Thursday, October 15, 2009

This is me these days. I look at this and I get the feeling that I'm carrying secrets around, which is interesting because that's the opposite. I've been doing my best to express myself openly and honestly through not only my spoken words but through my music and art as well. There's not as much of me hidden in the shadows as this picture seems to portray. At least not these days.

Today was beyond wonderful. I took a walk to the market, which is up and down a few hills, about a 45 minute walk (30 minutes if I skip). Apparently the sight of me makes people scream, though. I was heading to the horse trail (all the while wary of road apples) and a boy in a lifted truck (of course) leaned out his window and hollered, "MYEAAAUUUUURGHHHAH!" I was so happy that he was able to communicate effectively.

After my time at the market, I met with MacKenzie and Trevor, two of my favorite people in the universe. I entertained them with my story of how I ended up in the rubber room (oh how they laughed) and the subsequent events that led me back to Orange County. One day I will write it all down, as it's quite a hoot (in my opinion, the madness wasn't so hilarious to some others) but for now the oral history will have to do.

After that I got some painting done, went to the park with my little Heidi monster, ate some homemade chicken noodle soup, and then went of to a little churchy type meeting. I met a sweet girl with whom I think I'll be great friends, and this all made me very happy.

Tonight will end with cake and a cigarette. I love my little life right now.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

new songs, ahoy!

There are two, "She & Him" and "I Know You". As a preface, these new songs are by no means complete instrumentally. I just wanted them to venture out into the grand land of internets for a test run. Just an FYI, you can definitely hear me pause and turn the page of my songbook. Why can you hear it? Because I am retarded and forgot to cut that part out before rendering it. Why didn't I fix it? Well...I am lazy. And the song's coming down anyway when I re-record it and add THE VIOLIN!!!!!!

"I Know You" is just as raw but without any weird page-turns. However that will soon have a harmonica bit and a piano part as well.

I don't know why I'm cranking out the tunes...I've written four complete songs in the past month and about ten poems. I guess I've had a lot in my head that needed dumping out.

Anyways, the best is yet to come. My favorite new song I refuse to post until it is perfect perfect. I think you will enjoy it...it's a duet about a day that was trying for both parties involved. A song about differing perspectives of the same, beautiful world.

Tomorrow I'll post the finished tablemarkers and a pretty picture of some birds that I drew today. Speaking of birds, I hope my friend Dustin Burd is okay. He is living in a tent in Yosemite and he climbs rocks all day. Hence why he is my hero, but I do miss him so. I hear he is coming into town, maybe in time for my birthday!

Oh, and any of my generous friends living overseas, let's arrange some sort of Djarum trade. I'll knit you a boat for a carton of Kretek cigarettes. Anyone interested in letting me in on some black market Blacks, please email me soon.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

oh fall

mmmm I love the air, the breeze, the trees, and all of the BUTTERFLIES WHICH DON'T EVEN BELONG HERE RIGHT NOW. I'm serious, I know butterflies aren't supposed to be flitting around this time of year but they are. They fly all around my head. And they are beautiful.

SOoooo I don't have any photography to share today. I finished Noelle's table markers for her wedding, but I didn't feel like taking any shots in my poorly lit garage. garbage light, I say. It took me a lot longer to finish the project because of follies of my own. I should have used my brain a bit more than I chose to, and it cost me, both in time and in monies. And then little hearts kept running away and hiding, so I had to make more, only to find the ones that ran away right after making more. Rather frustrating, but oh well. Oh well. I'm high from paint fumes. My head hurts and so does my back from hunching over and painting, but blah blah complaining does nothing. Yoga, however, will fix it alllll up.

More fun from godPod today. A few songs I liked were:

Futures - Zero 7
The London Boys - David Bowie
Teenager - Camera Obscura

More of interest tomorrow, maybe. Who can say?

oh oh oh ALSO!! I wrote a new song! And it's a duet, as is another I wrote a few weeks ago during my stay in the rubber room. I suppose I imagine conversations in my head and then they become songs. My brain is a weird playground.

