squam in the city

oh hey, squam! squam in the city! stoked to announce I'll be there this september leading a few experiential photo walks on the streets of one of america's oldest (and squam organizer extraordinaire elizabeth's favorite) cities-- providence, rhode island!

one part photo walk, one part workshop, one part treasure hunt, this is my dream class scenario, folks. wandering down side streets and back alleyways, cameras in hand. talking street photography and the art of shooting on the fly. talking tips and tricks and the ins and outs of shooting portraits of strangers, talking color and light. hours spent looking for stories, jamming our cameras with a hundred city stories.

also? so many terrific teachers lined up, including my friend and fellow color//colour co-conspirator xanthe, who is also leading photo walks. color//colour photo walks. you guys. I AM EXCITED.

and don't even get me started on the hotel. because it's so good I can't even talk about it.

is this your gig? is this your scene? if so, read more here. and then meet me on the streets of providence in september, mamacita.

in the words of john cage

strangely paralyzed these days. desperate to write something, anything. I suppose this is my something, my anything. my feeble attempt to bust out of this whackadoodle holding pattern. the truth is that I have a hundred things to say, am busting at the seams with all the shareable things. new work, new words, workshops in exciting places. lists, there are a few lists, there are always a few lists. I think maybe I don't know where to start.

and so I think maybe this is how I start. this is how I break out. with this and well, these two words.

aka happy week

('roid week summer 2011)


('roid week fall 2010)


('roid week summer 2012)


('roid week fall 2010)


('roid week fall 2010)


('roid week spring 2009)


('roid week fall 2010)

('roid week summer 2013)

'roid week 2014 aka happy week. folks, it's nice to do something normal. 'roid week feels normal. it's nice to throw myself into something like 'roid week and not think about cataclysmic life changes. it's nice. is what I'm sayin.

five senses friday

the last weeks in the house, the last days, they were important ones. I don't think I will ever forget. but you know, I will forget. I will swear they are burned in my memory but they will fall away, as they are wont to do. and so I write things like this down. sights, sounds, scents. the tastes, the feels. all collected from a difficult couple of weeks, a brilliant idea borrowed from my friend shari, who has been known to document a week in this particular way.

sights: every corner of the house (every little corner, carefully examined) and pink, pink until the end of time, pink in the form of petal-strewn sidewalks and exploding trees, plus bright purple beets and that blood red moon, late evening light in the back bedroom, early morning light in the kitchen, the perfect kitchen sink (I will miss you, perfect kitchen sink), the yellowest of the yellow ranunculus, the floor of the basement (miraculously! the floor!), lost photographs, lost socks, lost drawings, lost everything, the first of the wisteria, the last of the wall drawings (courtesy of a four year-old ezra, circa 2008), and then the empty house, the saddest, emptiest house and the pulling away of a fully-packed moving truck, the last of the lilacs, the last of the last of the last.

sounds: peter piper on repeat, the crackle of the last fire, the creak of the bike on my last ride through our hood, a scratched stevie wonder record (and an apology from the offender), a million episodes of this american life (thus, a hundred million stories), the ceaseless bouncing of a basketball, the relentless crinkling of packing paper, the screeching of the packing tape, the popping of the bubble wrap, the metallic echo of those empty rooms, all those empty rooms.

scents: the lilac bush at the right of the house, the musty moldy mold of a thousand boxes, a little bit of rosewater, a truckload of clementines, the ink of markers (giant markers! pretty sure we got high off the markers), smoke from the last fire in the fireplace and the house, heated from an unexpected sun, and then freshly painted for new tenants, with nary a trace of us, or the scent of what we knew as home.

tastes: the last of the easter candy i.e., stale peeps and jelly beans in colors no one wanted, indian street food and salted caramel ice cream, sharon's perfect chicken salad, clovers from the backyard and more fountain cokes than I will ever, ever admit to consuming.

feels: complete and total overwhelm, complete and total exhaustion, complete and total everything, the cold and the wet of concrete, wind on my face from that last magic bike ride, fingers raw from all the taping (holy crap with all the taping), arms sore from all the lifting (HOLY CRAP WITH ALL THE LIFTING), a grieving for the house, for the seven years gone in a flash, for the painting over of ezra's little drawing on the wall of his room, for the cleaning off of the little makeshift growth chart in the kitchen, a grieving for the end of things, for the never-going-back, never-looking-back of things, but giddy for the new, for the unknown, for the freshest of starts, for the promise of perhaps our most ambitious cross country trip yet, for the promise of the first of things, the first of the firsts.

