June
September
October
DecemberThursday, December 4, 2008
Rylee Calendar Baby
I made a calendar with pictures of my God daughter as a gift for her mother... I had all of these fantastic ideas about how she would pose and do exactly what I wanted... boy was I WRONG! It was the most pain-staking task I have ever undertaken. Eventually though, it all worked out. Here are some of my favorite images.
September
October
December
SeptemberOctoberDecember
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Deer Run Winery
The other day my roommate Margaret needed to get some info about local wineries for a class. I gladly accompanied her to the Deer Run Winery and after warming my insides with a wine tasting session I snapped these pics...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Business Card Design
This is the business card I designed for the fabulous entertainers known as Dave and Sarah Parker. sweet.
you can check out their fabulous facebook page at:
http://www.new.facebook.com/business/dashboard/?ref=sb#/pages/Sarah-and-David-Parker/15840412863
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
small details from a trip to Boston.
late afternoon breakfast... in Boston
a purple door... in Boston.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Creative Writing Prompt: Place
It was always a mysterious place, up in the garage attic.
The garage wasn’t your typical garage, we didn’t keep cars in there at all, it was actually a small barn, one of two buildings left over from the farm that my great uncle had once lived off of. The farm was a one of the many victims that was targeted by an unknown arsonist that had terrorized our small town back in the 60’s. (When I was in elementary school I remember visiting our town’s historical museum and reading musty old newspaper clippings about “the firebug” having struck again.)
The barn fire actually left three things, the garage, my house, and the skeletal remains of hundreds of cows scatter throughout the yard, allowing me a happy childhood of digging up and playing with the thick mossy bones.
I used to be afraid of the garage, even in the daytime when you went inside the only light shimmered with dust through slits in the slipped sheets of metal that were boarded over the shattered windows. The walls were covered with a collection of musty items, a wicker fishing basket, a splintered toboggan, and deteriorating snowshoes. The sad eyes of a nude cherub stared from a faded poster put on the wall with a nail carelessly through the center of the image. It was all there like the last person to use it didn’t realize that once up on the rusty nail, this stuff would remain untouched for several decades.
If you could manage to work through all the debris there was a ladder, barely visible in the darkness. Up in the attic it was a whole different world, the walls were sloped and met in a narrow point leaving only crouching space for us even though we were young and short. My two best friends and I set to cleaning the attic out, our goal to be able to live there together. (Looking back I realize that my childhood is largely made up of my many futile attempts to make unrealistic spaces livable. My dream houses included but were not limited to, the ditch across the road from my house, an old gutted bus abandoned in the woods, and the moldy old trailer that my dad had gotten instead of payment for plumbing services.)
We named our space “The Cookie Jar” and painted this colorfully onto a deteriorating piece of particleboard along with our names and perhaps most importantly, “NO BOYS ALLOWED”.
The best corner of the attic was the far left corner, where the large square window overlooked the hill covered in ancient white stones that made up the cemetery across the lane, It made the attic even more special, like everything whispered between friends could be a secret forever, it was silent and surrounded by the dead.
Also in the far left corner were stacks and stacks of bee crates (or at least that’s what I thought they were at the time.) That was where most of the work of cleaning up the attic came from, moving the stacks and stacks of bee cages. Halfway through the pile, flattened between the bee crates, we found a faded “Playboy”. We giggled in the dim light as we flipped through the magazine and looked at pale white breasts through the film of grime settled on the pages.
The attic was our secret place, as it had been for others before. I’m sure our old particleboard sign is still up there rotting away, just like the artifacts of life that hang on the walls bellow. The attic is there, our stuff scattered around as it was the day we climbed down and never returned. It leaves me feeling neglectful and sorry, I hadn’t known that our last meeting had passed or else I might have been sad and tried to cling to it forever. This longing describes the essence of growing up, you don’t realize its your last time getting read a bedtime story, or the last time you’ll fall asleep in your fathers lap, it simply doesn’t happen again, but still you move on.
Childhood isn’t ripped from us, it slips away bit by bit until at last we are standing alone. Even though we have grown the attic remains, holding our memories in a cocoon of dust until someone else comes along to clear out the results of time and make it there own.
