Friday, January 31st, 2014

Pretzel Dough

Everyone got some dough (including Mesa)

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to poke

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and pat

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and prod

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and pinch

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and roll

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and roll some more.

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Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

Assignment: Your Town

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Shelburne, VT is a cute perfect little New England town with lots of picturesque historic buildings and farms and fantastic architecture dotted all over the landscape. My house is right in the village on a little loop drive that abuts the LaPlatte Nature Park. There’s about fifteen little houses on little lots in my little loop neighborhood. There’s a big field for wandering around in and the sledding hill and the community gardens all right here. One could walk to the grocery store or the PO or the hardware or one of a few decent restaurants via the woods, should one choose to do so. It’s not some vast wilderness, tho. It’s a little city wilderness. It’s owned by the Nature Conservancy. Pass two houses, go by the community garden, enter the woods and go down the steep trail, take a right at the bottom, go over the little bridge and walk a ways and you’ll get to LaPlatte Falls. It’s frozen, because it’s been sub-zero for weeks. I bought this stupid over-priced, shoddy-built, teeny-tiny, leaky cold wet house with no central heating in central Vermont because I can walk out the door and think: This is it. This is my town. These are my woods. These are my falls. This is my everything. I am here.

Monday, January 27th, 2014

Baby Leigha @ (-3) months

Heather is going to have a baby. I am practicing capturing her belly with light.

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I have some ideas how to make it better.

Ooh! I’m so excited…

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2014

Amaryllis Bloom

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The subject for last week’s P52 was “My favorite,” which can mean anything. An inordinate number of people posted photos of their favorite child. I wasn’t going to post a photo of my child at all, because I’m above all that. Of course, I only have one child. The two of us have spend the last week housebound, knocked off our feet by some gruesome intestinal flu. Iris threw up lots and lots. She didn’t eat anything but momma milk for nearly a week, tho now she has bites of custard now and again.Β 

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

Church St.

New mannequin at Eddie Bauer.

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Iris & Joshua go people-watching.

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Monday, January 13th, 2014

Assignment: Disaster

β€œIf you had to leave your house at a moment’s noticeβ€” if, for example, your house was on fireβ€” what would you take? Now, I’m going go out on a limb and assume you want all the living creatures in your house to survive and that you’re going to be taking them with you. But, what possessions do you value? What are the things in your life that are so important to you that you would spend the very spare moments that you have left to collect them?”

 

To be honest, I don’t think I’d remember to take much out of the house. I’d try to wear appropriate clothing and maybe grab my wallet; if I’m lucky I’d grab my laptop. It has my life’s work on it. Mostly.

 

There were the wandering years: the years when mind and body wandered, looking for a home. There were those years I wrote myself into existence. I wrote, β€œI write, therefore I exist.” I wrote myself into history. I have gathered, in my maternal grandfather’s old army trunk that sits by the front door, notes from the wandering years.

 

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I do not feel as if I have sufficiently captured the breadth or depth of bound paper in this photograph. The earliest writings start in elementary school; they cease shortly after the birth of my daughter. There is a binder containing most of my slides. There is my laptop. The binders containing thousands of film negatives are not pictured: I keep them in the room where Iris was sleeping. Like a fire, I had a short amount of time to gather everything and photograph. I did not risk the back bedroom. Also not pictured are my passport and the aforementioned wallet. I like to think I’d have the wherewithal to grab them in case of fire. I think I would.

Wednesday, January 8th, 2014

Mama did some scribbling.

Iris helped.

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Tuesday, January 7th, 2014

Lift Off

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Monday, January 6th, 2014

Assignment: Self Portrait

I recently joined a photography forum called Clickin Moms. It’s a collection of professional and enthusiast photographers giving each other advice, participating in workshops, and partaking on projects. I joined the ClickMoms Project 52, which gives me a theme for each week out of the year. This week’s theme was a self portrait.

 

I had to wait until Iris was napping. That gives me an average of 45 minutes to the first cry, 20 minutes to the next. Then I had to figure how I was going to photograph myself amongst all the clutter of my house. There’s one good window for lighting, so I decided that instead of trying to clear everything out from in front of the window and give myself a clean background, I would put everything in front of the window and show you who I really am.

 

My goal as a photographer is to embrace the awkwardness of life that gives us humor. I look for lightness in life by seeking humor in humanity. I want to remember over and over again that what makes us human is love. I want to document the truth of us and show it beautiful. Wish me luck.

 

This is me.

Jessica Rose Shanahan

Sunday, January 5th, 2014

Brandini 100% Merino Extrafine Wool Made in Italy Upcycle

Seeing as I’ve hardly taken these pants off Iris since I made them, I decided to make another pair.

On this pair, the wool is quite felted, which makes them rather waterproof and windproof.

Now Iris can stand near the front door with no fear of getting frostbite.

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upcycled sweater pants

 

I still failed to make process photos and directions.