All posts by Kristi

Kristi Beisecker is a graphic designer, photographer, printmaker and alternative scientist whose interested in making images through two contrasting elements. She is also a blogger in lifestyle, travel, wellness and health, art and design, beauty and fashion.

Crunchy Granola!

Ever since last fall when I switched to Kellogg’s Mini Wheats cereal for comfort food while grieving the loss of my job as well as someone close to me, I’ve been trying to eat healthier and I mean like literally healthier. I learned that a specific preservative in shelf foods (BHT) imitates the symptoms of Hypothyroidism. Which I do have, but when I was eating this cereal (2 meals out of 3/4…) it started to make me feel sick. I went to the Dr.’s and they found my levels to be normal, so I thought that was weird.

I went to Canada for a week and had really good food, ate healthier in general, and exercised a lot during the week and it jump started my appetite again and I felt like a whole new person afterwards. I know grief can take a lot out of you but I’ve never experienced that.

Since then I’ve been taking a more active approach in my eating habits. I’ve been switching out my favorite cereal with a health bar (Clif specifically) and now I’ve just started eat granola instead. This week I bought Nature Valley’s Dark Chocolate granola for breakfast and had the serving size plus a slice of cinnamon toast and after only a week I definitely felt ‘perkier’ and had more energy – I think the protein in the granola helped a lot too.

 

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Updates

I’ve been meaning to post here for awhile but I’ve been extremely busy, juggling my sojourning in Europe as well as my shanty opportunity on top of juggling my client projects.

TO recap; two weekends ago was the Artist in Business training weekend in Holyoke. It was a lot of fun meeting like-minded people who are just as driven as you are and interested in taking their art to the next level! So many potential minds to collaborate with. I also enjoyed meeting more artists from Western MA and the weekend really inspired me to consider Western MA as a potential living area for me. Not only is it affordable, but the artist community is a lot stronger than the Boston area. Boston is expensive for artists and I think a lot of things that you pay a lot for are overrated. I can easily manage a simple life. Not to mention being away from everything and being closer to nature 😉

This past weekend I drove down to Somers Point, NJ to see one of my friends get married! We went to Atlantic City at Tropicana for the Bachelor/Bachelorette night before her wedding. It was really good to see her again as she was in Germany for a lot of the time since she graduated college for her studies/research as well as her now husband! They met while she was studying abroad in college.

I am already starting to feel that the next month isn’t enough time for me to get everything ready before I leave for Italy! I have to pack, not to mention wrap up work or other projects, as well as get what I want done with the shanty experience. Ahh!

Liberation – Kali

The Hindu Goddess Kali – the goddess of time and change, death and rebirth, visited me through you. While at the time I didn’t know who she was, or what was happening and I felt hurt, lost and confused. At first I was really hurt, and the confusion was grand. Even a year after what happened between us, I still feel close to you, felt love and companionship – something I’ve been desperately seeking for awhile. I admired you; adored you… Everything you’ve taught me through working with you made me become where I am today in my own business practices. I valued you, saw you as an inspiration…. of whom I aspire to become someday (more or less).

But like with all Goddesses, the goddess energy is the female energy of the manifest world – no matter the culture. It resides in medicine plants and many other earthly forms. As I was discussing with my spiritual mentoree about a recent article posted by The Sacred Science website that the medicine plants hold the sacred energy of each goddess archetype – in the case of the article; Kali is the goddess form of the hibiscus plant. This goes back to the spiritual practice of correspondences – in mystery schools they teach that each plant or mineral has correspondences to amplify that specific energy. She [the Goddess Kali] offers liberation through time and change – death and rebirth and that’s why she came to visit me through you.

Rethinking what happened between you and me a few weeks ago, I have realized how much of a significant impact it has made on me. My spiritual mentoree even mentioned that my energy was lighter after the fact. Like I was broken free from the straps of the depths of my emotions and the darkness from loosing you as well as my ex in a span of two years. By providing liberation to me, I was broken free from these straps from my ex and the straps from you. It was like light had filled my life again. I had awoken from a deep sleep. I have been reborn.

photo-2Last September I went to Canada on a Biology research trip and spent time wondering the forests and practiced some Forest Bathing or what the Japanese refer to as “shinrin-yoku”. I ran across an art journal prompt board from pinterest with a pin of a picture of someones notes regarding different elements and how they are healing. They mention that forests protect our spirits with their canopies as well as energy. Before my trip, I prepared an artist journal and did a ‘pre visualization’ page. Normally, I don’t share what I’ve done in these journals as its for spiritual/artistic growth, unless it seems relevant.