The garage wasn’t your typical garage, we didn’t keep cars in there at all, it was actually a small barn, one of two buildings left over from the farm that my great uncle had once lived off of. The farm was a one of the many victims that was targeted by an unknown arsonist that had terrorized our small town back in the 60’s. (When I was in elementary school I remember visiting our town’s historical museum and reading musty old newspaper clippings about “the firebug” having struck again.)
The barn fire actually left three things, the garage, my house, and the skeletal remains of hundreds of cows scatter throughout the yard, allowing me a happy childhood of digging up and playing with the thick mossy bones.
I used to be afraid of the garage, even in the daytime when you went inside the only light shimmered with dust through slits in the slipped sheets of metal that were boarded over the shattered windows. The walls were covered with a collection of musty items, a wicker fishing basket, a splintered toboggan, and deteriorating snowshoes. The sad eyes of a nude cherub stared from a faded poster put on the wall with a nail carelessly through the center of the image. It was all there like the last person to use it didn’t realize that once up on the rusty nail, this stuff would remain untouched for several decades.
If you could manage to work through all the debris there was a ladder, barely visible in the darkness. Up in the attic it was a whole different world, the walls were sloped and met in a narrow point leaving only crouching space for us even though we were young and short. My two best friends and I set to cleaning the attic out, our goal to be able to live there together. (Looking back I realize that my childhood is largely made up of my many futile attempts to make unrealistic spaces livable. My dream houses included but were not limited to, the ditch across the road from my house, an old gutted bus abandoned in the woods, and the moldy old trailer that my dad had gotten instead of payment for plumbing services.)
We named our space “The Cookie Jar” and painted this colorfully onto a deteriorating piece of particleboard along with our names and perhaps most importantly, “NO BOYS ALLOWED”.
The best corner of the attic was the far left corner, where the large square window overlooked the hill covered in ancient white stones that made up the cemetery across the lane, It made the attic even more special, like everything whispered between friends could be a secret forever, it was silent and surrounded by the dead.
Also in the far left corner were stacks and stacks of bee crates (or at least that’s what I thought they were at the time.) That was where most of the work of cleaning up the attic came from, moving the stacks and stacks of bee cages. Halfway through the pile, flattened between the bee crates, we found a faded “Playboy”. We giggled in the dim light as we flipped through the magazine and looked at pale white breasts through the film of grime settled on the pages.
The attic was our secret place, as it had been for others before. I’m sure our old particleboard sign is still up there rotting away, just like the artifacts of life that hang on the walls bellow. The attic is there, our stuff scattered around as it was the day we climbed down and never returned. It leaves me feeling neglectful and sorry, I hadn’t known that our last meeting had passed or else I might have been sad and tried to cling to it forever. This longing describes the essence of growing up, you don’t realize its your last time getting read a bedtime story, or the last time you’ll fall asleep in your fathers lap, it simply doesn’t happen again, but still you move on.
Childhood isn’t ripped from us, it slips away bit by bit until at last we are standing alone. Even though we have grown the attic remains, holding our memories in a cocoon of dust until someone else comes along to clear out the results of time and make it there own.
Friday, May 9, 2008
not waving...
So I'm supposed to be writing a final paper on the Stevie Smith poem "Not Waving but Drowning" and I was thinking about what this poem is saying... everyone thinks this persons life is great but no one really knows how bad things are for them and how much they really need help until it's too late.
This isn't at all related to my feelings about MY life right now... it's the people surrounding me... personally I'm really happy with how my life is going.
This isn't at all related to my feelings about MY life right now... it's the people surrounding me... personally I'm really happy with how my life is going.
"Not Waving but Drowning" -Stevie Smith
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Summer I was 16...
These are two images that I took when I spent the summer in Thailand when I was 16 years old... I quickly scanned them tonight on a whim...
It seems strange looking back and realizing that I am still the same person that I was then.
I know I've obviously changed A LOT but really I'm still traveling around in this same body, these very feet walked carefully down a path near a flooded rice paddy, and quickly through the grimy streets of Bangkok... it's just weird to think about LIFE.
