Thursday, July 06, 2006

Happy Birthday to Us

Happy Birthday to Us! (a fun piece about our infancy) Ten years, can that be possible? So many stories, tragedies, stages, illustrations, projects, friends, hours, photographs, slide shows, Saturdays, cups of coffee, cans of cokes, notebooks full of doodles and illustration ideas, and emails!

I remember boiling in a tub of hot water, crying and regretting having given my notice at a perfectly great newspaper. Leaving a job that I did so well to fly off into the Ethernet to do “God only knew what!” Ten or more years ago there was this new little feature called the World Wide Web and I found it intriguing. I felt like technology was leaving me behind, all the cool programs that I was so proficient in seemed archaic when you think of building web pages, animated gifs, working in RGB and all the stuff I was hearing about. I needed to explore and so began my flight freelancing, mainly story illustrations.

Of course, working in the news can be emotionally exhausting. Sometimes a story is too much and it takes me crying and screaming all the way home to get it out of my system. Will never forget (as none of us will) waking up to the news and watching the first Twin Tower on fire, thinking, "wow, this is a big story". Waking my husband (who is also in news) to tell him he better get up and take a look at this. As soon as those words left my mouth, we witnessed the unimaginable. I threw on the rest of my clothes and in minutes was driving to work. Listening to the rest of the story unfold on the radio, seeing other commuter’s faces stunned, tears streaming down their cheeks. Oklahoma bombing, earthquakes, tsunami, famines, wars, terrorist bombings … bad news never ends. Then there are the lighter moments when I have fun with illustrations or my camera.

I have worked and work with amazing folks. Creative, smart, always inventing a better way, a greater experience for the audience, marrying it all together and it is a thrill and a privilege to watch it all unfold.

3 comments:

Curt said...

We still miss you at the newspaper! But it's great to read you online. I can tell people: "I used to work with Kim but now she's a blog." :)

Kim Carney said...

Oh, God, how I laugh at that. You are hysterical. Please come work with us!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to 10 years!

I did not know that is who you work for :)