The page to the right is my ‘pre visualization’ page from that residency and I was illustrating how I felt, and how I foresee what the experience may bring me. I was hoping to have this experience relieve me from recent events in my life and allow me to move me forward. At the time I was visualizing a turning a corner in my life – not necessarily liberation – but a new era, a new life cycle. It was just around the corner, but I wasn’t seeing it because I was so despondent. I had lost the light of my life, my inspiration, and a companion. 7 months later, that liberation came to me – (through you being mean to me!) – just in time for the spring equinox. I have never felt better and I cannot wait to see what comes to me for my ‘pre visualization’ page for Italy!

Wheaton College Reception

Last Wednesday my family and I went to the Wheaton College reception and I’m really glad I went! I met Elizabeth Keithline whose the gallery director at Beard and Weil Gallery (at Wheaton College). I have a new found love for Wheaton. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming! My former girl scout leader and her daughter came as well and I was surprised to learn that another artist whom I had previously exhibited with at the Cambridge Art Association was in this show as well!

Other than that not much else happened. There’s a few events later in the week (Gallery Talk and Artist Talk) that I will try to attend. But so far this has been one of the more exciting exhibitions! Can’t wait to see what else may come through this spring and summer! 🙂

Continue reading Wheaton College Reception

2015 Wheaton Biennial: Photography Beyond The Frame Opens At Wheaton College

2015 Wheaton Biennial: Photography Beyond The Frame Opens At Wheaton College

 

The Beard and Weil Gallery at Wheaton College in Norton, MA is pleased to announce the opening of the 2015 Wheaton Biennial: Photography Beyond The Frame on Wednesday, March 4 from 6-8 pm.

 

Kristen Gresh, the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acted as juror for the exhibit, which features 45 works of art by 30 American artists.

 

The gallery will hold an artist talk onMarch 25 at 6:00 pm and will share Voice of the Artist: A lecture by Dimitra Ermeidou on March 31 at 6:30. All events are free, open to the public and accessible to those with disabilities.

The exhibiting artists are:

Trent Davis Bailey (California)
Kristi Beisecker (Massachusetts)
Adina Bricklin (Massachusetts)
Erin Kyle Danna (New York)
Dimitra Ermeidou (Pennsylvania)
Nicholas Fedak II (California)
Jonathan Fischer (California)
Doug Fogelson (Illinois)
John Fraser (Illinois)
Erin Geideman (Ohio)
Ed Grant (New York)
Katherine Gulla (Massachusetts)
Chad Joiner (Massachusetts)
Dean Kessmann (District of Columbia)
Tina Leto (Illinois)
Linda Lindroth (Connecticut)
Matthew Moore (Maryland)
Jennifer Liston Munson (Massachusetts)
Tara Penick (Florida)
Sarah Pollman (Massachusetts)
Ellen Pratte (Rhode Island)
Mike Rebholz (Wisconsin)
Jack Robinson (New York)
Jorge Sanchez (Florida)
John Steck Jr. (Illinois)
Robert Thurlow (Massachusetts)
Rodrigo Valenzuela (Texas)
Gary Wahl (Minnesota)
David Wells (Rhode Island)
Laura Wulf (Massachusetts)

 

About The Exhibition

 

Wheaton College cultivates an open spirit of inquiry with a curriculum emphasizing connections across disciplinary boundaries. The 2015 Wheaton Biennial includes the works of photographers whose work reflects a similar spirit of inquiry and a critical reflection on what constitutes the boundaries of the medium in today’s art world.

 

About The Juror

 

Juror Kristen Gresh is the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Museum Of Fine Arts in Boston. Her most recent exhibition was She Who Tells A Story: Women Photographers From Iran And The Arab World. 

 

About The Galleries

 

The Beard and Weil Galleries are a vital part of Wheaton’s creative and intellectual life. Exhibitions feature work by contemporary artists in all media, as well as works from Wheaton’s extensive Permanent Collection, spanning ancient Greece to contemporary South Africa. 

 

The Galleries’ educational mission encompasses all forms of creative expression in an effort to forge meaningful connections between objects and their histories, student and faculty creative work, art historical research, and critical thinking. The crucial role the visual arts play in a liberal arts education is central to the design and focus of our exhibitions.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Photography Beyond The Frame and its corresponding events have been made possible by the generous support of the Wheaton College Friends Of Art. The participation of Dimitra Ermeidou was made possible by the Celeste Gottesman Bartos ’35 Fund For the Visual Arts within the Evelyn Danzig Haas ’39 Visiting Artists Program. 

 

For further information on the website: http://wheatoncollege.edu/gallery/2015/2015-wheaton-biennial-photography-beyond-the-frame/

Planning, Planning, Planning!

