May 3, 2013
Cole: A Home Run Story
Rinda: A Photographer's Story
I've been very lazy about taking photographs this baseball season. For most games, I've left my camera at home or stayed in my bleacher seat watching the game instead of getting up and prowling the base paths or perching behind the backstop to capture the boys. My friend, Becky Ruppel, has made it easy for me to do this because she has been busy photographing the team and doing a spectacular job. I've missed many games because of work and other family commitments, as well. So, today, I was determined to bring my camera and take some photographs. And, oh my, did I get lucky!!! The weather and light were beautiful. The open dugout gave me a great vantage point. And the boys obliged by having one of their best games ever. The highlight? Being there to document every moment of Cole's home run. From the sweet swing, to watching the ball sail out, to the joy of rounding the bases and the final celebration with his team mates. This is why I love sports photography.
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This post was prepared for Week 2 of the Find Your Voice Storytelling Workshop. The assignment called for three different stories (one craft based - my Beijing adventure; one writing based - my fire engine story; and one photography based - today's post). For each one, I was to incorporate myself in the story or use the story to show something about who I am as a person. In reviewing my posts, I think they each show something different about who I am (an adventurer, a civil rights advocate and a sports photographer). I'm sure they show some similarities as well, but I still have to figure out what those are! Any insights are welcome.
The color palette for this week's Summer of Color Challenge is yellow and candy apple red. This made me think of the heat of summer and decided to simply drip red paint over a yellow background (hoping it wouldn't read too much like blood). I was so pleased when I found this Steven Wright quote to complete my post card. Dedicated to my friend Deb Turtle and everyone else sweltering this summer. Linking up to Paint Party Friday, as well!
There's only one week left in the summer of color challenge, but I have a couple extra post cards, so I might continue to challenge on my own (using some of the combos that I voted for but which didn't get chosen). Anyone else want to play along for a few more weeks? If so, let me know in a comment and we'll figure something out.
One of the assignments for week #3 of the Find Your Voice Workshop is to create a crafting project which makes you happy and list five reasons why it makes you happy. This is a page I made for the altered book I'm creating for the Passport to Art class I'm also taking. The page was not in response to a particular prompt for the class. I just made it, well, because it made me happy. Why did it make me happy?
1. I like the colors - red and yellow/orange with blue accents are a color scheme I return to over and over again in my art.
2. When I wrote the list of major ports of call I have visited on the next page of my altered book, I had forgotten to include El Salvador. This page allowed me to memorialize this trip and make sure it didn't get lost in the ether.
3. It came together easily without a lot of planning or creative angst. I saw this picture in my book, it reminded me of El Salvador. I pulled out some map paper and found a few embellishments that worked; jotted down a few thing that I remember about El Salvador and it was done!
4. I like the little art doll embellishment, and I didn't think I'd find a good use for her. Images of women are another recurring motif in my art work.
5. My journaling captures, in a few well chosen words, the things which were special to me about El Salvador: the softness of the air, the smell of the flowers, the volcano on the horizon and the shrine to the Jesuit martyrs.
Have you ever thought about what makes you happy about your art? It's an interesting process, and I think my answers will be different for the other two assignments for this week (a series of photos which make me happy and a story that makes me happy). I'll be sharing these over the weekend or early next week!
The plum tree in our back yard is bearing heavily right now. I spent a half hour picking plums on Monday, and thought it a good opportunity to take photographs looking up on a few I placed on the fence post and down into the harvest basket I was to fill. Thanks to Helena for starting the weekly look up//look down photo meme. I have taken so many pairings in my garden that it will be a wonderful document to look back upon. I would say roughly half of my look up//look down photographs have been taken out back. For those of you who also participate in this meme, do you find yourself returning to one place over and over again?
And just for fun, here's what the basket looked like when I was done picking (yes, there's a few little tomatoes in there, too):
I must admit that I love the photographs from today. I took them with my real camera, as opposed to my iphone. The camera phone is quite good, lots of fun and oh-so-convenient. But these photographs are a great reminder to use my DSLR as well!
