We ARE ALL PRECIOUS

This weekend, a new movie, Precious, is being released in NY, Chicago and LA (and more cities the following weekend). It is based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire, which has just moved up to #1 on the NYT bestseller list. I had the opportunity to see a screening of it in NYC and can't stop thinking about it. The director, Lee Daniels, was interviewed today on NPR and his last words were "I will never not see her again." The movie is a masterpiece, addressing compassion and the human condition. It has won multipe awards in all the film festivals and will surely make it to the Oscars. As I was talking to a friend about it, I thought of a poem that summed up the experience for me by Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh....

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

On Jasmine and the Election of Barack Obama

Today marks the first anniversary of the election of Barack Obama to the office of US president. I am sure everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when the election results were announced.




During the presidential campaign, I wrote about a cutting from a jasmine plant that a woman from Iowa gave me as I was canvassing. She told me the Queen of the Night jasmine was a favorite plant among many in India, where she was from.

As I was admiring the plant, she proceeded to break off a stem, handing it to me. It has felt very, very important to properly care for this gift, as it was symbolic of the kindness and generosity of spirit so many wished could transform our country.


This was the very first time that I tried to regenerate a plant. After some 4 months of the branch sitting in water, it finally started to grow roots and was placed in a planter with soil. I am happy to report the jasmine plant is flourishing. I now refer to it affectionally as my Obama plant.

Self Re-Defined by Richard Olderman

I am so happy to introduce you to Richard Olderman's work. He is the reason I pursued photography. He is not only a fabulous teacher and person, but also an amazing photographer, offering up the magic in the natural world. You will need to visit his website to check out his multitude of portfolios...For this blog, I would like to share his self portraits which are some of the most amazing creative transformations.


Here are some excerpts from a review from an exhibition at the Evanston Art Center...

"In the current exhibition Focus: The Self Re-Defined, artist Richard Olderman takes viewers on a surprising exploration of the self and nature; a journey of self discovery. Curated by Evanston Art Center Director Michele Rowe-Shields, Focus: The Self Re-Defined, Recent Photographs by Richard Olderman presents 22 of Olderman's manipulated, silver gelatin prints. This handtinted series incorporates a group of early black and white self-portraits taken around 1980 with more recent black and white images from nature and cemeteries. Olderman superimposes the two images and then applies a variety of creative
techniques to the print itself, such as adding color and toner or bleaching, scratching and scraping the print. His work deals with a number of issues such as confrontation of the self, transformation, birth, death, coming and going.

" I have always had a fairly comfortable fascination with cemeteries and death. Death in the sense that it's the end of one thing, but is also the start of something new. With this new series it's like scraping away the layers and something new coming out of the ashes," explains Olderman.

In Olderman's earlier portraits he confronts the camera by directly facing the camera without pretense. This process comes out of a need to document a difficult and unsettled time in his life." In combination with his more recent images, the results are stunning. The handtinting is exquisite, the images mysterious and provocative, " says Rowe-Shields. "Richard's remarkable
photographs express the essence of self-portraiture as self discovery. Through his personal struggle and exploration of the self and nature, he portrays a layered reality evoking a spiritual dimension and dramatically capturing his inner sense of being."

The Obamas by Annie Leibovitz

This portrait of The First Family was taken by Annie Leibovitz on September 1st, sitting in the Green Room of the White House.
It is stunning. There is an article in the upcoming New York Times Magazine, The First Marriage, that is refreshingly honest and candid. Can't believe we are coming up on the one year anniversary of Obama's election... a time that is seared in my memory.

Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico: The Edge of Vision Interview Series from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.

just for fun...happy monday

JR in Kenya ~ Women are Heros

On the plane back from NYC I read about a French-artist JR, who had produced a public art project in an effort to honor the residents of one of the world's largest ghetto's- the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is best known for his technique of photographing inhabitants of a city or other area & pasting the resulting imagery up on grand scale around the community.



He has just completed something similar in Kibera, Kenya. This time, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. PLEASE click here to see a movie of it and you get the impact of the project. The still photographs below give you an overview but the movie is INCREDIBLE!
With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have been pasted on sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. With this, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete whenever the train passes.



The Times online magazine stated in a recent article 'the trade in JR's pictures, created in third world slums and bought by affluent westerners, is reinvested in the slums, this makes him a robin hood figure'.



What a way to transform the world.