It seems strange looking back and realizing that I am still the same person that I was then.
I know I've obviously changed A LOT but really I'm still traveling around in this same body, these very feet walked carefully down a path near a flooded rice paddy, and quickly through the grimy streets of Bangkok... it's just weird to think about LIFE.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Junior Mint Massacre!
this is one of the many things that happens when I have any amount of time on my hands...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Surprising Myself: response to being an Ally @ the Race and Campus Culture Teach-in
I am not a very eloquent person, but for some reason, I actually began the discussion in my group by rambling and stuttering through how I found this discussion and awareness about race to be particularly important to me personally as a student of education, I tried to explain how as a future teacher it was important to be informed about sensitive issues because someday I would serve as a role model for students. I managed to try and convey the previous statement, but not without a lot of “ummms…” “likes” and “…or somethings”.
The discussion continued and I found myself joining in and having examples to support other people’s thoughts. In one situation someone in the group was skeptical of another person’s claim about the cultural bias of standardized tests such as the SAT, I was able to chime in with a couple examples that I had read about, such as the use of a math question that was about calculating Scrabble scores, “if a child hasn’t ever even heard of Scrabble, they won’t even make it to the actual calculations before they give up on the question as being too difficult! Assuming that every child has had the same life experiences, such as playing a board game, this assumption is culturally and social-economically bias and seriously disadvantages the students who don’t have those same experiences!” After I said this people around the table nodded and the person who was skeptical said, “Oh, ok.” I actually helped someone understand something! This actually happened one other time as well when our table was discussing what could be done here at Geneseo to help the situation of racial injustice, I suggested a mandatory course about racial sensitivity issues. The discussion was, as closely as I can recall, as follows, I began, “I transferred to Geneseo this year, but I understand that there is a required course for first year students here, I don’t know what that course entails but perhaps it could include some aspect of giving students the historical context of minstrelsy and making students more aware about why this type of thing isn’t acceptable.”
The previously mentioned skeptical student said that he thought the idea about having a class was a good idea but that “you can make people take a course, but that can’t change their minds, the people who do black face and that sort of thing won’t care, they will still have the same ideas.”
Normally to this type of argument I would just shrug sadly and keep my mouth shut, but by some act of God, I countered, “Maybe a required course wouldn’t change people’s minds, I know I would definitely resent being made to take a course, but if it was mandatory I would suck it up and take the class and for people like me, who just didn’t know why everyone was so upset about this black face thing, a light bulb would go off and they would understand. Sure, not everyone would change their minds, but it would give people the information and the tools to be able to make an informed decision about what they believed.”
“Ignorance wouldn’t be able to be an excuse anymore.” Our student facilitator Brian Whitney added. Everyone nodded and we moved on and I was a little nervous and shocked that I had “gone against” what another person said, I know that sounds dumb but I’m not used to defending anything I say like that, so I was totally shocked when at the very end of the discussion, when the facilitators were gathering for closing statements and we were discussing what we could do in the future the skeptical student looked over at me and said, “I thought the best idea was definitely the idea of first year enrichment type classes to let people know what is wrong and why.” I couldn’t believe it! I had said something that actually changed someone’s mind about something! I had successfully defended an idea I had! I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but even now sitting here typing this, I get kind of shaky when I think about it, it is a huge personal triumph for me to have actually talked and contributed something thoughtful that other people found to be useful.
This personal triumph is totally different from what I was expecting this morning when I woke up and was basically a nervous wreck, I didn’t know if I would even be able to understand what people would discuss let alone be able to say something other than, “ummm… I think… racism… is…. like…bad… or something... That is how I envisioned my reaction to be in the discussion situation. But today I understood everything and was able to not only respond to what other people brought up, but also offer my own opinions. I never would have thought I could do that, and while I had a shaky beginning, as the discussion continued, my voice got stronger and I was able to more articulately express what I thought. Seriously, wow.