I've been doing a lot of cutting and gluing (plus a little painting and journaling) in the altered book class "Passport to Art" class I've been taking. Glue it Tuesday, hosted by Artsyville seemed like the perfect opportunity to share my recent pages. The page up top is a simple one responding to a prompt to write about a special place with strong memories for you and to use flowers. Since my altered book had a gorgeous picture of Yosemite and it's a magical place for me, I created the very simple page above. I added a few brushes of gesso to allow journaling for three specific memories and a little little journaling booklet with a flower girl art doll.
The next two pages are a bit more interactive. The emphasis in the top photo is on the page and a half on the left. It responds to a prompt about my favorite form of travel, which is train travel. The journaling talks about train trips we took when Henry was little and the connection this has to my family history because both my grandfathers worked for railroads in Mexico and Texas. I included copies of tickets that my mother used in 1948 to travel on the Mexican Railroad and the Missouri Pacific Line.
The emphasis in the bottom photo is on the page and a half on the right. It responds to a prompt about packing, and it includes some of my tips for packing. I used more map paper and some Gibson girl stamped images. You can click on the images to see them in more detail.
My final page to share today responds to the prompt to create a visa. I cut up copies of my grandmother's travel documents and glued them to my page. I added a little journaling to a photo I added to the right hand page: "My grandmother got a visa and crossed borders to create a new life." These documents were used, in lieu of a passport by my grandmother when she crossed the border. In the photo on the Identification Certificate, my mom is the little girl on the right. I love having these personal heritage documents and feel they add depth and meaning to my art work.
My altered book is looking very different than Bernice's book (see a sample here), the hostess of the class. But that's okay. I'm really enjoying exploring the meaning of travel in my life and I'm using elements which speak to me. I have been surprised to realize how much traveling I have done and how important it is to my identity. What about you? Are you a big traveler? Is it important to defining who you are?
I'm really enjoying two FREE online classes I'm taking this month: Passport to Art and Find Your Voice. The altered book page above combines assignments from both classes. In PTA, the Day 2 prompt was about creating a passport and answering a question about whether you are adventurous when traveling or prefer a scheduled trip. The FYV assignment called for a creative project and story that showed something about who you are.
This page has a pocket for storing my passport. You can see the inside of my passport which features some basic information about me and a Psalm. One of its lines has been stuck in my head lately: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." The left hand page has a picture of a mural in San Francisco and some hand-journaled quotes about adventure. The right hand page lists some of the many places I have traveled and proclaims "I am an Adventurer! I am fearfully and wonderfully made!" On the right hand side, I decided to write about an adventure I had while in Beijing. I could only fit a condensed version of the story, but here's the full version for your enjoyment:
My Beijing Adventure
In 1994, my best friend Molly and her family moved to Hong Kong for a year. I went to visit, and during my stay, Molly and I went up to Beijing, China for a short week. At the time, Americans could only go if they booked as part of a tour, although we did have some freedom to wander on our own. We went with our tour group to see Tienanmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Imperial Palace, The Summer Palace and The Great Wall. Midway through our hike along the Great Wall, I stopped and purchased an official certificate boasting "I Climbed the Great Wall." The vendors had a huge round stamp, which they applied to my certificate and wrote my name in Chinese characters. Molly didn't want a certificate, instead she convinced the vendors to apply the stamp to her bicep like a tattoo. She refused to wash her arm that day, as she wanted her kids to see the stamp when we got back to Hong Kong.
On our last morning in Beijing, we had some free time to wander on our own. I was determined to go to see one of the museums in Tienanmen Square that I had read about in a guide book. We took the twenty minute cab ride from our hotel to the Square, planning to get back to the hotel in plenty of time to meet our tour group and head to the airport just after lunch time. When we got to the Square, the police were out in force. Many were dressed in riot gear, and there were metal barriers blocking the entrances to many of the buildings. Undeterred, I insisted to Molly that we go to the museum. We located it on our map and walked towards the building, which had a pair of armed soldiers and and several metal gates in front of it. Optimistically, I held up my guidebook and pointed to the photograph of the museum. One of the soldiers raised his hands in front of his face, brought them slowly together and said "Lopen."
