Happy first day of May! I'm in the middle of teaching my children's portraiture e-course (what a lovely group!), so I've been a little quiet around here this week, but I wanted to pop in before the weekend and share some good finds with you. Enjoy and kindly share them!
Despite last week's light snow flurries and a touch of hail (good golly miss molly!), spring continues to be springing up all over. These little white blooms, all crowded together, reminded me of young girls at a dance, all pink and white and fresh and pretty, just waiting to be noticed and invited into the spotlight.
As I type this, I'm watching snowflakes falling in my front yard. (Snowflakes, people! In late April!) But they're certainly not sticking, because it looks like spring is here to stay. Cheerful, little blossoms are popping up everywhere. On that note, here are a few of my favorite finds to kick off your weekend--enjoy!
It's been years since I gave two hoots about fashion, but if that's your cup of tea, here are three ethical clothing companies to check out (plus a super-cute purse!): Animal-friendly fashion shops
I'm old enough to remember hearing the Carpenters singing on the radio about how rainy days and Mondays always got them down, so today definitely would've been a double-whammy for them. The forecast here reads "100% rain." That's okay with me, though--I'm one of those people who would probably do just fine in super-rainy cities like Portland or London, aside from the really high number of bad hair days.
I like to listen to the rain pattering on the roof. I like to cozy up with a book and the dog. And often, I like to venture out and take pictures. Takes a little bit of maneuvering so the lens doesn't get wet, but I think it's totally worth it when everything's covered in crystal droplets.
How 'bout you? When you wake up to rain, do you love it, hate it, or tolerate it?
Before I dive into this week's finds, I just want to say a heartfelt "thank you!" for your kind comments and emails to me on my previous post about the BlogHer photography honor. As Mike Myers on SNL's "Coffee Talk with Linda Richman" used to say, "I'm getting a little verklempt! Talk amongst yourselves!"
Also, a quick reminder: Just one more week to sign up for my newest online photography course, "The Charm of Children: How to Take Better Photos of Babies & Kids." If it sounds like fun to you, treat yourself and join me! I won't be running this course again until next year, when the little ones in your life won't be so little! :)
For the last two days (give or take a few hours for sleep), I've been nervously struggling to write this post because I know that nobody likes to hear people tooting their own horns--and the internet horn-tooting can be deafening. Other than my husband and kids, I haven't told anybody this news yet. Frankly, I'm still a bit shocked. But that doesn't mean I'm not over-the-moon happy about it!
In early February, I submitted this photograph of apples (along with a few other shots that I've featured at Joyfully Green) to BlogHer for consideration in the photo category of their Voices of the Year competition. Not because I think "I am Jane Photographer! Hear me ROAR!" but more in the winning-the-lottery hopefulness of "Why not? Who knows?"
Well, very early on Monday, I learned I was one of seven photography honorees this year. (Seven?! I think the relatively low number freaked me out more than the award itself!) Here's an excerpt from BlogHer below (but you can click here for the full announcement):
"Today is the day! Thousands of community members submitted the best work they created, and pieces by others they admired. We expanded our categories this year to recognize ALL the work our community is doing in social media: brilliant blog posts and photos, plus actions that created impact, dazzling eye candy, and short and long-form video. Our group of judges read every single post, looked at each beautiful photo, followed all the conversations, and watched all the amazing videos the community submitted. The result is this year's incredibly talented Voices of the Year Honorees.
We are overjoyed to honor these outstanding creators who have pushed us to think more, feel more, share more, laugh more, and do more. Go look at the list of honorees and get ready for a special night when we honor their voices. Congratulations to all!"
Artists know this all too well: We send our creative work fluttering out into the world, hoping it will be met with soft breezes to guide it onto welcoming shores--not swept back to us like a soggy newspaper pitched onto the wrong lawn by a careless paperboy. So when it's recognized and rewarded, it's...surreal.
I am, quite simply and shyly, grateful. No, make that Grateful. Capital G.
And finally: I feel most at peace in the woods, so I was completely enchanted by this short video interview with photographer Ellie Davies, capturing "how it feels to be in the woods...when you walk into the woods and take that step from the outside, inside..." (How magical are those pictures?!)
"Remember what you loved as a child. Often, our truest passions emerge in childhood, only to be squelched by real life pressures." -- Ruth Zive at The Muse
At the ripe old age of seven, I had my whole life all figured out--or so I thought. Our second grade teacher gave us an assignment, probably still the most common one for kids: Write an essay that answers the questions"What do you want to be when you grow up, and why?"
I wrote one sentence and turned in the paper right away, because I didn't even have to think about it--I was certain: "I want to be an artist because my mother is."
Strangely, the teacher didn't ask me to expand on it. She read it, scribbled an "A" on the paper, and handed it back to me with a smile. As far as she was concerned, I had answered the two questions sufficiently.
There was a lot more to my dream of being an artist than emulating my mother, who had a studio in our house where she taught children's art classes during the summer, and taught adults how to paint on Monday nights after dinnertime. My father was a painter, too, but not professionally. They both set me on my path, though. There was something about the creative process--making something out of nothing--that was magical to me.
When I think back on the things that I loved to do as a child--play the piano, get lost in a book, draw pictures of people and invent stories about them, take pictures of my ever-patient pets--I can still feel the appeal of each of those things. Each one is introspective yet liberating, requires imagination, and is largely solitary. Those things aren't for everyone, but they are definitely for me.
I went through a lot of career upheaval in my 20's and 30's--book publishing, magazine publishing, public relations, advertising--and I see now that I jumped from one thing to another because I wasn't following what I truly wanted to do, down to its distilled essence. Yes, they all had a creative whiff about them, but it wasn't pure creativity. It was creativity for the benefit of clients and commerce. (Plus, many of my career choices were based on how I could manage to afford New York City rent.)
I wish I had been more mindful then, able to step back and appraise my choices. But most of it was just necessary sloshing around in muddy puddles, growing up, figuring out what worked and what didn't, and learning to listen to myself. It's like twirling the dial of a combination lock and listening for the click that finally opens it, letting you know that you got all of the numbers right, in the correct order.
I think we all have a quiet power within us, a gentle voice that guides us to the things that feel right. But the world has become such an incredibly noisy place, it's often hard to hear the whispering of our truest selves.
I've said it before (in this post about sacred time, art journaling, and focusing) but I really do believe it bears repeating: Find a quiet place and be with your own thoughts on a regular basis. Phone off. Music off. Just you and a blank page. Ask yourself, "What do I want to do?" (Not just big, pesky career questions--what do you really want to do on your next day off?) See what appears; see what feels instinctively right, deep-down.
Who knows? It just might be the same answer you gave when you were a kid.
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