Besides what I saw in my own responses, and myself I was surprised to find that just like me, a lot of people in the group admitted to being completely oblivious to the social climate of the campus. It was a common thread throughout our group that we weren’t at all aware of any real issue going on, on campus, until we took classes in which these issues were brought up by the assigned readings. Except for one, all of the people at my table were there because it was required for their class or because of extra credit. Despite this fact, everyone seemed really willing to listen and offer his or her opinion. No one seemed to have grudgingly dragged themselves out of bed for the event, everyone seemed glad to be there and able to discuss the issues that we all were grappling to understand.
Everyone in the group seemed to have good intentions but when the discussion turned to the fact that “discussion is nothing without action” someone in the group was honest and brought up the fact that it was easy for white students to ignore these types of issues and be too lazy to attend such events as the teach-in, because we are perfectly comfortable here. As part of our White Privilege we don’t feel threatened or unwelcome at Geneseo. As white students we are in the majority and the only thing that will make us pay attention and take action is if we truly care, if we don’t care then the issues are easy to ignore. A person who is deeply involved in the campuses climate might not agree that the issues are easily ignored, but at my discussion table we all admitted to having been doing a pretty good job of ignoring or being totally oblivious to the issue thus far.
As far as what I learned from the teach-in was that even though I went in mildly frightened and not knowing what to expect, (someone I was telling about the teach-in said that they wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being a huge “pissin’ match” in which people would be yelling and offending each other, thus furthering the racial divide,) that overall I had an amazing experience and learned a lot from both the presentation and the discussion, and even though the discussion was about a complicated issue and people had differing opinions, it was an extremely honest and respectful conversation in which people supported their ideas and others by citing the teach-in readings, reading that they had done elsewhere and perhaps most pointedly stories about their lives and experiences with racial injustice. I really enjoyed the teach-in I learned a lot and was even pleasantly surprised by my own ability to be involved in a difficult discussion.
The discussion continued and I found myself joining in and having examples to support other people’s thoughts. In one situation someone in the group was skeptical of another person’s claim about the cultural bias of standardized tests such as the SAT, I was able to chime in with a couple examples that I had read about, such as the use of a math question that was about calculating Scrabble scores, “if a child hasn’t ever even heard of Scrabble, they won’t even make it to the actual calculations before they give up on the question as being too difficult! Assuming that every child has had the same life experiences, such as playing a board game, this assumption is culturally and social-economically bias and seriously disadvantages the students who don’t have those same experiences!” After I said this people around the table nodded and the person who was skeptical said, “Oh, ok.” I actually helped someone understand something! This actually happened one other time as well when our table was discussing what could be done here at Geneseo to help the situation of racial injustice, I suggested a mandatory course about racial sensitivity issues. The discussion was, as closely as I can recall, as follows, I began, “I transferred to Geneseo this year, but I understand that there is a required course for first year students here, I don’t know what that course entails but perhaps it could include some aspect of giving students the historical context of minstrelsy and making students more aware about why this type of thing isn’t acceptable.”
The previously mentioned skeptical student said that he thought the idea about having a class was a good idea but that “you can make people take a course, but that can’t change their minds, the people who do black face and that sort of thing won’t care, they will still have the same ideas.”
Normally to this type of argument I would just shrug sadly and keep my mouth shut, but by some act of God, I countered, “Maybe a required course wouldn’t change people’s minds, I know I would definitely resent being made to take a course, but if it was mandatory I would suck it up and take the class and for people like me, who just didn’t know why everyone was so upset about this black face thing, a light bulb would go off and they would understand. Sure, not everyone would change their minds, but it would give people the information and the tools to be able to make an informed decision about what they believed.”
“Ignorance wouldn’t be able to be an excuse anymore.” Our student facilitator Brian Whitney added. Everyone nodded and we moved on and I was a little nervous and shocked that I had “gone against” what another person said, I know that sounds dumb but I’m not used to defending anything I say like that, so I was totally shocked when at the very end of the discussion, when the facilitators were gathering for closing statements and we were discussing what we could do in the future the skeptical student looked over at me and said, “I thought the best idea was definitely the idea of first year enrichment type classes to let people know what is wrong and why.” I couldn’t believe it! I had said something that actually changed someone’s mind about something! I had successfully defended an idea I had! I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but even now sitting here typing this, I get kind of shaky when I think about it, it is a huge personal triumph for me to have actually talked and contributed something thoughtful that other people found to be useful.
