Sara Kirschenbaum
Palm Up

Blog :: Miscellaneous

  1. New "Random" Chapter

    yesterday at 1:01pm

    Click HERE

  2. Low Battery

    yesterday at 11:33am

    Last week I lost the battery charger for my camera and I only had enough juice for a couple of shots at pottery class. I was working alone in a back room with only one window (I like a little privacy when I'm drawing on the clay - it takes such a delicate combination of concentration and luck). I kept the light off and the grey winter light came in low from this one window. I had rolled out big slabs of clay on the slab roller and just loved how rich the texture of canvas looked on the clay (I use canvas to press the clay against). When I took out my handy pin-tool it was like drawing with a nib of light with the beautiful shadows from the low light. Here are the few pictures I took before my camera ran out of battery.

    1 comment

  3. New Ceramic Delights

    Monday, Mar 01st, 2010 at 12:03pm

    I continue to enjoy watching other people's laying on of hands in the pottery studio:

  4. More Pottery Class Photos

    Tuesday, Feb 23rd, 2010 at 11:55am

    Here are a few more:

    1 comment

  5. Now The Palettes Are Coming To Me!

    Tuesday, Feb 23rd, 2010 at 9:55am

    The other day Virginia Church stopped by to pick up the photos I made for her of her palette. But she brought along a surprise: Allison K. Bollman and her beautiful palette that she, just that morning, had been planning to scrape clean! But we got this thing of beauty photographed in the nick of time. The palette sure looked great strapped to the back of her bicycle as she rode up to my house! Here are some of the photos I took of it before she rode it back home on her bicycle to be scraped:

  6. Another Pottery Class; More Dazzling Distractions

    Tuesday, Feb 16th, 2010 at 2:52pm

    Here are some photos from my most recent pottery class:

    1 comment

  7. More Palettes

    Tuesday, Feb 16th, 2010 at 2:25pm

    I got a call from a friend, Virginia Church, yesterday who was about to clean off her palette. I, of course, made an emergency visit with my camera. Here are some of the photos:

  8. Having Trouble Concentrating...

    Thursday, Feb 11th, 2010 at 3:43pm

    I'm having a hard time in pottery class! I am so moved by the beauty of people working around me that I keep grabbing my camera and taking pictures! My picture taking time is taking over my clay-forming time. Our class has been around, roughly consistently, for several years. Our teacher is Kicki Masthem. We are a motley assortment - virtually all amateur. Our ages range from twenties to eighties. Our professions? former Dean of medical school, cancer therapist, paper artist, teacher. Here are some of my favorite photos so far.

  9. Sara's New Photobook: Ocean,Ocean

    Tuesday, Feb 09th, 2010 at 2:10pm

    Take a peak at my new book of water-photos that is available on Blurb.com! It's a beauty but not cheap. Available, though, at cost. It is a nice 12" X 12" book ("coffee table book" size).

  10. New Series?

    Wednesday, Feb 03rd, 2010 at 10:24am

    I am interested in starting a new series of photographs of artist's palettes. I put an ad in an art newsletter offering to give prints of palettes in exchange for getting to photograph them. Here's my first two:

  11. The Launch of My New Book: "Ruined"

    Tuesday, Dec 08th, 2009 at 11:35am

    My precious photobooth collection of photobooth pictures, taken throughout my childhood and beyond, was sitting on the floor in my basement. But the last time I moved the box I forgot to get it up off the ground on wooden supports. Earlier this year I found that much of the contents, photobooths and other photographs, was wrecked by mold, mildew, and water. But wait..the wrecked photos seemed to have a beauty all their own. I have just compiled a book of my favorites and have titled it "Ruined."

  12. A Trip to Breitenbush

    Monday, Nov 30th, 2009 at 10:31am

    We made our annual trip to Breitenbush thanksgiving weekend. (I wasn't sure I would go back after a friend caught the Norovirus after visiting Breitenbush earlier this year but I finally decided to return) Sage bowed out this year but Annie brought her friend Mesa. Here are some photos:

    2 comments

  13. Another Good Day at the Pottery Studio

    Friday, Nov 20th, 2009 at 11:13pm

    Last week I made exactly nothing in the pottery studio. This week it went better. Here's a couple of pics.

