day 093.2

holy flippin'-A i am happy! i worked on the Take-Out Box sample portfolio thing some more this evening. i put in the images i trimmed yesterday, added text and worked out a way to reinforce the box with a foam-core platform for the images to rest on and that also gives the box stability.

to be honest, i think the box works really well. now that i am thinking about it a bit more, i think the only thing i would tinker with changing now is maybe not making the images full bleed. instead giving them a border of some sort. when i was looking at the images strung up on my wall in order, it looked a little busy to me. maybe some white space will help alleviate that.

i will play with it tomorrow. as well as take some pictures of the final piece to show. i gotta admit, it looks pretty good.

day 093

the day isn't nearly over, but i wanted to toss up an image i was working on.

i have been scanning in slides from panama i took too many years ago.

day 092

today wasn't too bad. i worked on putting together some images for the take out box concept. ones that will hopefully work out pretty well. i went ahead and ran a few prints and trimmed them. i didn't have enough time to implement them into the box though.

i also went through some old slides from panama and korea so that i could scan them in tomorrow at the studio.

day 091

i know i sound irritated today.

i am not happy in this town. i am not sure if i ever was happy in this town. i feel no connection to where i live whatsoever.

it has now been a little over 3 years and i feel nearly as separated on as the time when i first landed here.

i have met some amazing people, i have made some drastic changes and i have learned how to drive in the snow.

but if i were to leave portland now, i don't think i would ever look back with any ownership of this town. i will not be spitting to others that i will meet later that have also lived or traveled to portland, that the east end "...was my hood!"

i am just not happy, and i can't really nail down as to why. i don't like the fact of not feeling settled even after three years of living in the same "here & now".

day 090

i actually didn't do shit for creativity today. i had the thoughts, but nothing was sticking. i wanted to play, but nothing would formalize itself for there even to be a beginning. i was dry. nothing but a void.

all i did was exercise and eat. the only thing new is that the kitchen is a wreck. at least that gives me something to do on sunday.

day 089

i didn't do much of anything. i tracked down the maker of the take out boxes i like. $80 bucks gets me a stack of 50 or them. a bit more than needed, but i don't know if i will be able to find a cheaper way.

day 088

it be's x-mas bitches!!!!!

i poured out some PBR for my dead Hommie with the capital "H".

the day was pretty pleasant. had a decent breakfast of biscuits, eggs and turkey. darn tasty!

then i pretty much just sat around, took bertie for a walk and watched more hulu.com.

but i was creative this evening. i made my noodles and started playing with the idea i mentioned a post or so back about actually sending out a to-go box that would house a sample portfolio. i made my noodles and snapped a quick shot of them.

i think the shot is pretty cool, but could definitely use some garnishing. not sure exactly what i would have put in there. maybe some protein of some sort, like a shrimp or something. a red chili pepper, some sort of greenery. nothing too fancy, because it is supposed to represent what you would be taking home from the restaurant, which is generally just scraped off your plate before you leave. i did try the idea of using chili paste to write my name on the noodles. but, i think it gets too busy with all the squiggly lines of the noodles and the competing lines of my name.

anyway, i snapped that shot and started playing with cutting it out to fit the into the to-go box. the opening of the box measures 4.125"x4.875" and narrow down to 4.25"x3.5" at the base of the box. that causes two problems for me:

a) total height of the box is 2.75". that would mean a fuck-ton of sample images to fill the entire box. definitely not what i want to do. so to salve that problem, i will probably use a small piece of wood or something light and solid to fill in for the void between the last image and the bottom of the box. on it would rest business cards, with the last card permanently attached to the box.

b) the second problem is that because the sides of the box narrow, that means that the trim of my prints must compensate for the tapering box interior. i ain't's too smart at math and such and geometry and figurin's outs how to do that mathematically, so i just figured i would cut all the images to the same size, that size being the measurement slightly deeper into the box after the tapering had already begun.

a third problem with the box idea is that if the images are to fit flush to the sides of the box interior, then how is a person supposed to pull the images out to view them? i decided to weave hemp thread through the images so that when the box is opened, you only have to pull the thread and the images will pull out and come into view. they are threaded together in an accordion fashion so that when they are pulled out, they are view flush sided by side.

so, here is my prototype. the final image would be one of the box empty with only the sauce and a few noodles remaining. i didn't do that tonight, because i only have one tog-go box to play with and didn't want to soil it so early in the game. (i said soil)

anyway, now i need to work on some new images for it. i think they should be somewhat themed. either all shot from directly above, to fit the viewing of the to-go box, or maybe all the same sort of dishes. i don't know, something more to think about.