self portrait | Sleepy Coffee and Fables

What Is to Give Light Must Endure Burning- Overspill of Inspiration, Texas

Posted on June 2, 2016 by FablesandCoffee

Perhaps its not always true, the title of this post. Maybe there are people out there who can shine shine shine without ever burning up, they just exude brilliance in their every waking moment and it’s effortless. But i’m neither effortless nor brilliant so, when I shine even just a glimmer, I burn like i’ve got a trail of gasoline tied to my feet.

Usually the trail burns slowly (or it’s a rather long one) and I can keep the glimmer up for a good bit before it’s all burned out and I need to go find matches to light up once more. And in general it wouldn’t be so terrible,this habit of burning up and out I have, if the expectation wasn’t there to continuously keep going, to illuminate always and forever.

But it is, and not just from myself (though heavens knows the pressures I put on myself to never make a mistake in literally anything I do is a bit of a doozy all on it’s own). Anyways, where am I going with this? Basically after the end of the last series of posts I did, I was meant to go on another roadtrip this past weekend, to Colorado this time. But my burning hot trail of energy finally curled in on itself and died and so the trip was put aside and instead I used the long weekend to get myself back together again. And so the reason for this is with regard to the new followers I gained while posting on those last adventures. I have upcoming travel plans, for sure’s, but there’s also a whole mess of art nonsense I post and sometimes the energy I fire it up with is more like embers at the end of a winters fire than a sun’s passion. So this is my cordial heads up.

Now, on those upcoming travels I mentioned….

End of June- road trip down to Marfa, TX to explore the weird lights, interesting art installations, wander around Big Bend Natl. Park and take a peek at the ghost town of Terlingua

October- weeklong trip to NYC (with a day trip planned in here somewhere to explore Boston a bit) to just soak myself in all the museums that i’ve never really gotten a chance to explore all the other times i’ve visited, as well as satisfy my craving for actual Fall colors in nature.

More small travels will happen between those two, but for now they are the ones that consume my plans.

Songs on Repeat :

Time Lapse– Ludovico Einaudi
First Step– Hans Zimmer
Ba Ba– Sigur Rós
At The Ivy Gate– Brian Crain
Devils Backbone– The Civil Wars
Wendell Walker– Andy Shauf
Concrete Wall– Zee Avi
Niobe– Caribou

not drowning in my coffee cups yet,
~m

In Memoriam, in The Mirror- Photography Practice

Posted on August 6, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

Sometimes I get lost behind the camera, behind the pen, behind the noise of my sewing machine. I get caught up in the click-clacking of my keyboard and the words i’m spilling into river in front of me. There comes a time at 3am that I realize I need sleep more than I need to practice my poor pronunciations and conjugations in German. When i’m sitting on the floor instead of my desk, surrounded by notebooks, journals, buttons and ripped sketchbook pages and I think perhaps i’m building up tiny walls and fortresses between the person i’m trying to become and the person that others know.
After a fiery disaster meltdown of a friendship over the weekend, i’m coming to the realization that maybe I need to take a step back, yet again, and reevaluate the things that fill me with joy, and the things I pursue only because I feel they are worthy goals. July is always the month where I barricade myself behind projects and fade into oblivion when it comes to friends, but then August comes and i’m reminded that the world does not actually revolve around me and that perhaps I need to get my butt into gear and stop being so antisocial towards people who only prod with a mind to connecting. Remind myself that half the year has gone, yes and while there is still so much I would like to accomplish, friends and strangers who could be friends, these are things that matter ever so much as well.

arts, photography

A Collection of Black And Red in Portraits- Photography Practice

Gallery | Posted on July 31, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

That last in my series of portrait photography practice posts ( I dare you to say that 5 times really fast!).
~m

arts, photography

Quiet Hands, Steady Heartbeat- Gesture Practice Photography

Gallery | Posted on July 30, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

This is the first set of photos I took exploring the theme of gesture and color in portraits, something I talked about more in my blog post A Study in Color and Intensity . It was interesting to experiment with different movements and points of view, something I would definitely like to explore further, though hopefully next time with an actual model.
~m

arts, photography

A Study In Color and Intensity- Self Portraits and Expression

Image | Posted on July 29, 2014 by FablesandCoffee

I’m always looking to get better at learning how to use my camera, and while I think i’ve gotten better than I was before at shooting landscapes and architecture, I’m pretty terrible when it comes to taking photos of people. The gestures, the variations in the color of eyes and the tint in hair, I used to focus on these things when I would draw portraits (as it was my favorite thing in the world to draw, people and gestures) but since I took a break from drawing people to focus on mountains and expressive objects, I think i’ve forgotten how to focus my eyes on these points.

So, for the next couple of posts i’m going to be exploring color, gestures, movement and intensity, and how I can capture those things once again, behind a camera this time. This is also going to end up being a series of self portraits as i’ve yet to be able to convince my friends to step in front of my lens. Maybe I should start bribing them with baked goods?