Sometimes one goes looking for inspiration.

For me, whether that search is out the window, through my lens, in the stroke of a brush, or into my interior it is almost always fruitful. From my perspective, we are surrounded by an infinity that is constantly evolving. A place where everything is always imbued with renewal.

No two moments in the universe are ever the same, and in this reality lies magic beyond that which any incantation might evoke.

This kind of creative searching has its place; is essential even, but it isn’t the topic of this post.

Today I want to write a bit about that other kind of inspiration. The kind of inspiration that comes calling of its own accord.

Like a first snowflake settling on the still green grass, it can herald an oncoming wave, or simply one fleeting drop. Regardless its form or duration, it is unfailingly a delightful rush.

I absolutely love getting caught up in the flow of something new.

Recently I was accosted by a poem written by a friend and it sparked the immediate need for me to draw.

I was stunned to find that what I was drawing was a mandala.

I haven’t created a mandala of any kind in more than a decade. And if I had thought about why not, I might have said that my work had evolved—had moved in new directions.

Which just goes to show how wrong a person can be.

Below you’ll find my first new visual piece of 2010. It was inspired by this wonderful poem by Marianna Paulson:

Living. Breathing.

Breathing. Living.

Inspiritus -
inspiration -
spirit.

Awaken. Breathe. Live.

Now.

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You can find Marianna at her website, blog, and on twitter.

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Here is the image inspired by Marianna’s wise, beautiful, mantra-like poem.

I hope you will enjoy the viewing as much as I enjoyed the creating.

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title - breathe life - by Kayt Hoch

I suspect mandalas may be making a new visitation to my creative life, time will tell on that.

Truth is, I still feeling like drawing. And the energy buzzing my fingers feels a lot more like a wave beginning to roll, than one lonely drop from an otherwise pale blue sky.

~~~

tech stuff - in case you care

The drawing was created from blank screen using Photoshop CS3 software. All elements of the piece were hand-drawn, (using a Wacom Intuos3 tablet) combined with two gradients (created by me), and integrated using various blending modes and transparency levels.

~~~

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Hey - it’s 2009

And I want to say a heartfelt thanks to all my new blogging friends and send each and everyone of you my best for a joyous, peaceful, and prosperous new year.

Thanks for all the great conversations, writing, artwork, and most of all inspiration - I am honored to share this space with you!

I’m not one for resolutions, and I’ve long since gotten over staying up all night and then dozing over the toilet bowl on the first day of the new year, but there is something fresh feeling about putting up a new calendar and taking a moment to pause and think about new directions and adventures.

And on the topic of adventurous feeling things, I wanted to share this NASA image with you. The work these folks are doing is just so cool and new to me.

I pretty much thought antimatter was more or less a Star Trek fantasy, but apparently not.

This is an image of the Bullet Cluster.

And the image is made up of an image from the Chandra x-ray observatory, and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Magellan telescope in Chile.

As a digital image person just all that is cool enough to totally wow me, but read the excerpt below the image to find out what these folks are studying. This kind of stuff makes me want to jump on a star and get out there in person.

Man, just beam me up…

In this latest research effort, the Bullet Cluster was used to search for the presence of antimatter leftover from the very early universe. Antimatter is made up of elementary particles that have the same masses as their corresponding matter counterparts — protons, neutrons and electrons — but the opposite charges and magnetic properties.

[via NASA - Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al. Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al. ]

May your new year be filled with wonder, delight, and new discoveries.

Looking forward to exchanging more data bits with you in ‘09

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Mount Saint Helens is one of those places for me. It calls me.

I’m sure you know what I mean.

I went there for the first time in June 1987. Seven years after the cataclysmic eruption that deposited ash over 22,000 square miles. Ash my partner cleaned out of the gutters of a house she bought 16 years after the eruption, located 162 miles from the volcano. Ash I have a small jar of on my nightstand—collected in 1987 from beside a semicircle of rebar gracefully curving skyward from the splayed and rolled under-surface of what used to be a two lane highway.

