29-FEB-2008
daughter and mother
Hands that dance.
Hands that massage.
Hands that hold books and write papers on a laptop.
Hands that work the soil and plant seeds.
Hands that carry a cell phone and send text messages.
Hands that harvest, chop and cook.
Hands that embrace racial and cultural differences.
Hands that speak the language of nonviolence.
Hands that make and keep friends.
Hands that keep and help friends.
Hands that love.
Hands that love.
28-FEB-2008
Thursday's Totally Informal Transglobal Challenge for February 28, 2008 - "Natural Colour"
One could interpret this week's challenge in several ways, but I chose to focus on the idea of "natural colour" to mean colour in nature. Since, except for cold blue winter skies, it takes a subtle eye to see colors in a northern state like Michigan during February, I turned my thoughts towards what I might find of the natural world inside my house. The abalone shell fish/bottle opener sitting on Ed's grandfather's desk caught my eye. I'd bought this art object from Pablo on a day trip to Mexico during last March's visit to my friends in San Diego, California. He'd told me how he would dive for the abalone, scrape its shell so the iridescence would come through, and then use it to create jewelry and other objects to sell to tourists. By the way, I was careful not to enhance the color of this photo using any of Photoshop's many tools. It is natural in every way...
To see other PBasers' responses to this Challenge,
CLICK HERE.
27-FEB-2008
my new "night-lit Winter Woman" gallery is up
Yes, my friends, this new gallery features myself! I guess I could have cloned out my tattoo and colonies of moles so I'd be less recognizable, but why bother? At 65-going-on-66 I can't see that it makes any difference anymore. Maybe it never did. My body is my body is my body. It is what it is and that's just fine. No, I didn't always feel this way. As recently as five weeks ago I couldn't have imagined I'd be photographing nudes and posting the pix on the internet. Especially not pix of my own bare body! But now that I've been at this for the past month or so, I can't imagine NOT having followed this path. How else could I have rediscovered my sensuality? What else could have changed my negative attitudes about aging bodies? Especially my own.
I've heard publicly and privately from women and men the world over about how my "Winter Nudes" portfolio is touching them deeply. That means the world to me because I never intended for this to be simply an artistic project. From the start I have seen it as a tool for social transformation. I guess the surprise is how deeply I am being changed myself. Just being with these courageous older women--all of whom are my friends--fills me with awe and gratitude. I can think of no honor greater than the trust these wonderful women are placing in me to show them in a respectful way. And I am among their company because I also dare to reveal myself to myself. And then dare to show my bare body to the world at large.
I know other PBasers have photographed themselves nude and then posted those photos. The incomparable
Lilith comes immediately to mind. But all the women I know who have done this have young, beautiful bodies. I may be the first elder to follow this path. But that fits. I've often been the first to try new ways of doing things. Hopefully my example will encourage others to reveal themselves with no Doris Day-type gauzy effects. Photoshop can clone out anything we judge to be a "flaw." It takes courage to leave them in. That's what I've done in my new gallery. I cropped some of the images, and did what I needed to do to get the strong contrast I was after, but otherwise, I left my body as it is. In all its glory...
26-FEB-2008
uncovering my herstory
Best viewed in Original size
In today's "order-out-of-chaos" session Pat and I tackled Ed's mother's hope chest. No, it didn't have HER things stored there, but my own. We started with the drawer in which I'd put a lot of my childhood photos and art work, my mother's autograph book from when she was 14 in 1927, memorabilia from my six winters in San Francisco (1996-2002), and other assorted treasures. After we'd organized and placed these things in a plastic container for safekeeping, I asked Pat to remove the items I had on the top of the hope chest so we could open it up. I had not looked inside for at least 12 years, but remembered having used this chest to store the women's meditation sets I had created and sold back in 1993-95. Yes, they were there, still covered in shrink wrap and looking just as I'd remembered them. But it was what we found UNDER those meditation sets that took my breath away. When Pat had removed the last set, she saw laid out on the bottom of the hope chest a bolt of blackwatch plaid cloth. I remembered my father had brought it back to me from a business trip he'd taken to Europe in the mid-70s. Pat lifted up the cloth and said in an excited tone of voice, "Patricia, I think you'll want to come over and see what's here." I scooted up next to the chest, looked down into it, and saw what you see pictured here.
