Nacho Figueras: A Caballo

To be filed under: "Things I at first found strange, but then, strangely beautiful."

How To Be Alone

Below is a great little video called "How To Be Alone" by filmmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet, singer and songwriter Tanya Davis.

Davis wrote the poem and performed in the video, which Dorfman directed, shot, animated by hand and edited. The video was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was produced by Bravo!FACT.

I think both men and women can appreciate the film's message, but the way it's delivered will likely resonate a little deeper with women. You'll see what I mean. Enjoy.

Not All Of The Martinis Are Blue

Yup, I did it. (I'm referring to my last post of course.) And I feel fine. Fine and healthy. Didn't get any headaches, no feeling lightheaded, no suffering from exhaustion. It was a piece of cake. Er, glass of juice.

And now that I've come to the end of the last day, I just feel strong and refreshed and happy that I did something good for myself. Instead of downing food containing only some usable calories and the rest going to waste, for the past three days I fed my body nothing but usable calories, and I have to say, the difference in how it has made me feel is pretty impressive. I did lose some weight, too, just as a happy side effect -- and it burned off in all the right places, so I don't necessarily look "skinnier," just more toned up in all the spots that always gave me trouble. Overall, I give this experiment an A. I'm leaving off the plus sign because I have to admit that drinking that much juice got a little monotonous by the morning of Day 3. Except for the raw cashew chocolate milk! That recipe was delish ...

At any rate, I am going out tonight to a birthday get-together at Blue Martini for a few hours, even though I would much rather stay home (I'm boring like that) and get some work done. I fell behind today due to the fact that a friend of mine who is on vacation in California needed me to deliver a saddle. Yes, you read that right. She's a professional equestrian. I had to go claim said saddle and then take said saddle to her stable. (Try saying that five times fast.) Therefore I lost a little time in the ol' office, aka my living room.

I also went to the Phoenix Art Museum this morning for work, to see the Cezanne exhibition they currently have on display. It was really good, much larger than I had expected -- it took me about an hour to go through the whole thing, which I think is kind of a while for just one room of paintings.

So tonight: Blue Martini, come home, work, crash, wake up, work, clean house again, make grocery run, work, then go pick up my boyfriend from the airport and possibly go see my friend in the hospital who gave birth to twins yesterday. And then, yep, you guessed it -- work some more. Weeeeeeeeeee.

Santa Fe, Part One

 On Sunday I flew from Phoenix to Albuquerque, where the resort had arranged ground transportation for the one hour to Santa Fe. In other words, some big intimidating-looking dude was holding a sign with my name on it and even though I was a little "hmmm... where did I pack that pepper spray..." about the whole thing, I got into the back of the huge black town car anyway.

About one hour later we pulled up to The Lodge, as the main building was called, and a lovely German man named Hans opened my door and greeted me by name. Then I was smoothly passed from check-in to a Mercedes-Benz that drove me the 90 seconds to my "Vista Casita," which was huge. (Pictures on the resort's site here.)

For a good 20 minutes or so, all I did was wander around my room and look out the window like a zombie, not really sure of where I was or how I got there. After I had snapped out of it, I hooked my iPod up to the in-room dock, unpacked all my clothes and took a few random photos of my room using my new "big girl" Canon that my boyfriend and my family got me for my birthday. (I am obsessed.)

One of my favorite aspects of the room was this cow underneath the window:

Other cool things about the room that I liked included the raw look of the wooden desk.

 The old-fashioned alarm clock next to my bed.

The bright wall art.

The wood-burning fireplace and cute pottery on the mantle. (I'm a detail person, can you tell? Hello, copy editor, remember?)

 And the view! 

I had a few hours of down time before the welcome dinner, so I used that to check e-mail and um, People.com, of course, because let's face it, that stuff is important to know ...

Dinner was at the Terra restaurant inside The Lodge, and my goodness, I can't even remember all of the plates they put down in front of us. There were scallops and roasted pork belly I think, white wine, red wine, tuna carpaccio, things I'd never even heard of before ... And I also got to meet the rest of the media folks who were along on the press trip. Five girls, one guy. One woman from New York who writes for a bridal magazine, one woman also from NY who writes for architectural digests and also a spa publication, one woman from Atlanta who is the editor in chief there of one women's interest publication and one affiliated men's interest publication, one woman from Los Angeles who writes for a certain entertainment news show, me of course, and then a man from LA who writes for a teeny tiny publication that I'm sure no one has ever heard of. ;)

All these individuals have been at this a lot longer than I have, so dinner was equal parts fascinating and rolling of my eyes and dropping of my jaw. Many of them have dozens of these trips under their belts, and some sound like they go on at least one every month. Nevertheless, everyone was very, very nice and totally willing to give me advice and such regarding the industry.

