Author: Faith

I Heart Art: Steve Keene

These are the only original paintings we have in our house (except for some Chinese and Korean watercolors):

They’re by Brooklyn-based artist Steve Keene who is closely tied to the music scene there. (He did the cover art for an Apples in Stereo CD, for instance). I think N. first found out about Keene’s work from a music related discussion board he frequents and then he told me about him. I ended up getting N. these Beatles paintings for a birthday gift.

The main thing about Keene is that he thinks art should be accessible to everyone. I found an online interview with him, in which he says:
Painting should be part of people’s lives and not separate from the world
like a precious object. I feel like a baker making cakes, making a good quality
object that’s affordable to everyone from college professors to high school
kids. I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD: it’s art, it’s cheap
and it changes your life, but the object has no status. Musicians create
something for the moment, something with no boundaries and that kind of
expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work.

I think Steve Keene’s artistic viewpoint is interesting and I like the loose style he paints in. Mass production has made things cheaper and more readily available, including art. For example, think about the way in which Thomas Kinkade‘s empire churns out merchandise and various prints. Kinkade touts himself as the most collected artist in America. Supposedly, 1 in 10 homes in America has one of his prints hanging on its wall. Kinkade mass produces printed canvases and then has his “skilled artisans” add painted touches to the prints to create the illusion of them being original works of art. He also has ‘galleries’ all over the place in which these prints are presented as fine works of art and sold for crazy prices.

So both Keene and Kinkade are very prolific, but while Kinkade has built his empire on giving his customers the illusion that the mass-produced replicas of original art they’re buying (at $800-$1200 a pop) are precious original pieces of art, Steve Keene does the very opposite. He paints thousands of paintings by hand and then sells them for $10 (small size) or $14 (large size). Granted, you’re not going to get rich collecting Steve Keene, but I think what he does is pretty great.

If you’re interested in Steve Keene’s paintings, you can buy them directly from his web site or on ebay (his user name is skskgreenpoint). If you go through his web site, you get whatever he’s currently working on, sight unseen. If you buy through ebay, you can pick out want you want.

Concert: Crooked Fingers/Neko Case

Last night N. and I dropped E. off at my sister’s house (Thanks, Jan!) and went to a free outdoor concert in downtown Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun. There were probably a couple thousand people milling around. Crooked Fingers was on first, and they were great. Crooked Fingers is the project of Eric Bachmann. I love his songs (a few of them are a little gritty, fyi) and his raspy low voice. Last night N. said that Eric moved to Denver recently and that his day job is selling Cuban sandwiches in Denver. Most talented sandwich maker EVER.

Neko Case was on next. By this time the area in front of the stage was really crowded and so I couldn’t really see her on stage. But her voice was AMAZING, as usual. I’ve seen her perform a couple of times with the Canadian super-group, The New Pornographers (The band’s name was inspired by when 1980s tv evangelist Jimmy Swaggart denounced rock music as “the new pornography”), and every time I see her she is great. I think that Neko has one of the best voices I’ve heard. Her solo music is more country than what she does with the NPs. Last night she sang “Deep Red Bells” and “I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight,” both of which I love.

Here are some YouTube clips of her singing. The first one is her performing, “Deep Red Bells” live and the second is a montage video some emo girl put together set to “I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight” (it had the best audio I could find).

As the evening went on, certain elements of the crowd became more and more annoying. There was a bunch of girls hanging out with some older, scummier guys right next to us. They were all smoking and one of the girls kept waving her cigarette around dangerously close to my face. Then when they got tired of smoking cigarettes, they broke out the pot. Thus so fortified, the girls engaged in fake lesbian kissing to try and win attention and approval from the jerks they were with. These cute little girls just reeked of low self-esteem and desperation. I’ve heard about girls doing this sort of thing, but it was the first time I had actually seen it up close. I guess I really am a total mom now, because as I was standing there I just kept wondering if their parents knew what they were up to. It’s well-known that cute girls often hang out with jerks. But it’s still sad to see it in person.

Other than that pathetic exhibition of low female self-esteem, it was a great show. The series is over for the summer, but I think N. and I are going to make it to more of the shows next year.

Just Call me ‘Pollyanna’

Since I stopped eating dairy and eggs on Sunday, I’ve been thinking about this whole situation. I know I was a little whiny in my last post, but there are quite a few positive things about having to stop eating dairy and eggs because of E.’s food allergies:

I have a decent health food store ten minutes from my house – I checked it out yesterday, and they have a ton of options. There was a whole section of dairy-free, egg-free cookies. I’m trying to avoid junk food anyway, but knowing that there was junk food I (and later on E.) could eat was a big morale booster. It’s just nice to have options, you know? I also bought some soy milk. The taste isn’t that bad, but the texture leaves something to be desired; it’s pretty watery. But I can totally see E. liking it. It really does taste like melted ice cream. And I also found some dairy free soy margarine. It must be REALLY hard to have food allergies if you don’t have a source of alternative types of food around. I consider us very lucky in this regard.

