Props to my Best Friend!
A couple of days ago, I wrote about starting a revolution – not the bloody type, mind you, but one about bringing artistic and social change. Well, let me tell you, my girlfriend Nikki is doing it right now! I’m so proud of her and frankly am just a little more than awestruck. I’ve written about her before, but just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll mention our history again. I met her in Boston when we were both flight attendants for United Airlines. After our intial introduction and a rocky start, I won her over. Over time, we decided we really liked working together and began bidding the same routes. For about 2 years until 9/11, we worked together and would sit on the back jump seat bitching about our jobs and dreaming about what we would do if we ever quit.
After 9/11, I took a leave of absence and finished my degree in art, Nikki continued working until she met her soon to be husband who I think changed her outlook on life. He inspired her to do things she had never done before – including attending Burning Man. Soon she moved out to San Francisco, resigned from United and began her new passion designing clothing for Burning Man. Her fashions were so well received that other people began asking for her work and Wild on the Inside was born. She’s taking her wild and colorful designs to the public today when she has a guest spot on View from the Bay (archived video) and will present Dusty Dreams: A Playa Fantasy Fashion Show, which is part of Prepare for the Playa series of events. She’s organized three local events to promote Burning Man related vendors and frankly, I just know she’s going to soar!
Artists are often colorful people – but most likely you wouldn’t notice one walking by you on the street, save maybe Andy Warhol and a few others. I just love that my friend Nikki is treating her body (and others) like a canvas – it’s wild – colorful and definitely not boring – a far cry from the navy uniforms and black pumps we used to wear. I love that we have so many choices and today, I celebrate Nikki for being willing to stand out in a crowd and to march to her own drummer and voice. I wish more of us would be willing to do so! The closest I got was when she flew out for my 40th birthday and she made me wear a crazy wig when we went skiing in Steamboat.
We live in such a homogenous society, isn’t it refreshing to see something colorful? frankly, I think it scares people to be different and some are threatened by those of us who don’t conform. But,if Nikki has her way, we’ll all be eye candy and there will never be a dull moment!
Let your wild out everyone,
I finally upgraded to Pro Account on Flickr
I have wanted to upgrade to a Pro Flickr account for some time now, yet I didn’t want to dip into the family funds. One obstacle is that I had pretty much drained my Paypal account over the holidays so I had to wait. Luckily a very nice woman purchased something from my Etsy store this past week, so I was able to upgrade to a pro account today. I spent the AM organizing some of my photos into sets and deleting old photos that were just taking up space.
Here’s what you get for $24.95/year:
- Unlimited uploads (10MB per photo)
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited photosets
- Permanent archiving of high-resolution original images
- The ability to replace a photo
- Ad-free browsing and sharing
Compare that to what you get with a Free Account:
- 100 MB monthly upload limit (5MB per photo)
- 3 photosets
- Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
- Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals saved in case you upgrade later)
I think it will be worth it in the long run and will offer people a way to see groupings of my work, from ACEOs to postcards to paintings and whatever else I create since I don’t stick to one medium. It felt really good to treat myself to something new today!
In other news, my good friend, Nikki from Wild on the Inside, alerted me to another cool Flickr tool the other day. Moo Cards are mini calling cards created from your Flickr photos. She ordered some for herself and is going to give us a full critique when they arrive.
Speaking of Nikki, she is one of my best friends in the whole world, but unfortunately lives far away from Denver. She married her sweet heart and now resides in the San Fransisco Bay area. She and I were flight attendants together for United Airlines and used to “buddy bid”, which means you work the same schedule as each other. It was a blast and we did manage to bring the best out in each other. One of the things we used to talk about on the jump seat was life after United and how we were going to quit and follow our bliss. We ended up doing it, but following our bliss is harder than I imagined.
She really is wild on the inside…a devoté of Burning Man and crazy funky coutour. She keeps trying to get me to commit to Burning Man, but I’m just not there yet. Why am I telling you all of this? She has just started blogging and opened a new Etsy Store.
