Annie Leibowitz & Home Assignments

About three years ago you gave me the book "Annie Leibovitz at work" for Christmas". I have a very strange / stupid way with coffee table books – a stupid term anyway – or exhibition catalogues which is I am fascinated by them but I never really, really look at them. Same with Leibowitz's book. I was so excited and surprised when you gave it to me... you rarely gave "surprise presents"...  But I suddenly started flipping through it again.

She describes her years in school in San Francisco, how she walked around with her camera every morning. If you don't have your camera with you you can't take the picture. You have to train yourself and your eye in order to find the image... 

Somehow I lost the ability to just go out, walk around and take pictures of something, anything, really. I used to do it all the time, I was very serious about it. My excuse to stop was / is that Munich doesn't offer too many exciting views. The truth is, however, after several years in New York I had become lazier camera wise, too. I switched to video, had a new incentive and focus until it faded little by little. Once out of college and in the working world everything changes again. Assignments become projects, projects becomes jobs, jobs become chores. I realize that I don't take myself as serious anymore. Spending time on something has to be goal-oriented, meaning money. Not very helpful for the creative, artistic process. 

Starting today I will take my camera and go out looking for the image. My second New Years resolution since yesterday. It is in fact my middle of the month resolution. Write every day, just a little, sketch something and concentrate on photography for 25 min every day whether it is editing or shooting. We'll talk again in June. I'll keep you posted.

Sketching, scribbling & forgetting

My latest and last cashmere video for the season. Currently everything I do goes back to basics. Sketching and scribbling. I am still very seriously working on cleaning up my archives and I'll tell ya, it's loads and loads of work and a whole lot of it goes straight to the trash just the way you'd like it... Ooooh, I have a whole bunch of Middle of the Year Resolutions. Stay tuned, you would feel really pissed off hearing of all my efficiency life stuff.

And again, there is no way around it... Currently I miss you every moment, AGAIN. Reality hits me several times a day and I am stunned just as often. You definitely are dead? You face is so fresh on my inner eyes... I really won't see you again? What a boring story.

I love you and I miss you. Please change the way the world goes.

Motion, Motion, Motion

My dearest Momanimal,

I don't know what happened, I am so very sad again. I miss you terribly. A stepping stone of grieving? It's been six months. I repeat myself time and again. I know, but... Tonie is so cute, she can do so many new things! Runs around with her toy stroller and her little naked bath baby that she hugged tonight while falling asleep. Two days ago we had to go to the emergency room because our oven kind of melted and I was so scared that Tonie inhaled plastic stuff... We spent 3 hours in the hopsital without ever seeing a doctor. The ER just went from empty to crowded with kids. So I went home with her after talking to doctor friends who reassured me that everything would be fine. Mostly it is just my horrible, horrible fear and panic of loosing Tonie, too.

I miss you. I MISS U. You would have checked on us and you would have worried with us, Tonie, me and Tom. Anyway. I am just finishing the last cashmere video of the season. So here comes the one I finished three weeks ago... and London photos will follow, I hope. Looking ahead! TOmorrow will be better.

I love you. Please come back.

The 2-coloured shawl from mimicks on Vimeo.

Christmas Cards?

Dearest Mom.

Finally I put together the Christmas Cards I did this year. I did several for companies but the most fun are the ones for families. Especially families I have been portraying for the past few years. I started all design with J and O – I did the letter shoot with them an it was hilarious! We all had lots of fun. Whereas a few years ago (age 6 months and 2.5 years) they were so shy towards me when I arrived with all my equipment, lights and tripod. By now they know I'll show up sooner or later and they just go with it and are actually excited to make pictures again. I should add the Christmas of the Two from last year and two years ago when they just jumped on the bed!

Unfortunately Tonie's card didn't get finished yet. With bracelets and all. Now I am thinking about sending a New Years Greeting? Easter Greeting? I don't know yet, I just love the collage concept. And I want to send cute pictures of my daughter, TOO! Right now all the images of Tonie used in the design were shot while you were still alive. Something that always goes through my mind. In this picture of me I still have a mother.... I bought this shirt with you. Last time I was here, I was with you. The jolts of pain are back with force. Several times a day I think of you and can't believe you really, really won't be back. I still can't understand or believe it. And each time I think of you shoots through me: You are dead.

Our heater is broken. We are at your place, it is so cold at our place. To be here and stay overnight. Strange again. I am tired.

I love you and I miss you. Please come back.

J & O letter design... first I thought it wouldn't work... but – shift, move and bla – now it does.

A more classic baubles design I translated from a fashion client Xmas Card.

Tonie!

Bracelet Week

My beloved Mom,

I haven't counted how many little envelopes with bracelets I packed in the course of this week. The dining room has become a crowded, chaotic, mailing center. I believe 500-600 bracelets left by mail this week. I am soooo tired, every night I tried to keep track of emails, orders, transfers, packaging, wrapping, colors. I thought having something in a magazine like Instyle and receiving thousands of orders was an urban legend. But it isn't. Not a thousand orders though, but I wouldn't haven been able to handle more than I received anyway. Orders finally slowed down Thursday and I am relieved and sad... since yesterday the crushing pain is back.

Tonie constantly tries to get her hands on anything. Or she gets mad because she is bored crawling under the table not being able to make a mess with her little tiny octopussy fingers. If she is suddenly very quiet... she probably has found something she can unpack. Every DVD of Season 5 and six of "Friends" has been removed from its case. Once she has emptied every case she goes looking for my handbag. Ah, the wallet. And all the receits have to go and the change goes into my boots.

If you were alive I knew you'd been here every day, helping me with something, anything, packing or doing a post office run, buying envelopes and stamps, labeling orders, sorting emails. Like you did for me when we prepared my exhibition in the studio, hanging everything, preparing the bar and the music, hoovering the floor the last minute or helping me finish 400 tiny felt-loveletter-clutches. The entire process made me miss you even more and realize how much I counted on you as my emergency assistant-partner. At the same time I didn't miss you at all this week, because it felt as if you were there. As if you were right by my side and we were doing all this together.

Happy Things

My dearest Mommanimal,

today is the first day I can lift my head up again. Sometimes the pain feels unbearable. Though I really know heartbreak I never experienced this crushing pain.

Anyway. Looking ahead. A little pick me up:
The week you died, Instyle Magazine emailed and asked for images of my bracelets and my tattoos! They wanted to feature them for their January issue. I didn't think about it as you never know with magazines – and I had other things on my mind. But yesterday my tiny onlineshop arose from it's beauty sleep and several orders tumbled into my mailbox... Yay! I spent yesterday morning in your place waiting for a delivery and quickly brought the shop up to date. Now it is a Christmas Shop. Look below.... I really like the colors. Ooh, I will upload all the Christmas Card designs I just finished for clients....

The bracelet & tattoo disaster really is a story in itself. And it was about time something positive happened to this doomed endeavor. I have often wished I had stopped the process the minute we knew about your diagnosis. On the other hand it probably kept me afloat thinking through the designs, finishing the illustrations for the tattoos... I just prepared the different orders and I remembered how you wanted to help me to tie the bracelets. You had always helped with all this little handy stuff of my different products. Only this time your hands were shaking just a tiny bit and you couldn't really hold them still. We just went on and you worked slowly and it broke my heart. Breaks my heart right now and all the pain is back with a blast. My dearest, best and greatest Mom. I miss u so. I don't know what to do without you. I hope you are well wherever you are. I love you I miss u I wish u hadn't died.