born artists

after nature center class

(This post has been stuck in draft for TWO years!  SO much has changed since then, including the addition of the third artist child, Takoda Diin!  Publishing this as-is, with a to-be-continued... ;)

My children are born artists. It's really amazing to witness. I'm not just saying that or pushing it on them because I'm an artist, it's just totally natural to each of them in their own ways, part of the fabric of their being. I'm sharing this story as an example of what happens when you follow your kids' lead, from as early as possible, observe, see what they're into, let go of convention, and really give them time and space to go with it and explore themselves and their world. I think some of my biggest lessons as a parent have been letting go of control - you have to pick your battles, and so many are just not worth it; learning to say 'no' (I was never very good at that - sometimes it's necessary); and learning when not to say no, to say yes as much as possible.


Phoenix (my 3-yo son) has always had such an interesting spatial relationship with his world. When he was a baby, if he got in a fussy mood (which was not often, except for one period of about a month when he was cutting teeth and was inconsolable in the middle of the night), accidentally we discovered that he love to be upside down. He was fussing, crying, carrying on, and his Baba held him upside down like a bat, and he was happy. He stopped and was quiet. He loved it.

Then, he didn't crawl much; he would scoot around on his butt, backwards especially, usually with one leg out rather than on hands and knees. Once he could stand well he would climb to the highest point in the room, as often as he could. He walked a good 15 steps one day around 11 mos. when we were at the TaeKwonDo school and then wouldn't do it again for a month. He learned to walk just after his 1st birth day when my mom was visiting and she said, "C'mon Phoenix, walk! You just do this, waddle like a penguin." And he just took off after her, waddling like the little grandson penguin.

my painted boy balancing blocks at the American History Museum

He went through a phase where he was constantly a painted boy. Marker on his face, kinda like a warrior, and he always had to do his nipples and his belly button and his arms too. Or he would draw all over his chest. He had to have the Aang arrow (Avatar The Last Airbender) on his forehead for a few months straight. And when his hair was short, he had to have the arrow extend up over his head and down his back, and had to have the arrows on his hands and feet too. Attention to detail. Convention would say "No, don't let him do that. He can't go out in public like that!" Why not? Who really cares? He's a little boy that wants to decorate himself. It's not hurting anyone, including him! What would hurt him is if I made him feel bad, guilty, or like he did something wrong.

doesn't want to come down!

Then, as he's gotten older, he still loves to climb, and is quite good at it - I'm very confident in his climbing skills. He can scale a fence up 9 feet at least, and would go higher if the fence is tall enough and someone would follow him up there (because of the adults' fear, not his). Definitely no fear of heights. He does things when we're out and about that make people cringe sometimes, like "He's 3! Aren't you afraid he's going to hurt himself?!" But I just watch him calmly, knowing that he has the situation under control. He's not reckless, but brave and assured.

nakey boy wrestlin' with papa in the backyard

He love love loves to wrestle and 'fight' with his dad, and anyone else that will humor him. His dad is his favorite because he can really test his strength and go at it as hard as he wants, knowing that Daddy's Tough and he can't hurt him. He knows when to be gentle and make it a lot of show with little impact. He goes at it in total fun and is so conscious most of the time of who's on the receiving end. He's smiling, laughing, and squealing in delight. He is my peaceful warrior, usually. He most certainly has a temper which flares from time to time though. Then, look out. I'd say his 9-yo sister, unfortunately, is the most frequent recipient of that type of outburst.

He's developed an interesting relationship with objects. He shows a very natural knack for sculpture without any prodding or suggestions from me whatsoever. He just does it instinctively.

When we are at the river (any river - we're river people) he will collect and arrange sticks in a fashion somewhat reminscent of an Andy Goldsworthy installation. He might stick them in the ground in two parallel lines, making what appears to be an old abandoned ribcage of an animal beached in the mud. (If you're unfamiliar with Andy Goldsworthy, he's an amazing 'earth artist' who creates mostly ephemeral land art. If you have Netflix, his movie "Rivers and Tides" is available for instant play, here. Check him out!)

'drawing' with blocks

He will use objects including various shaped building blocks to make lines on the ground, and he likes to build very tall lego block towers just so that he can knock them down. Convention might say, "But wait, you just built it! Why would you knock it down?!"