    1 comment

  14. Oil Painting Again?!

    Thursday, Oct 29th, 2009 at 2:13pm

    Yesterday I took out my oil paint supplies (that were given to me in 1964 by my then five-year-old friend Charis Conn who told me this year that she had to throw a fit to get her parents to buy such a lavish present for me). Mysteriously the brushes were gone (absconded to my ex-husband's house by my daughter: "You never use them!"). With a few cheap brushes from the nighborhood craft store, I decided to paint. For a few days I'd had a picture in my head of a painting of a hand - done in nearly-white pastel colors. Here's what I set up (never mind the pottery piece). Notice the lovely wooden box from Charis.

    1 comment

  15. In Pursuit of Garbage

    Thursday, Oct 29th, 2009 at 11:35am

    I love the colors and textures of compost and I have been trying to photograph my compost - both in the big bin in the yard and in the small container I keep in my kitchen. I find this photo to be one of my favorite garbage photos so far. I like the formality that my grandmother Celia's cloth napkin gives the whole thing. And by the way - I didn't change anything except lifting it out of the compost container and laying it on the napkin.

  16. Welcoming Fall

    Tuesday, Oct 27th, 2009 at 3:13pm

    I must really be turning into an Oregonian - I feel a satisfaction at the coming of the fall rains. I went on a wet walk in the woods this Sunday with my dear friends Julia, Lily and David.

  17. New Camera!

    Wednesday, Oct 21st, 2009 at 5:40pm

    I finally have a new camera and I went out and took a bunch of woods photos today. They are are scattered about in the photography gallery. Some under the water section, some in a new tree section and the last two in Misc..

  18. Moldy Photobooth Pictures

    Tuesday, Oct 06th, 2009 at 10:31am

    I just added 25 photos to a new photo section on this website: Moldy Photobooths.

    1 comment

  19. I've Posted a New Essay in Appreciation of Dirty Dancing and my Higher Power

    Tuesday, Sep 22nd, 2009 at 7:09pm

    Here's the link:

  20. Sara is on Smugmug

    Wednesday, Sep 16th, 2009 at 3:18pm

    In order to make my Willowbrook photos available to the staff, campers and families of Willowbrook, I have joined Smugmug. You can look at this summer's entire collection of photographs and order them for keeps. Proceeds to benefit Willowbrook. Here's the direct link:

  21. A Cousin-Fest!

    Monday, Sep 14th, 2009 at 11:15am

    After Annie and I went to the Michigan Women's Music Festival, we went to visit our sweet cousins in Chicago. Karen and her husband Ken have lived for a few years in a beautiful apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. Sherry and her husband Paul, moved to Chicago a little over a year ago. Here are some pictures from our trip there and Sherry and Paul's trip, two week later, here. I love that I am getting closer to my cousins. Our grandmother, Celia, would have delighted in it.

  22. More "What I Did this summer"

    Thursday, Sep 10th, 2009 at 4:03pm

    I had three big trips this summer - first to Ohio in June, then to NYC in July, and lastly to Michigan and Chicago in August. The trip to Michigan was with Annie. She and I attended the Michigan Women's Music Festiva. This was the 34th. year for the feminist gathering. I had been there a couple of times in the eighties and Annie and I had been there last year.

  23. New Green and Brown Reflections

    Tuesday, Sep 08th, 2009 at 4:03pm

    I have posted some new photos in the photography gallery of this website. Here is a link to the water section where most of them are. They will be at the bottom of the rows of pictures.

  24. A Pre-Demolition Photo Jaunt

    Thursday, Aug 20th, 2009 at 1:51pm

    I recently re-connected with an old friend - Mina Hamilton. My friend Beth and I spent a summer with her back in 1976 helping her fight the good fight against the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps was about to dam the Delaware River. They had already bought thousands of homes that were to be flooded, including Mina's old family home on the banks of the river. Beth and I volunteered for one month for room and board and a skinny dip in the river every afternoon. Mina was renting her home back from the Army Corps so that is where we all lived. It was a beautiful, old, and very solid house. When Mina's family owned it they also owned two miles of riverfront property!

