Tuesday, October 9, 2012

coffee shop girl

She had a great look going - red nails, red lips, bangs, and white head phones. Dressed up to study, like everyone else because half of studying at a coffee shop is looking at other people. Cloudy, window lit faces that just don't get any prettier.

Friday, September 14, 2012

window

Karen is not my muse, but I have noticed that I have many photos of her. This big window marks the spot where she'll put new roots down. A place away from the big streets and all night affairs. Still under under construction, yet is cemented permanently in time and space. A new house to fill up with days and nights, and hours in between when no one is there and the faucet drips and the cats bathe their paws looking at each other, waiting for human life to rush back in.


my dad


My Dad listens well. Pays attention to the small details and then uses them to find a special sense of humor with each person. He wears a white coat at work, treating and diagnosing patients in a clinic. He'd do it all day and all night until the next day for the love of the game of his life. With big blue smart kind eyes and furry brows that are speckled grey and more wrinkles around his mouth and eyes than I've recalled in awhile.

summers end


   The way the summer suddenly comes to an end, before you even have a chance to remember to go swimming one more time, when the clouds turn up grey and a north wind comes back around to your side of the world again, when the photos taken under lingering heat and high noon sun look nostalgic but you know it's already past the point of no return, is funny. Because it's Fall now. And there's new light to notice and new plans to make.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Interview with Karen Jane DeWitt


Did you have a nickname as a kid?

My mom always called me Karen Jane, or just Jane, which is my middle name. I thought it was cute. Jane was my mom's best friend growing up and she was the polar opposite of mom in every way. She was a very live-in-the-moment, free spirit. They met in nursing school, and she was about 10 years older than my mom and I guess they hit it off. I remember going to her house at Lake Kickapoo and I'd stay with her. She didn't have a/c and she let the spiders roam free and would tell me the spiders were my friends and read me books at night. I had a lot of fun with her. She passed away almost eight years ago, but I feel proud to be named after her. She was a really neat lady, had been all over the world and met people overseas and hosted them at her lake house. I wish she was still here today.

What do you think it is that makes your relationship with your husband so strong?

Well there's a lot of things. I think there was a strong attraction in the beginning. I met him and instantly felt like this was going to be a person worth knowing, I felt something that you can't even describe. Just yeah, just yeah, you know? And then being together, we were very opposite in a lot of ways. I was more of a structured, needs lots of comforts, organized person and he was a musician failing out of college, free wheeling kind of guy, but also just so genuine, just very grounded and genuine. He had this amazing intriguing presence, where you just knew this person was a good person, all the way down. I guess that was new for me. I had never been around someone with such gravity. 

How would you describe yourself?

I would describe myself, um, I don't know. I feel like a really optimistic person and I see the value in saying yes and going for things and believing something is possible. But there's a little bit of a darkness in me that I get pulled into maybe a little too often.

What do you think your tattoos say about you or what do you want them to say about you?

Well, I don't really know. They all have specific references to my life and I don't expect other people to understand that or to relate to it and I don't explain them to people too often. I remember thinking once you have one that's not easy to cover up it's almost like you're in a club or something. 

What are your thoughts about self-expression and image?

I think a lot of people have something to express, and then feel scared to express it. With these tattoos, I wanted to prove that I wasn't afraid to express that. You hear a lot of people say, "Well what if I like that thing and I get a tattoo and ten years later I don't like that tattoo anymore?" But my answer to that is that you're still the same person that liked that thing ten years ago. You can't escape that person that you were. It's like a way of saying, "I fully commit to myself." 

Improv has been very changing in your life, and it has become something you do a lot of. Why do you keep doing it?

It's almost like an addiction. Like tattoos. It's like creating magic. It really is. When you connect with a group of people on stage and then create this amazing thing and then you walk away from it and it's never to be done again... even if you record it, you're not capturing whatever it was. You might be capturing this two-dimensional memory of it but unless you were in the audience or on stage experiencing it in that moment, it's gone forever. There's something really freeing about that. To put so much commitment into something that disappears as soon as it happens... it's just magic. 

Are you a secret admirer of anyone in the improv community? 

There's a lot of people that blow my mind. Like Craig Kotfas. He has a pun machine in his brain. He can turn anything into a joke in a split second and it completely boggles my mind. It's so far from my ability it wows me every time. I'm not fast or clever. I can be genuine and in the moment but I'm not quick like that. 

Do you have a favorite joke?

The only joke that I can think of is a stupid knock knock joke my mom used to tell me when I was little. Knock knock. Who's there? Mascara. Mascara who? I mascara you! 

What outlet does poetry serve for you?

I usually write when I have a tugging feeling of some sort and it helps ease that feeling. I don't usually write when I'm overwhelmed with joy. Usually poetry comes at a time when I'm having a feeling I'd rather not have or thinking of a person or some situation that is confusing or intriguing to me. It may take me a while or a few starts to get on a topic I care to talk about, but it'll just happen and then I have a poem. Have you been fishing? It's like one of those fish radars, where you can see them coming. It's like oh, there's a fish about to be here so you throw your rod out into the water to try to reel it in and a lot of times you don't get it but sometimes you do. Maybe if I fished more often I would get bigger fish more often!

Your Dad died eight years ago. What words from your dad do you hear the most in your mind?