It will probably help me lose weight – Most of the foods I tend to overindulge in contain dairy or eggs (ice cream, creamy pasta sauces, Kozy Shack pudding, pastries, etc…). I was surprised to find out that most normal breads don’t have eggs in them (but delicious bakery desserts do). This whole thing is making me more mindful of what I eat.

It will help me learn what foods contain things E. needs to avoid – I was pretty surprised to discover how many foods have milk products in them. I’m learning to read labels closely, but a lot of the time milk or egg products will be listed as something other than ‘milk’ or ‘eggs.’ While I’m not supposed to have any allergic foods at all, it’s good for me to learn using myself instead of E. If I accidentally eat something I shouldn’t, it won’t affect E. as severely as if he ate it himself. He’s still eating mostly baby food, so I can use this time like a set of food allergy training wheels. By the time he’s eating more table foods, I should be a pro at avoiding foods that are dangerous for him.

It’s good motivation to learn how to cook Korean food – For a while I’ve been meaning to learn how to cook more Korean dishes. Korean food basically has no dairy in it and except for certain dishes, it’s also pretty light on eggs. This whole thing is a great reason to learn how to cook more Korean dishes. Before this even came up N. and I liked eating Korean and other Asian food. But I think we’ll be eating more of it in the future, which is fine with me!

It’s teaching me empathy for people with food allergies – There’s a chance that E. might out grow his food allergies, but he might not. Either way, this experience is helping me understand what it’s like to not be able to enjoy common foods. It’s not really a life-or-death situation for me (I am trying my very hardest not to eat foods I shouldn’t, but since I wasn’t avoiding any allergic foods until last week, I don’t think one small slip-up now will severely affect E.), but I now feel anxious when a situation regarding food I’m not sure about comes up. Going out to eat or getting together at a friends’ house for dinner becomes fraught with anxiety. Before this, I simply took it for granted that I could eat anything I wanted to (whether I should have eaten anything I wanted is a different matter). It’s a pain to check the ingredients of everything and a real downer to have to avoid some restaurants all together because I know they don’t serve many things I can eat there. Food allergies make everyday life much more complicated.

My family and frends have been very supportive – Really, you have been simply lovely. It’s great to be reminded how many nice people I have in my life. Thanks for all the support!

Well, those are all positive things that have come out of E. having these food allergies. After going grocery shopping and restocking our kitchen with allowed foods, the situation seems pretty manageable. I think we’re going to be fine.

Et tu, Dairy?

So…it turns out that E. is allergic to milk (and by extension: normal baby formula, yogurt, cheese, the brand of teething biscuits he likes, and some baby cereals).

(Doesn’t he look terrified? He is–terrified of a future without dairy!)

Anyway, I took E. to the allergist (Dr. Broadbent) on Friday afternoon. I told her about the allergic reaction E. had had to the formula. I also mentioned that E. might have had minor reactions to dogs (his face broke out after my sister’s dog licked him) and something in humus (E. threw up after he had some last week, but it he might have just eaten too much). They did a skin test on his back for allergies to milk, dogs, sesame (it’s in humus) and soy. He had strong reactions to milk and dog. (The doctor was surprised by the strength of his dog reaction and said it would be best to not have pets in the home for at least a couple of years – sad!)

(This is his marked-up back. By the time we got home and I took this picture, his reactions had mostly gone away. He had several little red welts on it.)

The allergist said that E.’s food allergy to milk, his allergy to dogs (and most likely cats), and his eczema all indicate that he will probably have ongoing issues with allergies and possibly asthma as he grows up.

Dr. Broadbent said the best thing to do would be to completely eliminate dairy from E.’s diet. That means eliminating all cow’s milk from the breastmilk he drinks (and I produce) or switching him to a special hypoallergenic formula such as Nutramigen. The doctor also said that it would be best for him to avoid other highly allergenic foods such as eggs, peanuts, other nuts, and soy for a while. The theory is that the longer E. goes before he’s exposed to a food, the smaller the possibility will be that he’ll develop an allergy to it. That’s why the doctor doesn’t want to put him on soy formula right now. Because if you have allergies to both milk AND soy, well, you’re basically screwed.

The current best case scenario is that E. continues to be breastfed or drinks Nutramigen until after his first birthday, at which time he can have soy milk. And then (fingers crossed) after a couple of years of being on soy, he will have out grown his milk allergy.

Since the doctor doesn’t want E. to be exposed to any dairy, eggs, peanuts/nuts, or soy, I can’t eat any of those things if I’m nursing him (I can have some soy if I don’t overdo it). The restrictions are, to be honest, pretty daunting. Dairy would be hard on it’s own (I love milk and we eat a lot of things with cheese in them), but over the weekend I’ve been trying to think of things to eat that also don’t have eggs in them and it’s been pretty rough. Most breads and pasta either have eggs in them or were processed on the same equipment as things with eggs were. I never really paid attention to it before, but the majority of foods I eat have either milk or eggs in them in some form or another (or I wash them down with a tall frosty glass of milk).