I’ll write more about this amazing place at some point, but I came upon these videos today that I wanted to share right away. They are quite amazing.

Following the videos are links to three St. Helens photos from my portfolio.

These videos are 360° interactive videos! These are aerial views taken from helicopters, way beyond cool IMHO. They are from Immersive Media.

While the video is playing, click the left mouse button and move the mouse around to change the view.

It took me a while to get the hang of it, but once I did I could really get a 3D feeling from the videos. Have fun!!

This is a flight into the active crater.

This is a flyover of the rim and Spirit Lake.

This is a flight over the blast zone.

Here are the links to 3 of Kayt’s photographs of Mount St. Helens:road 54 -2006

spirit lake-2006

st. helens - steaming- 2007 (note: the year on the actual image is incorrect - I need to edit it - 2007 is correct)

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machine rage - cat#AA868 ………. Copyright 2008 Kayt Hoch - rights reserved.

Unfortunately, the conversion to JPEG isn’t very kind to text and fine detail. So, I’ve created a pdf (using a high resolution TIFF) for those of you interested in looking more closely at the image/details. machine rage pdf

Be real, and don’t steal the image.

I’m easy to work with, just contact me if you want to use or get a print of the image and we’ll work something out. That will be easier than spending your time trying to get rid of the copyright info on the image anyway.

This piece was created in response to the SES prompt linked at the end of the post. turns out, I mis-read the post at SES - no prompt this week -

For those of you interested in some very basic information about how this image was put together, read on.

(more…)

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fragile light - cat. #AA861

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This digital drawing was created in response to the SES prompt below. Like all my digital drawings the work begins with a blank screen using no photographs, scans, or preexisting images.

© Kayt Hoch 2008. All rights reserved. Please contact Kayt using the menu tab above if you are interested in purchasing prints, or using this image in any way.

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Search Engine Stories - Prompts - 08 Nov 08 -’candle in the mist’, and ‘fragile’

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My dad always wanted to work for NASA.

I never really understood why he didn’t. He was beyond smart enough. And driven enough.

And he seemed to want it enough—told me once he would have even mopped the floors just to have been a part of what was going on there in the ’60s.

I don’t know about you, but in my book that is a lot of desire.

Perhaps he never pursued that life because he felt family demands weigh heavily, or had a want to stay in the home town, or grappled with things I can never imagine.

We all make choices. Sometimes they just aren’t very easy to explain.

Regardless, I grew up around all things space. We watched every scrap of televison broadcast on the Apollo missions and Lost in Space and StarTrek were shows we never missed.

As an adult I had the good fortune to visit Cape Kennedy with my dad twice, where he told me more about the different craft and the operation of the place than I could find in any of the written information there.

NASA always and forever reminds me of my dad so it seems perfect to share some NASA images with you on this father’s day weekend.

This is a picture of the Rocky Mesas of Nilosyrtis Mensae on Mars. My dad would have loved this mission. Mars, the planet of endless science fiction and speculation at last being revealed to us in pictures like this.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona iii mars mesas - read more…

iiii

This is a flare from the star EV Lacertae. This star is far smaller (a red dwarf) than our own solar system’s star. And yet this flare is thousands of times more powerful than any thing that our sun has ever emitted. This makes me think of potential and how we never really know what is possible. My dad knew this too. When the docs gave him five or six months, he decided he had other plans and lived another two years.

Image Credit: Casey Reed/NASA iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EV Lacertae - read more…

iiiiii

So the post today is really just these pictures.

NASA images that prompt me to reflect on my dad.

They make me remeber how he had to let go of some of his dreams to follow other ones, and how he never discouraged me when I tossed away my “good job with lots of potential” to chase after the uncertainty of art in its many forms.

Perhaps my father hoped I had hitched my wagon to a star, or maybe that I’d found my own floors to mop. I’ll never know for sure.

What I hope is that wherever my dad is at the moment, the stars are more beautiful up close, than he ever imagined them to be.

iiiiiii

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