Moving Locations: 2013

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Two for Tuesday: Difficulty Seeing

Going into work Monday morning, preparing to teach elementary school students, I felt a sickening weight inside me. After the massacre in Connecticut I dreaded feeling the terror and sorrow, seeing how the children looked, and walking through the corridors that, no doubt, were similar to the school in Newtown with loads of bright artwork and miniature water fountains.

When I got there, the doors were all locked. A new policy. Now you had to call a number to be let in.

I decided I would begin each class by playing Express Yourself, by Lettuce. It's a spirit lifter if ever there was one. This year it's been my anthem.

I cranked up the iPod and started singing and dancing with the funky music and pretty soon the kids, who had looked frozen and down, started smiling and moving a little. Three teachers came into the room to dance a little too.  We got super silly and the kids watched like, maaan, what is this? Together, we experienced a little fun, possibly even a small moment of transcendence. The song says, whatever you do, do it good.

When we turned back to our projects, we got to work, expressing ourselves and trying to do it good.

Later, on the way home, I finally stopped to make some photographs of a ruined farmhouse I'd been eyeing for four weeks as I rode into Walkertown to begin my day.

There's a visual artist who talks about the salvation of art. I listened to his lecture before the unimaginable slaughter. He said, what do you do when your sister gets cancer - you make good art. What do you do when your man walks out on you, you make good art. What do you do when you lose your job - you make good art.

I felt the redemption in that when I found my way to this dusty, forgotten car. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the difficulty I feel, trying to see how our country is going to pull out of the latest repulsive event.

This twosome, the pair of rusted wipers, seems to have been out of commission for a very long time. Look closely and you'll see paw prints in the dust.

Two for Tuesday: Winter Offering

I've been in an exploring mood lately. I've been sniffing around, scouting locations and making some new grooves in my driving habits.  Looking to see what else is out there reminds me why I love Winston-Salem, my humble city with the hypen, a place I can't quite bring myself to call The Dash.

We have everything here - rural and urban, decaying and new, industrial and suburban, farmer and scientist, pauper and princess, hip hop and classical.  And, we have Lavern and her grandbaby.

I came upon this lovely twosome the other Friday at the intersection of Northwest Boulevard and Liberty. Lavern and her granddaughter were sitting on that plastic white chair, watching the traffic roll by on a beautiful, global warming warm December afternoon. They were waiting for drivers to pull in to buy some of Lavern's trucked in veggies. Once I spotted the colorful pair, I immediately parked in the lot across the street and walked over, wallet and camera in hand.

Look at the beaming rays bouncing off Lavern's smiling and animated face - she's a complete contrast to her dour little grand, who is as serious as Sunday, her lips a thin line of so what, her eyes two frozen dots of no-nonsense.

I bought two bags of greens. At one point Lavern said, Turnips are the bomb. And she was totally right about that. When I cooked those turnips of hers in some olive oil, salt, garlic and herbs, I built the entryway into the land of delicacy.

Rewards

"This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If you just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious."

~ John Cleese 

Two for Tuesday: A Long Ride

Teaching at Middle Fork Elementary School started off well this week when, on Monday morning, I pulled into the parking lot and spotted this twosome behind the wheel of the car beside mine. I thought I was feeling a little tired until I saw the black circles around their eyes. It was a kind of Tim Burton moment - the intervention of the weird into the mundane.

The Panda pair sort of creeped me out, especially the penetrating gaze coming from the lady in the passenger seat. I walked passed them, staring, thinking of who would decorate their car this way. Then I decided to go back to my car, grab my camera, and take a quick photo of the haunting couple. I wanted proof to go with my story.

Anyway, as I look at this couple now, they make me laugh, thinking this could be me and my husband at the tail end of a very long ride home from an exhausting trip to the relatives; each of us in our own world, not a word left to say.

For Janine

My friend Janine says that Andy Goldsworthy is the artist that matters as she thinks about her life now, now that cancer is nesting in several places on her beautiful 45 year old body. Life can get serious super quickly.

Goldsworthy's sculpture is made with the earth's elements. The material reflects beauty and its eventual destruction, its inevitable demise. Collectors cannot buy a Goldsworthy. They are meant to disappear over time. Some take months, others decades, maybe more.

This week Janine wrote. "We humans have no idea of anything really...best is to live in the moment." 

She also told me how children have it right; they're fearless, able to be thrilled by rain, crickets, grass, eager to splash through a puddle, ready to run through the water, getting wet and loving it.

I made this grass and cinderblock landscape for Janine this afternoon.

Two for Tuesday: The Opposite of Pro Football

Action shots aren't my forte but they are exciting. Feet in mid air. Time snapped into a fraction of a second. Motion stopped cold in its tracks.

This week's twosome features my near and dear, my daughter and son. I took this shot during our traditional Thanksgiving football game, which is loose and messy and full of ridiculous plays like whatever this one is.

I mean, seriously, can you figure out what these two are up to because I can't, and I was there. Marissa is reaching for an unretrievable ball with one hand while Tyler's spinning out in some elevated contortion that leaves me scratching my head, confused about what exactly he's reacting to here. (Footnote: the sunlight on his hair is pretty wonderful, though not a part of most sports commentary, I realize.)

Anyway, at one point during the game, I took a pretty good tumble when I ingloriously tripped over my own two feet. I went splat into the dirt, wrecked my jeans and ended up with a skinned elbow that brought me back to childhood and made me oddly proud.