This personal triumph is totally different from what I was expecting this morning when I woke up and was basically a nervous wreck, I didn’t know if I would even be able to understand what people would discuss let alone be able to say something other than, “ummm… I think… racism… is…. like…bad… or something... That is how I envisioned my reaction to be in the discussion situation. But today I understood everything and was able to not only respond to what other people brought up, but also offer my own opinions. I never would have thought I could do that, and while I had a shaky beginning, as the discussion continued, my voice got stronger and I was able to more articulately express what I thought. Seriously, wow.
Besides what I saw in my own responses, and myself I was surprised to find that just like me, a lot of people in the group admitted to being completely oblivious to the social climate of the campus. It was a common thread throughout our group that we weren’t at all aware of any real issue going on, on campus, until we took classes in which these issues were brought up by the assigned readings. Except for one, all of the people at my table were there because it was required for their class or because of extra credit. Despite this fact, everyone seemed really willing to listen and offer his or her opinion. No one seemed to have grudgingly dragged themselves out of bed for the event, everyone seemed glad to be there and able to discuss the issues that we all were grappling to understand.
Everyone in the group seemed to have good intentions but when the discussion turned to the fact that “discussion is nothing without action” someone in the group was honest and brought up the fact that it was easy for white students to ignore these types of issues and be too lazy to attend such events as the teach-in, because we are perfectly comfortable here. As part of our White Privilege we don’t feel threatened or unwelcome at Geneseo. As white students we are in the majority and the only thing that will make us pay attention and take action is if we truly care, if we don’t care then the issues are easy to ignore. A person who is deeply involved in the campuses climate might not agree that the issues are easily ignored, but at my discussion table we all admitted to having been doing a pretty good job of ignoring or being totally oblivious to the issue thus far.
As far as what I learned from the teach-in was that even though I went in mildly frightened and not knowing what to expect, (someone I was telling about the teach-in said that they wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being a huge “pissin’ match” in which people would be yelling and offending each other, thus furthering the racial divide,) that overall I had an amazing experience and learned a lot from both the presentation and the discussion, and even though the discussion was about a complicated issue and people had differing opinions, it was an extremely honest and respectful conversation in which people supported their ideas and others by citing the teach-in readings, reading that they had done elsewhere and perhaps most pointedly stories about their lives and experiences with racial injustice. I really enjoyed the teach-in I learned a lot and was even pleasantly surprised by my own ability to be involved in a difficult discussion.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Welcome to Life, Rylee Grace!
I really should be catching up on a ton of work right now, but really I am so extremely overwhelmed with just loving life right now.
This weekend, while looking into the face of my God-Daughter, Rylee Grace I was just so astounded by LIFE. This was a moment when I stopped and thought...
I will remember this moment the rest of my life.
I know there will certainly be many more moments like this (the birth of my own children for example) But this was the just such an amazing moment. .The Beginning of LIFE
I was mopping a public restroom when I found out that Melissa was pregnant... but it never really HIT me until Friday when I looked into Rylee's little pink face and was just blown away with the unfathomable beauty that life has to offer.
Monday, February 18, 2008
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Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Wiley-Youmell Wedding
These are from this July from the first wedding I ever shot. Yikes!
This picture was from right before the ceremony, it was supposed to be outdoors along the river but a huge rainstorm swept through and demolished everything that had been set up... so the ceremony was moved inside. When the ceremony was over we came outside and it was blindingly sunny for the rest of the day! (as you can see in the rest of the photos...)
This picture was from right before the ceremony, it was supposed to be outdoors along the river but a huge rainstorm swept through and demolished everything that had been set up... so the ceremony was moved inside. When the ceremony was over we came outside and it was blindingly sunny for the rest of the day! (as you can see in the rest of the photos...)
Sunday, February 3, 2008
9 months with Rylee Grace
these are two of my favorite shots from the maternity photography I did for my friend. She is due on Feb. 21st and I'm very very excited!
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