I love it when...

comic strips are true to life! I can totally relate to the ones below. Don't you just love comics? Personally, I need coffee AND comics in the morning. I just do not feel functional when I don't have them.  (*click comics to enlarge for better readability)

Bizarro comic.

As a person who's deaf/hard-of-hearing, (and who relies heavily on lip-reading) this is just hilarious on more than one level to me!  I definitely appreciate the humor here :)

Etsy love.

So I have been venturing into Etsy!  Well, let me clarify... I have been into Etsy before. I became a member sometime in January '09.  It is quite addicting! :)  I always find oodles of interesting stuff there. I always find myself needing to click on the next page to see what else is there...
But now I have gone from customer to seller. I decided to flip the cards and try to sell some of my artwork on Etsy. I am just putting up a few photos for now. So we shall see how it goes!
If you'd like to stop by shop, please do! -->  http://www.alldayart.etsy.com

On Thank You notes.

Last month I went to San Francisco to visit Shawn; on my flight home I had read a book I borrowed from him - "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. I was totally engrossed in the book from page one. I read the entire book during the whole flight back to Miami. It is an incredibly touching book and brought tears to my eyes several times.
While nearly every chapter has its own meaning and impact; there is a particular one I wanted to share, "The Lost Art of Thank-You Notes." Here is an excerpt from this chapter:

"Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other. And despite my love of efficiency, I think that thank-you notes are best done the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper." -- Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.

I think it is a lost art indeed; and I think this makes it more powerful nowadays. In today's digital era, it is sometimes kind of surprising to see colorful envelopes with handwriting in our mailboxes. After reading that chapter, I immediately thought of my friend Christine, and how she has sent me 2 cards in the mail recently. I have many friends who aren't local anymore and receiving cards from them is always so nice! Whether its a Thank You, Happy Birthday, Congrats, etc. When the friend is no longer in the same city as you, it's more usual to receive snail-mail from them. But the reason why Mr. Pausch's statements reminded me of Christine's actions specifically is because she is a local friend! I talk to and see her often. She lives about 15-20 minutes from me. Yet she took the time to send me a sweet Thank-You card after I took care of her dog while she was on a vacation. Then another time I had given her a gift, a couple of days after giving it to her, I found a pretty little card in my mailbox. Despite the fact that I received hugs and emphatic verbal thank yous from Christine in person, she still took the time to hand-write a sweet card. And each time it brought a smile to my face. It just made it all the more appreciative. Add another reason to the list to why I heart that girl and why she's my friend :)

Randy Pausch has a point (among many!) in his book - do not underestimate the power of the written - literally written - word!

Having both.

Even though I've already posted this entry on my other blog (the one my fiance and I share) I like the quote too much so I just simply have to repost on here :)

"I think love can come fairly easily and grow - but really liking the core essence of someone is a much harder thing to bottle. If you have both, you're in pretty good shape." -- actor Eric Bana, on being happily married.

I came across the above quote in today's edition of The Miami Herald; and it struck a chord with me. It reminds me of what people have told me over the years regarding love and relationships; and what I now know to be true. Its that your significant other should also be one of your best friends. There are all kinds of situations. Whether yours is friends first, then lovers second; or starting out as romantic and friendship forming later, one thing is true for all: you need to truly LIKE the person and who they are. I am a lucky woman to have both with Shawn.

(And thanks Eric Bana, for putting it so nicely!)

Choose Your Own Adventure.

Anyone remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? I do! Well, to be more exact - I did. Then I forgot. And then I was just now reminded again.
These awesome books had come up in a conversation I was having with Shawn sometime in the beginning of the year. I was basically asking him if he had read them, saying how much I loved reading them as a kid and how they were hard to find nowadays; and I didn't really see them in bookstores anymore. But this was just a little passing topic in daily chit-chat between Shawn & I, so I completely forgot about them and made no attempt to look for them, probably because I figured they just simply did not publish them any longer.
Fast forward to last week when I went to San Francisco to visit Shawn; as part of my birthday gift he presented a box set of the first original 6 Choose Your Own Adventure books! I was totally not expecting them! Especially since I had a.) forgotten about that convo and b.) thought it was out-of-print. (And Shawn is awesome for actually remembering that small detail!! ;) These were apparently not easy to get. Soon after our convo about the books, Shawn had emailed the publishing company, Chooseco, to see how he could obtain the first set of CYOA books. At first they had been out-of-stock. But after a couple of more email exchanges, they informed Shawn that there was a box set of books 1 though 6 set to be released in June.

