Vote Hope

Shutter Sisters Dream Assignment: Picture Hope from LittlePurpleCow Productions on Vimeo.

I have something very cool and inspiring to tell you about today. And you can take part in making it happen.

Name Your Dream Assignment is a contest for photographers of all kinds: pros, amateurs, aficionados, dabblers, you name it. The goal of the contest is to find "the most creative, inspiring photo shoot idea out there." And here's the prize: The photographer with the winning idea will win $50,000 to bring her dream assignment to life. Sweet, right?

Two amazing bloggers/photorgaphers/soulsisters have entered the contest. Jen Lemen and Stephanie Roberts will represent the Shutter Sisters community as they travel to capture Hope around the world. (Do you know Shutter Sisters? It's a collaborative photo blog with some incredible women behind it. It's chock full of beautiful photography and several great ways to participate.)

Here's how Jen and Stephanie's dream assignment works, straight from the Shutter Sisters page: "This amazing community will generate the most powerful images of hope we can find. From those images we'll create tangible hope notes for Jen and Stephanie to take with them wherever they travel to tell the world we're listening. At each destination, Jen and Stephanie will introduce the world to a new story of hope while the Shutter Sisters at home show us all the ways hope flourishes in the hidden everyday spaces. From these images and stories, together we'll generate a visual catalog of hope--images that that can be transformed into practical print resources and literacy tools for the hopeful people we've met from around the world. People who know and embody the essence of hope in spite of war, poverty, loss or the threat of despair."

The winner of the Name Your Dream Assignment contest will be chosen by people like YOU who go and vote for their favorite enry. You got that, right? Go. VOTE. Now. Do eet!

Remembering to Act

image by +cripswalk+++++++

Dear me. I keep forgetting to blog. I spend plenty of time online, mind you. I read dozens of other blogs every week. I get sucked into Facebook on a regular basis. And email? Don't talk to me about email. I'm practically swimming in it. So online communication is not exactly on the backburner for me. But blogging -- actually writing my own blog posts -- keeps slipping my mind.

Here's the irony: My word for 2009 is Action. Over the past year or two, I've noticed waves of envy when I hear about other people's creative projects. This has happened even when the projects were being done by friends. Even when I loved the idea but had no desire to that specific thing myself. So it's not the "sour grapes" or "I wish I'd thought of that" jealousy. Like most unpleasant emotions, this one was merely trying to get my attention and tell me something.

I realized that I have tons of ideas for creative projects, but rarely ever get past the idea phase. As a result, I'd begun to feel like I had no ideas. Finally I realized that the ideas were there. The missing piece was Action.

Since college I've been a big advocate of learning To Be and not getting caught up in the shallow busyness of life. I wish I could say that I'm really good at this by now in some Zen-like way. (Insert the voice of this woman telling me that Zen-like is an oxymoron because Zen isn't like anything.) While I do value my downtime and make sure to get plenty of it, I fill way too much of it with fretting over what I'm not doing. So it's the Year of Action.

Maybe I'm forgetting to blog because I'm too busy doing other things? Okay, that's actually partially true. I've been focusing on making my house more of a nest, cooking nourishing meals for my family, taking care of ailing kitties, and strengthening connections with friends. I've even been working on one big project. So I am doing. I am acting.

But I continually have to remind myself to be a participant, not a spectator. I am in the process of understanding that I can be the one doing cool, creative projects. I can take all those ideas trotting around my head and figure out ways to put them out into the world. I just need to remember to act.

In which I fall down and cry like a baby

I'm back from New York City. It was a good trip. An important trip. But I'm not ready to talk about that yet. So for now, here's a story about another trip I took.

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I'm standing at the rocky edge of the land, staring out at the cold Atlantic Ocean, and I'm sobbing. I'm crying like a child: loudly, full-throttled, irrationally. I tell my husband that I'm fine, but that I just need to stand here and cry for awhile. He's known me long enough and well enough to understand, so he stands on a boulder somewhere behind me and lets me go.

There is salt everywhere here: in the tears streaming down my face, in the waves crashing on the rocks below me, in the misty air that dampens everything. Salt is a preservative, and right now my salty tears are preserving my sanity. Nothing horrible has happened in this moment. I simply fell down on a slick part of these New England rocks. But my side hurts, my pants and sweater are shellacked with strips of tar, and I broke the camera. The physical pain is bothersome and I know I'll have a big bruise, but that's not why I cry. I wail about the broken camera. Broken on our first day here! And I mourn for my ruined pants and go on and on about how I'd searched for pants like these for 10 years. It's nearly impossible to find the perfect pair of lightweight khaki pants that are perfect for traveling. Nearly impossible!

Mostly I wail about how stupid I was for stepping on that dark patch of sloping rock. I berate myself for being so stupid. So stupid! I say it over and over again, thinking that if I chastise myself enough I'll work through feeling so bad about it all and start to feel better. But that tired tactic never works; I should know that by now.

What works in moments like these is crying like a child. I'm old enough to know that I'm not really crying about the bruise or the busted camera or my soiled clothing or even my poor decision making. Those things are just surface annoyances that release the pressure valve so I can let the real emotions out.

In the end, I don't think too much about what the real emotions were. I cried and then I felt better. We went to the cry cleaner* and my clothes look brand new. My husband fiddled with the camera and it works. In the end, everything was okay.