the teeniest, tiniest

you guys. I'm in it. I'm up to my eyeballs in it. am swimming in unwieldy cardboard boxes and unending rolls of bubble wrap. am wading through seven years of the kids' paintings and drawings and school work, seven years gone unchecked. forgotten thrift store finds and unfinished art projects, more broken crayons than I have ever seen in my life, more old bills, more receipts, more paper everything. (side note: I have enough party supply stock to open my own shop). we do not actually leave the city of portland until the middle of june but we have to be out of this house by the end of the month. that's fourteen days. there's so much to do I don't even think there's time for sleep. I  AM  IN  IT.

but the secret to surviving what's often referred to as the third most stressful event of life (preceded only by death and divorce) is this: teeny tiny breaks. the teeniest, the tiniest, the most mundane of pleasures, but in highly concentrated form. last time we moved, I remember taking the time to sort ava's hair accessories by color. in the middle of everything. in the middle of the mountain of boxes and the feverish to-do lists and the small children knocking at the bathroom door, crying for frozen waffles. I remember how cool the bathroom tiles felt beneath me as I sat and sorted, how spectacularly overwhelmed I was by everything but how completely calmed I was to sit there and just sort for ten minutes.

and that's what these photographs are for me. my teeny tiny break. taken with the holga in palm springs back in 2012, finally dropped off and developed two years later. teeny tiny break number one: sitting in the car, thumbing through said freshly developed photographs. teeny tiny break number two: sharing them here. when I look at these, I can practically feel the heat on the back of my neck, smell the air around me, hear the click of that plastic camera. I am transported, just for a second. and really, that's all I need.

tahoe!

oh hey, teaching a few photography workshops at the create/explore/discover art retreat in tahoe this fall! on the roster: instant magic and a class I call five for five. and then: patchwork collages and painting with mati rose, crocheted stones and arm knitting with anne, image transfers and paper flowers with courtney. in tahoe! tahoe! I've never been but the people, they say nice things. I'll tell you, organizer sarah stevenson has outdone herself. I am excited.

meet me in tahoe in october? I'll be there with bells on. well, maybe not bells. I'll most likely be the one with all the polaroid cameras.

(retreat registration officially open! more here)

as seen by

me, through the eyes (and lens) of my brother. I'm forever thankful for it, don't even really have any words for it except I wish we could have seen into the future when we were kids. wish we could have seen who we are now, what we do, what we make. I wonder what we would have thought of all this. I like to think about things like that.

and then there's this:



I'm amazed by the work my brother makes. I really am. and I'm honored to see little bits and pieces of projects we've worked on together in this reel. I'm excited about the future. friends, if you want to fall down a beautiful, beautiful rabbit hole, head on over here. get lost in nate's work. it's easy to do.

p.s. if that first film has you jonesin for polaroid fun times, stay tuned. instant magic workshops (two!) are happening. announcements= right around the corner.

c is for color // d is for diptych

pink, yellow, orange, purple, green, red, blue. plus a few happy accidents, a few fortuitous images. mine are on the left, xanthe's are on the right. am missing color//colour right about now but we'll be back this summer. and when I need a boost, I know just where to go.

(more diptychs here and many thanks to my lovely co-collaborator xanthe for putting these fine diptychs together)
(she's the cat's pajamas, she is)

one last time

cold and wet but totally worth it.

homecoming

every year around this time, I sit at the little wooden desk by the window in the front room and I watch. I wait for the little explosions, for the tiny green buds on the two trees in the front yard to break open and scream pink. every year, I watch and I wait. and every year, when it finally happens, it reminds me. of that time we said yes, that time we closed our eyes and leaped into that place they call the unknown. or, in our case, the great pacific northwest. pink blooms remind me that we were brave once. they ceremoniously mark another year here for us in the city of portland, oregon.

I think about the first time we drove down our street. a knotty-headed two year-old ezra, a wide-eyed six year-old ava, a bewildered seventeen year-old cat and a thoroughly exhausted 36 year-old me and 38 year-old ward. we'd just finished driving across the country. seven days, eleven states. georgia into tennessee into kentucky into illinois into missouri into kansas into colorado into wyoming into utah into idaho. and then finally, oregon. oregon with its green green green everything everywhere, its commanding, unforgiving winds and magnificent vistas, its chartreuse moss quietly covering every surface in sight. and then we were driving across a bridge (who remembers which one) into a brand new city and then we were driving down our street for the very first time, beyond exhaustion but also wild with excitement and above all else, wildly hopeful. when we pulled up to our house for the first time, all we could see were the pink blooms and a spectacular mess of pink confetti on the front sidewalk. the trees have thrown us a little party, I thought. it's got to be a sign.

