27-NOV-2008
Happy Thanksgiving to all
This is a unique photo--Patricia (with Ed's help) cooking! Thanksgiving marks the one day of the year that finds me in the kitchen with spoon in hand. But, to be honest, Ed does most of the work. Our dear neighbors, the Mackeys, always invite us over to their house for Thanksgiving dinner and I bring my mother's traditional cheese onions.
I am thankful for all of you in my life and wish you well. May the hostages in Mumbai be rescued, the injured healed, the grieving comforted, and the perpetrators brought to justice. May we learn to live in peace. And to our PBase brothers and sisters in India, please know you are not alone. We are with you in our hearts.
Here is a powerful artistic expression of the tragedy that was created and posted today by our brother pr_rajan:
26-NOV-2008
eternal spring
We're coming into the time of year when I feel especially happy that I live down the block from a florist with a greenhouse. I don't care how cold or snowy it is outside, all I have to do is scoot into that warm, moist, colorful greenhouse to feel myself at one with the earth. And the owner and staff always welcome me and my camera. I should print out one of the photos to give them as a holiday gift. Yes, that is just what I'll do!
25-NOV-2008
Velma is back where she belongs!
In my
October 30 blog entry I posted a photo of 94 year-old Velma Bryant-Smith during her recovery at a rehab center here in Metro Detroit. Velma is one of my favorites at the Hannan House Senior Learning Center where I've been working on a photo essay since mid-June. She's an active member of the gardening group, the art class and takes aerobics at the center twice a week. When I interviewed Velma in her apartment last July we also discovered that she and my mother were born one year apart in the same small town in North Carolina.
After two weeks in the hospital with pneumonia and three weeks at the rehab center regaining her ability to walk safely with her walker, Velma is now back at home in her apartment in a Detroit seniors' residence. She returned to her Hannan House classes last week and seems stronger than ever. May Velma continue to brighten our world for years to come.
23-NOV-2008
"The Laramie Project" in performance
Tonight (Saturday) I saw evidence of a significant paradigm shift in my community. And who do we have to thank for it? A group of talented high school thespians, their inspiring director, an open-minded principal and a church that practices what it preaches.
This weekend our local high school, Grosse Pointe South, put on "The Laramie Project," the play based on interviews of the townspeople of Laramie, Wyoming after Matthew Shepard, a 21 year-old University of Wyoming student, was tortured, beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the prairie outskirts of their town. October 6th was the ten year anniversary of this gay hate crime that touched people the world over. But for some, in particular Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, anti-gay attitudes are as virulent now as then.
The scene pictured here was enacted in real life on Friday afternoon when three members of the Kansas church traveled to our community in Michigan to mount the same kind of protest they'd mounted at Matthew Shepard's funeral ten years ago. And their signs were the same: "God Hates Faggots." But I'm proud to say that my politically conservative community let the Rev. Phelps' parishioners know their message was not welcome here.
On Friday, after the Kansas trio had mounted a protest in front of Christ Episcopal Church because the rector had written letters-to-the editor supporting the high school's putting on "The Laramie Project," they walked next door to the school just as the students were getting out for the day. In silence 100 members of Christ Church gathered in front of the protestors and symbolically turned their backs on the trio holding their signs, thereby acting as a human shield between their hatefulness and the students. Then hundreds of high school teachers and students came outside to mount their own counter demonstration, holding up signs that called for love and tolerance.
I've never been more proud of my community. And it was the young who led us to this new place of tolerance and acceptance of differences. But I gather the real shero here is Lois Bendler, the director who brought this play to her students. Beth Quinn wrote the following in an October 23 Grosse Pointe News article about the play:
"It is a very moving and interesting story," said Lois Bendler, director of the Pointe Player's production. "As literature, it is just stunning."
Aside from the play's aesthetic qualities, Bendler said it covers a subject worth addressing.
