-
Minnesota, 1/24/2026
My friend texts me from out of state. “How are you doing today?” Alex Pretti has been killed by Border Patrol agents. He was helping a stranger. I tap at my phone, unsure of what to say. “We went to a candlelight vigil just down the street, so it was our neighbors. I ran into…
-
209 Weeks Project
The 209 Weeks project is a weekly political postcard project that started in January 2025 and is expected to continue for 209 weeks. You can learn more and see recent postcards, sign up for a postcard, or view the entire series of postcards.
-
From Book Thief to Pinhole Camera Maker
In junior high, I was a book thief. The school library had checkout limits, and I wanted more photography books than I was allowed to bring home. So I slipped the books in my backpack, then left the library through a second door we weren’t supposed to use. I always returned the books when I…
-
Where Has All the 4 by 6 Paper Gone?
As I described in my previous post, there are a lot of moving parts to making a photographic postcard. I thought I had figured out my postcard plan for the 209 Weeks art project—resin coated 4 by 6 paper, RC-friendly mounting tissue, and cardstock that would easily take a rubber stamp. All I needed was…
-
The Moving Parts of a Photography Project
Back in the 90s, I occasionally sent friends photo postcards. I used stick-on postcard backs, which make the photos a little stiffer and postcard like, or I just drew a vertical line down the back of a regular photo lab photo, addressed it, and threw a stamp on it. Now, thirty years later, I’ve come…
-
372 Days
Today I got in my darkroom for the first time in over a year. I made a lot of dumb mistakes, and wasted a lot of paper, but today I got in my darkroom for the first time in over a year.
-
Dating My Inner Artist
I’ve spent the last several months taking a creative break, creative sabbatical, creative rest. I haven’t been making or doing anything. I’ve allowed myself to completely give up my artistic practices. I have been going on artist’s dates.
-
Seeking Creative Rest
I successfully defended my dissertation a few weeks ago. I am now “Doctor.” The defense went wonderfully, and it was a really positive end to a very long… experience. (I hate the word “journey” when used to describe doctoral programs.) I thought after I finished my dissertation, I would have a lot more time to…
-
Creating Cyanotypes, Creating a Dissertation
In February or March, I started playing with cyanotypes on fabric. Doing cyanotypes in winter in Minnesota is… not the easiest thing to do, but I was just experimenting, playing around. Over a period of several months, I kept experimenting with different natural materials, different weather conditions, different exposure times. And then, somehow, my cyanotypes…
-
My Touchstone Dissertation Writing Question
I changed my dissertation topic in the last year of my program. I wouldn’t recommend this, but it had to be done. I wrote about how this affected reading for my dissertation in a previous post. What I didn’t realize is that this shift would have a psychological impact on writing the dissertation. In my…