August Break

What you are looking at is the very first piece of real artwork I ever purchased. I was in college and a friend of mine did this series of small straight jackets. They were simple, yet powerful and I decided then and there I wanted to purchase one.

Each straight jacket contained objects and things that seem harmless at first but ultimately restrict us from being who we are. As you can see my jacket is bound up by words. Right now words are my personal straight jacket.

If you look back over the course of this year you'll see that I've been averaging about 3 blog posts per month. Pathetic. The photography blog is even worse averaging 1.5. I have dozens of things I've wanted to post over the last few months and for a variety of reasons they never materialize. Most of the reasons have to do with my general dissatisfaction with the overall look of the blogs. They both are begging for a make over. Design is an issue, but in addition to that is the content. That's where the words come into play.

Contrary to what my family believes. Writing isn't easy for me. Actually it's a painfully slow process. Even a simple little blog post will take well over and hour and have several revisions before being published to the web. Then of course, after it's online, that's when I see the typos. I'm not even going to tell you how long its taken me to throw this little bit of drivel together but let's just say I probably could've and should've made better use of my time by cleaning my kitchen.

So I know you are asking yourself, what the heck does all of this have to do with a piece of art and an August Break? My point (and I do have one) is that I have spent the last 6-7 months avoiding words for the most part. The consequence of this is, no blog posts. No blog posts = one (or in my case two) boring blogs.

This is where Susannah Conway, writer photographer and Crystal's personal hero, came to the rescue. Last week she proposed this idea of an August Break. In a nutshell, its an opportunity for bloggers to take a break from blogging with words and just post a picture to their blogs every day for the entire month of August. That's it. One picture no more. What could be more simple? I signed up immediately. (I'm the third person on the list. Booo-Yahhhhh!)

Now I know you are sitting there scratching you head trying to figure out how posting everyday for an entire month (when you've only averaging 2 -3 posts a month) constitutes a break. Well, in reality it doesn't. It is more work in a sense, but it is a break from one of the very things that keeps me from contributing to the blogosphere and sharing my work. Words....I'm taking a break from words. Starting August 1st I'm going to post at least one photo everyday without words. I'm putting the images out there to be experienced without any imposed context or meaning. I know this sounds weird but the whole thing feels strangely liberating and I'll admit it...fun. So much so that I'll be doing the same thing over on the photography blog, sometimes with the same photos but sometimes with different ones. So be sure to pop on over and check it out too.

If you'd like to read more about the rules of the August Break ( ps there are no rules) or want to join in yourself, check out Susannah's blog.

PS....maybe while I'm taking my "break" I'll also get around to redesigning these sites too. We'll see.