Two for Tuesday: Whispering Secrets

This twosome appears to be sharing a few secrets. The one facing front seems to have the inside scoop and wants to deliver the news to his lady friend sitting so snugly to his right.

With this couple, there's an inviting secrecy generated by such huddled intimacy. Feather to feather, cheek to cheek, they share something all their own perched upon the pole, whispering.

I love the way her head cranes, showing only that one curious eye. It reminds me of Arnold Newman's stunning portrait of Picasso. It seems whatever he's telling her, she had to turn around to sneak a peek to see for herself.

Sharing secrets, telling stories intended for only one set of ears is alluring. I don't know about you, but when a story begins - now, don't tell anyone else about this...I feel special in a certain way, selected and inside the fence of confidentiality.

Looking at Work, Part 1 & 2

I love when someone seriously engages with my work. A look longer than the seven second stare.
Like this friend, right here. She's really looking at the photograph. She's taking in the details.

I had just taken some shots in an open field with 26 helium filled balloons. You can see the deflated, used and finished remains of the balloons in the this image -- they're beside her flowery pink shoe.

This lovely moment came yesterday at SECCA. My friend and fellow photog pictured here illuminates the sort of attention, the kind of looking that seems like connection. There is a difference between the glance and the look. A big one.
Looking is what photographers do, it's their language. To look is to read and to read is to see.

Bridesmaid Dress: Video Story

I don't know about you, but I resist picking favorites. Ask me my favorite book, restaurant, dog, city or color and I flinch. A little mini panic sets in. The limit of just one can be too much pressure.

That's why this video pleases me so much. There are about 20 images included in the piece edited by Shelton Clinard. The series breaks free of still life photography in a way that brings out a childish, gid gid giddy up excitement inside me. And, it's a story told without words - another fun romp w/freedom.

The music is Peer Pressure by Jon Brion.

Two for Tuesday: Art & Ambiguity

This Tuesday I'm captivated by a duality that may reside within the twosome pictured here.  I'm thinking about ambiguity. How does this couple seem? To me, it's not entirely clear. It's not one thing or the other. It's a little of this and that; it's ambiguous.

When ambiguity walks into the room holding its cane, one person will see love, the other unhappiness; one will see a snake, the other a curly ribbon.

In this featured pair, I see a man playing guitar and a woman listening as she leans back against a queen-sized chaise lounge. It's a classic pose. A romantic scene repeated since ancient times. And, yet, in this modern day version, there's a stiffness, something physically and emotionally held in, that makes me question the depth of either parties' enjoyment.

 Maybe the couple is hungover or jet lagged. Maybe they're just cold. Who can say?

Whatever the case, I love the vignette - the small dance. Notice how each has one leg outstretched and the other leg bent.  Nice choreography. I also like his black leather jacket and her plaid duffle coat, and the way her square sunglasses frame up/font up nicely with the word PHILLIP written along the glass building.

When I asked the man if I could make a photograph, he nodded in such a slight and narrow way, I had to ask twice to read his answer. Glad he agreed.

Simple View

Just trying to pulling myself into the simple here and now. This slice of window helps quiet my mind, which is a bit rattly and up and down of late.

That Dress, That One

Okay so I just have a lot to spill about SECCA night.

For one thing, I really like this image graciously made by Sir George Schober. I like the gesture.

My thumb pretty much tells the story. That dress, that one up there on the massive screen, that one is the pilgram's outfit I wore the night I met my future husband.

One of my friends wrote after the show, "Those were some fantastic stories and some really bad dresses." True dat, sistah CF.

Something my collaborators/models enjoyed about this project was the fact that being pretty was not the point. It wasn't about how you looked, but how you told a story. If you saw the show, you might remember the image of the woman in black in the pew with the oars or the lady in the hay.

These photos are narratives, photos planted in story and place and time and memory. To me, the series became small theatre pieces. I tried not to overdue it. I didn't want to clobber that point home. But I did aim for loose associations, loose lighting and low tech options on the lens.

Anyway, post performance is a trip. All that work floating around out there. Makes me a little shaky excited and birdish. But, I'm loving hearing some cool stories from people who attended the show.  I love when one story leads to another. I suppose as a reader and lit girl my whole life, I believe stories are windows; you can see out and in at the same time.

Final note in this little ramble: the lamp in this image is from my childhood home. Walk in the front door and there, at the end of the hallway, stood this bony  iron lamp, stolen, it seems, from the set of Oliver Twist. I love the blue light, the cool wintry light. I needed it near me on stage, the night I let all that stuff take flight into the great wide open.