When I started getting Play-Doh for him, his first instinctive use for it was to wrap his "guys" (the super heroes and other characters) in it. He completely covers them with the Play-Doh, bit by bit, often using his body to smush it onto them well by standing in his chair and leaning on the guy with all his weight, pressing his belly against it to make sure that it's really well stuck. And then, after a while, he'll take it off, and it can go back into the container. He also pretty quickly manages to mix most of the colors together. Convention would have him trying to make a cat or a dog or something, and of course, you mustn't mix the colors all together! God forbid!

a Batman Masterpiece who's missing at the moment :(

When I offer him paint to use, he's not really interested in painting on paper. About a year ago when he was 2 and a half was probably the first time paint was offered to him and he wanted to paint one of his brand-new Batmans. Convention would say "No! You can't paint on that! It's brand new! If you paint on him, it's not going to come off. You're going to 'ruin' him." But hey, what the heck? Who cares? He wants to enhance Batman's appearance. And does so quite well. Now the "guys" have become real works of art. Some of them look soooo cool, they have so much character, with this kind of weathered look. What he likes to do is paint them, and then wash the paint off, sometimes almost immediately after. Now, sometimes he leaves the paint on. And guess what, he uses my (gasp) expensive paints - my acrylics and nice gouache (high-quality watercolors), or the window art paint, which dries like colored translucent plastic. At first, I struggled with "Oh Phoenix, but you're wasting it!" Especially since he would slather it on and then sometimes just wash or peel it off right away. There it goes. Down the drain. But then I thought, Well, small price to pay for his fun, joy, happiness, learning, exploration, and freedom. Big deal. I'll buy more.

Now, there's Adobe. My first born. My thesis project. And my only girl.  Also a true artist.  And considering that two years has passed since I started this post, and this is where I had left off, there's so much more to tell now, so I'll have to dedicate a whole 'nother post to her, soon. To be continued...

wise words of Pema

Wise and timely, as always. A reminder to be open.
Moving out and about sometimes in DC, I am struck by how unfriendly and unhappy some people are, but I remind myself not to take it personally, and I keep myself open to them, to just touch someone's heart, a stranger, by acting toward them in a simple way from my heart, something seemingly small like a smile or a kind word, or even a simple hello. Sometimes you see or feel something moving in that person.

from Weekly Heart Advice from Pema Chodron for today:

THE BEGINNING OF GROWING UP

Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we’re blocked. Seeing this is helpful, but it’s also painful. Sometimes we use it as ammunition against ourselves: we aren’t kind, we aren’t honest, we aren’t brave, and we might as well give up right now. But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever we see at this very moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. We soften further and lighten up more, because we know it’s the only way we can continue to work with others and be of any benefit in the world. This is the beginning of growing up.

making baby

Wow.  Talk about 'where does the time go?'... and two, almost three more months have flown right on by...

Where have I been?  The garden pic from my last post looks so cute and demure compared to the jungle that is out there right now.  Mother Nature truly is amazing.  Yes, there's been lots of growth going on, outside and in.  And that's where I've been.  Making baby.  I'm preggo with number three!  I'm still in a bit of shock hearing myself say this.  I always knew I would have two, and I guess occasionally I entertained the idea that I might have one more than that, if things were going really well.  After Phoenix was born, I was pretty adamant that there would be no more.  But Atom and Adobe both worked on me for awhile, and eventually, especially as Phoenix works his way out of babyhood, the idea of doing it just one more time started to sound appealing.  And here we are.  I have to admit, I'm a little overwhelmed at the prospect of being a mother of three - already, two is quite a job.  But, I figure that a woman who can manage three children has a different command of the world.

This was the roughest first trimester yet.  I have been exhausted.  And puky feeling.  And generally feeling like a zombie.  Luckily, I have not actually thrown up once.  Now I am starting to see the light of day, although I must admit I'm still pretty worthless if I don't have coffee in my system by about 2 in the afternoon.  I've been totally off my routine.  But I feel so fortunate to be able to just be, go with the flow, and allow myself all the extra rest my body has needed, and really experience what my body is going through.

Making a baby is alot of work!  It is truly amazing if you think about what is taking place in a woman's body during this time.  We all begin, every single one of us (our current physical selves, anyway), from a single cell!  Yes, we all learn about this at some point in biology, but how many times in your life have you really stopped to consider this fact and marvel at how miraculous that is? 

And then, the being grows, and grows, and grows.  As a mother, this is a truly surreal experience.  First there are the symptoms and first signs of change happening with your body.  Then, you start to feel little flutters of undeniable evidence that there is indeed another being coming alive inside of you.  The bump begins to grow, and grow, and grow.  Next thing you know, you have this 'alien life form' completely taking over your body.   I am especially fascinated by imagining (having experienced it twice now) what the displacement of all my organs looks like.  Because, believe me, they move.  Muscle memory is amazing.  I can feel all my womb's fellow internals preparing already, which is much earlier than with the other two.  The body remembers; it has been through this before and recognizes the current state of affairs, and it knows full well what is to come.  I can feel things shifting already. 