Friday, October 9, 2009

painting on pot

Today was full of painting, plums, painting, cigarettes, painting, turkish soup, and oh yeah, painting. Did I mention pai- yeah, I think I did. Although I am sure that you are just itching to know about all of those plums, cigarettes, and, most interesting of all, the turkish soup, I regret
to inform you that I will probably only discuss the painting.

I've been working on a piece for the entryway of our office, which consists of pot. Our office has some great, earthy pots. They aren't stinky or hairy, but they are very pretty. Here are some of the vessels:


The lighting doesn't do them justice as that shot is lit with a fluorescent bulb from my bed lamp, but you get the picture. I'll post a shot of the office itself at some point to help you understand.

The piece is going to be a background of abstract ethereal swirls (as they have and always will be one of my favorite elements) with a realistic still life of pots in the foreground. I'm done with the background and am working on the pots right now. Here's a shot of the painting's progress in my makeshift studio set up in the garage:



Here's some pot:


I also had some fun shooting portions of my palettes. I usually paint on cigar boxes, as they make pretty containers for my various art supplies when I have completely covered the top with paint. Here's a finished one that currently houses a portion of my colored pencils:


However, with this snazzy new french easel thingy came another palette. I think I'll be saving that one for oil painting, whenever I can afford such a hobby/whenever the oil gods rain down upon me (hopefully not literally but I'll take what I can get at this point), but I have used it during my acrylic adventures. There are some pretty interesting incidental designs on it:

I like to look at that one as a joyful, disembodied elephant head with a happy nosebleed, flying away from the earth and on its way to a new and more exciting life elsewhere.


I see a lot of bugs and bats in this one. On the left, there's a ladybug being hugged (or eaten, probably eaten but I'm feeling rather positive today, so let's go with a hug) and then on the right there's a laughing bat wearing an antennae hat. There's more but I'll let you find it. Tell me your interpretations! I'd love to see what you see.

Oh, and you probably know this, obviously, but I believe that if you are a visitor, you can make a comment anyway and just be anonymous. You don't need a google ID in order to comment. Or you could go ahead and join the google family (we are usually pretty friendly and we don't bicker too much), make a silly user name, and then you can be headeatinggreenmonster23, or something just as rad. Even though that's the raddest thing I could think of at this moment. So please! Tell me what you see!

Pardon that aside.

The other painting was a bit more official, so to speak. My friend Noelle is betrothed and she needed pretty table numbers for her wedding reception. She commissioned me to make them, hence why my fingers are covered in black spraypaint.

She bought plain wooden frames with heart-shaped cutouts, pink paper, paintbrushes, and then handed all of the above to me along with a check and a plea. Her wedding colors are black and fuchsia (yeah, I love this girl) and so I needed to paint the frames black and then paint the table numbers with black and silver. I spray painted the wooden frames with flat black enamel, as well as the cardboard backings. This project is also unfinished, but I did all of the hard stuff today. Tomorrow I shall paint the numbers, first with pearlescent silver and then on top of that in black with a finer brush.

I just thought that this looked pretty cool, what with the contrast and the different materials:







I have shots of the fully painted frames but they aren't nearly as interesting as I feel the process shots look. When I've completed the project, you'll definitely see them.

While doing all of this, I listened to some rad music, as is my wont. Sometimes I'll put the pod on shuffle, which is then no longer referred to as an iPod but a godPod, since I allow the Lawd of Music (I think His name might be Lennon? Or Bach? Abba? the name changes with every song) guide my listening experience. A lot of the songs stuck out, and they'll probably end up on some dorky mix I'll put together and most likely give to someone someday (with a lame, hand-drawn cover to boot...I doubt these people ever listen to the crap I give them.)