Have you ever had your life pass before your eyes? That was exactly how I felt. And the visual sensation was enhanced by the evocative smell of cedar wafting up from the walls of Ed's mother's hope chest, a smell identical to the one I used to smell as a little girl whenever my mother would open the cedar chest at home where she kept our extra blankets. But today, instead of blankets, there was a white lace table runner to which I'd sewn items from my life back in 1993. These items included such things as a black and white photo of me at age 8 with my arms around our dear dog Susan, a gold pin with my birthstone (the pearl) that my parents had given me when I was in college, the blue garter I'd worn under my wedding dress in 1966, a photo of me running across Detroit's Belle Isle Bridge at the finish of my second Marathon in 1980, a triangular-shaped painting I'd made back in the early '80s when I was deeply involved in modern dance, the "Praying the Rosary" pamphlet and white ivory cross that I'd found in my Dad's top bureau drawer following his death in 1987, a photo of a painting I'd made for a priest I'd known at an inner city Detroit church to which I'd belonged from 1985-91, one of the postcards I'd sent to the Archdiocese of Detroit on August 19, 1993 asking that they remove my name from their registry since I was no longer a Roman Catholic, and one of my Word Art Peace Postcards that I'd created and sold after the first Gulf War. These were just a few of the things I saw spread out before me. I get chill bumps just thinking about it. After I'd looked at and taken lots of photos of what appeared to be a retrospective of the first 51 years of my life, Pat carefully folded and made a protective cardboard envelope for what she called my "altar cloth," and put it away in my art closet.
Oh, my friends, don't ever let any one tell you you should throw out your memorabilia. Life is made up of memories that can be lost if we don't have tangible reminders of all that we have thought, felt and experienced in our lives. They don't need to take up much space, as evidenced by my "altar cloth," but they should be kept and valued. When you rediscover them later in life, it will be like opening up your very own time capsule.
25-FEB-2008
ice fishing
You've got to be hardy to be an ice fisherperson. It's not like any of the other winter sports where you stay warm because you're always in motion. No, these folks sit or stand, barely moving, for hours. I don't know how they do it. And it's rather solitary as well. So not only do you need to tolerate the cold, but you'd best be content with your own company. Takes a special kind of person, I guess.
24-FEB-2008
my "Winter Woman Storyteller" gallery is up
I generally invite my models to bring any scarves or objects with which they might want to be photographed. In response to my invitation, one of the women brought a Native American Pueblo Storytelling doll with her. When she showed it to me, she said, "I am a storyteller." That was all I needed to hear. The doll instantly became a featured part of her posing session.
23-FEB-2008
the masks we wear
There was a time when I didn't know the difference between my face and a mask. It was back before I discovered who I was and that I was all right being myself and no one else. It was back when I thought I had to fit in, to be what my family and society said I should be, to hide who I really was for fear my true self would be a threat to my comfort and security. Oh my. Those were times when I used all my energy trying to contain the demons within myself, demons that struggled to be free, demons I now know were my allies not foes, especially the Demon of Authenticity.
In the early 1980s I saw a woman perform dressed all in black wearing an elegantly carved wooden mask. Her name was Laurie Margot Ross and I soon learned that she had studied corporeal mime in California, Germany and Indonesia. This type of mime is an abstract form of movement favored by performers who want to distill the human story into its elemental purity. When Laurie came into my life I had just entered my 40s and was exploring self transformation through art. The week after seeing her perform, I became Laurie's student. In a matter of months we began performing together, usually at progressive art venues around Detroit. We worked together for two years. Our final performance was part of a three-person show we mounted at a local art gallery in September 1985. I remember insisting that the performance end with me removing my mask. At that time I thought I had moved beyond masks, that I had finally become my true Self.
The mask pictured here hangs on my bedroom wall as a reminder of another transformative time in my life, the time when I came into my Woman Self. It was about much more than simply embracing feminist ideology; it was about letting go of the religious belief system into which I had been born and becoming comfortable with unanswerable questions regarding the meaning of life. This mask was of my own face. I had originally created it using plaster strips that I'd wetted and placed over a wax-covered plaster cast of my face. During this time of discovering my Woman Self, I repainted it using colors and symbols that reflected the exuberant joy and oneness with the earth that I was feeling in every cell of my body.