From Lennart Nilsson's A Child Is Born

Now, I'm at about 17 weeks.  This is probably a good estimate of what my baby looks like right about now.  I've been able to feel it move a few times.  It's quite exciting.  Last night, the kids and I were playing with the stethoscope to see if we could hear anything.  We heard some sounds, but weren't sure if they were the baby or my own body.

I feel so thankful to be able to take time to connect, with my own body, and with the little spirit who is taking form in me now.  And indeed, I feel thankful to do it one more time.  It is a truly miraculous experience, all of it, the pregnancy, the labor, the birth, and birthing of oneself as a mother, even when it's not the first time. 

When I was pregnant with Adobe, there was so much going on, I was so busy, that I don't feel like I really was able to take much time to connect with myself and the little baby inside of me.  I was finishing my Fine Arts degree at the Corcoran, teaching tap 6 days a week and running my performance company, dcArtistry:tap&drum - basically running non-stop like a chicken with my head cut off.  Plus, there was a lot of turmoil in my personal life.  With Phoenix, things were much more stable, and a bit calmer, but I still don't feel like I really took the time to connect with my self and my baby the way I could have.

Fortunately, with both of them, the labor and birth, despite being quite long, were awesome.  Home birth with both, over two weeks 'past due date' with both, over 24 hours labor with both after a month of practice contractions, and Phoenix was born in water.  All quite hard work, and exhausting, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  I'm planning another water birth at home and drawing on some new inner resources this time.  It would be nice if things move along a little quicker this time.  You know what they say, "third time's a charm."

Another thing that will bring me a special connection this time around:  I've decided, with enthusiastic encouragement from local midwife Tammi McKinley, to offer childbirth classes specifically geared toward women/couples who plan to birth either at home or a birth center.  The classes will incorporate body-mind connection, visualization, art, spirituality, and ceremony/ritual, with influences from various resources, as well as my own research and experiences.  I'm developing my curriculum now, and plan to launch this fall.  (See boundlessbirth.com ).  I will continue to offer my photography services, as well as Reiki for women & babies, and individualized art sessions.  More on all that to come. 

why do it?

Why do I make art?  Why do I love photography so much?  What inspires me? 

This is a re-post on Inspiration from my photo site & blog that I wanted to share here...

My love affair with photography began when I was a child... with taking pictures of things that captured my eye or caught my breath - a ray of light, a shadow, an abandoned man-made object in a state of deterioration, anything in the process of decay, patterns in nature, textures, symbols of our mortality, metaphors for the passage of time, beautiful representations of life's wonder, and so on... When taking pictures of people, I always appreciated the beauty of the moment and enjoyed catching them just be-ing, doing whatever they were doing. I'd always cringe inside when I went to take a picture of someone and they'd stop, pose, & smile for the camera. It is the essence, not the facade, that interests me.

As an artist, my work deals loosely with the cycles of birth, life and death, which encompass human perceptions of time and space, ‘life story’, imagination, and consciousness of the world around us and the people with whom we interact. Every person lives a journey - some story that takes them from being born some time, some place, to dying some time, some place. In a sense, my work is an ongoing ingestion and digestion of everyday realities, of my experiences & memories - both recent & distant. It is the human experience and the wonder of the natural world that feeds my work more than anything else. As a fine artist, I express stories through visual metaphor. As a documentarian, it is the the moment, or collection of moments - seemingly frozen in time - which speaks volumes. It is my role to bear witness and express what I see through these eyes, in the form of beautiful photographic art.

I am all about bringing back keepsakes and family heirlooms. Especially in this digital age, when everyone has a point-&-shoot or a camera phone, I think printed photographs are really important. We all (myself included) have hundreds or even thousands of pictures that live in our computers, and we rarely see them other than as a flash on the screen from time to time. There is something to be said for an image that is tangible, right there in front of you, that you can linger upon, hold, & touch. I read recently that looking at photographs of loved ones can be a healing experience, especially if they are far away or no longer with you. No surprise there - how could a rush of love not be healing, even if it's mingled with pain? And even if it's someone you see every day - people change, all of us, and there is something really special about being able to remember someone just as they were at a certain moment in time. You see a photograph, and memories come flooding back.

As an artist, I share with you a bit of my story & the beauty I find in life. As a photographer, I help you tell your story. The way I see it, I don't capture the moment, I set it free, so that it can live on, for a lifetime, or more...

What makes you tick?  What inspires you?  What do you love about what you do?