seven years later, here we are, exploding pink trees and all. when things started to bloom last week, all the old feelings came back again, just like they always do. I walked outside, camera in hand, just like I always do, tried (in vain) to shoot the exploding trees in a way that would tell the story, just like I always do. every year, I try. I always try. I pointed my SX-70 at those little pink guys and hoped for the best. last shot of the pack, last few days of the blooms. and the last time I will sit at the little wooden desk at the window in the front room of this house and wait, the last time I will watch the two trees in this front yard turn bubblegum pink, the last time I will point my camera up towards those bloom-covered branches. because in a few short months, we'll be making our way back home. we'll be moving back to atlanta, georgia.

there's a longer story, of course, but the short of it is that we miss family. we're tired of living so far from the people we love. we love portland, but we love our people more. that's what it comes down to, I guess. we're choosing the family we love over the city we love. is there any other way? any other choice? for us, there is not. most days, I vacillate between weepy and giddy-- weepy for everything and everyone we're leaving behind, giddy for the mountain of good that waits for us on the other side. I am a tangled, knotty mess of emotions. and I am currently up to my eyeballs in purging and packing, in list making and problem solving. I am swimming in change, paddling fast, struggling to keep my head above water. I can see the other side but just barely. there are still so many miles to go, so many miles. I find myself wishing the time away, begging for something like a giant fast forward button. and then I panic when I realize what that would actually mean. when we've finished with the move and we begin the big road trip home, this part of life will officially be over. portland, as we know it, will be over. a thing we will talk about, past tense. and I cannot imagine it. I want it to be over but I never want it to end. does that make any sense? probably not. but that's the sentence I find myself repeating over and over. I want it to be over but I never want it to end.

in the meantime, petals are falling. little papery bits of pink are beginning to carpet the front sidewalk. soon, the ground will be covered and I'll take my shoes off. I'll walk barefoot through the confetti, just like I always do. I will stand in it one last time. and I will remember that time we said yes, that time we jumped, that time we were brave.

blue

no words this week, just blue. and a thankfulness for friends with roomy blue floral couches and hidden blue vinyl, for blue skies and launderettes and back door color. for xanthe and this color collaboration and a brand new happy place.

orange

when I was little, orange was my favorite color. I liked the way the word sounded, the way it rolled around my mouth. I could almost taste it, I could smell it. it was the one word that actually sounded like the color that it was. I can remember thinking this, remember the moment. the brown vinyl interior of the station wagon, legs stuck to the seat, arms out the window, driving through town, running errands with my mom. orange, I thought to myself. orrrrrange, you sound good to me. you feel right. so funny, the things you remember from childhood, the things that stay with you. little clips that loop endlessly, fortuitously.

I have been saying the word inside my head all week. orange. I have been thinking about that seven year-old girl. I have been missing her.

(more orange over at color//colour lovers, over at xanthe's)

(and now we are swimming in blue)

purple

not pictured: the bundle of small purple mums I treated myself to, the little bottles of purple nail polish I never got around to using, the grape popsicle I wanted (and the purple tongue it would have surely given me), the handful of purple houses I passed while the running of the errands (similar to the running of the bulls though not nearly as exciting), the lost prince 45 that was, of course, purple.

I will not lie. purple is not my favorite. but after this week, I don't know. I'm starting to come around.

(more purple over at color//colourlovers and over at xanthe's spot)

(meanwhile, we are knee deep in juicy, juicy orange)

green

I'll tell you, I love this project. I really do. because the minute I focus on a particular color, I begin to see it everywhere. and I mean everywhere. in small places, hidden places, places it's probably always been but my eyes have glossed right over it. I never noticed that our paint brush handles are that lovely shade of green. and I am sorry to say, but I probably would have walked right by that green bicycle. I might've noticed it for a second but it would not have jumped out at me. it would not have commanded me to stop and inspect it, to point my camera at it. because that's what the color does, it screams out at me all week long. notice me! see me! here I am! no matter what I have going on in life (and friends, there are things, there are big things), the color is there. to remind me, to ground me. to root me squarely in that ever important little time period we like to call the present.

you know what else? I am loving co-collaborator xanthe's green balloons. I am loving her green fingertips. and I cannot wait to see the purples and violets this week brings. I am wondering what places I'll find them, where they will be hiding.