The longer I live, the more comfortable I am with the masks I wear. For now I know that we always wear a mask of one kind or another, and that it does not mean we're inauthentic. Each mask simply reflects the part of ourselves we are growing into at that time. So what mask do I wear today? The photographer's mask? Perhaps. But I won't know for certain until I totally assimilate it. I never recognize a mask until it fits like a second skin.
22-FEB-2008
student self portrait called "Me, When I'm Old"
This is a photo of one of the twelve "Me, When I'm Old" self portraits the teacher and I chose to submit to the "Aging With Attitude" Art Exhibit to be held at the University of Michigan in March.
CLICK HERE to read about it. For the past month our Grade 5 students have been hard at work on this project, and as an elder and a weekly volunteer in the art classes, I have been their "in house" model for how an old person looks. Not only did I help introduce this project by talking with them about how it feels to be old--both the advantages and disadvantages--but I brought in large prints of my
"Facing up To My Face At 65" self portraits which we posted on the bulletin board for the kids to use as reference when I wasn't there. It became quite common for me to hear the teacher say to a student, "You don't have enough wrinkles on your drawing yet. Go see Ms. Patricia and she'll show you where they belong." I'd then take off my glasses and carefully point out the lines running beside my nose down to my mouth, the dried creek bed of wrinkles on my cheeks and chin, the crows feet radiating out from my eyes, the worry lines across my forehead, the bags under my eyes, and the frown lines on the bridge of my nose. After awhile I lost any self consciousness I might have had about my very wrinkled face. It was yet another stage in my journey towards self-acceptance of aging that began last August with "Facing Up To My Face At 65" and is continuing today as I explore the subject of older women's bodies in my recent series of photographs called
"Winter Nudes."
The hardest part of this entire "Me, When I'm Old" project with the kids was choosing only twelve of their drawings to submit to the "Aging With Attitude" exhibit. They did such a fine job we could easily have submitted twice that number. And even though I'd intended to submit my own self portraits to the adult juried portion of the exhibit, I got so caught up with the students' work that I missed my deadline. No problem. I want it to be their shining moment, not mine. I'm so proud of them I could burst!
21-FEB-2008
Thursday's Totally Informal Transglobal Challenge for February 21, 2008 - "Tired"
After a good hard workout at the gym this morning, too many hours on the computer this afternoon, and all the excitement over tonight's awesome lunar eclipse, I am one tired puppy. Oh how sweet that bed is going to feel. Nightie night...
To see other PBasers' responses to this Challenge,
CLICK HERE.
20-FEB-2008
my "Winter Woman does tai chi" gallery is up
This is the final gallery from last Wednesday's photo shoot with three models. There are now four galleries from that one shoot. But today (Tuesday) another wonderful Winter Woman came to pose for me, so I will be putting up her gallery within the next few days.
CLICK HERE to see "Winter Woman does tai chi."
19-FEB-2008
two new Winter Nudes galleries are up
On Monday I posted two new galleries of photos in my
Winter Nudes portfolio. The first is called "Winter Woman drums."
CLICK HERE to see it. I call the second, "Winter Women drawn in light"
CLICK HERE to see that one.
I also submitted an image in "Challenge 2" hosted by Stu Egan. These challenges are such fun to participate in, and when you see the breadth of creativity shown there, you will be blown away. I was.
CLICK HERE to see this gallery.
Is there life beyond photography? I'm beginning to wonder.
18-FEB-2008
my "Winter Women dance in the sun" gallery is up
Last Wednesday three wonderful women came to my studio and posed for my
Winter Nudes series. It's taken me this long to organize and put up the first of what will be several galleries from this photo shoot. To be honest, I felt a bit overwhelmed when I saw how many photos I'd taken. But now that I've started, I'm excited to see what comes. As always, I offer my deepest gratitude to these women who dared to bare themselves before my camera. Not only were they courageous, but they were lots of fun to be around!
To see my "Winter Women dance in the sun" gallery,
CLICK HERE.