  25. I Can Turn Fifty Now...

    Saturday, Aug 01st, 2009 at 5:07pm

    Today I completed a full Sprint Triathlon which was my goal to complete before turning fifty. It was a 1/2 mile swim, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 3.2 mile run. The swim was delicious and easy. I surprised myself by doing the whole thing with the crawl stroke. I've never done that much crawl before. The biking was pretty easy but I was disconcerted by how many women passed me (it was an all-women's event). Last year I did the shorter version swimming only 1/4 mile.

  26. Full Distraction Living

    Monday, Jul 06th, 2009 at 11:44pm

    When I was recovering from the postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder that sent me to the psych ward in 1991, the child psychiatrist that I insisted my infant visit, recommended a book to me: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD. I read some of it. The bookmark is still stuck at Commitment, Self-Discipline and Intentionality. The book talks about Dr. Kabat-Zinn's work with people with major medical conditions in a stress clinic. It is a call for living with mindfulness. But what stuck with me throughout the years was the wonderful title - welcoming that which we dread. (His name is cool sounding too.) It's taken me full 18-years to come up with my own answer to Full Catastrophe Living. Now the baby is 18 and is going off the college. And I've discovered a new code to live by: full distraction living.

  27. Best Kept Sacred Secret

    Monday, Jun 29th, 2009 at 10:43pm

    I just got back from a trip to Ohio with Sage and Annie. I don't know what it is about Ohio, but part of me feels at home there - it's a quiet spiritual part of me that breathes a sigh of relief driving through the abundant Ohio corn fields and gazing at the dusk's smattering of fireflies. And those Ohio lightening storms can't be beat! I drove 1,100 miles around the state visiting old friends and special places. I find it very moving that people I haven't seen in 20+ years still remember me and seem to care for me. I know they are dear to me. Stella Burnes, who was part of the Soup Kitchen Community, invited me to her home and showed me her photo album that included a picture I took of her 25 years ago. She also had a wedding picture of Bud and I and baby pictures of Sage and Annie. What a miracle how dear we remain to each other.

  28. Hope Springs Eternal

    Wednesday, Jun 17th, 2009 at 12:18am

    Many of you know that I ruined most of my life-long collection of photobooth pictures - although they did resurrect in all their moldy splendor. (See earlier blog post with pictures of their moldy excellence). Well here are some photobooths that Annie and Sage gave me for mother's day and that Annie and her friend made. Thus, the circle of life...

    3 comments

  29. Annie "Promotes"

    Tuesday, Jun 16th, 2009 at 12:07am

    Annie graduated from middle school this week. They call it a promotion - not a graduation. moment

    1 comment

  30. Sage Graduates!

    Saturday, Jun 13th, 2009 at 11:04pm

    On June 12, 2009 Sage received his high school diploma from Portland Community College. He graduated with 43 hours of college credit. He will be going to Portland State University in the fall. Here are some photos from this glorious occasion:

    1 comment

  31. Self-Portaits Exhibited at Blue Sky Gallery No Strings

    Wednesday, May 06th, 2009 at 1:38pm

    Here's my one-week show of moldy photobooth self-portriats at Blue Sky Gallery No Strings.

  32. Chickens in the Pottery Studio!

    Wednesday, Apr 29th, 2009 at 10:04pm

    I recently brought a couple of my chickens to my pottery class (3-D sculpture). They were a big hit. I believe chickens to be marvelous art models. They have such distinctive curves - distinctive but not obvious. They actually look quite different from your stereotyped cartoon chicken. So you really know when you've drawn them right. Here are some photos from the session. We made sculptures and tiles and as a class are considering having a chicken show!

  33. Sara on Outer Island

    Friday, Apr 24th, 2009 at 9:25pm

    Many of you know that I have been relishing my grandfather's writing about Outer Island - an island he bought in 1927. I'm delighted to have just found 4 negatives of me on the island! It was sold when I was 3 and I have no direct memory of it although it has informed who I am and what stirs my heart. Never underestimate a toddler's perceptions and understanding. Here are the pix:

    2 comments

  34. A New Series of Self-Portraits

    Thursday, Apr 09th, 2009 at 1:13pm

    Looking for a photo in my basement I discovered that many of my old photos stored down there were wrecked by mold. My beloved photobooth pictures where the hardest hit. I've comforted myself by making these spooky sweet portraits out of them.