Monday morning we embarked on tours of both the property and of Santa Fe. The trip to downtown was a little "Disney," in that I felt like what we were able to see and not see was a little too controlled, which made for bad exploring, but probably helped keep a handle on time constraints. We drove by the Santa Fe Opera, toured the Georgia O'Keeffe museum, and then made our way to the downtown's plaza area, where locals bring jewelry and other wares to sell.

We also stopped by a really cool -- okay, SUPER cool -- candy shop called Todos Santos Chocolates & Confections. I highly recommend. I bought dark chocolate there to bring home to my boyfriend and my sister, and I got a tiny piece for myself, too.

After all the walking around, lunch was inhaled at The Shed, which is apparently a staple among the locals. I found it interesting that it serves all its New Mexican fare with "French garlic bread" and Zabaglione, an Italian dessert, to follow. Sorry, no photos of any of that, I was too busy devouring my enchiladas and chasing the ultra-spicy red and green sauces with iced tea.

Following lunch we walked part of Canyon Road, which is the definitive arts center in Santa Fe, not to mention the most prominent arts community in all the U.S., aside from New York. We were able to go into three galleries, which were all more like museums. There were Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt originals just hanging on the walls like it was no big deal, even though I remember seeing paintings by those artists in many of my grade school history textbooks. There were Native American blankets selling for upwards of $2,000 each, as well as antique New Mexican furniture, Inuit jackets made from whale intestine (or was it bladder? You get the picture), and even a Native American woman's beaded dress for $95,000. It was unreal the stuff these galleries had tracked down, believe me.

And then it started to rain on us, so that cut our stay on Canyon Road a bit short. We visited the Railyard District, which is the area for the more modern art and video installations, etc., despite the rain, but I didn't want to pull my camera out in the bad weather, so unfortunately I didn't bring home many photos of the art gallery adventures. Dinner was at another New Mexican food restaurant called called Gabriel's, where the view was awesome, but the food wasn't necessarily any better than the Mexican food I've found in Arizona.

Tuesday was my favorite day of the trip because it was supposed to be themed as the "health and wellness" day. We started at 8:30 a.m. and hiked a trail that begins next to the resort and leads upward and into the neighboring Santa Fe National Forest. This was our view:

 Immediately following our hour-long hike was a yoga class that felt amazing, and then lunch next to the pool. Once again, I felt like I had slipped into an alternate universe, the food was unreal.

After lunch, all the girls (the guy opted out, understandably) had our spa appointments at 2 p.m. We checked in at 1:30 as had been recommended to allow plenty of time for the hot whirlpool and steam room. And let me tell you, I am by no means an expert, but I've been in my share of saunas I suppose, and this one was the mother of all saunas, almost to a fault. I actually started to drown for a moment, that's how much moisture was in the air. My lungs took in too much water when I breathed in and I got the weird sensation that I was drowning without being submerged. It was odd. So after I went out and went back in and breathed a little more slowly, it actually felt amazing.

Closer to 2:00, we were ushered into the "warming room," where there were fireplaces and hot and cold tea and fluffy blankets and over-sized chairs and ottomans and just everything that can make a room soft and cozy. There are photos of the spa on the resort's website here. Then our massage therapists retrieved us for each of our respective treatments. The PR rep had signed me up for the "Mountain Spirit Purification" treatment, which is described in the resort's brochure as:

Native American reverence for the Earth inspires this purification ritual which begins with a smudging ceremony, followed by an adobe clay body mask. A warm restful wrap with a scalp and foot massage, connects your energies to Heaven and Earth. Awaken to a rain shower rinse and embrace your final gift: a juniper-sage massage using hot stones.
2 hours    300

It was ... ridiculous. As in, ridiculously decadent. Two of the best hours of my life. If I'm ever wealthy enough to not have to worry about bills, I am going straight back to Santa Fe and signing up for one of these because it was a-ma-zing. First the therapist scrubbed the living daylights out of me with a brush made from some kind of cactus fiber or something and then smeared me with a wonderfully scented clay. Then she wrapped me up in heated blankets and left just my feet and head uncovered so that she could first massage my feet, then cover them up too, and then massage my scalp. I definitely nodded off a few times. When it was time to un-mummy me, she disappeared for a bit and I was able to rinse myself off under an outdoor shower using a cloth woven from more of that cactus fiber. (She said it was mine to keep. lol. It's sitting next to my sink right now.) And then, back inside the treatment room, I experienced the most blissful hot stone massage ever. EVER. I was totally blissed out for the rest of the day, and my skin still feels really soft, thanks to the massage therapist's mad skills with that scrub brush ...

