Before photography…

Before photography, birds, and traveling, I was in school for Visual Communications. My dream was to sit behind a computer all day and do ad design. It’s hard to imagine if my life took that route. In two days, I pack my life into my car and head westward to my next bird job in the Northern Sierras of California. I crave the open road the feeling of a thousand blank pages in front of me.

Here’s an interesting rant on blood and life from my sophomore year of college:

“Someone’s going cut off their finger.”  Bill’s words echoed through my head as I trudged over to the sink. A few moments earlier after putting in a fresh x-acto blade, I had let my finger slide off the cold, metal ruler right into the path of the rushed x-acto knife. A beautiful splatter effect of blood decorated my shirt and a crimson trail dribbled behind me. It was going to take a little more than a band-aid to fix this mistake.

Blood is the fluid of life, transporting oxygen throughout the body. Without oxygen, blood is bluntly equivalent to death, a time limit ready to chime in at any moment. Life is not to be passively viewed on a dusty television screen; it is to be embraced in every essence. To embrace is to dodge the dull razor blade but make sure one is ready with a sharp, intense blade.  Thin unsure cuts prove uncertainty; bold cuts go beyond the surface into a life focused on meaning rather than superficiality. And, when a person sets to live such a life, she will inevitably bleed. To bleed with all of oneself is to feel every color in the spectrum. Without such sacrifice, the stormy prelude to the rainbow goes unnoticed and the beauty loses the meaning behind it.
Life, I believe, has reason if you wish for it. Passion pushes me near the edge of the icy pool. I want to pour my energy and blood into something that leaves me full of a vibrant energy for life, a satisfying tingle electrifying my existence.It is not a matter of being willing; it is a total body-spirit desire to become so involved with more than just an art program, but an intense problem. There is no simple solution except to dive in without a second though.

The following images are projects from a drawing class and a design class.  Can you tell I loathe tomatoes?