lori vrba photog blog

You Could Fry An Egg

heh heh heh...I'm writing this post lying next to my lifelong best friend...we are hiding in her bedroom, in Houston...we just shot some night stuff with her hands curled up in some twisted ivy just outside her kitchen window light.  I guessed on all the exposures since my light meter doesn't really care about my night adventures.  What would you be if you didn't even try?  You have to try.  (says Lyle)

I've come to Texas for a very long stay.  The longest I've ever been away from home.   It is ten thousand degrees and 99.9 percent humidity/stupidity.  Mary Carr, one of my favorite authors, who grew up not far from where I grew up in Texas...she and her sister used to say "Its not the heat, its the stupidity."  okay, but I don't hang with those people.  I come here, not for the landscape or the culture or the resort mentality...I come here because my people are here.  My children know their children, as family.  I come because I'm better after I've been with these women for awhile.

Plenty goin' on with work and photography and breaking thru to the other side.  The day before I flew here, I got word that one of my images is to be a part of a group show in London.  Wish you coulda seen the firestorm around me, packing for my three kids (plus a visiting spare), managing the fact that my prints arrived at the Griffin Museum with broken glass, framing and shipping the print to London...and more and more and more.  You know what?  It feels like a full, BALANCED, albeit crazy ass life.  And thats how I like it best.

My best friend Beck lies next to me now as I tap tap tap on my laptop.  She's reading a photography book... her twin boys, who I met on the day they were born, are upstairs playing with my kids.  All is well here in the Lone Star State.  Chapel Hill won't miss me for awhile.  I'll be thinking about her.  But for now...I'm good.  

Vrba Report

Three minutes till midnight here and by the time I finish this post, it will be tomorrow.  I have prints washing so I'm up for another 40 minutes...might as well say something to the world.  hey, how ya doin?

Summer has kicked into high gear and it makes me smile.  I checked my first born son into his first sleep over camp yesterday.  He's 13 and loves basketball.  To make a long story short...its a bad ass camp, run by the UNC Tarheel coach, Roy Williams.  I've talked to Aaron a few times, briefly...and all I can say is...I don't think he misses us.  I asked him what his favorite thing has been so far, he named a couple of big name players he had met and talked about some games but decided ultimately that the thing he loved most so far was his freedom.  HIS FREEDOM.  that is an entire post in and of itself.  I'm terrified.

Grayson had his first electric guitar lesson today...he was born to play rock and roll.  He and I had a lunch date just before the lesson.  That too deserves its own post.

Olivia went out with me last weekend and we shot for an hour in the woods.  I'm extremely happy with what we got.  I've been printing it today.  Which brings me to the darkroom...

Been having myself quite the pity party in there for the last several weeks...missing my extra set of eyes along with the company.  Today I turned the corner.  I was in and out, with plenty of kid stuff to pull me out of there every couple of hours...but while I was ALL IN...there was my fair share of magic.  I worked hard on each print and just finished split toning all of them.  I love them.  And if I could sing for you the last line, where I say "I love them", I would.  I would sing it.  So imagine me singing that part and you'll really know how much I love them.

Gotta Go Squeegie.

Breath It In...

If an artist does not spring to his work as a soldier to the breach, if once within the crater he does not labor as a miner buried in the earth, if he contemplates his difficulties instead of conquering them one by one, the work remains unachieved, production becomes impossible, and the artist assists the suicide of his own talent...The solution of the problem can be found only through incessant and sustained work...True artists, true poets, generate and give birth today, tomorrow, ever. From this habit of labor results a ceaseless comprehension of difficulties which keep them in communion with the muse and her creative forces.

Honoré de Balzac

A Three Hour Tour

I suppose if one were to name an on going theme for this blog o' mine, it would be "The Highs and Lows of a Tortured, Over-analytical, Occasionally Whiny Artist."  I can't say that I'm proud of it...but its cathartic to just type it out here and then move on.

I've spent a great deal of time over the last six weeks thinking about how I would work now that I'm back on my own.  No one is looking over my shoulder.  No one sees the contact sheets.  I am free to succeed or fail without answering to anyone but myself.  One would think that I'd be pressing the shutter all day, every day.  Ha.  Not true.  Now granted, I've had plenty to manage with my neglected home, family, unruly dogs, overdue appointments, overall...an overhaul.