Well, to take it literally, he was a grouchy man and he and my mom didn't get along very well. So I hear little things in my head, like when my mom would cook him a meal and ask him how it was he would say, "Well there's nothing wrong with it." It's always those little quips since he was a man of few words. Or when he would babysit me and my friend when we were 4 or 5 years old, instead of getting up and disciplining us he would just sit in the living room on the couch and bang on the wall and say, "Shut up ya goddamn sons of bitches!" We thought he was so funny, though. I feel a lot of connection to the person he was to me.

What are you most afraid of?

I am afraid of emotional instability. Perspective is everything and I'm deathly afraid of losing that perspective. Becoming depressed, and feeling like there's nothing to live for, which is ridiculous, there's always something to live for. But I know what it's like to feel like everything is shit even though your rational voice is telling you that life is good. 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

June 15

   I stayed the night with my parents last night and caught my Mom drying her hair while her little beloved friend Jimmy, who is loyal to no other person but her, just needed to watch. I was hoping to snag a picture of her but this seemed more right. It's a joke in our family that Jimmy is welcome to go running off and not return - (un)fortunately, I don't think that'll ever happen. Just kidding Mom.

June 14

Well I'm a few days behind on this, and Emily might have dropped out of the marathon all together we'll see....I hope she comes back! I thought I would also resume writing about the photos I post like I used to instead of just giving a caption.

I was having some delicious Cuban food with my good, single, friend Emily and we happened to be sitting by a window with a table full of guys on the inside. It felt fairly ironic for some reason, like we should all be sitting together sharing stories and laughing and drinking. I had a sense that we all wanted to. I just decided to take a picture instead, to capture the separation, the moment, the lights.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

June 13

Blues on the Green

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Monday, June 4, 2012

June 03

Emily: BBQing with some new friends
Paige: Graffiti made elegant

June 02

Emily: Morning commute
Paige: Lovebirds


June 01

Taking a picture a day with another person is like having a work out partner. It's great support and a push to keep your integrity around what you want. So I'll be posting the photos from Emily and I with whatever captions or description they come with. I hope you enjoy the month of June!
Paige: Theater goers

Emily: Chickie Sitting

Saturday, March 31, 2012

indoor outdoor


I took a few pictures of my friend Becca's son, Everett, last weekend and tried to get him to pose for me from the inside of the house while I stood outside. I like the look of the glass, how it frames a face, and how it distills the light. I tried hard to shoot the little guy while he was really busy running around, and eventually the dogs got in on the action and made for a nice moment.

urban horses


These horses belong to a family that lives on the side of a pretty busy highway. They were casually grazing in the front yard, near the basketball hoop. It was a nice unexpected sight.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

iphone

I admit that I now take more photos with my iPhone than with my regular camera. I don't categorize myself as one of "those people" and I don't really mind that it's become so popular; it's fun. But I thought I would still post things as usual for the few people who come here to see photos - to give You something. It happens so fast, I'm somewhere and I see something and I don't have my camera with me - so I use my phone. The world is dripping photos now with all that is out there, and me and my images pose as a tiny contribution to that constant precipitation.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

checking in

From time to time I will go back to the small town of Blanco where I grew up. Since my parents moved from there almost 7 years ago, I have lost touch with the place. But it is so fascinating and satisfying to go back to the places that I have trekked over, made a memory in, worked at, or observed in quietness. The grocery store, Super S Foods, is a place that has not changed much over the years, and I wandered in and was immediately swept up with old visions and smells. I was lucky to get the checker, Randall, to pose for me. Perception and memory is a concept I'm interested in, and hope to shoot more things revolving around this personal experience.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Poem 1.9.12

Time & Place


I wake up, a two hour nap. To soft music through the walls

Inside another room. The lights on the floor, the fading gray rain

Winter light coming down. What time is it?


Dreams dreams, states of here and there. What is the past?

I search for you, to make sure you are safe and that you recognize me.

Being drawn down the old dirt road, in between two worlds that

I know well. All confused, all clear.


Awake now, quiet whispers as the night rises up and says

Goodbye to the eve. Always beginning again, perfect timing

And indecision. Love of one good thing can be enough.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

scissortail savories & sweets is here!




I took these for my friend KJ, her real name is unpronounceable, for her new business Scissortail Savories & Sweets. I much prefer taking pictures of people, but she asked if I'd take a few of her baked goods as well so I said of course. She makes the best dag gun crust you've ever had, as well as a lemon cream pie. I'm very proud of her for launching out on her own, takes a lot of you know what. We had a great time doing this, and that's all that matters to me.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

long time gone

This time last year, I was struggling with happiness and being back from Armenia. No one can watch time float by until it's appropriate to look back on it. And even then, it's always frightening at how fast it goes and sometimes how little things change. But it has been a full year, and looking back feels necessary.

I wrote this back in late January or early February 2011. It is the very first, and only, poem I've written. I want to continue writing poetry this year and experience the magic that happens when the attempt is made.

Poem No. 1

My brain tired, from too much to process
memories and lives lived, it is a beautiful mess.

A road merges with the fork I had to take.
Something from the past comes back to hold my hand,
but I don't know who or what it is. I don't know where to stand.

My center is protected, but that feels lonely.
Those who do not know, cannot fully
make me laugh brightly or lie down in comfort.

And the search carries on, for more, for less. For calm winds
and wild adventure. For wet passion, for perfect control.
For secrets, for the missing.