I first saw Heather and Grayson's work on Once Wed in May 2009 and fell in love with their romantic and personal photographs.  They were recently married themselves and after seeing photos from their wedding I knew that both their style and personality were exactly what we were looking for.

My beautiful friends

Getting ready in the AhwahneeAlthough our wedding was in Yosemite, we wanted the photos to be about us, our family and our friends.  Yes, the setting was extraordinarily important and meaningful to us but what made the wedding was the people.

Our "first look"

My parents and I

Lara Hoke, Kim

Lara Hoke, Kim

You can also watch the video by following this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3R7Kiuh5aE

Lara Hoke, Oakland, Walking Towards Painting StudyLara Hoke, Oakland, Walking Towards Painting Study

Lara Hoke, Oakland, Bodega, Painting StudyLara Hoke, Oakland, Bodega, Painting Study

Lara Hoke, Oakland, Walking Away, Painting StudyLara Hoke, Oakland, Walking Away, Painting Study

On the 17th of May a van full of artwork and show curators/maestros Leslie Rosa and Jimmy Riordan will leave Anchorage and begin heading east. Around the 12th of June it will arrive in New York. Between these two dates, it will zigzag across Canada and the US, meeting up with all of the artists that participated in Marginalia (or at least those that are on this continent).

Leaping into the Blue, Lara Hoke, 2009

 Below is the list planned stops.  Don't miss this opportunity to see the bunnies in person!

Anchorage: Starting Point
Cooper's Landing: Artist Meet-up
Vancouver: Artist Meet-up and Reading
San Francisco: Mini-Exhibition at Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland's Temescal Neighborhood
Los Angeles: Artist Meet-up and Mini-Exhibition
Joshua Tree: ??
Santa Fe: Pig Roast and Reading
Houston: Mini-Exhibition at Skydive for Cultural Affairs and Book-making Workshop for FREE SCHOOL
Lincoln: Mini-Exhibition and Printmaking Workshop
Chicago: Artist Meet-up
Milwaukee: Artist Meet-up and Film Screening
London: Artist Meet-up
Annandale-on-Hudson: Artist Meet-up and ??
Baltimore: Artist Meet-up and ??
New York City: Huge Artist Meet-up and Artist Dinner

MARGINALIA ARTISTS:

Elysa Lozano, Kayla Spann, Brian McNearney, Vlad Smolkin, Samuel T. Adams, Ted Mineo, Ali Aschman, Azikiwe Mohammed, jsun, Lindsay Clark, Ed Mighell, Sam Bornstein, Enrique Marty, Holden Attradies, Leah Schreiber, Anna Raupp, Stefano Minzi, Collin LaFleche, Gretchen Weiss, Beka Goedde, Jimmy Riordan, Brian Hutton, Mark Muro, Rosie Cooper, Florence Boyd, Ben Cove, Constantin Andiel, Emily Foden, Lara Hoke, Esy Casey, Lisa Rybovich Cralle, Emily Noelle Lambert, Lucy Ward, Colleen Asper, Trish Tillman, Alison Blickle, Nathan Manuel, Diann Bauer, Anda Saylor, Krista Peters, James D. Kaiser, Marisa Favretto, Anick Gosselin, Simon Woolham, Doug Williams, Craig Updegrove, Reverse Retro (Lukas Bouvrie and Tony Olexa), Hal Gage, Lawrence Stumpf, Mother Father Ghost(Stephan Koweluk), Bruce Farnsworth, Gretchen Sagan, Austin Lashley, Tommy O'Malley, Rachel Weber.

Help fund this great project and get a piece of it in return -  visit the Kickstarter page to learn more!

Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief: Databases to the Rescue!

How Open Source Internet Crowdsourcing Technology is Revolutionizng the Gulf Cost Oil Spill Relief Efforts

Databases rarely engender feelings of excitement or empowerment but Ushahidi,  a  crowd-sourcing tool developed as an open-source platform to map reports of violence in Kenya, is doing just that.

As described in the New York Times, Ushahidi is being used by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an advocacy group dedicated to reducing accidents at Louisiana refineries, to collect and log reports of the effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  It relies on witnesses to self-report via tweets, texts, e-mails and online submissions spill-related damage.

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W.P.A.-inspired wedding invitations

Last fall I wrote about W.P.A. Posters and mentioned how Ben and I met with artist/printmaker Kim Vanderheiden, founder of Painted Tongue Studios to explore the possibilites of making W.P.A.-inspired wedding invitations. 

We were so impressed with Kim and Painted Tongue Studios that we happily jumped right in.

Kim and her team were a joy to work with. She facilitated a relationship between us (client) and her (vendor) that felt like a true collaboration- that we were equally invested in the outcome.  

Ben and I love how the invitations capture our aesthetic and the spirit of the location (Yosemite).

Oakland Corner at Night

Instead of diving head first into a large canvas, I decided to work on a preliminary painting to get the feel of the composition and color.  This painting is small, probably around 12 x 18 and done in about two hours.  I plan to work just a bit more into it and then will consider making a go of it on a bigger canvas.

What I am pleased about is how when I work quickly on a small format my paintings have a softer, dream-like quality.  There is also an energy there that too often I lose when working on my larger paintings. 

Lara Hoke, Oakland Corner at Night, Oil on Board