One of millions of things I love about my boy is that he has this specific little smile that only crops up on his face when he rides a carousal. There’s no rhyme or reason to it that I know of. There are plenty of things he loves far and above this ride. But it is what it is, and I just eat it up all that I can.
a line from a song. I’m trying to remember the lesson there.
I’m always a little more than impressed when a blogger is able to announce ahead of time that they will be taking a little break but will be back in XX time. I take breaks too… but I’m damned if I know when they will happen. I guess I’m less of a break taker and more of a break happens to her. My breaks are only breaks in hindsight. How do those others have the foresight?
Swing chain on a playground = simple joy
Lots has changed in our lives around my little piece of the world. We moved from our tinny downtown Seattle apartment into a lovely mid-century home a bit farther north. We are near Lake Washington now, in a quiet wooded neighborhood where it gets really dark at night and it’s oh so quiet. I love it a lot. We are going on 15 months without a job, but keeping calm and carrying on. Mr. O. is in a coop preschool, which I alternately love and hate (it’s a hell of a lot of work for parents and only sometimes does it feels worth it). We have our ups and downs and that’s just fine.
A Tonka dump truck on our new kitchen floor, amidst the hand cart = simple joy
When times get tough… I keep thinking of a few things to get me by. One of those is “simple joys”. I mentioned this concept awhile back, as one Amanda Soule had inspired in me. Simples joys are such a great way to celebrate the little things everyday that are beautiful, or gratifying, or simply real enough to ground you. I haven’t been shooting many photos lately, but the ones I have taken reflect my need to remember “simple joys” will be my salvation.
Fall leaves painted with ink onto special filter paper by ones son, hanging in the window = simple joy
I feel like I’m coming back to myself once again, and I truly did miss this space. So, hello again, lovely reader. How have you been?
I don’t know about you, but I can so easily get lost in the details and daily challenges that come with family life. As much as I like to focus on the little things, the moment to moment of living, I also understand the value of keeping a greater perspective. Getting lost in the details makes it easy to forget the big picture.
After being in a somewhat rudderless phase for a while I tend to reaffirm my footing by writing down an ordered list of my overall priorities. A few months back I got the idea to Photoshop such a list over a photograph and add it as my desktop wallpaper. I worried it might become irritating to have such a reminder in my face everyday, but it turned out to not be that conscious an experience. I saw the words everyday but didn’t necessarily read them. They seemed to make an impression anyhow and I think that was one of the most balanced periods of my life.
Looking for that balance again, I’ve recreated the experiment, with updated priorities.
It’s fun to make something functional that is also beautiful, and for me. Yippee!!!
To use a term my oldest friend uses to describe her husband’s dynamic within his friendships, I am a high maintenance (HM) friend. By extension blue algae is a high maintenance entity.
HM means, simply, that others do a disproportionate amount of the work of staying connected and engaged. I don’t do my fair share. It’s my greatest social failing. I’m not practiced at all. And I’m not proud of it.
That being the case I am constantly amazed (really there are no words for it) by the support that is offered up freely here in the comments section of my blog. Folks I don’t know, folks I do know who know me well enough to not anticipate reciprocity on any kind of timely schedule, support me, encourage me. I almost can’t fathom why. But then, I know, most people are good and kind. When those folks find someone lame upon the road they travel, they feel compelled to help in whatever way they can. I get that because I feel it too. Somehow though I’m always surprised to be on the receiving end of that miracle. I feel astonished and so full of gratitude that I can hardly contain it. Really, I’m getting stretch marks just sitting here.
I’m working on being lower maintenance. I want to thank them, you, even if you’ve “only” thought good thoughts for me. It’s not enough, but it’s all I got. Thank you!!
Thanks to my mother-in-law and lots of wise words from incredible, generous, caring friends… I guess I can finally admit to myself that my creative block has everything in the world to do with feeling stuck in life.
My husband was laid off his job over a year ago. It actually became known to us about a month before the financial crisis hit the world in Sept of 2008. His company had acquired a new CEO a few months prior and he changed the entire future plan for the company. In the ensuing reorganization quite a few people were laid off, their jobs absorbed by those who remained.