Two for Tuesday: Going Under

Valentine's Day is a natural day to celebrate twosomes. It's all about the pair, the couple, that little Cupid causing two people to feel their hearts go beat beat beat.

I love how this pair takes a synchronized dive under water. I am especially amused by the way each left foot turns slightly outward.

The Still Flowers

These are the flowers my husband Mark gave me on stage last Thursday night. That was a cool moment which, until then, I'd only seen as a spectator.

Now the flowers are sitting on my bedroom dresser. They look strong and crisp and settled. They stand formal and fine as a Victorian still life, completely changed by the setting and time.

Thursday night's technostory whoosh felt like a force. I mean, all that work done and delivered, the finish line crossed. Oh my.

This first performance thing is a serious rush. It's what sent me out walking for two miles at one in the morning, an hour after the after party ended. The moon was full. I simply could not sit still. The bogeyman be damned, I headed out like a woman in a hurry to get somewhere.

Honestly, right now, I'm a little dazed - like...where was I, what was that, was that fo' real?

A sweet, yet slightly disquieting disorientation has set in.

Feeling the Glow

A part of me is still on the SECCA stage, exiting, but not yet gone. The fires are still aglow and a-shaking. Holy smoke, indeed.

A million times thank you for this incredibly rich reaction to the performance. Thanks to SECCA for bringing Out of Fashion to town, and thanks most especially to Steven Matijcio.

A Dozen Dresses - The Radio Interview

Gotta give a huge shout out to David Ford at WFDD. He is a masterful editor and a really engaging interviewer, and about the funniest man I know. What a great job he did carving up the tape from our conversation.  The photographs are on display at SECCA as of yesterday, and now I am awaiting Thursday night with sweaty palms and a heart full of love.

Take a listen - it's about 7 minutes long.


88.5 WFDD | Triad Arts Up Close | Perform @ SECCA presents A Dozen Dresses: The Recollection by Diana Greene

Two for Tuesday: Je T'aime

Friendship is always a great twosome, possibly one of the best.

This pair right here on the beach make the point so clearly. Not only are they arm and arm, they're wearing matching sweatshirts with the words, Je T'aime, I Love You, written over a large black heart. Something tells me they bought those sweatshirts while shopping together one happy day.

I post this today because I am feeling a lot of loving support from my friends lately. A lot! What can I say other than Merci Beaucoup.

Dress Anxiety

Okay, so can I just say... getting dressed for a show about dresses is creating its own funny little angst.

Half In Half Out

There's a theory that goes like this: you find the book you need when you need it.

It's been true for me many times.

Before I even knew my father was dying and I would be caring for him in an intimate way, I read my friend Mel Wong's favorite book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It proved to be a beautiful manual for caring for my sweet father who so desperately didn't want to believe his time on earth was ending, that the doctors really couldn't do one more thing for his survival. That book guided me. It helped me be a compassionate and awake caretaker to a person experiencing such a difficult reckoning, a truth my father called "unfathomable."

This morning, I opened a collection of Mary Oliver's poems. I read the perfect poem for the pre-performance nerves that make me want to hide out as this image so clearly suggests. Here's the first part of that poem that helped me, and is helping me still.

Starfish


In the rocks/ in the stone pockets/ under the tide's lip,/ in water dense as blindness
they glide/ like sponges/ like too many thumbs./ I knew this,/ and what I wanted
was to draw my hands back/ from the water - what I wanted/ was to be willing/ to be afraid.

Dress Rehearsal

Heading to the dress rehearsal at SECCA for the story about dresses, A Dozen Dresses: The Recollection.

Totally excited now. Scared, of course, but mostly full of anticipation. I've picked such great music to go along with the show and I can only hope technical difficulties don't trip me up and that the team of gathered makers and producers can all flow like the beautiful woman in this beautiful gown.

I could write a thousand words, but don't have time. All I can say is this: collaboration is exhilarating!

Oh Dear

I don't know about you, but I get seriously punchy when the hour draws late and a happy exhaustion sets in. This image really cracked me up when I came across it during today's editing session. It's funny, and the girl hiding behind the ridiculously bad dress is funny and free and a dream come true.

Here's how I begin the writing that accompanies what I refer to as the wench dress: This green dress fits into the category holy shit what was I thinking?