Roatan, Honduras - Field Trip

A Most Glorious Field Trip

Kyle and I just returned from an amazing journey to Central America - specifically, one of the Islas de la Bahia off the northern coast of Honduras called, Roatan. It sits out in the Caribbean, protected by one of the largest reefs in the world!
On the morning before we left, we saw a starfish that was more than a foot across - it was deep, deep orange, with a funky yellow design on the front of it. It had washed up on the shore of our resort from the beach. I am describing it to you because I had already packed my camera, and I didn't get any photos.

I did, however, photograph the iguana farm, our glass-bottom boat ride, and lots of other beach adventures. The island was hilly and lush, and we had such a peaceful, wonderful time there. One of my favorite things were the mangrove trees; mangroves are salt-tolerant plants, and Roatan had lots of these trees growing densely right out into the ocean. Kyle and I took a kayak out to look at them.

When I went for my scheduled massage, I arrived at a little dock, where I had to speak into an intercom to call for a boat to take me across to a little island where the wellness center was. We took a water taxi to a quirky, little restaurant called, "Hole in the Wall." We watched a lot of wonderful sunsets, swam in the pool and in the ocean (where I demonstrated my ability to do a handstand), and drank the local beverage - a Monkey LaLa. It was a perfect winter getaway!

I did not try scuba-diving this time, although we were so close to the reef that it was very tempting! But it made me think that it is a long wonderful life, and I will look forward to the day when I am brave enough to try breathing through that strange equipment so that I can experience the unique perspective of the underwater world. It seems a lot like flying in the way you can move through space without having to have your feet on the ground. I like that! For now, I'll enjoy just pondering it, and looking at my shots from the glass-bottom boat.

You can view all of the photos (about 200 in total!) by clicking here to go to my Roatan flickr page.

February in Boston - Field Trip

Another little excursion to Boston - this time to see the premiere of Kyle's play, Trigger, in Cambridge - yielded some fun photos, whilst taking in the sights. I had a lot of fun getting this shot of the skyscraper reflecting the clouds, from our 16th floor hotel window.

We also visited the Old North Church, where, as I wrote on the postcard I sent to my parents, "Paul Revere did the lantern thing." It was pretty cool - it is still a functioning Episcopal church, and all the pews are private little booths with doors on them.

For more photos from the latest trip to Boston, visit my flickr site! (Coming Soon.)

Ceramics, Part III - Glazing Experiments

Above are sets of images I took of several of my ceramics pieces (you can click on the images for a larger view - use the back button on your browser to get back here). Most of them were completed during my 8-week session at Choplet ceramics studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this winter. (The two plates at the bottom were made during a shorter class I took last April at Brick House in Queens.) It was such a great learning experience! My favorite part was experimenting with various glazing techniques - I was guided in this by my class instructor at Choplet, Damien, as well as my friend Christina. Christina showed me how to use an oxide to create the really cool effect on the funky little incense burner (third one down), and served as a general adviser as I scrambled to get all of my glazing experiments into the kiln by the end of the last class.

Official T-Shirt Design Store

My t-shirt designs are now available for purchase through this really fun site called Zazzle. I am excited to create new ones, and to learn more about typography in the process.

It is so amusing to me to notice the solidity a line or phrase takes on when imprinted on a shirt. It becomes ironic, fun, important, larger-than-life, and smile-inducing all at once.

Perhaps now, I will dig up all the little notebooks I carried around to fill with clever lines I heard at the ad agency (where I used to work with the likes of Mitch Silver, author of In Secret Service), and amongst my bohemian friends. Finally, a canvas for all that fodder!

Early Photography Attempts

When I was a little girl, I became fascinated with photographs. I have many stories about my early fascination/obsession with recording things using various mediums.

This particular one is the story of how I came to notice that the photos we took with my parents' 110 format point-and-shoot camera were of remarkably lesser quality than the photographs in the 1-inch-thick Sears catalog I adored, although I certainly didn't possess the vocabulary to express that at the time.

What did possess, was an itching to use a camera! So, I took the old 110 from it's high shelf in the foyer where my mom stashed her purse (I wonder if it was up on that shelf so as to be where I couldn't reach it? Oh well!), and began the task of photographing my toys and the toys of my siblings. "I had better catalog these, like Sears," I thought.

