P-PAW 2015

[Dan Mouer]

New Years Resolution: It's time for a new PAW...in fact this will be a P-PAW!

In 2008, 2009, and 2010 I participated in an exercise in self-discipline that had been started by some online photo friends on one of the Leica groups. It's called "Picture-a-Week," and the idea is simple: make at least one good photograph each week, no matter what, without fail, no excuses. Doesn't have to be prize-winning, but it should be one that I am happy to show off to some sophisticated photography/art audiences. It was a very productive and rewarding exercise to go through and, in fact, my 2009 solo gallery show called "Café Life: a Laptop, a Cell Phone and a Latté" was a direct result of that practice.

Because I primarily consider myself a print maker--my art is producing a work on paper (or aluminum, or copper, or plexi, or ceramic...) rather than being an "imager," I want to make my 2015 exercise a P-PAW (Picture and Print a week.) Following my 2009 show, I have done relatively little photo-based art. Instead, I've been making mixed-media compositions, collages, and mail-art. I had a very nice mail-art show this year at Artspace Richmond leaving me to wonder what is the next step for me and my ADD creativity.

I keep coming back to feeling that I want to do more of what I used to do: photography. What's more, I find myself attracted to traditional subjects (landscape, nature, portraiture) as well as traditional formats (film, silver prints, etc.). So I have decided to undertake another year of picture a week discipline, complete with a top-quality print of each week's PAW. Since I love my mail-art networks and don't want to lose the friends I have made there, I think that my weekly print will become the core of a weekly mail-art piece. So mail-art friends, watch your letter boxes!

To add a little spice to the mix, I have just had surgery which renders me very immobile. I am in a leg cast and restricted to movements I can accomplish on one foot only. That will be the case for at least a couple months, with another 2-3 months in a "walking cast" I probably won't be routinely leaving the house and/or driving until at least late Spring. So no walks in the woods with cameras for me. If it isn't in my house or on my front porch, I most likely cannot photograph it. What will I photograph? We shall see...

Keep eyes peeled, Friends,

Dan M

[Linda French]

And by 'previous', are we talking previous experience, or previous dibs?  --Linda

[Linda French]

I guess if we have to drag Dean into this, just tough for him. I'd like for us to have a cafe' with central heating and wait staff who won't give the stinkeye for lingering over cold coffee. Or tea. Or whatever.  --Linda

[Linda French]

You will want to steer clear of Lakewalk Surgical Center (original surgery botch) and St. Luke's Hospital (where they forgot I had a broken ankle).   --Linda

[Valentine Mark Herman]

A Paris meeting HAS to be organised by Dean -- he has 'previous'.

Mine's a Darjeeling tea if we're meeting up before noon, or something alcoholic later on in the day/night.

When you're in France Linda, avoid Narbonne Polyclinique for another experience like the one you described. And which one(s) should I avoid in  the US?

Dan, if this is really not cheering up you'll know when things get desperate when you start thinking, 'Perhaps I'd be better off after all if I had my leg amputated?'. In the meantime, though, Hoppalong, Mr Cassiddy

[Linda French]

Ok, I'll have a large de-caff, white, 2 sugars.  Once I had an outpatient surgery that apparently wasn't as well executed as it should have been. Nearly executed me. Went home the same day, and got up during the night to, well, you know, and on the way to the WC I fainted and fell, wrecking my ankle with a 5-way break. To make a long story short, was taken to hospital and had a re-do plus 5 units of blood. They put the ankle in a cast 3 days later (they had forgotten it was broken because I was too weak to get up and run around anyway), and none of the bones had misaligned.

Somehow we have made Dan's blog about the medical issues. Sorry, Dan. Recuperation gives a person a reason to be grumpy. So go for it.   --Linda

[Dan Mouer]

Linda, great idea! Let's have a meetup at a cafe if Val's choosing in his neighborhood in Paris!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Glass? A truck one wrote off my Toyota. Bits of the windscreen ended up in my hand, wrist and arm. They were picked out one by one at the loczaal hospital in Maastricht, Holland. Two months later, I broke my hand very badly in Italy, and ended up in a hospsital in Bologna where they extracted a half-inch long piece of glass that had somehow been missed earlier. Then they put my hand in a cast for 2 months -- my right hand, so no writing, no driving, not possisble to go to work, no running, no cycling, etc.

[Linda French]

My feet hurt just thinking about all of this.  I would tell you all about my former walking cast and the present shard of glass (yes! glass!) that will have to be removed, plus several other things regarding feet, but then I'd have to get a table at the local cafe where we could all sit around talking about our operations. Which maybe isn't a bad idea.    --Linda

[Dan Mouer]

PetrolPedal-to-the-Metal! I will be publishing my pix weekly on my FB Page (https://www.facebook.com/dan.mouer), My Tumblr (http://danmouer.tumblr.com/), and in a dedicated album on my Flickr pages (https://www.flickr.com/photos/43475842@N08/).

But, of course, you and Val will both be candidates for P-PAW mail art!

[Dan Mouer]

Valentine,

Well, there goes my appetite...   ;-}