While being snowed in I’ve had the luxury of more time to be doing some planning for my future projects that are starting to come together (which is why I haven’t been updating the blog). I also things haven’t been that eventful for me to actually want to blog about. The two major ones are the Artist Shanty selling opportunity in Hyannis this summer as well as my 6 week sojourning in Europe this spring! Last August I was accepted to do a month of sojourning in Greve in Chianti Italy to focus on production of my artwork. The area is known for having lush greens during spring and that is exactly what my artwork needs. I am also hoping to work with grape vines from the vineyards in Chianti.

Anyway, it’s been a bit of a headache juggling the start of a retail business as well as planning to go away for 6 weeks as well. On my way over to Italy, I’ll be stopping for a few days before May Day to visit my aunt in London and then my parents want to celebrate their anniversary in Paris the first week of June. So we’ll be going to Paris before heading home! Three countries, six weeks! If my money situation is OK when I enter this experience, I might try to take a weekend trip up to Zurich, Switzerland as that is a place I have always wanted to visit!

I have also decided to stop my hobby of tarot reading for the mean time. Only because ever since my heartbreak, my intuition has been on the fritz and sometimes I’m on par and sometimes I’m not and more recently it’s be not. This block has been freaking me out because it’s the source of my creativity as well as being able to function as a human being. Most people look at the world from the outside in, while I’m quite the opposite. I focus on the inside out! I know this block is caused by the heartbreak because I was CONVINCED that this person was going to ask me out. But they didn’t, so I have stopped believing in myself and believing that I CAN feel into future events. It’s quite depressing to deal with when you’ve had an ability for most of your life and all of the sudden it stops!

Also I had my last post-op appointment the other day for the surgeries I had in my left ear to improve my hearing and the stupid cyst grew back! And luckily they found the problem, the hearing aid I was wearing was a bit too long and the edge of the microphone was sharp and kept poking the irritated area that caused the cyst to grow back. So now, I’m going to have to get it removed again in April before my trip to Italy, but not major operation this time hopefully, he said it could be done in their office.

I have been busy also focusing on my K Glyphics visual marketing firm. Giving it more direction and purpose and making some plans and an effort. If my residency project applications don’t come through this spring I have been thinking about spending an extended amount of time out in California as that seems to be where all the work is! But the issue is most contractors don’t like to work with east coast designers due to the time difference.

My client in Dubai has also decide to hire me as her graphic designer for her wedding website for the middle east market. (no I won’t be going to Dubai with her, but I would like to visit one day). So I’m going to be busy with that relatively soon. Just waiting on a few things to begin this new phase with her. A few other graphic design clients have been put on hold as well, so I’m hoping that over the next few weeks they’ll start to pick up again. I’m quite ready to jump back into work. Ever since the holidays and being laid off my job from Hafta Havit it’s been hard for me to stay productive!

Next week is the reception for the Wheaton College Biennial exhibition: Framing Photography! So photos and write up will be posted then. 🙂

Websites

For the past month and a half I have been reorganizing my presence online. My design and my artist work have been becoming their own entities and it got to be very confusing to differentiate them both on my website. So I have been slowly splitting up my design work and my artist work. My design work will now be located at http://www.kglyphics.com – my design firm which now focuses on inspirational, creative and lifestyle industries and my artist website: http://kristibeisecker.com/. This way I feel like my work will be better marketable.

 

Bow and Arrow Press

I apologize for the lack of updates but this month I took a class on the letterpress at Harvard and it was an intense crash course, 4 hours a day for 4 days for 3 weeks straight. Waking up at 6 am finally caught up with me this week… but the class is over! So next week will be back to regular schedule. I have posted below a few images my letterpress instructor took of the work that was done. The pic below is of the background of a poster I did of Carl Sagan’s “We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands”… as a conclusion of the class, I am now ‘officially’ trained on the letterpress and can attend the Open Press Nights on Wednesdays during the spring semester. So now I think I know what I’ll be doing on my wednesday nights 🙂

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Redefining Electrography Portfolio

After the Visual Alchemy reception I was describing my work to a childhood friend and said that the pieces that I consider having “artistic quality” are pieces where there was a form that you could relate to.. but it may or may not be exactly that form – so in essence the light from the electricity created these forms that we could relate to (Kelp formed a heart at the roots). For example, in Bluebells, there are two ‘eyes’ in the pieces that were created from the bluebell plant. Another example is Pine Needles which has the image of a pregnant woman. I recently had a friend of mine write inspirational descriptions along with each piece and concluded that the ‘REAL’ portfolio pieces were the ones that had forms you could relate to. I’m not sure why it wasn’t obvious to me before… but it makes sense. I now have 6 solid pieces that would be considered as my portfolio. I hope that in Italy, I’ll add a few more using vines from grape plants. 🙂

 

18_PineNeedles2Pine Needles #2