Here's are some songs that I jotted down...they fit my mood, I suppose:

Barfight Revolution, Power Violence - Margot & The Nuclear So And So's (I imagine some people probably feel this way when I talk)
I Wanna be Loved - Elvis Costello (well don't we all?)
The Scientist - Johnette Napolitano (a beautiful cover, I almost didn't like it)
Small- Portishead (mmmm such truths in her eerie harmonies)
I love You- Esser (oh you men, you know how)
In the City - Now, Now Every Children (we all long for that city...or as Izzard says "the citeearrh")
Black Fur - Fredrik (perfect song for a brisk walk)
The Way We Are - Fleming & John (may we never forget..it's like the cardigans at times and then BAM HERE'S MY VOICE...I also love that it's a husband and wife duo)

Enough out of me. Don't forget to look for silly designs in the paint! And if you haven't yet, go check out my new song, "Crazy" and tell me what you think in this post.

I love you all, I really do.
~K

Tuesday, October 6, 2009



The scarf is completed! Earlier this year, enchildaplate and I made a little trade. She provided me with yarn of her choosing and some yarn of my choosing and in turn, I knit her a scarf! The yarn is from KnitPicks.com, Crème Brulée in 100% cotton(!!!),
and this thing is softer than your baby, I promise you.

Here are a few more pictures so you can see the scarf in its glory.






New Song!

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I wrote this one after taking a walk yesterday afternoon. You can listen and download it from my myspace music page. Here are the lyrics:

"crazy"
by katherine gehl donovan

people say I'm crazy
reaching for everything
maybe they're just lazy
embracing nothing
who knows?

maybe I'm just lazy
maybe I'm just crazy
sometimes when you reach for everything
you're met with nothing
maybe I'm crazy

how can you expect anything
when you are embracing nothing
maybe they're just lazy
who knows
maybe I'm just crazy
who knows anything

people say I'm crazy
reaching for everything
maybe they're just lazy
embracing nothing
who knows?
can you tell me something?

how can you expect anything
when you are embracing nothing
maybe they're just lazy
maybe I'm just crazy
who knows?
who knows anything?

maybe I am crazy
yet I will embrace everything
even if I get nothing
even if I get nothing

(copyright 2009 katherine gehl donovan)

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

doo bee doo bee do.

the joy found in music is something that we all know and feel. it's a calling of sorts, an echo of what we are. once one understands the simplicity of music and vibrations, one can explore the harmonious world before them.
we all make music.
what kind of music will you make?

Thursday, July 2, 2009

quickie.

yeah. I've been preoccupied and this kind of doesn't matter so it was easy to ignore. but I've had some serious epiphanies in these past few months, and now I know that I'm going to be just fine.

Friday, April 24, 2009

I have cabin fever.


Here's a photo from a shoot I had on Sunday with Katie Johnson.

That's about all that I have to say.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

so here we are

We're going on three weeks now. Three weeks of zero motivation, very little energy, and what feels like an incapability to feel anything joyous, let alone positive.

This isn't me, at least I know that much. But the separation from the feeling doesn't loosen its grip on my state of mind.

I don't have any photographs to share, or bags to show off. No new projects. I look around my room and I have just about every tool one could imagine in order to make something pretty. I have a whole cabinet full of yarn with every size needle in double pointed, straight, and circular, I have multiple sets of prismacolor pencils, charcoal, graphite pencils, paint and paint brushes, drawing pads, sketchbooks, moleskines, colored paper...I have two guitars, an organ, a recording studio set, a film camera, my digital camera, a full lighting kit with backdrops in the garage...

I'm surrounded by tools for self expression and creation but all I want to do is throw the blankets over my head and be a hermit in my fleece hermit cave.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

away, away, away

Today was a much better day.
I wrote a song, which helped my mood. I will record it probably tomorrow morning, if I can finish it in time before my mom comes home and we have to go to the market.

A line:

"I try to blow my troubles away, away, away
as my good friend said
But my troubles are in my head
And I am just left with shortness of breath"

My grandfather once asked me, "Do you ever write songs about rainbows and butterflies, you know, happy shit like that?"

Monday, March 23, 2009

the bags under your eyes- they don't lie.

I hate depression.
I don't know too many people who enjoy it, so at least I'm not alone in this.
But depression is horrible, Especially when you can't control what thoughts pop into your head.
And the distorted thinking doesn't help.