On Saturday N. and I went out for a ‘last supper’ of sorts: I had pasta with cream sauce and we split a slice of cheesecake for dessert. The waiter overheard N. said that we were ‘celebrating’ and so he comp-ed us the cheesecake and asked us if it was a birthday or anniversary. We explained the whole thing, which I think was more than he wanted to know. (But, um, yay for free cheesecake!) After that meal, I quit eating the offending foods. But I hadn’t gone grocery shopping and so yesterday I basically ate just rice and kimchi.

I need to go shopping today to restock our kitchen with allowed foods. N. was pretty incredulous about all of the foods that are now off limits. He said that we should look at how E. does with the formula. It would be REALLY nice if formula was an option for E. I like nursing him, but even though I’m still pumping a couple times a day, I’m not getting as much milk out as I used to. Which means that it’s hard to leave enough milk for E. to be babysat or to take along with us to a restaurant where breastfeeding would be difficult. Being able to give him formula once in a while would be really convenient and would take some of the pressure off of me.

While we were at the clinic they also did a skin test to see if E. reacted to Nutramigen. He didn’t have a reaction, but Dr. Broadbent said to still be careful when I gave it to him for the first time. Last night I gave E. a couple sips of formula, and he later threw up. There’s a chance that he just had an upset stomach, but he was also scratching at his face which doesn’t bode well. There’s a possibility that E.’s in the 5% of kids with milk allergies that can’t drink this (or any) formula.

Sorry to go on and on and on. I was feeling pretty upbeat about everything over the weekend, but that was before I realized E. might not be able to take even the special formula. I’m going to wait a couple of days for his stomach to settle down and try the formula again, so I guess we’ll see. Today I’m also going to make lists of things I can eat (so far I’ve thought of fruits, vegetables, pita bread, and soy milk) and go shopping.

Right now I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but I think it will all be okay.

This little guy makes me feel better about it all.

Slideshow: A Day in the Life of E.

This was one of our photo assignments for this last week: doing a ‘day in the life’ photo story about someone.

Also, the allergist’s office called yesterday: they had a cancelled appointment open up this afternoon and so they offered it to us. I’m excited that we’re able to get in earlier than mid-October. I hope we’ll be able to get some answers; details to follow on Monday. Have a good weekend!

9 Months Up, 9 Months (very nearly) Down

My weight-losing endeavors have unfortunately lost a little bit of steam lately. I would like to blame a busy summer, but I think a growing complacency in my efforts is a much more likely culprit. However, I have almost succeeded in losing all of the weight I gained while pregnant – yay!

I weighed in yesterday and I was just three pounds shy of my pre-pregnancy weight (so obviously I’m counting it). Nine months up, nine months down: whoo–hoo! I was so excited that we went out for ice cream to celebrate. (Just kidding!)

Anyway, this week I am rededicating myself to losing weight. Even though I’m (almost) down to my pre-pregnancy weight, I was overweight when I got pregnant and so I am planning on losing 20 lbs. more. We shall see.

And if all this weight loss talk is not exactly your cup of tea…well, there are these:



Totally worth it, no?

Photo 101 Lighting Demo

On Saturday I went to the lighting demonstration we had for the photo class. It was a lot of fun and very enlightening (tee-hee!). Nicole’s sister and one of her friends were our models. It was great to learn how to take advantage of different lighting situations and how to bounce light around using reflectors.

This was one setup we used:


And then here are some shots I took.




It’s been a while (years and years) since I’ve taken a photography class and I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. I’m still not sure what I want to do with photography (portraits, still lifes, landscapes, etc…) but I figure that everything I’m learning now will help me out with whatever type of pictures I want to take.

Photo 101 Homework: Week 1

Here are the photos that I submitted for this week’s homework. We weren’t supposed to crop or alter the photos with software so the exposure that is a little off in some of them. (Please be forgiving!)

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This is a sample of camera panning, where a moving object is in focus but the background is blurred. (Many thanks to my cooperative nephew who was willing to repeatedly run from one side of my yard to the other!)

These next three are samples of images composed according to the rule of thirds. Basically it means that pictures are more pleasing when you divide them into thirds and place focal points at the dividing lines.

These two pictures are examples of deep and shallow depths of field. The egg in the foreground is in focus in the first but blurred in the second. It’s pretty hard to tell a difference at this small size, though. (The difference in depth of field would have been more noticiable if I had placed the egg directly in front of the bowl instead of off to the side.)

This is another example of shallow depth of field. The skull is in focus while the rest of the skeleton is not.

These two pictures are examples of choosing different shutter speeds for different effects. The first pictures has a very fast shutter speed (I think it was 1/2000 of a second) to stop the motion of the water while the second has a slower shutter speed (1/50) of a second to blur the motion of the water.


This is an example of juxtaposition. We were supposed to created an interesting composition by juxtaposing two objects (I used salt and pepper) and using negative space.

This other picture of my nephew was one of my favorite photos I shot for my homework but it was underexposed and so I didn’t submit it for class. But I just cleaned it up using software and I like how it turned out. It reminds me how much fun it was as a kid to run wild outdoors all summer long.