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2020 Year in Review
What a year. A quiet life at home, periods intense and stressful, so many plans on hold, societal ills exploding in front of us. As I’m sure you can attest to, when everything but the essentials are stripped away, (major) readjustments are required. Funny enough, this back-to-basics arrangement is how I experienced my own personal […]
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Photo Painting Series No. 1 ~ 4
For a few years now, I’ve had this nudge to take photographs I have made, get them printed in B&W on watercolor paper, large scale, and paint on them using gouache and watercolors. I liked the idea, but never knew where to start. Immediately after I returned home from a trip to rural France this […]
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100 days of Maps+Compasses: Halfway Point Highlights
We’re quite a bit past the halfway point now in #the100dayproject2019 but I have been meaning to share some of my work with you. The theme I picked for my project is Maps + Compasses, and true to form it has been a winding road. The underlying theme is pilgrimage, especially interior pilgrimage, and my […]
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Sweetheart Valentine
Let Me Call You…. Sweetheart! (cue the music) The immensely popularly ballad of the same title was written in 1910, and performed by numerous singers throughout the jazz era. I cannot help but begin singing it out loud when I read it! Which then leads straight into the second line of the chorus – “I’m […]
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Photo essay: Antique Air Show, Part 1
The title of poet of the skies could easily be given to French pilot Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry. The author of the fantastical story The Little Prince also gave us several dramatic flight books, such as Night Flight, Southern Mail, and Wind, Sand and Stars. They are, from what I hear, as contemplative as they are […]
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Photo essay: St. Demetrios, Seattle
This evening I am sitting in a tiny cafe with high ceilings as a lively local Greek band, Dromeno, serenades an enthusiastic double circle of Balkan dancing. I count a good twenty people at least. I would be joining in except I’m nursing my first cold of the rainy season. But the music is so joyous […]
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Getting un-stalled, Part 1: Lots of Ideas, publishing nothing
What happens when you are working on a project and you hit a wall? Call it an impasse, writer’s block, getting stalled…. call it what you will, I think it happens to most of us. Here on this blog we seem to have reached that point. The past couple weeks, getting from publishing Post No. 4 […]
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My Camino, at home
Two years ago I kept a poetry blog for the summer. My life at the time had begun to feel like a pilgrimage, with many unexpected twists and turns. I’ve been on pilgrimages before (hello World Youth Days in Toronto and Cologne) so I clearly recognized the intensity, the mystery, and the healing involved. Yet […]
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Sliver Moons and the melancholy joy of summer
Here we are smack in the middle of summer and I keep hearing about autumn just around the corner and getting ready for back to school… when here in Seattle summer literally just started! How disconcerting. Last week I made this photograph of the always stunning Olympic Mountains with a sweet sliver of a moon. […]
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A pair of Patron Saints for creative entrepreneurs and family life
Through Alençon lace and watches, a family of saints was established. Louis and Zélie were an entrepreneurial couple raising a bunch of girls in the middle of 19th century France. She ran a successful lace-making business, he was a watchmaker with his own shop. Skilled artisans who ran their own small businesses while raising a family of […]