A little history on the books: Choose Your Own Adventure books are a series of children's gamebooks, originally published by Bantam Books, and currently being re-published by Chooseco. The collection consists of 185 books spanning over the course of 19 years (1979 - 1998.) Mostly written by Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery (there were several other authors over the years as well). The format of the book is that each one is written in a 2nd person point of view, with the reader assuming the role as the main character. So it feels to the reader as if they are actually involved in the storyline and making all the decisions that determine the main character's actions in response to the plot the the story's eventual outcome. Each book had probably about 20+ possible endings.

The moment I opened up the box set of books I felt like it was 1989 again! The titles came rushing back and I clearly remembered 3 of those 6 books being my favorites and always having them checked out of the school library. I can now very clearly remember "Journey Under the Sea" being the one I read the most (which is kind of funny now since I am not a particularly active swimmer, nor did I ever end up going diving as an adult. And what makes this even more funny is that Shawn is actually a scuba dive minor.) What was amazing though was the clearly detailed memory the books triggered - rushing to the shelf after library class's story time was over, to where that book was. The hardness of the cover. The clear plastic protective library wrap around it, wearing out at the corners. The call number sticker on its spine, yellowing from age. The detailed black ink illustrations. Walking happily and proudly to the librarian's desk with the book in my hand to check it out. The smallness of the book and how it fit perfectly into my backpack's front zipper pocket (and i mean perfectly! as if it was meant to be in my bag) and into my hands. I actually remember my 9 year old self treasuring this book and always making sure it was snug into that backpack zipper pocket where no one else could get it. That book was mine. I loved it, I wanted to read it. No one would probably appreciate it as much as me. And during recess or lunch or after school, it was in my hands, transporting me into another world, another time. One where the possibilities and endings were endless. There were no mistakes because if you didn't like it, all you had to do was go back to page 1. Easy.


To see a complete list go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Choose_Your_Own_Adventure_books

a decision.

Originally i was going to keep my blog limited to just art/photo-related things but then i realized that was actually... well, limiting.
so I'm opening the door to more of a variety of topics from here on out.

on photography & relationships.

2009 © J.Day / S.Clark


I am currently doing what every photographer does when returning from a trip: uploading, editing & reflecting. One of my personal favorite things about being a photographer is the traveling part of it. Whether it be a destination in the same city or one in a different continent, I love seeing the place through the camera. It always provides a different view and makes me see the location in more detail. This calls to mind, an interview I read recently in "American Photo" magazine with the actress Jessica Lange, who apparently has been photographing for over a decade (and even studied it at college). She has now published a book of her photos, 50 Photographs (powerHouse books) a Noir photography collection. In the interview, one quote she said rang true with me: "I love to experience something new through the camera... which is probably why so many of my photographs are from my travels. I find I shoot all the time if I'm in a place that's new and mysterious. If I'm in New York, I rarely pick my camera up." - this is something I can really relate to. When I am home in Miami, I don't pick up my camera much (unless of course I am working, but as far as personal shooting -i.e. art - goes, it doesn't happen often) however when I am on a trip, one or two of my cameras are always with me.

My most recent trip was to Lake Placid & Winter Haven, FL. with my boyfriend Shawn, who is also a photographer. This trip and the previous one (to San Francisco) have been with him and consisted of us walking around, shooting. One might worry that competition would ensue or several images would end up appearing the same, which could cause a blow to the person's sense of individuality, especially when you're a couple. This isn't the case with us and I have never worried (and don't think I will) about the aforementioned issues. We are just simply too different as photographers for that to happen. His point of view is his and mine is mine. And that has shown to be evident through our photographs. Having gone through mine and now looking through his, I have noticed that we'd shoot the exact same scene sometimes but focused on two totally different things. They're almost opposites, which is quite interesting to see; being able to see different views of the same image makes the scene become multi-dimensional, thus allowing the images to compliment each other. Notice I say "compliment" and not "complete". Because my photograph and Shawn's photograph are two pieces of work on their own. However, together they work well - much like Shawn and I as individuals and as a couple. I have heard people describe their significant other as "completing them." I have always thought of this statement to be rather bothersome because it is like saying you are not "a whole" without the other person. Personally, I think that feeling like that is quite an unpleasant feeling. I want to feel like me and happy when it is just me, as I want to (and do) feel like myself and happy when I am with Shawn. It is like the saying, "in order to love someone else, you have to love yourself first." That is why I think two people "complimenting" each other is a far better type of relationship.