Friday Inspiration - Rebecca Love

Rebecca Love is a woman I've known for gosh I don't know....close to 20 years now. She is the Godmother to Mason and, well, to me, she's connected to my heart.

It's funny how our relationship began and to say that God had a hand in it would be the biggest understatement of the world. You see, she and I met at the Renaissance Fair back when it was at Black Point Forest which ironically, is just a few minutes down the road from where I live now. I went to the fair with a boyfriend at the time and found ourselves at the place called "the end of the world" to have a tarot reading. People offered couples readings and since I had been on a quest to find my soulmate from the time I was 12, this seemed like a great way to figure out if this guy was the right guy.

Rebecca was the reader we were drawn to, and although I don't remember what she said or what the cards had to say, she made an impression that drew me back to that spot at the end of the world, year after year, boyfriend after boyfriend. It's funny, I think by year three she realized I was the same girl coming again and again and she must have seen something in me. Something she liked or related to or thought she could help out in some way.

She invited me to stay one weekend at Fair and our relationship went to a deeper level. I could see myself in Rebecca, I could relate to her on so many levels and I felt magic when I was around her. She lived in a small cottage in the woods of Occidental, CA, filled with books and art and ceramic pieces from friends, fellow artists as well as things that she created.

Over the years both of our paths took windy turns and twisty roads but always remained in connection with each other. Her love of clay grew deeper and she began casting faces and pregnant bellies and making beautiful pieces of art from those casts. I had her cast both of my pregnancies. So much fun!

Then at one of those turns in the road, a moment happened that brought her to her knees and back into a relationship with Christ. It was strong and passionate and a little unexpected, but, it was a piece of Rebecca that had been there all along. Sleeping while she went on her crazy journey of exploration. I looked at that moment and tried to see what was there for me and again, heard God talking to me and calling me back. I didn't listen as closely as I could have for quite some time but eventually, the call was too loud to ignore and I too found myself back in a deep relationship with God. Rebecca was a strong influence in that return for me. Her faith, her love and her passion are inspiring and a bit contagious.

Her journey has brought a new development over the last couple of years. She has been called to reach out to women in Africa. Women who are artists and in need of support and guidance and a helping hand. They are basket weavers, jewelry makers and bead workers. This has inspired a whole new line of art from Rebecca as well. Her castings now have an African feel and influence that is unmistakeable. I photographed an event that was held at the gallery in Sebastapool that Rebecca started with a group of other artists. You can view the slideshow from the event HERE.

For so many years her art was her own, something for her to enjoy and explore and now, as she reaches out into the world to help others, she has decided to open her studio as well. She is starting to hold workshops on casting, so that other people can try their hand at creating a piece of art. She feels that there is a rich discovery to who you are "behind the mask" and that by creating a mask of your face, you can explore yourself on a deeper level and create a piece that will inspire you each time you look at it.

I'm so excited that Rebecca is reaching out in this way. Sharing her art on such an intimate level. She is truly a beautiful person and I have no doubt that amazing things will come to each participant of every workshop. This is a discovery workshop in it's truest sense. You can see some samples of her work and learn more about her workshops HERE.

Wedding Bells Are Ringing

We're almost on our way to Nashville for Matt's little brother Paul's wedding. It should be quite the event, an August wedding in Nashville. I'm pretty sure it's going to be HOT! They've invited something like 400 people to witness the exchange of vows and I can't wait to see the Reoch clan again and meet all of Liz's family as well as their friends.

Back in March when we vacationed in Florida with the family, Matt and I were thrilled to photograph the engagement session for Liz and Paul. From that shoot, I created a beautiful guest book that I can't wait to present to them in less than a week.

I designed the book a bit differently this time. I've found that sometimes with a guest book, people have wonderful intentions of signing them, but for one reason or another, don't have the chance. Then, a book that was created with screened back images or loads of white space, feels empty in the end. I didn't want that to be the case with this book. I wanted it to be a stand alone piece that had plenty of room for signatures and stories but if for some reason wasn't filled with writing, would look like a whole and complete book just the way it was.

