2009 Jack Portraits 3 (8 weeks old)

Click here to view these pictures larger

Jack Louis Meckel

Our son, Jack Louis Meckel was born August 25 at 7:28am. He weighed 6lbs 10oz and was 19 ½ inches long.

I started having contractions at about 11pm on the 24th and woke Brant at 1:30am. We timed them for about an hour and they averaged about 3 minutes between contractions. After calling the hospital to see what they thought of the short contraction durations, they told me to drink a lot of water, lie down, and see if they would go away in an hour because they weren’t sure if they were true labor contractions. Well, they didn’t go away. So we packed the car up and went in at 3:30am. When we got to the hospital the nurses had a hard time finding my cervix so they called Dr. Harris. Both the nurses thought I had a long way to go but Dr. Harris decided to come in and see us. After about 20 minutes of walking the halls and using the yoga ball, Dr. Harris arrived and did a short examination only to discover that I was dilated about 8cm. I laid down on the bed, he broke my water and I started pushing after about 3 more contractions (9 minutes). Without the aid of any drugs, I pushed for about 1 ½ hours and finally gave birth to Jack at 7:28am.

And here he is...

36 weeks

Jack is 36 weeks along now and doing great. We can't believe we've only got about 4 weeks until we can meet him!

Taxidermy and Tacos...my favorite combination

This juxtaposition of businesses resides in Weiser, Idaho. Finally I passed through with my camera handy.

Somebody's Definitely in There

Making His Mark

Tonight Jack, Nate and I worked on some new images.

RECOLLECTION

See more of my short videos at www.twinheartbrand.com

Curtain Photographs (self portrait)

These still images originate from a video performed in 2006 during graduate school.  Slow motion clips of curtains gently dancing when the figure behind motions to peek out ever so slightly.

Renderings and Tokens

I've started to create some commissioned drawings. Here are the first three.

Take Flight

I am alone for a while. Brant left tonight to help his mom and dad in Arizona during her illness. This is a tense and sad time for our family and I find myself compelled to make work in Brant's absence.

Being alone always reminds me of the amazing man I am married to and how incredibly funny he is. The immediate lack of laughter in our little apartment startles me but the silence gives me some space to think and work.

In a Creative Space

I've always respected artists that work in the studio daily, even if they produce very little. Many times I've heard these artists say that forcing themselves to just 'be in a creative space' created results they didn't expect and led to new work. I'd call these happy accidents.

My studio is my house, so my work challenge to myself is a drawing a day.

Here we go.




.

Go Green by Going Black

This is fantastic:

http://ecoandy.com/index.htm

http://www.ecosmartsearch.com/about.htm

Ecosmartsearch is owned by Andrew Davey age 14. My search engine is powered by Google.

Back in February I read a blog post by a leading expert in "green" computing called Mark Ontkush he calculated the following:

"An all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts. I thought I would do a little math and see what could be saved by moving a high volume site to the black format.

Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let's assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that's $75,000, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few colour codes."
Mark inspired me to start ecosmartsearch.com

This can be found ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html

The point of Ecosmartsearch is not just to save energy, but to make us more aware. We also hope that by displaying ecosmartsearch when your computer comes on, you will think of other ways of saving energy. We also would really like it if you set us as your homepage as a reminder of saving energy

To use this energy saving version of google bookmark:
http://www.ecosmartsearch.com/

To Janet

My mother in-law was recently diagnosed with Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia. While Leukemia is a commonly known type of cancer, hearing the news that Janet was ill came as a complete shock to all of our family. For weeks now she has been far from home in a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona.

While on vacation in Arizona, Janet felt a pain in her chest that was found to be
pneumonia, which was caused by a low white blood cell count, which was caused by the Leukemia.

She is an amazing woman. Test after test and throughout the chemotherapy she has remained strong yet tender. And Tony, my father in-law, is an equally amazing man. It has been so touching to watch those two together throughout this trying time.

The last evening Brant, Jamie and I were there, Janet's hair had began to loosen and fall onto her shoulders. We all sat around her and cried with her while Tony tenderly brushed it and kept whispering how beautiful she looked. It was an incredibly emotional moment that I'll never forget.

Amber Hills Motel

A charming deserted motel on Arizona hwy 60 caught my attention. The wonderful art deco coves and windows created viewfinders.

The News Is Out

Bowser is now 14 weeks in the making. These photos are of the mock article Brant made to send to his folks in Arizona. They were pretty surprised. We were able to tell everybody else in person.

We call the fetus Bowser because until now, it has closely resembled the dragon creature from Super Mario Brothers. I just know it's in there with it's inadequate arms, jumping up and down while breathing fire at regular intervals.

As you can see...Brant is pretty excited.

The article intended for Janet and Tony read:

ROUTINE DOCTOR VISIT DELIVERS SURPRISING NEWS

Dr. Scott S. Harris, M.D. says Brant and Adrianne Meckel will be the proud parents of a new baby on September 5, 2009. They were surprised to receive the news from Dr. Harris during Adrianne’s routine thyroid check-up on New Years Eve, 2008 and later discovered that they were already one month pregnant.

While smiling Adri says, “We waited until the first trimester was over to spread the news because it’s such a precarious time. Concealing the pregnancy for thirteen weeks was tricky but it passed quickly because, thankfully, my symptoms and food aversions were minimal. It’s also helpful that I haven’t begun to show” She’s excited for family and friends to be a part of the next 6 months especially after hearing the baby’s heart beat for the first time on February 25. Brant, also thrilled, says, “It’s finally time to tell Tony, Janet, Ron and Jo that they’re going to be grandparents and Jamie and Sidni that they’re going to be aunts.” He’s sure they’ll be ecstatic at the news.

Just past thirteen weeks gestation, Baby Meckel is almost 3 inches long and weighs nearly an ounce. As it continues to grow rapidly, Brant and Adri look forward to their twentieth week ultrasound to discover if it’s a boy or a girl. Either way they’re overjoyed and between the two of them many baby names abound. Names favored for boys are Louis (Lou), Charles, Holt, Jack, and Jim and names they like for girls are Soren, Kate, Claire, and Kay.

Brant and Adri look forward to your call and can’t wait to see you in person to share the excitement.

Mother gets a makeover

I've just added a new Mother Magnet design to my etsy shop. It repeats an earlier phrase but the design is new.

"I'm so tired I can't keep the eyes in the back of my head open."

-the mother

Drawing Conclusions

stippled ink drawing in progress

This has been an interesting few months. After officially losing my employment, I've been substitute teaching in the local school district, and while Christmas break interrupted my short sub employment, I found myself back in the classroom today. The stress of repeatedly asking a group of high school boys to quit talking and do their work really wears on me and I find myself thinking about my real dreams.

I come home and draw.

Drawing isn't my fondest medium, it's just whats possible right now. The darkroom is my natural habitat but I don't have one available to me right now. I didn't realize how fortunate I've been the last 10 years of college and grad school. I've considered these post masters years as a drawing assignment, challenging myself to create in new ways. I'm not sure if its going anywhere, but I have lots of new effigies to keep me company along the way.

The holidays have left me very drained and I hope in the next few weeks I can use the chaos of Christmas as fuel for work...weird work...needed work.

I need to bust out the video camera and start licking some glass (see Diagnosis video on my website if you really care what I'm referencing.)