"We need to educate people that gays are disrespected in the same fashion that black people were treated 20 years ago," she said. "Shepard's death was purely a hate crime. His killers did it 'just because he was a fag and they could do it.'"
Bendler said she hopes the school's production of "The Laramie Project" will increase people's awareness of their own biases against gays.
"I think is it healthy to look at an issue from all sides," said Bendler. "We are not trying to change people's minds, but just to expose their thinking to others' ideas."
She particularly hopes young people will attend the play.
"Young people need to recognize the jokes and the subtle things they say and do make gays out to be less than human."
Well, Ms. Bendler did more than raise awareness among the students, she and her Pointe Players changed perceptions of the entire community. I've come to see that Matthew Shepard's life may have been tragically short but his work goes on.
20-NOV-2008
Herve's gift from Thailand
Don't let anyone tell you that our so-called "virtual" friendships here on PBase and other online forums aren't real. Today I was reminded of that fact in a tangible way. A package arrived in the mail from Thailand. I opened it to find the beautiful batik bag you see hanging from my arm in this picture. My dear friend Herve had sent it to me. Now, Herve may be French by birth and a resident of San Francisco but he says that Thailand is the place where he feels most at home. So I'm happy that he is currently spending a month there.
CLICK HERE to see Herve's Thai photo galleries, past and present.
Thanks, dear friend. I am especially grateful that the sale of this bag will benefit women who are victims of poverty and violence in the south of Thailand. I will think of you with fondness whenever I use it, which I trust will be often. It is now folded inside my camera bag, ready for my next trip to the market. Beautiful as well as earth-friendly. No more plastic bags for me!
19-NOV-2008
a grey day in Detroit
composite created by Patricia Lay-Dorsey from photos she took herself. Best viewed in "original" size.
"The Big 3 needs to make cars that people want to buy!"
"Management is threatening to go belly-up 'cause they just want to get out from under their union contracts."
"If people would buy American, we wouldn't have this problem."
"It's the union's fault for insisting on those impossible health and retirement benefits."
"What's going to happen to my brother-in-law's pension, my niece's job?"
"What's going to happen to Michigan? Our unemployment rate's already 9.3%, the highest in the country."
These are hard days in Detroit, the city I've lived in and loved for 43 years. Questions with no answers. Lots of opinions (see above) but no power to change the reality. And winter's coming on. We've already seen snow and it's going below freezing every night this week. I'm seeing more people standing at traffic lights with "Will work for food" signs. All anyone talks about is what's happening with the auto industry. White collar execs and blue collar workers alike. Everyone's scared. And you don't need to be employed by the Big 3 to worry about the future. We all know that what happens to the auto industry in this single-industry town affects everything and everybody. How many people will lose their jobs, their homes, their health? How many stores, companies, businesses, banks will fail if the Big 3 go under? Already the city of Detroit has announced that only the main streets will be salted and plowed this winter. It's not as if this city wasn't in big financial trouble anyway. And it's not as if tens of thousands of Michigan workers haven't already lost their jobs.
No wonder the sun refused to shine today.
18-NOV-2008
a snowy night in Detroit
CLICK HERE to see my "Falling Into Place: self portraits" gallery in which this image appears.
You know you're a photographer when you discover your car covered in snow and are more concerned about getting a picture than the challenge of driving home safely in a blizzard! That was me on Sunday night when I left the Detroit Institute of Arts to find a "winter wonderland." Of course I didn't yet have my snow brush/ice scraper in my car, so had to depend on the front & rear windshield wipers to get some visibility. Oh, and lowering/raising the side windows to clear them as well. It all worked out although I must admit the drive home was a bit of a nail-biter. Luckily I only had about twelve miles to go.
17-NOV-2008
Luke, Esai and Rosemary
I saw this wonderful family in the Detroit Institute of Arts Cafe today and, as has become my habit, went up and asked if I could take their picture. When I do this I always promise to email them a copy. Luke and Rosemary were most gracious in allowing me to take several shots and to post them online if I wanted. Folks usually say yes when I ask. I think it helps that I use a professional-looking camera so they know I'm serious. The business card helps too. All I had to get over was my shyness, but the more I approach strangers in this way, the more comfortable with it I become. As we all know, the worst they can do is say no.