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't stop while you're spa-ing (although it should!), so I had to go straight back to my room and answer more e-mails and finish a blog post for one of my clients, yay, but it wasn't long before it was time for dinner in the Pinon Room (cool sidenote: Those X's on the bookshelves at the far end of the room are made of Spanish Bibles. The gold you see is the gold leaf on the edges of the pages, and they've all just been meticulously stacked.), where the view of the sunset was incredible. And then after dinner, we meandered out to the fire pit, where we got to enjoy some spiked Mexican hot chocolate and good, old-fashioned s'mores before wandering back up to our casitas to enjoy a very good night's sleep.

~ The End ~

Santa Fe: Part Two will include photos from the solo hike I made Wednesday morning before flying out of New Mexico.

Design Sponge

I just discovered Design*Sponge. Check it out if you have an interest in interior design and decorating. The images will inspire you.

Lauren Pierce Atelier

Last week I interviewed Lauren Bush (niece of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George Bush) about the new spring 2010 collection of her clothing line, Lauren Pierce Atelier, for the publication I work for.

This month she's been traveling all over the country introducing the collection at specific Barneys New York stores. This Friday, March 19, she comes to Scottsdale, but this weekend I'll be fulfilling my bridesmaidly duties, so we had to do the interview over the phone instead. I wish I could have met her in person, though, because she was so nice and genuine during our conversation, and I've only heard good things about her.
 
Her collection is pretty darn cool because it's all custom-made clothing and supports a good cause. She designed five dress silhouettes that ladies can choose from when they see the collection at Barneys. Then, the woman picks the fabric she wants the dress made with. All of the fabrics are cotton and dyed by women survivors of war in the Congo as a way of supporting themselves. The traditional method they use involves really bright colors and the fabric ends up looking sort of tie-dyed.

Anyway, so when a woman orders her dress in her silhouette and fabric print and colors and size and it finally arrives something like six weeks later, the tag will have the name of the woman who ordered it, plus the name of the woman who dyed the fabric. How cool is that? And Lauren Pierce contributes 10 percent of each season's profits toward helping the women living in the country where the fabrics were made (this season, the women of the Congo).

Lauren said she found these women through an organization called Women for Women, and I've since spent some time reading the information on the organization's website. It sounds like an amazing, amazing program, and I really want to get involved somehow, either by sponsoring a woman or going to an event here. It's definitely something I'm going to keep on my mind.

Read more about Women for Women here, and more about Lauren Pierce here.

Gorgeous Videos by stillmotion

I have a new obsession ... the (mostly) wedding-related videos of stillmotion.

Each one is absolutely stunning, with such clear, bright colors and so much movement that it's almost hypnotic. Once I start watching one, I can't look away.

Some of my favorites:

going in blind // aaron + jess' sde from stillmotion on Vimeo.

ildiko + aiden's sde // graydon hall TO from stillmotion on Vimeo.

And a really great Trash The Dress video:

Frances + James TTD - Times Square + Coney Island from stillmotion on Vimeo.

You're hooked, right?

Watch more here. They are all fantastic!

Print Society

Printsociety.com has become my latest obsession. I love it. I love the photographs. I love the digital art. I love it all.

Above: "Anarchrysanthemum" by Chuck Anderson

Above: "West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress)" by Joseph O. Holmes

Above: "All is Not Fine" by Gregory Lang

Above: "The Checkered Path" by Jen ZahiganAbove: "Matika 01" by Joshua Davis

I want all of these! And so many, many more. Perhaps a few will be my Christmas presents to myself. Shhh. Don't tell! [Wink.]

Vertical Turn

Erik Johansson can do some pretty amazing things with Photoshop.

See for yourself.

Why I Love to Take Photographs

To notice the small things. (The many small things.)

To play in the rain.

To take pause in each moment.

To see stories all around me.

To daydream.

To appreciate the world's beauty.

What have you seen so far today?

Photo by Sway Sovay

You Just Thought That I Was Finished

I'm still stuck on the whole tilt-shift photography thing. Here are more fascinating examples at Smashingmagazine.com.

