Upcoming Portfolio Reviews

Sarah Hadley is putting together the first ever in Chicago portfolio review. It promises to be a great opportunity to receive feedback on your work and mingle with other photographers. You can check it out here.


Yours truly will be one of the reviewers...what a privilege.

For those of you who read this post regularly, I apologize for my inactivity. I have been immersed in family affairs and will be back in action after Labor Day.

with xxoo, Jane

Rick Bayless and his Farmer Foundation Win!

Someone asked if I was a foodie on my facebook page after I listed the final episode of the Top Chef Masters show last night.
I wouldn't say I am a foodie, although I love to eat good food and seem to be surrounded by people who are. Watching the show last night was thrilling. Rick Bayless is such an amazing person. Whatever he does, he does it with incredible passion and perfection. The skills required to "win" the Top Chef Master, like all reality tv shows, is not only about cooking skills. Yes, you need to be tops in that but you also need to deal the unexpected curve balls that are thrown your way. Rick always rises to the challenge.

This was a win on so many levels....
~for the Farmer Foundation, Rick's nonprofit organization that is committed to promoting small, sustainable farms serving the Chicago area by providing them with capital development grants. The win last night added 100K to the kitty.
~for the culinary world by awarding the prize to a chef specializing in Mexican, not French or Italian food!
~for all the devoted staff working tireless hours there and
~for all of Chicago

I just learned that Rick is offering the winning menus in the restaurant for the next 4 weeks. If you happen to secure a reservation, be sure to check out the latest images from last years staff trip from San Miguel Allende as you enter (by yours truly).



I am currently working up new images from the last trip to Oaxaca, the land of 7 moles! To read more about the trips, check out the blogs from 2008, San Miguel de Allende, and 2009, Oaxaca.

Rick is also opening a new restaurant in the next few weeks, Xoco. It promises to be divine! For updates, click here.

on water and air

Seagull © Jane Fulton Alt

One of my very favorite things to do in the summer is swim in Lake Michigan early in the morning before the life guards arrive, allowing me to swim to my heart's content along the shoreline for as long as I desire. This morning was particularly wonderful. The water was choppy and the seagulls kept dipping down to see if I might be edible. Once they were within "birdseye," and realized I was in fact, not edible, they continued on their search.

I also had a close encounter with a formation of 12 geese, flying within 2 feet above me, hearing the soft flapping of their wings. I felt like I was in the Winged Migration movie. It was thrilling.

AND THEN there was the Chicago Air and Water Show...The jets came in overhead and I was in such a state of awe, paddling around in the waves watching all these amazing flying objects. I was reminded of a Chicago photographer, Ryan Zoghlin's portfolio, Airshow, as he artfully documents these amazing feats of mankind.


Images © Ryan Zoghlin, Air Show

My Back Door and Protection

When I returned home from Oaxaca this summer with a bag that "found me," I placed it in my kitchen by the back door, where I could enjoy seeing it every day. It wasn't until a month later that I realized that it raised an important question for me....would I rely on the Virgin of Guadaloupe or ADT for protection. Hmmmmmmm

Chicago Does it Again

Tribune photos by Brian Cassella / August 4, 2009


New Temporary pavilions in Millennium Park to commemorate the 100th anniversary centennial celebration of Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago designed by Zaha Hadid of London. How cool is this.

Caliente/Hot Opens Tomorrow night in New Orleans

If you happen to be in New Orleans tomorrow night and want to feel "hotter," drop by the New Orleans Photo Alliance at 1111 St. Mary Street for the opening of the new show, Callente/Hot. I have 2 works in the show.

Burn No. 2 © Jane Fulton Alt

"Jane Fulton Alt’s Burn #2 depicts a dramatic forest fire consuming all trees in sight while a lone yellow winged butterfly rests on a burnt branch. The image freezes a magical realist moment like many others in this show."

---José Torres-Tama, juror,New Orleans-based performance artist and writer


The Pit © Jane Fulton Alt

Collecting

Just got a tip from a facebook friend, Dawoud Bey, on an article he wrote on Why We Collect in Art Talk Chicago. It is a really interesting essay and the book, Collections of Nothing by William Davies King, looks fab. Can you imagine collecting 44 different varieties of tuna fish labels? King states in his book, "I collect nothing - with a passion."

Hey...whatever turns you on!

Synecdoche, New York ~ the movie

I rented the movie, Synecdoche, New York this weekend.
I can recommend the movie because it was one that left me with many more questions than answers and the desire to watch it again. It was not a fun, feel good movie but one that goes into the nature of life and living. Here are a few quotes which I am so glad were available online...

Caden Cotard: "I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't "

Minister : "Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen."

Roger Ebert states:
"I think you have to see Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" twice. I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film and that I had not mastered it. The second time because I needed to. The third time because I will want to." Click here for more reviews.