The brain I'm trying to use to cope with all of this is the very brain that's causing so much trouble.

Sunday, March 22, 2009


Here are some more shots from the Cowan Heights funtime with Maile.



















© Copyright 2009 Katherine Gehl Donovan Photography

I love the cigar shop. Jeremy was blowing nice big donuts and Luke beat Amar in 5/6 chess games, and the sixth was a stalemate.
























© Copyright 2009 Katherine Gehl Donovan Photography

Friday, March 20, 2009

such great cowan heights

Today was great. Maile and I went to the cowan heights area and hoofed it up the path right past skyline. We both had our cameras and got some good shots of each other. Maile is a lovely model and I like that we are both ready and willing to get our hands dirty. She has the Canon Rebel XT and I have the XTi, so we're both pretty familiar with each other's cameras.

Maile is a true friend. I am so thankful that she is in my life and I would feed her pumpkin custard and list all of the things that I love about her any day.


Model: Maile Roseland
© Copyright 2009 Katherine Gehl Donovan Photography

Another Tote.

So once upon a time (last week) I made a tote bag prettier with felt, a hot glue gun, and wooden little pretties. There's a sun, too, in the top right corner, with rays that are hard to see in the picture. I love the blue birds and the heart at the base of the tree trunk.
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your love will be safe with me


Inspired by Bon Iver's line in "re: Stacks".

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My feelings

I feel really uncomfortable. I feel overwhelmed by projects that are in various stages of incompletion. I feel restless, and antsy, but I feel like I'd fall asleep the minute my head falls onto my pillow.

I feel like I'm not getting anything done, yet I have accomplished a lot today. I feel depressed. My psychiatrist changed my medications, so I'm probably going to feel weird until they get into my system. That's probably the reason for me feeling so down. I hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

I made this for the market today:

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Suddenly, Everything Has Changed

KNOW THYSELF.

RING RING!
K: Hello!
L: Hi!
K: Can I call you back in like a minute?
L: Sure! Are you knitting?
K: ........................Yes.

I <3 SHARK WEEK.

I finally finished something I've been trying my best to make for a month! I won't show you the finished product until Lauren gets it, as I don't want to spoil the surprise and I also want pictures of her modeling it. I'll tell you a bit about it, though...

My close friend Lauren LOVES Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. (Her favorite shark is the Megalodon.) She also is a woman with a need for a bag that can house all of her pretty things. Originally, I wanted to make a laptop case, but frustration and lack of patience on my part painfully and slowly killed that dream, so I customized a tote bag instead.

It looks wonderful and I am really excited to show you the finished product, but I don't want her checking my blog and accidentally ruining the magic....
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Thursday, March 12, 2009



I AM GOING TO STEAL THIS $899 PUPPY IF I AM NOT RESTRAINED.
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

INRI

I went on a walk with my camera through the grounds of St. Joseph's Hospital. These were my favorite shots from the Spiritual Development Center, where nuns can be spotted if you close your eyes, tap your heels, and wish with all of your might.



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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

by the way...

I am at peace.
I talk to God every day, all of the time.
I do not doubt His unfailing love and grace.
That's all.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Imprint in the Grass

New song! It's called "Imprint in the Grass" and you can download it here.

A sampler:
"Don't leave!" He cries
You cry, "Don't leave me!"
He cries, He cries.

My impression in the soil
is all that is left of me, until I return

The longer I wait, the more weeds accumulate
weeds that you will help me prune

© Copyright 2009 Katherine Gehl Donovan

Sunday, March 1, 2009

bird impasse





Model: Dustin Burd
© Copyright 2009 Katherine Gehl Donovan

I love the 50mm lens. It is so wonderful.
We had quite the fun romping around Cowan Heights...I think that Maile and I might go there as soon as more flowers start to bloom! She loves spring and so do I, so there will be plenty of shots between the two of us of flowers, dew, birds, and, of course, ladies in dresses.

More edits to come!!!