A Big Post on Small Things

I was browsing How About Orange today to catch up on the many posts I've missed this month, and I came across something incredibly awesome and very fun that Jessica actually posted on my birthday: a link to the website Tiltshiftmaker.com.

If you upload a photo to the site, it will manipulate the image into a "tilt shift miniature-style" photograph for you. Here, I'll show you what I mean. Since Europe is so excellent for providing shutterbugs with photographs containing lots and lots of details, let's have some fun with Sway's travel photography, shall we?

Here is a photo I took of St. Peter's Cemetery while I was in Salzburg last fall:

And here is that same photo, run through the tilt shift program:

Totally wicked cool, right? Here is a photo I took in 2005 of the village of Wernigerode, Germany:And now the miniature version:

And here's Vatican City in Rome, which I also photographed in 2005:

And now a teeny tiny Vatican City:

I could do this all day! Go to the site and give it a try. Remember that photos with lots of detail tend to produce better results.

And also, for some extra fun, here is a "little" tilt-shift video, which I also originally saw on How About Orange. I love it so much that now I really, really want to make my own! I shall put that on my list of things to do...

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Lens

On Monday, The New York Times launched "Lens," a large-format photo blog meant to showcase photojournalism projects that might otherwise never be seen in print by the public.

Read more about the launch of Lens at Photo District News, and visit the site itself here.

Chihuly + Fun With PhotoShop

Yesterday evening my boyfriend and I went to see the Desert Botanical Garden's "Chihuly: The Nature of Glass" exhibit. All the glass sculptures scattered throughout the garden are by artist Dale Chihuly, whose works are on display in more than 200 museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London's Victoria and Albert Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. (Plus, his name is fun to say. )

Here are a few photos that I took while I was at the garden. Most of these I merely touched up, but a couple I altered pretty heavily. And had a lot of fun while doing so. Because I am just that much of a nerdlette.

Click on any photo for a larger image.


The last one posted here is my favorite, because it looks like it's out of a comicbook or something. You'll have to click on it to bring up the larger version in order to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, not my best photographic work, but it's hard to take a good photo when dozens of people are trying to pushing their way past you. Seriously, you have got to watch out for the senior citizens around here. They will take you out with their walkers and canes...

Photos by Sway Sovay

Flaming Lips, Bruno Torfs, a Box of Beauty Supplies and Selling Out

Oh geez. There's so much to post about today that I don't even know where to begin. Let me try to be organized about it.

1. OK, so first of all, I have to mention that ye good citizens of my former state of Oklahoma have declared "Do You Realize??" by The Flaming Lips to be the state's official rock song.

[I could go off on a tangent here about my confusion as to why state officials feel it's important that a state has an official folk song, an official country song and an official rock song, and why they aren't busy cutting budgets and generating more state revenue, buuuuuut... I'm not in the mood to dive into politics tonight.]

I felt like this tidbit of news was something important to point out, seeing as most of my friends here in Arizona fully believe that Oklahoma is filled only with conservative, country music-loving types who would never ever -- ever -- find any good or worthwhile material in the lyrics of a psychedelic alternative rock band. But see now? There are people in Oklahoma who like trippy music, too. And this should not come as a shock, considering backwoods Oklahoma is one of the meth capitals of the world. I think you see where I could go with this.

2. I had never heard of Bruno Torfs until today, but I wish that I had known of his artwork long ago, because it's incredible. He's a painter and sculptor who created hundreds of these gorgeous, fascinating wooden sculptures in a rain forest in Australia, an area which he called his art and sculpture garden. Check out the site for photos of the fantastic forest people he brought to life.
Unfortunately, last month, on February 7, fires overtook the area, claiming lives and destroying all of Torfs' creations. Please take a moment to think of the families whose loved ones were lost, and I encourage you to view the images of Torfs' sculptures, as they are truly wondrous and exist now only in photographs.

3. Remember the beauty products article I was assigned? Well, our LA office sent me a box of goodies, some of which are to be included in the article, but most of which are just mine to keep.

















I'm currently trying to refine concepts for a site on which I will post reviews of all these products, plus others I acquire. So stay tuned for further word on these fun items. Um, did I mention that the total value of the box's contents is about $1,400? (My head nearly exploded when I added that up.)