We weren’t worried at first. He got a great severance package and we saw it as our final push to move from Southern California to Seattle, where we’d always dreamt of living. During a trip to Seattle, to check out neighborhoods and reaffirm our desire to relocate, the bailout talk on the news began. Still we weren’t nervous. Well, we were probably nervous but we weren’t allowing ourselves to worry. My husband has never had a hard time finding work in the software field. He has a PhD. He is very smart and very easy going. People like him.
We moved to Seattle in Feb 2009 and while he’d begun really searching for a job months before that, we still weren’t worried. When summer came, we were surprised. He’d been on interviews, sent out hundreds of resumes (even some out of state). But nothing came of them. The pool of perspective employees was so rich and saturated that employers were able to be very picky about who they hired. That’s the only thing that makes sense to us, by way of explanation.
Having come full circle now, after one whole year without a job, we’ve faired much better than many many other’s have. We are financially stable still. We’ve adjusted our living style to a much more frugal one. We go to the library instead of buying books. We teach our son to play with the stones we find on the shore, instead of buying him lots of new toys (this has been an excellent lesson in creativity and imagination for us all – a lucky side effect). We go to the park and walk for entertainment. We’ve simplified, hunkered down, waited and searched for opportunities for things to go back to normal.
In light of how lucky we have been, how lucky others have not been,I have found it difficult to allow myself to really complain or feel the impact that all of this has had on me. I felt I didn’t have the right. If you’re lying next to an amputee in a hospital, you don’t moan about a broken wrist. You put on a brave face and thank the stars you have all your limbs (I did that). But, when the doctor comes around to ask how you are doing, you don’t delve so far into humility as to render yourself incapable of reporting your own pain, your own experience or needs (I did that too).
What has begun to hit my husband and I, having passed that one year mark, is that things may never be “normal” again. Waiting for that may be like waiting to be young again – pointless.
Things may change so much as we look for new ways to fund this family of ours, that it won’t resemble anything we had in the past. It might be a better, fuller, happier life. It might not. But standing still, while helping us endure, hasn’t moved us toward anything. And not moving is not good. In waiting, in standing still, I’ve lost whatever mojo, passion, zest I had for photography (temporarily). In loosing that, I lost my way to myself, my ability to renew, my balast. Without those things, everyone around me suffers.
So, no more. Moving. Going. Doing. Planning. Dreaming. Scheming, if necessary. These will replace waiting, hoping, and enduring. I will be bold. I will take risks with my work. I will move with purpose and awaken myself from this hibernation.
My photo - “Oats” 2009when we were both
stick figures drawn,
and pieced, together
with strokes of artist's hand
i looked at you with
the dots on my
circlet head and
waited for my smile
and when we were both
stick figures drawn and done
i peeled myself off the page
and reached for an eraser
i awoke this morning to workers
using pickaxes to tear up the street
below my window and it reminded me
exactly how far away i am from that morning
i awoke to the sound of jackhammers
a kissed your forehead while you slept
through the chaos. i counted 17 strands
of errant hairs on your hairline and said
goodbye.
speed dial programmed
ready and waiting
for the someday when
life says that there
isn't enough time
to dial...
each number represented
#3 for the best friend
#4 for the place once called home
#7 for the business partner
and #5 for the meeting place
#1 for the voice mail
not often used
#6 for the new sister and
#8 and #9, reserved for the future,
empty and that's ok...
#2 has always been
the slot for my #1
and as the phone sits
not blinking, not shaking
and rarely ringing...
the assignment screen
screams: #2 (empty)
.
i sweat my way through this foreign
city looking for someone like you.
when today spun into yesterday i
found myself a hotel shower
and could not scrub away
the sin in missing you....
.
Those last two lines, they get me every time.
“…could not scrub away
the sin in missing you…”
I pretty much hate everything I have produced, by way of artful photography, in the last six months!!!
An exaggeration? Yes, somewhat. But the emotional impact is much the same. I’ve been floundering, flailing, and failing for a while now.