    2 comments

  35. Wedding in a Week

    Wednesday, Apr 01st, 2009 at 2:29pm

    My dear friend Julia gave us all a week's notice that she was marrying her sweetheart of many years. Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took at the wedding.

  36. My YouTube Videos!

    Thursday, Mar 05th, 2009 at 10:49pm

    Six months ago I posted two videos on YouTube.

  37. My trip to NYC

    Thursday, Feb 26th, 2009 at 8:54pm

    I just got back from NY. Now that my father's health is stabilized, I'm only making a week-long trip there every three months. These trips are adding up. I'm beginning to feel a sense of belonging in NY. Lots of people noticed my haircut this trip which makes me realize that the building guards, restaurant owners, friends and neighbors are getting used to seeing me around in NY. I'm of mixed feeling about my acclimation there. I love my parents and I love the city but it does pull me away from home and confuses my identity as a grown woman separate from my parents.

    1 comment

  38. A Good Day at the Clay Studio

    Saturday, Feb 14th, 2009 at 7:40pm

    I had a great day at pottery yesterday, I did a big drawing on a huge slab of clay. It was of a behind and a front with vagina. I wanted to wrap it around itself, stand it up, and make a big vase. As I stood it up it collapsed in my hands in a magnificent floppy way. But then I opened it up for a photo. Here is the photo:

    3 comments

  39. A Good Day for Drawing

    Thursday, Feb 12th, 2009 at 3:22pm

    Yesterday I went drawing at my favorite place to draw - Hipbone Studios - and I did better than average. Normally I only get a couple acceptable drawings. But yesterday I came away with 16 that made the first cut. Now I will hang them up in my studio and mindlessly stare at them while I am talking on the phone. If a line is wrong it will start to bug me and I'll take the picture down and put it in my recycling. Or if it is alterable I'll add a line or two to fix it up. Would you like to see some of the drawings? Here are some links:

  40. How Well-Equiped Do You Like To Be?

    Friday, Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:59pm

    Years ago my friend Ben and I went on a bicycle tour of the island of Nova Scotia. It was a two-week trip. We had bought new bicycles a couple of years before in London. The terrain was pretty flat at first but it became very hilly as we neared the Northern end of the island called Cape Breton. There was only one way to make it around the Northern tip of the island and that was on an extremely steep trail called Cabot Trail. As we neared the Cabot Trail, we'd meet bicyclists coming the other way who had just completed the trail. They would stop and tell us how incredibly hard the Cabot Trail was to ride. The nearer we got, the more extreme were the descriptions. We started to get nervous. When we finally entered the trail, it was every bit as bad as everyone had described it. There were long sections of this road that had a 10% grade. And imagine riding that with the 50 lbs. of gear we each had on your bikes! When we were half-way through the steep terrain, we saw two bicyclists coming in the other direction. They had the cheapest, oldest, rattiest bicycles I'd ever seen. Old three-speeders. And they didn't have any formal panniers - just bags tied on to their bikes.

    2 comments

  41. Oops

    Friday, Jan 23rd, 2009 at 3:19pm

    I am fascinated by the mistakes that Justice Roberts made in giving the oath of office to our new president. Myself, I hate making mistakes. I get feeling so mortified. Can you imagine how it feels to make an error like Justice Roberts did - in front of, say, 1 billion people? 1 billion is a thousand million! Do you think he did it unconsciously on purpose? If so why? Purely political?

  42. Day One

    Wednesday, Jan 21st, 2009 at 10:41pm

    I have just been watching a recording of ABC's coverage of The Neighborhood Ball. And I feel that I am dreaming. I really didn't think we'd get this far. I really didn't think that the fearful greedy forces in the world would let Barack Hussein Obama be president for even one minute. I suppose its my OCD but I just didn't believe we'd actually get here and have a president who is so intelligent, hip, deep, suave and in his way, down-to-earth.

    1 comment

  43. Hallelujah!

    Tuesday, Jan 20th, 2009 at 5:30pm

    I am so delighted to be alive for this historic election and inauguration. I'm loving the fact that every 4 or 8 years we ditch the old and give voice to a fresh start (I especially like sweeping out the Bush administration). What a radical idea democracy is. I'm getting so swept up in it all that I went out and bought an American flag - my first American flag.

