Blog

So I used to be an environmental consultant, working with an engineering firm here in Virginia. A lot of my work involved groundwater monitoring at landfills, and through this work I became acquainted with a Virginia Department of Environmental Quality hydrogeologist named Geoff Christe. Usually we were on the opposite side of the table on one of my client's issues, and I came to highly respect his mixture of incredible scientific and regulatory acumen (which everybody at DEQ has), combined with common sense (which is rarer). I would share paintings with him on occasion, and he would often comment favorably, and shared with me that he loved photography and had actually once considered that as a career.

I left the private sector some three years ago and fell out of communication with him. I am now a regulator myself, working with the Virginia Department of Health. One day I received an out of the blue email from Geoff asking me to give him a call in the off-hours about a potentially interesting joint project involving my painting. So I called him and learned that he was taking a course in video editing at the Visual Arts Center. One of the course requirements was to film and edit an interview of somebody about "something interesting," and he proposed an interview with me about my not so secret alter-identity as a person who paints for pleasure. I thought about it for two seconds and said sure, what the hey.

This video is the result. Geoff came by one evening and set up cameras and lights and whatnot, attached a lapel microphone, and we did the whole thing in one take. He asked the questions and I answered them boom boom boom. He had a helper who cracked me up at one point. She took a "head shot" of me, and when I said I thought I looked too mean in it said "Yeah, that is one serious 'resting bitch face.' Let's try again - and this time try smiling." Then they packed up the lights and whatnot and did some video of me actually painting a watercolor. This involved no sound, so we were just chatting while Geoff hovered all around and swooped in here and there to get a super close-up of, say, me putting a brush into the old peanut butter jar I use for my water container. All told, there was something like 12 or 13 minutes of interview plus a few minutes of "action" shots edited down to a five or so minute video.

Like most people who see themselves on film or tape, I am chagrined to discover how often I say "Um." I really didn't know that I use my hands that much when talking. Geoff must a terrific editor because after taking eight or more minutes out, he shows me answering the questions with a certain degree of lucidity. I still hear myself rambling off on tangents instead of providing delightful sound bites, but that's just me being hypercritical about myself. I hope you find it interesting.

I think Geoff did a terrific job. He's interested in doing more of these, so if you live in central Virginia and are an artist or operate a business or for any other reason want to promote something by means of a professional video, let me know and I will put you in touch.

p.s.  For the fact checkers out there, allow me to acknowledge that when I talk about the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, I make the faux pas of stating it is located in Tennessee just outside of North Carolina. This is misinformation. It's the other way around. If you get nothing else out of watching this video, at least go to see the Kilmer Forest. It's a special place.