I’ve talked about it before. Then I stopped. I really haven't wanted to belly ache about it here, over and over. If I felt tired of writing about it, you had to be sick of hearing [seeing] it.
So, instead, I waiting. I waited, I prodded, I absorbed other’s art, their process. Nothing. I stopped thinking about art for a while and focused on other things [well that was the plan but I can’t for the life of me remember what I focused on]. Nothing. It’s driving me mad.
Last night, before what would become another sleepless night, I jokingly, sulking-ly, said to my husband “I have no art. If I have no art, I have no purpose, no soul.”
I intended to be melodramatic, hoping it would expedite the purging of the feelings of futility that were overcoming me. After the words left my mouth, I realized they were emotionally true. I do, of course, have a purpose on this earth other than making art… being a mama is only one of them.
But, art is for me. It’s all mine. It’s what centers me, what balances me. Without art I am living, but really only half alive.
So, against my better judgment, I put these feelings out into the universe, via this space, hoping that they might jar something loose…… and if nothing else, knowing that if I don’t write them here, I won’t write anything at all.
Of Merlin wise I learned a song,—
Sing it low or sing it loud,
It is mightier than the strong,
And punishes the proud. I sing it to the surging crowd,—
Good men it will calm and cheer,
Bad men it will chain and cage—
In the heart of the music peals a strain
Which only angels hear;
Whether it waken joy or rage
Hushed myriads hark in vain,
Yet they who hear it shed their age,
And take their youth again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson – first part of his poem “Merlin’s song”
I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately. For awhile now I’ve been finding myself thinking that I’m much older than I am. A couple of months ago I found myself thinking…. “ahh, soon I will be facing menopause.” I’m turning 35 tomorrow!! Sure it’s possible, but unlikely, that I will be contending with that mysterious milestone early. It doesn’t run in the family.
I keep thinking that I’m at the end of my life, no time for that Masters degree I’ve always wanted, no time for the fit runner’s body and style of living I’ve envisioned for so long. I don’t know why I think this. It’s an automatic, subconscious thing. When I hear it in my head I tell myself… No silly. You’re only 35. Maybe it’s because I got here fast. The last 10 years being quite a blur. Or maybe it’s being a mom, putting my own life on the backburner far too thoroughly. Maybe it’s because of my uncanny ability to sabotage my own career/success/happiness. A dear friend of mine would say, to any question is it this, this or this? with, “Yes.”
Then, last month, as if only to legitimize my delusions about my own ageing, I found several gray hairs at the place where my hairline meets my forehead, front and center. I was in the car, with the family, with the windows rolled down, parked and I literally screamed. I spoke as loud as possible, “I have gray hair!?!?!?!?!?!?!” Then I proceeded to blame them on my husband. “This one right here, this is you. And this one, and this one, all you. This little one right here is the boy, but the rest are you.” In truth, he’s the one person in my life, if there were no others, who saves me, shelters me from the graying aspects of life. It’s just fun to blame him, somehow. Thank goodness he’s a good sport and has learned not to listen to me too carefully.
I thought I had this issue licked a while ago, when I was turning 30 actually. It’s a number. It’s arbitrary, for the most part. It only means something if we ascribe that meaning to it. It lasted a while. 30 I was okay with. 35, jeez, how did 35 happen?
I believe, is in the eye of the beholder.
I remember recently reading someone’s* profile on Flickr and seeing an explicit warning stating that they wished not to see or be associated with porn or erotic photos. This person went on to say that such things are not art, that they are sick and disgusting. While I have no qualms about someone stating their preferences in this way, I find that I am struck by this apparent hard line about nudity and sexuality being disgusting, regardless of context. (*I don’t wish to call this person out, which is why I chose not to identify them, but to only explore my own reactions to their statements.)
I agree that much of the porn that exists is quite disturbing and degrading to the people who’s images are used. Not only is it disturbing, it can possibly be destructive in a very real way, as speech (in the form of images) can be so closely associated with action as to think of them as one in the same. {The Problem of Pornography: Regulation and the Right to Free Speech by Susan M. Easton} .