*Edited to add this note: As Randi points out in the comments, I did write "cry cleaner" instead of "dry cleaner." I would like to say it was intentional, but it was really just an oh-so-appropriate slip, so I think I'll leave it.

Three More Good Things (one word: Squam)

Despite a tiring, rainy day outside, I'm feeling happy and shiny in my soul because I'm off to New York this weekend for a long awaited visit with a friend. The weather forecast is calling for coldish weather, but the lows don't go below 20 degrees (Fahrenheit). After enduring single digit temperatures for a few weeks this winter, anything above the teens feels manageable. So while I'm gallivanting around Brooklyn and soaking up the goodness, here's your second tidbit of soul sunshine. (Don't miss the first part. It's a good one.)

I actually have three things to tell you about today.

First is for those of you who attended the Squam Art Workshops (SAW) last year.

Liz Kalloch (also known around blogland as Athena Dreams) has pulled together a wonderful opportunity for 2008 SAW attendees: the First Annual Squam Art Show: A Vision of Squam. This show is open to anyone who attended or taught at the 2008 Squam Art Workshops. "This show is meant to be the story of how your work may have shifted and grown, how your lives as artists were perhaps changed, how the experiences you had at Squam in 2008 may have allowed you to see your work in a different way, how each of your artistic communities have grown and expanded and finally, what kind of work came out of your experience," says Liz.

The submissions deadline is April 30, 2009. (That may sound like you have plenty of time, but don't be fooled. Mistress Spring has a habit of flitting in and out of the month of March, tempting us all to distractions like flowers, flirty dresses, and cupcakes. The end of April will be here before you know it. So get to it!)

The jurors for the show are Susan Schwake, Liz Kalloch, and Mary Jo Monusky. The show will be held at artstream Gallery in Rochester, NH and opens on September 1, 2009. All of the details about submissions and the show are available here.

Secondly, this is for those of you who attended SAW last year but may feel a little shy about entering work in a juried show. (Like me!) Liz has also put out a call for a Collective Media Submission. All 2008 SAW attendees are encouraged to submit something to this category. Here's how Liz describes it: "These pieces will all be hung in the gallery like prayer flags, like meditations on a moment, like beautiful memories, or maybe even like cocooning butterflies." Doesn't that just sound too lovely not to be a part of it? Submissions for the Collective Media Submission must arrive at artstream Gallery by August 1, 2009. Again, you can find out more here.

And thirdly, this is for all of you who didn't attend the Squam Art Workshops last year. What about this year? Want to try your hand at knitting, painting, or songwriting? How about a class on storyweaving, mixed media art, poetry, outdoor sculpture, jewelry making, or photography? There are even classes on tapping into your creativity and slots for open studio time.

There are two sessions of SAW this year. The Spring Workshops will focus on fiber arts (with a few other types of classes thrown in for good measure) and will be held June 3-7, 2009. The Fall Workshops are more multi-faceted and will run September 16-20, 2009. You really need to check out the website to get all the details. Because the goodness runneth over!

I had mixed feelings after attending SAW last year, all based on my own conflicted feelings and issues. The event itself is fabulous. Over the past five months, the experience has had time to mature and mellow, and to develop a nice patina. I've realized that despite my feelings of isolation while I was there, I was actually developing new friendships that continue to grow and deepen. So I'm looking forward to going back this September. In addition to spending time with these friends, I'm looking forward to playing with paints and words, all mixed up into one messy, thrilling experience.

If you're intrigued, I hope you'll dig a little deeper and consider attending. Registration has been open for a little while now, and spaces are limited. So if you feel this opportunity tugging at your soul, don't dismiss it.

Okay, that's the Goodness Report for now. I'll be back next week with tales from the big city.

You're invited: Be Present Retreats

February is nearly over. Spring has been edging its way into this last week of the month, but I don't expect her to last. She's such a tease; here one day and then gone the next. And March is a mean bastard, full of bluster and the cold shoulder. So I'm not putting away my winter coat for flirty dresses just yet.

If you need something cheery and exciting to keep you going until Mistress Spring returns, I have some goodies to tell you about. Read on for the first one and then come back tomorrow for another.

My friend Liz Elayne Lamoreux has cooked up a new adventure called The Be Present Retreats. "These were born from the belief that creating is a meditation of the soul," Liz explains. "Each retreat will be an invitation to pause in your life and gather in a supportive environment filled with like-minded individuals in a creative, playful, and meditative atmosphere."

The first retreat is June 10-14, 2009, and registration has already begun. The June retreat is called Self-Portrait Excavation and is a retreat centered around the journey that is the self-portrait. Gathering at The Lodge at Gearhart's Little Beach on the Oregon coast (about 10 minutes from Cannon Beach), attendees will immerse themselves in paint and mixed media, words, photography, and the beauty of our surroundings under the guidance of Judy Wise, Jen Goff, and Liz.

It sounds like an absolutely magical and lovely time, doesn't it? I wish I could go, but alas, I cannot. But you? Perhaps you can go! (Do you hear it? That whisper telling you that this is just what you need? Just what you long for? Listen to that whisper. It is wisdom and kindness.) At the very least, find out a more and ponder it.

(see you tomorrow for another soulful treat!)