Happy 2012!

Well it has been awhile!

2011 has been a crazy year!

I quit my restaurant job earlier in the year and just have been winging it ever since. There have been some highs and some lows. I have gone months with out a job, and then other months I have been pretty busy. As much as I like freelancing, a full time job is the goal eventually. I still struggle with what I want to do in life. I feel just as clueless as I did 10 years ago. But I keep going, keep trying new things and meeting new people. I have to accept that I will never be a type A personality. I will always not want to wake up early, I will keep being a procrastinator, it will always be hard for me to motivate myself to work hard on my own. But despite these character flaws (laziness), I know that once I find a job, once I find something to do, I make sure I do it the best I can. But whatever.

There have been a few things going on, a few extra circular activities that I am excited to share.

This past November my friend Katie and I co-curated a photography show. Here is the blurb about the project.

"Baltimore: Place to Place "

''This collaborative project brings Baltimore residents together to look at both iconic and hidden treasures this unique city has to offer and photographing them from an individual perspective. Participants were asked to choose a location in Baltimore, which in turn was swapped out with another location at random. After photographing the location and choosing one image, those involved were asked to write about their experience. This led to a deeper look into what the location meant to them, whether they had been there before or were seeing a part of Baltimore for the first time.

This project was created by Katie Smallwood and Katie Shinsato, two long time Baltimore residents looking to celebrate the city they experience every day while hoping to gain new perspectives along the way. By collaborating with Baltimore photographers, both professional and new to the art, the possible outcomes were endless and shed newlight on what makes Charm City so special.''

The event was held at "The WindUp Space" and had a great turn out. It felt good to step outside my comfort zone and do something I had no experience in. Katie and I came up with the concept, wrangled people to participate, set deadlines, found a venue, individually picked up the photographs, hung them with the art director from the venue and had an opening. All of that took us many months since we had no idea what we were doing. But now we know and hope it will be a much smoother process next time.

It was great to meet new people and have professional and amateur photographers come together in one show to celebrate Baltimore.

Here are a few photos of Katie and I and participants reading what they wrote about their experience photographing their place.

Thank you to all who participated and to The WindUp Space for hosting the show.

Also, we were fortunate enough to have an article written about the project. A special thanks to Baynard Woods for the article and to The Urbanite Online.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/baltimore/the-purpose-of-place/Content?oid=1464847