Jane's Blog – Page 7 – The adventures of Jane Van Hall

LOOK3!

Last month my mom and I went to Charlottesville, Virginia to attend the Festival of the Photograph LOOK3. Between shopping and dining in the outdoor mall, we attended master talks where I was inspired about what is possible with photography.

01mom_with_lanyard — Mom with Look3 lanyard

The highlight of the program was Sally Mann interviewing Nan Goldin. Goldin spoke about her new work, where she was given the opportunity to be alone in the Louve to photograph the sculptures and paintings. The images from the Louve have the same feel as her early work of her friends. The slideshow was images from the Louve paired with images from Ballad of Sexual Dependency, set to opera music.

025nan_mann_jane_fave — Sally Mann interviews Nan Goldin

In the evenings mom and I would go to Ike’s Underground, Charlottesville’s premier vintage clothing shop. We would marvel at the hand sown clothing, still in perfect condition after all this time. My favorite piece I bought there was a little white linen shirt, someone had embroidered. I also bought a yellow wool sweater with butterfly cutouts, and a skort made out of strawberry print fabric.

09mom_red_dress — Mom tries on red dress

I think my favorite show was from a collective of young photographers called Luceo Images. The show included work from Matt Eich, and his project on a small Babtist town in Mississippi. The standout image is of a little black girl in a yellow dress on her way to church. Check him out, you won’t be disappointed!

Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia. Though most of the students had already gone home for the summer, some had stayed around for summer classes.

Another standout exhibit was Massimo Vitali. After a long career of doing “the stupidest jobs”, he finally had the opportunity to make work he enjoyed. When his two medium format cameras were stolen out of the truck of his car, he was forced to start shooting with the 8 by 10 camera.

011mom_vitali — Vitali’s Natural Habitats exhibit

My cousin Khristina and her boyfriend, Mike live in Charlottesville. On our last night in town we met up them for dinner. Mom and I were early meeting them, so we stopped to take a few pictures on our way to the restaurant. I raise my lens up get a shot of this graffiti, and I see my Khristina and Mike standing right underneath it!

Thanks for being a great travel companion, Mom! Looking forward to next years LOOK3….

Adventures in Cream

After work Justin and I made our way to north Seattle’s finest breakfast establishment, Cyndy’s House of Pancakes. Skirting the Rock n’ Roll marathon and Vintage Car Show, after an hour we found ourselves only in Ballard. As we finally turned onto 85^th the air-conditioning finally burst a blood vessel in my nose. I tilted my head back to avoid bleeding all over my new Sounders sweatshirt, and Justin handed me the only piece of tissue in the car- the napkin from our morning donut. My throat filled up with blood, and I started to choke. I leaned forward coughing up blood and bleeding profusely out my nose. Justin pulled into the 76 station to get tissues, and a bottle of Fiji water to rehydrate me. I applied a fresh wade of tissues to my nose, and we continued north for some of the most delicious pancakes I have ever known.

In Cyndy’s gravel parking lot I washed my face with the bottle of Fiji water, and we headed in to one of Cyndy’s red vinyl booths. Justin decided to switch up his usual corn cakes, and went with the classic buttermilk with a side of bacon. Since it was Saturday Splurge Day I wanted to go big, so ordered the strawberry pancakes with whipped cream. Our waitress smiled a happy cracked out grin, and clenched her jaw. I felt the pressure of her up selling to order more than just a giant plate of dessert for my lunch, and decided my side would be hot chocolate, yes please to more whipped cream.

While we waited for our food, my mom dropped by the restaurant. She had been shopping in the area, and had been kind enough to pick me up some supplies; sheep milk yogurt and half and half from Whole Foods. She bid us goodbye as our food arrived, shooting me and my strawberry cream pancakes an ‘I don’t understand why you’re eating that’ look.

Justin and I reveled our food, fought over the check (I lost), and joined the masses on the freeway. Eating way too much sugar in the middle of the day, always puts me in the mood. After a quick trip to the restroom, I pulled Justin onto his bed for kisses and more, ehem…. cream. We collapsed happily into a pile limbs, and I felt sleepiness overtake me into a late afternoon nap. Justin covered me with the zebra blanket, and slipped off to work.