what preceded it. It’s nice to take a moment to remember how much each of these advancements in technology make our daily chores smoother and in many cases, more fun.

I just noticed that the spell check on my Apple computer using wordpress (the program I use to blog…thank you wordpress for making this fun, easy and FREE!), iphone shows up, as does wordpress. I looked up the spelling options ( on an Apple, Control Click the word) and this is what it shows:

I chose the option, “Add to Dictionary”.

Had my One to One class with Kirby at the Apple Store this week. He’s teaching me Final Cut Pro.  Raphael Jaimes-Branger, Anne Smith and I are working on producing a TV show for BNN, the local cable channels in Boston. Kirby has been teaching me how to edit. This has to be the best deal going! I get one hour sessions…I’m able to schedule about one every other week…and it’s only $99 for the year. That’s crazy!!!! Thanks Apple, Inc., and Kirby.

This blog is unintentionally focused on technology. It’s thanks to technology and the geniuses behind it that I get to do what I love. In fact, it’s because of the geniuses behind technology that what I do even exists!!!  I just looked up who invented the camera. Anyone have a guess???? This is a surprise to me, direct from WikiAnwers:  The first camera that was small and portable enough to be practical for photography was built by John Strognofe in 1685.

Enough for now. I’m due at the gym in 20 minutes and I’m still in my jammies.

xoxoxo

Tom, Snow Day and the Tarp on the Firewood

Tom and Me

I spent the better part of tonight just hanging in the studio with Tom. We talked about what to label him: is he my teacher (he most definitely is!), my mentor, (he thought that might encompass more than his teaching) and finally Tom came up with a term from another century “Teaching Master”.  So, now it’s another day, I’m at home having enjoyed a “snow day”, and I just looked up mentor on Wikipedia.  It says: “a trusted friend, counselor or teacher, usually a more experienced person”. Tom is most definitely my friend, teacher and way more experienced with painting!!!!

A bit about blogging. So far I’ve written something every day. Of course, I just discovered this three days ago. Yesterday someone suggested doing a weekly or monthly blog. Maybe less pressure. I never gave any thought to pressure. I just figured I’d write when I feel like it. So, that’s my plan…to have no plan at all!!!! I like that. A blog without a plan. Free form.

Tonight, I was going to go to a friends Christmas party. I still have an urge to go, but I’m in that mental “snow day” state and think that toasting marshmallows on the fire would be better suited to the night. Here’s a bit of a bummer…yesterday I noticed that the tarp covering our firewood had blown off. All I had to do was place the tarp back on the wood pile and replace the logs that are acting as weights holding it down. I was lazy about it and now all the wood is well buried under the snow, not protected from the moisture. I hear a proverb in the back of my head about laziness. I’m able to successfully push that proverb further back and now I can’t even remember it. There are SOOOO many advantages to a bad memory…you can never forget that!

xoxoxo

Toys and my history with them

The Bug and The Bird

Who doesn’t love toys…as a child, ok, I admit it, as an adult!  I could be thinking of my computer and most certainly my iphone is the most toy-like thing I own. Why it’s a game…thousands of games, a scribbling, drawing toy, and the silly fun toy. It’s pretty much the ultimate adult toy. But I still love the “child’s” toy. Especially plastic, older hard plastic with bright colors. Cootie stands out for me. I loved that game as a child. My childhood friends and neighbors, Marjorie and Tammy, owned the game. We did not. So, off my sister Jane and I  trekked to Marjorie’s and Tammy’s house to play with those charming candy plastic bugs, racing to complete their bodies before Marjorie, Tammy and especially Jane. There are more connections to Cootie but it’s too early in my blogging to get into that.

So, it’s 2006ish and I’m studying painting with Tom Ouellette.  I’m about to embark on my first paintings with a full palette of colors. In the beginning phases of learning, we used only black and white. Then on to one color…and…finally, the full spectrum.  What to paint? How about that super large Cootie bank that we bought years ago in Chicago? And, wouldn’t it be funny if Cootie was communicating with the small plastic windup bird from Japan? A large bug and a small bird.  And so began a new phase of my art life, exploring the toys and bringing them to life in my mind.  The days that I set up the still lifes are fun. I play with the toys until I hit the story and either laugh or smile. The more I feel toward the subject, the more fun it is to paint. At least that’s true now. In  the beginning, the process of painting was so difficult for me that I felt more stress and anguish than joy. Now it’s changing. I’m happy I stuck with it.

Reason to blog???

I need a title for this painting...any ideas

I think I just decided on a purpose for my blog!!!!! How about a place to expose my paintings??? I can talk about how frustrating and fabulous the experience of painting can be? And, if I start blogging a lot, I’ll have less time to paint! Here I go. I’ll begin with Posting photos of my paintings…Oh, that might be a problem, I wonder how I post a grouping of photos? I can link to my .me site where they are currently housed. Yes, I think I’ll do that for now until I learn how to integrate them into this blog.

I’m just wondering, the title of this blog is Debby Krim Photography Blog…maybe I need to change it to Debby Krim Painting Blog???? Feel free to chime in? Oh,  I forgot, no one is following this blog.

My first blog…

It’s Friday night, December 18th. My studio is open…it’s our first year of opening 450 Harrison to the public for three weekends in a row. The bad news is, no one is here. The good news is…I get to learn something new!!!! Blogging! It’s a new world out there, with new concepts appearing daily including wordpress, jquery, even blogging is new…relatively speaking.  Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, (what ever happened to MySpace?…no one seems to care anymore). It’s funny how fast this age of the internet travels. In certain circles, I’m sure it’s easy to take it all in. I’m guessing that College Campuses and High Schools are the place where all this information spreads like wild fire and with a deeper understanding than I could ever hope to achieve.  So here I am, venturing into the world of blogging. If I’m as successful as I am with my Facebook Fan Page…no one will read this and I’ll be able to write anything. Of course, that could be dangerous…someone could always find this blog among the gazillion blogs out there. I’m sure gazillion is not a real number.  If I hit Upload, is that all there is to it? O.k., I’m ready to try…

me in my studio