A New Way of Seeing
June 2nd, 2009 by Julia Taylor
Like most human beings I tend to measure ideas out against my personal experience and some universal perspectives–generally gathered in my post college years. This pic goes right back to a childhood of cows, farm equipment and that rural mess of equipment (the junk heap lot). This is where my life view began.
When I was a wee one, my most poignant memories are of art classes–in the lines, out of the lines, construction paper and awkward scissors, oil paint., clay, and color circles. Then I got a camera early on and all was lost. I LOVED sketching and photography. Two years into a college Arts Major degree, life intervened and I decided during one of those infamous down economic cycles to go to a more marketable major. There was this implicit promise that one could provide for our family needs through commercial means and support our artistic desires on the sides. I did buy in and I still do. I love photography, fine arts and performing arts. I understand the talent, the discipline and the sacrifice that artists need and make to survive on the side today. I also understand the mix it takes in a community to create the economic engine that drives all the cultural economies. It it is a two way innovation economy. Fortunately, I enjoy all the dimensions of regional economy . You need a very robust metro area to sustain artists economically on the strength of their art and there are probably three market areas in this country that can provide that type of catch-net. Given our strength as a second tier market, we have remarkable resiliency including the largest and oldest performing art fund in the country. It’s quite remarkable and we can say it because we have so many regional and global companies who passed 50, 75, 100 and even 150 years of accomplishments and have always supported the arts.
Its been a great business plan but now we need to fast forward to how we grow our market for innovation and creativity. We know that exposure to creativity can throw the switch for a innovative talent to grow. How do we keep our big tent of the arts open to all those children and young people to learn a new way of seeing, how to create and bring this talent to our everyday world of work and play.
Somebody else paid the entry ticket for us. They didn’t know us. They just paid forward.
It’s time for us to pay forward for each of those 400,00 children in our region that don’t even have the experience of of creativity outside of a TV set yet. They need the chance to learn a new way of seeing.
Keep the arts giving forward and thank someone who believed in each one of us without ever meeting any one of us. Invest in your future and region’s well-being.
Pay it forward.
http://cli.gs/UPAF
Leprechauns and Lizards in Palm Springs
March 19th, 2009 by Julia TaylorSt. Paddy’s Day in Palm Springs seems to mainly occur in Mexican restaurants. Somehow it fits the culture here.
Irish Eyes and Chips and Salsa
I talked a good friend of ours, Susan Freid, into the investment of an iTouch and spent some time loading up apps–lots of fun. She is looking for a good name for her iTouch so if you have any ideas–pass them on. Something interesting like Xavier.
Susan after buying the iTouch!
We visited twice with Jude and Nora Werra and Chris and Storm Eiser. Nice to catch up and enjoy the sun. Lunch was at Cheeky’s again. Tara should provide a Milwaukee discount!
A few Cheeky people!
Christine Rodriguez and her friend Jose Grijalva came to visit yesterday. We drove around old Palm Springs and found Elvis’s Honeymoon house and several Richard Neutra homes. What I didn’t know I could make up and probably be as correct as the tour buses that run down the street all the time. Then we went to the Aqua Caliente Reservation and hiked a bit through the Palm Canyons with a stream running through desert. We listened to Jose’s CDs of poetry and music and it was an idyllic day. When I get home I’ll do a blip of Jose’s song about Milwaukee–the water, the Calatrava and the people. “Lago, Dama, Gaviota y Fiesta”.
Christine and Jose
This morning, there was a lizard under the frig–probably the equivalent of a mouse in the kitchen in Milwaukee. He is now resting a bit confused on the patio outside. He was a bit of a nipper too!
Something is blooming and the air is really fragrant. We have a little cloud cover so it is great to write by the pool though it is getting quite warm already.
I’ve been playing with more iPhone Photo apps and while camerabag is still my favorite for effects–love that Lolo lens–try out Molopix and Redden. Molo does a tiling effect of camera shots and you can shoot rapid fire or slow.
Here’s Mr. Lizard from a few angles. Also Reddin takes makes everything except the color red monochromatic in an iPhone pic for a very fun effect.
4 shots of our kitchen lizard
I’ve been following the Bucks here through Twitter and @Bucksdotcom http://cli.gs/UPjDGY . I saw Charlie V get 4000 followers in a day following his little mid-game tweet but then his coach was ticked off at him. I thought it was a great fan connector myself. But Scott Skiles knows what he is doing and if Twittering during a game is distracting, then we will wait for post game tweets.
Tomorrow we pack up and head to LA for dinner with friends and family. We’ll stop by Christine’s place on the way and then fly out Saturday midday. It’s been a great, great easy going vacation.
See you back in MKE soon–hopefully, with spring in the air.
I Love the New Photo Editing iPhone Apps–Vacation Tested
March 12th, 2009 by Julia TaylorFlight delays and airport gate rushing started this vacation off slowly on Tuesday. The Wednesday morning drive from LA to Palm Springs gave me plenty of time to download some new photo apps to play with here in vacation heaven.So here are my editorial comments and a sample of the work. Enjoy–I am!
Panolab Pro The pro version of this panoramic software (on sale for $4.99) works amazingly well for the limitations of size of the iPhone. I did learn to use my library pictures versus taking the pics with the program. To maintain a level field of focus, you need to take the pics quickly and then match them with the software. It’s easy to rotate and match using an opacity filter and a curved grid. The pro version gives you the chance to auto adjust contrast and color–which I used more than I thought I would. Here’s the original assembled panorama of the mountains by Panolab Pro and an uncropped panorama of the living room using the free Panolab app.
I didn’t use the built in cropper but rather used Photogene to sharpen, color correct and crop. It is more detailed and flexible.
To rapidly take pictures, a simple .99 cent tool is FastTapCamera. It also has a 2x digital zoom. It opens quickly and just touch the screen to take the picture. It does take longer to save.
QuadCamera> is a little weird. It reminds me of an Lomographic 4 lens film cameras and takes 4 pictures rapid fire but saves them all on one photo like a photo strip taken at a mall photo booth.
My FAVORITE one is CameraBag. It provides a jillion filters that really worked well with the desert scene. The Lola filter was my fav for wandering through Palm Springs.
Here’s Cheeky’s Cafe on Palm Canyon Dr. (owned by Tara the first cousin of our own Milwaukee Tina Chang). Based on the food and the menu, creativity and craftsmanship run deep in the family ties. There is also a pretty good Flickr site.
Here’s a sample from the panorama with the instant camera filter.
And finally, there is Photo Lab– its limited for editing compared to Photogene but has some cool filters that remind me of Photoshop’s artistic filters. 
I’ve been relaxing a bit too and reading Twilight on the Kindle app downloaded on the iPhone–it is remarkably easy to read and you just swipe through the pages. Plus no one needs to know I’m not reading Pride and Prejudice!