Tag: architecture
Sidewalk
I Fought The Wall, And The Wall Won!
I sheet rocked in the darkroom Sunday. I turned out to quite frustrating and painful at times, mostly because the heads of the sheet rock screws strip easily. I couldn’t find a bit that seated well into the screw head, which made the bit want to slip off the screw head, so I ended up unintentionally driving the bit into my fingers and palms of my hands more than once. Over the past several weekends, I got water into the darkroom, ran electrical, and put in a light. Laurie came up with the title, because she said all the noise from screw heads striping and me yelling about a resulting injury, unintended hole in the wall or broken piece of sheet rock, sounded like the wall was winning. I took Laurie into the dark-side of the newly sheet rocked darkroom to check it out, and as I swung the portal door around she said “I can’t see a damn thing!” It is dark inside, so I think I’ll go “soccer” on it and call it a tie!
Adobe Sculpture
Another garden on the Corrales Garden Tour had adobe sculpture in various states of dissolution. Adobe sculpture is a little like longer lasting sand paintings, but instead of erasing them at sundown, the adobe sculptures slowly erode back into the earth.
Rammed Earth & Native Grasses
“This integral arrangement — minimalist home of rammed earth walls, plus native grasses — works perfectly as a unit.” reads the introduction to the writeup on the Roger and Mary Downey Garden for the Corrales Garden Tour we went on last weekend. The house sits in the center of the property surrounded by native grasses. Since this is only late spring, the grasses are just starting to grow. The grasses are best seen in the fall when they have reached their full heights and display their varied colors — colors that are reflected in the rammed earth construction of the house.
Day for the Dead
Weather or Not Here I Come
Cold, cloudy morning. Partly cloudy, cold afternoon.
A Camera with Character
I bid on this Canon F-1 on ebay, it was cheap, and I was expecting to be outbid because Canon F-1s are popular cameras on ebay. I forgot about it until I got an email that I won the bid seven days later. The camera looks rough with a lot of brassing, a few dents and a few dings, but it works great and the light meter is right on accurate. It has a motor drive, which is really cool — “chunka, chunka, chunka…” at five frames per second when I hold down the shutter release. Interestingly enough, the F-1 will not trip my studio flashes or modern flashes, but it has no trouble tripping my old Metz CT-60 flashes. I included four photos that are scans of negatives taken with the F-1.
I was downright domestic and quite handy all weekend. I made a double batch of pork roast with potatoes, carrots and celery to get some food stocked up in the freezer. I had a stark reminder about how busy we’ve been when I opened the door to discover I had more film than food in in the freezer — it was definitely time to do some cooking.
I also finished organizing the catio, and got the rest of the stuff out of the armory, and started preparing to build a darkroom. I ordered a walk-thru cylindrical revolving darkroom door, which should arrive in a couple of weeks, and started drawing lines on the carpet to mark out where the walls and cylindrical door will go.
The nature of remodeling projects is that I always have to deal with deferred maintenance as part of each remodeling project, so I repaired the roof on the armory, and then put re-purposed corrugated steel on the exterior, south-facing wall to cover up the deteriorating exterior wall board that’s been blasted by the sun for the past 24 years. I also covered up the window in the south wall, since I don’t need a window in the darkroom. The re-purposed corrugated steel gives the south wall of the armory a colorful, ghetto-like look between the white and silver pieces, and the rusty spots.
Dude! Like…
Downtown Books
While you can’t quite get out the door of Downtown Books with a nicely broken-in classic in your hands scot-free, by handing Scott Free a couple of bucks on your way out the door, you will have acquired a great read for a modest price. And that’s how it is at Downtown Books at 108 8th St, SW in Downtown Albuquerque, its rooms filled with shelving, stuffed with books that cover just about every topic, genre and discipline imaginable. Downtown Books is in a building that was Albuquerque’s attempt at row houses in the early years of the last century, and collectors can find books of the same vintage as the architecture. It’s a bit of an understatement to say that Scott has just about everything anyone might want in books, including a kitchen sink full of children’s books. There are areas where you can sit down and peruse books at your leisure in the laid-back, welcoming atmosphere of the shop.
Ironically, Scott and I and both our wives had studied flamenco dance together in the early 1990’s. Scott had the bookstore on 6th Street for some time, but then when he moved just two streets to the west, we lost track of each other. We happened to cross paths on Monday when I was out front of our building talking to Nina and Greg from Cafe Fino. Scott walked by and we said “I know you!” so we talked a little while, and he mentioned he had moved his bookstore to 8th Street. So for the past 8 years or so we were working just 6 blocks from each other, but had lost track of each other.
If you are in the Albuquerque area, Downtown Books is worth taking the time to visit. The web site is www.downtownbooksabq.com and you can find it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/downtownbooksabq. If you are looking for a that special, hard to find book, you email Scott at dtownbooksabq@gmail.com he might just have what you are looking for.
Off Center & Not Even 