Thursday, October 29, 2009

Halloween Artwalk @ The Dragonfly


Good Day Good People!
Among the many events that Everyday (http://www.myeverydayshop.com/blog) has put on in the past at the Dragonfly in Hollywood, this past one that took place on Monday the 26th was one of my favorites. Mainly because of my love for Halloween and all things spooky and involving an excuse to dress up or put fake blood somewhere. Besides the always amazing drink specials that Everyday sponsored by Hornito's provides, there was lots of live art, mask painting and great performances by bands such as the Rhythm Natives.
Myself and my roomie dressed up as Wayne & Garth from Wayne's World, got our posse together and spent the evening with the wonderful eclectic crowd that always gathers for Artwalk and enjoyed soaking in the Halloween spirit, the talents of some amazing artists of all different kinds as well as some very fine tequila.
Check out my Flickr for some more pictures :)

Abigail Frank~

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Memories in the Rain

I sat in my room this morning as the rain started falling down outside my window. I picked up a book to bask in the silence of the overcast day as the pitter patter played a song for me. Perhaps it means I'm a bad reader or that the book is just not keeping me inside it's story but frequently my mind falls to things while I read and I find myself a few chapters later knowing everything going on in the fictional world between my hands as well as the stream of thoughts and memories that I suppose my unconscious mind brings to the surface.
We so rarely just let ourselves "be" whether in silence, in music or in conversation. This is why I suppose I love drinking and eating so much because its a great activity to do while spending hours just talking with someone while letting the conversation jump from subject to subject to when you have no recollection of where it began.
My best friend Ashley and I used to as weird as it sounds, go into my little bathroom as kids with blankets and my tape recorder and talk for hours. Every time we thought up a funny voice or bit, we would record it and laugh so hard that tears would stream down our faces. If I can add more of a visual as to how "small" our small bathroom is, it's a room where literally one person could stand in so she would usually be under the sink with a pillow. Since I shared a room and people often slept in my living room especially during the winter because the only source of heat was the fireplace, there weren't many options for solitude.

I love having things remind you of things in your childhood that you temporarily forgot about which happens nearly all the time but the other day I had a blast from the past remembering what it was like to not have hot water. Once you've lived away for a while, you forget the annoyances like pre-starting your car, shoveling your tired and scraping your windows. A memory I was reliving was my mom's showering rules with my sisters and I. One of us had to take a shower at night and we usually had cycles to know who and the other two and my mom would shower in the morning. We had a hot water heater but it only lasted for about a bath (we had no shower) and than usually someone would have to share that water because the time to run pots of hot water from the stove to the tub took a long time. Remembering that makes me cringe at this age because I can't even fathom bathing in someone else's filth, I might just not shower and enjoy the gradual increasing of my own.

As my mind wandered off on these subjects, I realized perhaps the sound of rain reminded me of home and that was perhaps why I loved it so dearly. Although it doesn't snow all the time where I lived, snow was about fifteen minutes up the hill always and there was no lack of rain. I talk to people that lived in the really rainy cities in America and can't even imagine what it was like because I truly felt like it rained a lot in the winter and non-stop sometimes.
Here are some pictures that make me smile.

A picture I took one winter of my sister and cousin-

One of my sister and her boyfriend in the snow-

When the sun breaks through the clouds after the snow-

I have always been obsessed with shooting random objects-

The family when it started snowing...than we went snowboarding down the car's tire tracks in the street.

Ahh memories...
Keep it up rain, I have more reminiscing to do :)

Abigail Frank~

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Abigail Frank Renewal

I checked my e-mail this morning and have a message from my Website manager saying that my website is going to expire soon if I should want to renew it. This at first sent me on a thought roller coaster as most birthdays, holidays and annual events do making me recall how in the world so much time had gone by so fast. It seems not too long ago that I started doing shoots for profit and had a friend yell at me about buying some domains immediately while the gettin was good. My friend Ally who is a here and there painter has always wanted to take that passion farther so in the hopes of doing so bought quite a few domains not knowing which she would eventually use but was then complaining how she had been paying for them as they sat gathering what you might call world wide web dust.
Although it's definitely better to own them than not, I bought mine in the hopes I would actually put forth more of an effort than she. Now semi close to a year later, I basically used it as a blog for months than deleted the whole thing and started anew when I started shooting events regularly but than slowly had it turn back into a blog. Although my meandering thoughts are incredibly interesting I know, at some point I want to use this renewal as a wake-up call to make it into a somewhat respectable site.
First things first, get my computer working fully so I'm not having to bother other people for there's. Than second step, win the lottery so I can not worry about money and just take pictures, make movies and spend all my time being worry free and creative! No biggie.

In other "time going by freakishly fast" news, this morning I got a picture text from my sister who is living in a small town in the middle of nowhere going to Medical School, of a horse and buggy that was apparently at a stop light in front of her going through town. I laughed thinking not of the hilarity just in that image but the fact that where life has taken us at least at this date in time can be so different. When the prospect of her coming to Southern California for school was active, I was out of my mind with excitement. Imagining hanging out with she and her boyfriend all the time because every time they have visited, all my friends loved them immediately and they fit right in. I'm remembering last Christmas sitting on the couch with her studying for her MCAT's in pajama's with momma cooking in the kitchen and discussing the medical books we had been passing back and forth for the past few months. It seems not that long ago yet now she and my other sister who moved to the same town to join her aren't coming home for Thanksgiving and are buying houses with the obligation to stay there for all of her medical schooling.
Not that my family was ever really close during the past five years since I've lived here but this concept makes me realize how real the whole situation is and that I'm only going to see my sisters once or twice a year and I'm going to be missing out on having the kind of relationship that we used to have. Although I write a lot about my amazing friends and how I truly am blessed to have the support group and LA family that I have here, it's still sad being away from your real family. The great thing about them is they have to love you and you know they will always be there and on top of that, I actually like them so I suppose I'm trying to deal with the sadness of that situation by hopefully making myself happy here by getting to work on my passions.
Yay for reminders and may they always be there to put us on track!

P.S. Some little lovely bought me a baby pumpkin yesterday and I have named him Mishmash since he's as close to a child as I'm going to have for a while. Hurray Halloween :)

Abigail Frank~