Now, there was a lot I didn't know about photography back then, and there was no such thing as digital; much less, an auto-exposure on the cheap, little 110 viewfinder camera. That means a lot of things: 1) The flash had one auto setting, and when fired, it always blasted out the same amount of light, no matter how close one was to the subject. 2) It had one focus setting - basically from infinity to about two feet - which means anything closer than two feet would be out of focus. 3) Since it was a viewfinder, what you framed in the little plastic window was slightly higher and to the right of what was actually lining up with the lens (and therefore, the film). What this meant, was that if you were too close to your subject, you could actually completely miss having them in the frame!

All I had by way of an instruction manual was the Sears catalog itself. I studied the images carefully, and discovered that the most important thing for photographing toys is that they are framed tightly - nothing is in the background, and they completely fill the frame. So I knew all I had to do was put the camera very close to my subject matter - right?!

Well, consider the above camera limitations, and take a guess at how successful I was.

Needless to say, when my mom picked up her developed film from the corner Revco (a pharmacy chain we had in Cleveland, now CVS), she flipped through the prints of my sister's First Communion, our school Christmas pageant, my brother receiving his new toy BB gun, smiling and nodding to herself, and then suddenly stopping when she saw things like this:




My favorite thing to remind my mother about the early encouragement of my career is all of the times she would come back from Revco, and yell, "Sarah! Quit wasting film!"

But then again, she and Dad did put me through film school. Thanks, Parents.

(top to bottom the photos are entitled, "Michaelangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Next to Candles on Coffee Table, Parts I & II," "Barbies on Large Orange Chair.")

Tee Shirt Design #1

One of the many other artistic interests I have recently begun to pursue is graphic design. I was advised by my amazing designer friend Rob to take a really good typography class as a foundation. In the spirit of exploring typography, I started designing tee shirt slogans with fonts I already have in my computer.

I have found that, as with any software program, it really is important to learn how to use all of the various tools in Illustrator. My Illustrator-savviness is far from advanced, but I was able to concoct what I think is a pretty appropriate design for my original slogan about contemporary real estates trends: "California is the new Brooklyn." (c) 2008 Sarah Sloboda


Soon, I hope to have the design available for purchase on zazzle.com, but in the meantime I made a custom version for my friend Jen who is moving to Nashville from Williamsburg - in her case, Nashville is the new Brooklyn.

Morning Cookies

For the new year, I bought a weekly desk calendar with some inspirational phrases on it, and decided to keep the pages clean, except to document creative excursions, and to make sure I was dedicating a some time each week to a small adventures and fun.

A few days ago, I woke up in the morning wanting to make cookies, and since I had promised myself to keep the little calendar lively, this seemed like a great idea - furthered by the fact that my Mom had sent me back to New York from Ohio with a great little cookie mix and jar of frosting. (Okay, I realize it could be considered cheating to make them from a mix, but the love involved in receiving said mix from my mother should muzzle any nay-sayers.)

There is something nice about baking in the morning. I'm sure that's when it was done, traditionally, and yet most of my life, I've always had school or a day job, so baking in the morning on a weekday kind of feels like a magic day off or playing hooky! And I realized that if we all got to do one thing per week that felt like we were playing hooky, we'd probably have a lot more fun, and end up being more productive from our place of a more positive outlook.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to setting cookie dough balls on a cookie sheet. I don't know why this is - perhaps it comes from my graphically-inspired visual background. But each ball has to be the exact same size (spoons help measure this nicely), and also perfectly round - no lopsidedness or protrusions. I form these balls with concentrated deliberation, seeing no other way. I do not know why I am doing this, until I pull them out of the oven (just a touch of golden brown around the very edges - I am also a perfectionist about baked-ness), and remember from some obscure past experience that they become perfectly shaped, flat, smooth disks in the oven. I relish this perfection again when I frost - making perfect swirls with my spatula as I do so.

What I love about baking is that it is not complicated (particularly when using a mix!), but it requires full attention. I can therefore clear my mind from stress by simply putting my full attention on the perfection of the shape of a ball, or patiently wait for the exact touch of brownness I am waking to appear around the cookie's edge while it's baking. It centers my mind in a place of wonderful simplicity, and in the end, I get to eat the delicious results.