But I would contend that Nudes ≠ Porn. The question as to whether a particular image should be deemed porn/disgusting or art is either a very personal one or, for the sake of public policy, one that is best left up to those social philosophers more steeped in the issue than I.
On the Trail by Andrew Kaiser © 2009 All rights reserved
As for my personal opinion (really the only thing I’m qualified to express), the human body is quite an interesting topic for visual arts, particularly photography. The languid transition between peaks and valleys; textured flesh upon mounds of muscle and fat; the harmonious rhythms of circulation, decomposition, creation; the evocation of the senses, of the emotions recorded literally in the cells of our flesh; the social, political, cultural, gender, issues that are challenged or explored .. all of this is deeply fascinating to me.
In the right hands I believe the human form can be displayed as art. Usually that art is heavily laden with eroticism and sexuality and still a valid form of artistic expression, as sexuality is such a large part of human existence (for functional as well as recreational reasons). But, I have often wondered if I would ever see a representation of the nude adult human form that did not contain some subtle reference to sex. It seemed to me there was always some tension there, some hint of desire, or shame, or vulnerability, or seduction. Perhaps, I reasoned, sex is in the eye of the beholder too. Maybe it is me that is infusing the sexuality, even in the most subtle forms, into the photos I see.
Leaf by Andrew Kaiser, © 2008 All rights reserved
If it’s not just me, maybe it is because by the time we are adults we are so far away from our natural selves, so molded by social norms, religious edicts, context, even fear. In contrast, as children, we exude freedom and comfort in the nude. Is that a social construct, because as children we don’t yet know of the physical world of adult love? Or, is it a physiological absence of the hormones that begins at puberty and bring us closer to understanding our bodies’ pleasurable potentials?
Poking around flickr, for quite a while, I was amazed to finally find some nude photos that seemed to be devoid of sexuality (see the two photos above). Instead they seem to be photographs, of people, immersed in the natural world, in their most natural form (sans clothes). I have to say that I was quite amazed and just dazzled to find them. It cannot be easy, for model or photographer, to pull this off.
Pas de Deux by M.Richard Kirstel © 2009 All rights reserved
And, of course, I did find those nude photos that oozed sexuality. In the right hands, I’m finding that these photos too can be so beautiful. For so long the visual representation of physical love has been tainted as lurid and sick. The work I have been finding on flickr, depicting sexuality and blatant sexual intercourse, have stunned me with their beauty, with their graceful treatment of the subject matter, with their humanizing of sensuality. I am simply in awe of both the artistic minds behind these photos and the brave souls willing to bare all for their achievement.
I don’t know how to define what is porn and what is art, what is artistically and anthropologically motivated photography and what is exploitation. But I think I have to draw the line just before saying that nudity is disgusting, before even saying all eroticism or porn, or any type of visual around (consenting adult) sexuality is offensive. It makes no sense to me to shun, to demonize, the most natural human experience as it is expressed, experienced, explored in visual mediums.
What do you think?
*** None of the photos in this post are mine. Each one was taken by the artist indicated below the photo and both artists were contacted prior to writing and publishing this post. Both men were very accommodating and I thank them for that.***
Other photographers found on Flickr who shoot beautiful nudes (or near nudes):
mauro brancorsini | welcome, ghosts
The very clever Cory posted some great shots on her flickr photosteam along with a link to a tutorial on how to make planets out of landscape photographs. I immediately had to try it. Of course, since I don’t take a lot of landscape shots, I had to get a bit more creative. The end result are some abstracted photos that I still like to think of as planets.
Planet Nightlights
Planet Beach
Planet Crow Fly
Planet Condiments
Planet Pier
Planet Seattle
Planet Smoke
Planet Pine
(or as my husband likes to call it “Planet Pucker”)
Planet Falling Water
Planet Falling Water (inverted)
I turned the 3 steps in this process into an “action” which made it a lot easier to play with all kinds of photos in a relatively short amount of time. I had a lot of very strange results. But these, I’m happy with these.
I also ended up with a couple (below) that looked nothing like planets (even to someone with the most vivid imagination), but I like them just the same.