16-NOV-2008
a rainy stay-at-home Saturday
CLICK HERE to see my "Falling Into Place: self portraits" gallery in which this image appears.
During sunny summer days I'm apt to forget just how lovely a rainy day can be. You know, those Saturdays when you wake to the sound of rain hitting your window, rain that continues all day long. Today was like that and I loved every minute of it. I took my time reading the paper, watched a photographer friend's extraordinary multimedia slideshow on my computer, made one of my own, got this idea for a self portrait (see today's image) and took at least 25 shots to get one I liked, had a nice long phone visit with my dear friend Dorothy in San Francisco, watched some behind-the-scenes videos of Barack Obama on
YouTube, and looked at the work of UK photojournalist Edmond Terakopian on
http://www.pix.org.uk/. I ended the day with dinner, a video and singing at the piano with my sweetie. Yes, it was quite a lovely rainy day...
15-NOV-2008
the face of compassion
This was Mr. Williams' first day in the elders' art class, and Mrs. Brown, the teacher, spent lots of time making him feel welcome. Not only did she help him get started with his drawing, but offered him sympathy and support when he shared about his ongoing chemo and radiation therapies for throat cancer. Mr. Williams speaks with the aid of a voice box and uses a motorized wheelchair to get around, but I believe Mrs. Brown gave him a strong dose of healing medicine today just by her loving presence.
12-NOV-2008
My mother, Emily Miller Lay 1913-2002
Best viewed in ORIGINAL size.
I've had the idea for this still life in mind for some time but only worked with it today (Tuesday). The portrait of my mother was taken the day she and my father, James Selden Lay, Jr., married in Raleigh, North Carolina on February 27, 1937. They'd only known one another for six weeks--the only impulsive thing my Dad ever did!-- but their marriage was a happy one that lasted 50 years. The bugle is the one Mom always used to call us girls home for dinner, and the candle was made by my friend Pat Kolon for Mom's funeral after her death on November 2, 2002. I wanted my mother to be part of my "Falling Into Place" self portrait project, and now she is.
In addition to this photo, I've just added 18 new images to that series, bringing the current total up to 46.
CLICK HERE to see my "Falling Into Place" gallery.
I continue to receive encouragement from Magnum photographer, David Alan Harvey, to work towards this project being published as a book. Yesterday he wrote: "...by January i would like to start with the layout and presentation to publishers with your book...if we start soonest, we should be able to have a book ready for spring of 2010..this means you would have to have all of your photography done by this coming summer 2009... there should never be a "rush to publish", but i think by then, with a little push and incentive, you can do it...what do you think???"
Of course I answered "Yes!"
This is promising to be a busy winter for me, photographically speaking. In addition to working on the book project, I'll be mounting a one-person exhibit of my African American Elders photos at a Detroit gallery in late March. I've also been invited to submit my work to the Hearst 8x10 Biennial Photography Competition. Mary Ellen Mark, who is one of ten judges for this international competition, kindly suggested to the organizers that I would be a "great candidate" and gave them my contact info. I feel like I've won already just to have such confidence placed in me by MEM. I'll be submitting 16 photos from my "Falling Into Place" series. The eight winners will have their work shown at two galleries in the Hearst Tower at 57th & 8th in NYC. If a miracle were to happen and my work was included, I'd be having two gallery openings within one week, one in Detroit on March 27 and the other in NYC on April 1. It's extremely unlikely but wouldn't that be amazing???
With all of this going on--and looking at what the economy is doing--I've decided to cancel my winter train trip to Southern California. Realistically speaking, just paying for the framing of my photos for the Detroit exhibit is going to be costly enough. This is no time to take on any extra expenses.