    1 comment

  44. What Is It About Random Arrays of Food?

    Monday, Jan 12th, 2009 at 12:59pm

    This post announces a new section of photographs on my site: Random Arrays of Food. If you would like to go straight there, click here. There are even more food arrays on my flickr photostream which you can access Flickr.

  45. Happy New Year!

    Thursday, Jan 01st, 2009 at 6:22pm

    I wish everyone a year of unexpected dreams. Barack and Michelle have carried us into uncharted dream territory. There are terrible dangers, yes, but unheard of opportunities as well.

  46. Sue and Bernie Smile for Christmas Photos

    Thursday, Dec 18th, 2008 at 10:11pm

    On my last trip to NYC to see Sue and Bernie I took these cute photos:

  47. Woodnymphs

    Tuesday, Nov 25th, 2008 at 9:23pm

    I had the most wonderful day yesterday photographing Annie and her friends running around Tryon Creek Park in dress-up clothes. I have all the luck! Sara heaven really. The girls all arrived with no shoes and they spent the next hour and a half running around barefoot.

  48. R.I.J. Robert Rauschenberg

    Thursday, Nov 20th, 2008 at 1:26pm

    Annie, Sue, Bernie, Chris and Janet and I had the honor to attend Bob's Memorial at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC on November 3rd, 2008. It was a spectacular event with the museum open at night in an arms-open reception for Bob. Everything was grand, formal, austere, important, and beautiful. Below is Janet's great photo:

    2 comments

  49. A Summer's Worth of New Water Photos

    Tuesday, Nov 18th, 2008 at 1:26pm

    I had an intense summer with no less than 5 trips to NYC to visit my ailing dad, Bernard Kirschenbaum. He is hanging in there with various serious ailments of the mind, body and spirit. But that did not stop me from getting to some beautiful bodies of water in the San Juan Islands, the Oregon Coast, and Coney Island. You can click here to go directly to the water pictures in my website.

  50. Time in NYC

    Tuesday, Sep 30th, 2008 at 10:38am

    This summer kicked off with my dad's heart attack.. On summer solstice - June 21 - he collapsed and had to be revived with a shock to his heart. He is doing better although a severely infected gall bladder has complicated the recovery. He has been in the hospital several times and I've made many trips back to NYC several times this summer to be with him and cheer him up.

  51. First Chapter of Home Sweet Nuthouse

    Sunday, Sep 14th, 2008 at 5:54pm

    Chapter One: Home Sweet Nuthouse

  52. Remembering Robert Rauschenberg

    Thursday, Jun 05th, 2008 at 1:10pm

  53. New Pottery

    Friday, Apr 04th, 2008 at 2:36pm

    I just added a bunch of new pottery pieces. Its been a hard quarter for my ceramics; so many things cracked! I was trying to work on a much larger scale and found that pretty challenging. The studio where I work does high-fire firing and that is hard on pieces. I lost more than half of what I made to cracks. But there is still a lot of new pieces. You can click here as a short cut to the Pottery gallery. Let me know what you think!

  54. New photos

    Thursday, Apr 03rd, 2008 at 11:07am

    I've added lots of new photos to the photo gallery. Whole new sections like People Making Art, Water with Fowl, Julia's Farm. What do you think?

    2 comments

  55. I finished my book!

    Wednesday, Mar 26th, 2008 at 9:26pm

    Well, I'm sure I'll have a lot more editing to do but at least I finished my first draft. It has 51 chapters and is about 345 pages long. Its been 10, count'em TEN, years in the making. But most of it was written in the past year. Right now Karen Karbo is taking a look at it and will tell me what I might do next. She took a look at it a few months ago and was very helpful. You can check her out at karenkarbo.com. If you'd like to see more of my book than the first chapter, drop me a line on the contact page.

  56. Newest first

    Tuesday, Mar 11th, 2008 at 8:10pm

    Did you know that the most recently posted images in the galleries (on this website) appear first in the line of images? So if you want to check to see what I've posted most recently, you just click on the first squares in the various catagories in my Drawing, Pottery and Photography galleries.

    1 comment

  57. Welcome to Sara Kirschenbaum's blog

    Tuesday, Feb 26th, 2008 at 10:58pm

    Thanks for stopping by. I'll keep you posted on my latest adventures in writing, drawing, photography and pottery. I'd love to know what you think of this site.

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