It was beginning to feel like I was moving further and further away from photography and certainly far from a place of inspiration or courage.  

And then.

A curator friend of mine here in Chapel Hill thought I should meet a local collector who had just recently finished construction on a home designed by his architect wife.  Supposedly, this guy had an impressive photography collection which included the Sally Mann print, "Candy Cigarette."  Enough said.  I've never seen a Mann print in person.  So no matter what F'd up state of mind I was hovering in...I was going.  

Okay, where should I begin?  Well, the house itself was magnificent.  It was designed with the intention of showcasing the collection AND hosting an Artist in Residence program...with living space and a studio for whatever lucky S.O.B. they chose.  (uh yeah, my head was spinning)

Now I wish I could have taken in the space.  I wish I could have expanded my mind to draw in more information, appreciate it, file it, refer to it later as needed.  But the second I walked in the door, my eyes went straight to the first print...tunnel vision, no sound, selective focus, feet moving me closer, can't talk now and then WHOA THEY WERE EVERYWHERE!  This was the largest collection of photography I had ever seen outside of a museum.  It was the passion of one man, with  very specific taste (which I could utterly relate to), and it was gracefully presented by him in a tour that included countless stories of the artists, their processes, how he acquired the work, why he was drawn to it...it. was. fascinating.

I saw iconic images made by historic photographers.  I saw stop-you-dead-in-your-track-images, made by unknown photographers.  I prayed under Candy Cigarette.  I asked for a notebook and pen so I could take notes.  It was the field trip of a lifetime and I bathed in it for as long as I could.  My host was generous, laid back, and welcomed me back anytime.  Oh that could be dangerous.  I need.

I came home fueled and fired.  Because I saw the work of brave brave artists.  I saw processes and techniques that I had never heard of or considered.  I saw gut wrenching images that were simple compositions and subject matter.  I saw the product of courage.  Those artists figured out how to overcome whatever road blocks they faced (its universal)...and someone noticed and valued their efforts.  

I am inspired.

Load.

Shoot.

Make Art.

 

Muse: Creative Influence, Inspiration, Stimulus

My girl Olivia is all wrapped up in photography.  I don't know why this surprises me given how we are the only two women of the house...I guess she would, at the very least be intrigued by my work...beats football.  She loves the darkroom.  She patiently waits for the image to come up in the tray and on cue gently moves it through the chemistry.

The camera is in love with her.  She knows it and requires no direction from me whenever I am shooting her.  She and I could be in one helluva mean cat fight in the 10 minutes prior to me pressing the shutter, but the second I look through the viewfinder...the girl transforms herself.  

So last Sunday morning, I had been up a couple of hours with an image rolling around in my head, hoping that she would wake up before it got too sunny.  I had this scraggly sunflower in a small pot that I had bought from the farmer's market the day before...specifically with a photograph in mind.  I knew I would talk myself out of taking the shot or kill the sunflower before I got around to it and so I just had to DO IT.  At 7:30 I went in where she was curled up in a ball like a warm kitten, sound asleep sucking her thumb.  I rubbed her back, whispered her name a couple of times and asked if she could hear me.  She barely nodded her head.  I said, "Sister, I have this really good idea for a picture but I need you for it and we would need to go now.  What do you think?"  She doesn't make a sound, rolls out of bed, steps into the skirt and blouse I'm holding and gets in the car.  She hardly even opens her eyes.  I was amazed.  It started raining almost as soon as we got there but I shot a few frames, told her how awesome she was for being so willing and spent the rest of our drive home trying to explain the definition of a Muse.

A few weeks ago, my image won Best In Show at the local ArtsCenter.  Olivia was especially proud because it was a photograph of her.  It is dear to me, not only because she is in it but it was the first frame of the first roll I shot after returning from Santa Fe nearly a year ago.  Its called "Sacred".  She asked me what Sacred meant and why I had chosen that word as the title.  Then, get a load of this...she says, "You know what I like about that picture mom?  I like how the trees cross each other at the top, and how I am right under them, and how 'just right' the light is around me".  SHE'S EIGHT.  And she was describing, quite accurately what makes this image work...the lines, the light, and oh my god...this child.