"It's open?" I asked.
"Lopen" he replied, again slowly moving his hands together like doors closing, not opening.
I was about to ask again if it was "Open," when the other guard started talking excitedly and pointed at Molly's "tattoo." They grabbed her arm and kept talking. We had the feeling they were asking us questions, but not speaking Mandarin, we really weren't sure. Molly tried explaining it was from the Great Wall, but they didn't seem to understand her. At some point, I said the magic word "Badaling," which is the town where we started our Great Wall tour.
"Aaaah, Badaling. . . " one of the soldiers said, examining the stamp more closely.
Then they laughed at us and moved their attention elsewhere.
Molly looked like she wanted to hit me when I said in all seriousness, "I wonder if any of the museums on the Square are open." She had clearly had enough of the Chinese police, and we decided to head back to our hotel.
We stood on the side of the road trying to hail a cab for about twenty minutes. Plenty of empty cabs rushed by, but none of them would stop for two American tourists now worrying about whether we would ever get back to the hotel in time to catch our flight.
Finally, a cab stopped. We jumped in the back seat, showed him the business card for our hotel, and he took off. Just as quickly, he was pulled over by the Beijing police. Were the police still following us? Had we done something wrong? The driver and officer got into a long, heated conversation. The driver was pulling papers out of a box and showing them to the officer.
Molly glanced at me, pulled a wad of money out of her purse, put it on the seat and said, "let's go."
We jumped out of the cab and ran across the street. We raised our hands to hail a cab. Immediately, a cab stopped and we hopped in. We got stuck in traffic on the way back to our hotel and arrived just in time to join the group as it headed to the airport.
On the flight back to Hong Kong, we tried to unravel what happened. The newspaper revealed that it was the fifth anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Uprising, which accounted for the strong show of force. We think the Police may have thought Molly's "tattoo" was a sign of protest. We now believe that we were trying to hail a cab in an unauthorized zone (or going in an unauthorized direction) and that the first cabbie got stopped for violating a traffic law. We hope we left him enough in the back seat of the cab to cover his fine!
The first Sunday of every month, Sian of From High in the Sky hosts Storytelling Sunday, an opportunity for story tellers from all around the world to share a tale. In 2013, Sian has encouraged people to discuss those precious objects which they hold dear. You can find this week's stories by visiting this link.
The whirlwind of Henry's high school graduation ceremony, grad night celebration and the carousel of graduation parties is over. The hustle and bustle is gone, and the house is strangely silent these days. Henry is visiting Costa Rica on a "Senior Trip" with 39 other lucky graduates whose parents ponied up the money to send them on one last high school adventure. I'm taking the opportunity to clean up and reorganize his room. I toss out mountains of old paper and donate outgrown clothes to charity. I pack up his hats from Little League baseball teams, t-shirts from All-Stars and assorted trophies into boxes destined for the attic. Toys and stuffed animals are placed in a donation box. Brio trains and Matchbox cars will be saved in the attic; maybe his children will use them one day. I'm almost done, when I come across George.
Curious George was Henry's constant companion when he was a baby, toddler and preschooler. He slept with him, packed him up on trips and took him to day care for nap time. There are other things in this box: Rollo the Rhino (who Henry won at a fun fair in Killarney Town on our first trip to Ireland); a souvenir bag from one of our many train trips that I know is stuffed with marbles; a puzzle box from Budapest that no one remembers how to open; signed baseballs from Spring Training. But nothing has the weight of memory and love of George. I can't bear to box him up just yet. I take him out and place him on the shelf next to Henry's diploma, soccer cleats and University of Oregon orientation materials. George might not make the trip to Eugene in the fall, but, for now, he's too precious to make the trip to the attic.
![LEAP [into lightroom]](http://learn.kimklassen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Kim-Klassen_20151223_6459.jpg)
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