4. I am a sellout. (...who finds it amusing that Wikipedia has defined the term...) Today I got a freelance assignment that will pay $250, plus reimbursement for gas and tickets. It involves following someone famous around like a bloodhound next week -- which, under normal circumstances, would not appeal to me at all, but it only took me about three seconds today to determine that $250 is $250, and I need CASH. I'll let you in on more details after the event. Wink.

5. Random quote of the day: "You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they -- they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking." -- From the movie The Edge, written by David Mamet

And finally, I present to you: "Do You Realize??" set to animated children's movie clips. Why? Why not.


Photo by Sway Sovay

To Be Added to the List of Things That Make You Go: "Mmm...kaaaay..."

8 Weird (and Somehow Cool) Things from Reclaimed Puma Trainers, served up via Treehugger.com.

While the blender makes me think "wtf?" the flower pots actually got a brief "aww," even if it was inaudible.

This is What Happens When I Look at Craft Sites When I Should be Getting Ready for Work

Crafty things:

This chandelier at Apartment Therapy would make me feel less like any room looked artistic and more like I just needed to clean.

This wedding quilt at Purl Bee is so beautiful! (And further proof that it helps to be good with numbers if you sew, knit or crochet.) I want to make it! Of course, I can see a few obstacles standing in my way -- namely, that I don't own a sewing machine, and also, that since it took me a year just to knit my boyfriend's afghan, I don't think the quilt would be finished in my lifetime.

Hmmm... could these make good Christmas presents for all my earring-wearing girlfriends next year? Hey, if they pass them up, then that's just more for me.

R=4r

This is the fabric hanging on one of the walls in my apartment.

I'm aware it might look a little crazy taken out of the context of the rest of my apartment, but I like to think it goes well with the rest of the interior decorating.

But anyway, to the point of my story ...

Remember the friends with whom my boyfriend and I went camping at the Grand Canyon? While they were here, they stayed with us. Stayed, in fact, in very close proximity to this wall hanging.

While they were here, it somehow came up that my friend's husband, who is a geologist, had been going nuts staring at this thing. Why?

Because it irked him that the black circles do not continue in straight lines, but instead curve in toward the center.

When he brought this up, my boyfriend quickly chimed in, "I know! It's been driving me crazy for months, too!" And then the two of them frenetically began discussing the geometrical shapes' finer points. "I know, and you see how that line should be here..." "And the radius there..." "I'd say it's a parabola..." "Yeah, that's what it is..."

Meanwhile, my friend and I are looking at each other like, "Aren't boys such special creatures?"

Especially ones who are obsessed with math.


My friend and her husband eventually had to return home. A week or two went by. And then, one day, I walked into that same room and my boyfriend had taped this next to the fabric.

Me: "Um, what is this?"

Boyfriend: "Oh. I had to find the radius of the big red circle."

Me: "You what?" Pause. "Why?"

Boyfriend: [Jumps off the couch, runs over and points at his calculations.] "Look! Can you believe that the radius of this big circle is four times the radius of the little black circle? This is great. I figured it out. Man, that was gonna bother me."

Talk about a piece of home decor that's a conversation-starter ...

Photos: Sway Sovay

Art Made by the Heavens, Experienced Under a Volcano

There's an interesting post on this site about James Turrell, an artist who is doing major renovation work underneath a 400,000-year-old volcano, Roden Crater, near Flagstaff, Ariz. The project is expected to be completed in 2012.

OK, so the volcano is supposedly dormant. Which is good, considering the size and complexity of Turrell's underground tunnels and light chambers that would be blown up if the volcano were active.

Turrell has constructed the rooms and "windows" below the crater to capture the light of celestial occurrences that can only be seen from Roden Crater, among a few other locations on Earth. I'll admit that I don't really understand the entire concept, but I understand enough to imagine that this project is colossal in proportions. This is a creation that future civilizations will find and view as another Stonehenge.

Oh and get this: Turrell has owned the volcano and its surrounding land since 1979. The man owns a volcano. I want to own a volcano. Do you think any are still up for grabs?

Anyway, check out that article because you're going to want to see those photos.

Wordle

Via a post on the How About Orange blog, I discovered Wordle, a Web site that will randomize selections of text into something of an artistic display that it calls "word clouds." Then users can change the colors and fonts.

Be sure to view the gallery of word clouds that others have made and saved. Some are funny; some are intriguing.

This is the Wordle I just made. It's the lyrics from Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark."



(Click the image to see a larger version.)

It occurred to me that Wordle could also be a useful tool for writers who sometimes find inspiration through word association exercises.

Maybe there's a Wordle out there that will inspire my next short story, who knows!