I absolutely LOVE how this book turned out and can't wait for it to be a part of their wedding day.

Liz and Paul, get ready....the wedding is right around the corner!!!

Tide Pools

One of the things I love about having visitors is that we do things we don't normally do. Things we think about doing and even talk about doing but for some reason we just don't. I think maybe it's just easier to be in the routine of life and stepping outside of that familiarity can be hard.

Tide pooling is something we've talked about doing for a while. Bolinas isn't too far, but on a weekend when we look forward to lazy mornings in p.j.'s, getting up and out of the house with a lunch packed seems next to impossible. Somehow, we pulled it off and made the trek on the windy road to the coast. Low tide was at around 9am and we arrived around 10.

The fog couldn't quite make it's way to leave so the sky was a beautiful gray. It was pretty cold but the snails and crabs and sea creatures were wonderful to see.

I've been loving playing with the 50mm 1.4 lense. Everything drops out of focus so quickly and I just love the blur. Here are some shots from our adventure....

Portraits With Depth

I missed Friday, but here's the inspiration to start out your week!

I've found myself looking at photography a bit differently these days. Looking at it from the perspective of how I want to be shooting and what I want to be shooting. Before, in the past year or so, I've just been shooting. Picking up the camera when it strikes me. Playing, not thinking. I've been wanting to think more about it. What that means, I'm not sure but I think there's something to explore, about myself, about the way I see the world.

I love when a photographer has a clear vision. A statement that is all theirs. Julie Blackmon is this kind of photographer. I discovered her through another blog and was struck by her vision. So clear, so unique. I immediately went to her site and looked through all of her work. I was touched most by her series called "Mind Games". She's the oldest of nine children and the mother of three and uses her experiences as her inspiration. This quote is my favorite line from her artist statement...
"As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos." Julie Blackmon

I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do. Here are four of my favorites from the Mind Game series.

Raina

Matt and I have 13 nieces and nephews between our two families. Crazy! The ages range between a few months old and almost 17 years. They are all unique and different and wonderful.

A few years back, my mom brought Ayla, the oldest of the bunch, to visit Matt and I. Grandma took her for a special trip to spend some time exploring San Francisco and being with us. She had promised the same trip to Raina but, as my mom's health has been the top concern of late, that trip didn't seem to be possible.

Raina is turning sweet 16 in September of this year and Matt and I decided to make that trip happen. We flew her out to spend some time with us as an early birthday present. She arrived on Thursday of last week and was supposed to leave today. We're all enjoying her being here, the boys wait by her door in the morning to wake her up when I say it's o.k., so we've extended her trip by a week.

I'm sure I'll post more of our adventures but here are a few shots from her first night here at the farmers market in San Rafael. It's right down the way from Matt's new office so we met him after work and walked around, eating, getting henna tattoos and letting the boys jump in the bouncy houses.

I would love to think this is the beginning of a trend. That over the years, each of our nieces and nephews could come and spend some time with us, so that we could get to know them better. Each and every one.

Inspiration Friday's

As much as I love schedules and sometimes I find it hard to stick to one. But, I would like to give it a shot. There's so much interesting art, photography, music in the world, I thought having a Friday focus of inspiration on the blog may be fun.

This week, Matt send over a link to an incredible installation at the Gladstone Gallery in New York. The artist is Huang Yong Ping. He was a founding member of the Xiamen Dad group in China during the mid-1980's. The exhibition is Tower Snake. As stated in his press release, "He is known to use a variety of media in his work and merges the symbols of Eastern and Western art historical traditions and political events to explore the intersection of individual experience and broader manifestations of culture."

The description in the press release of the actual piece takes the exhibit to an elevated level that I feel you should understand before viewing. For those of you interested in knowing what the artist intended, here it is....

For this exhibition, Huang Yong Ping will create a monumental installation comprised of a single temple-like construction. Taking its form from the spiral of a coiled snake skeleton, a ramp of bamboo gradually rises taking the viewers from the tail toward its head. In transforming the rib cage of the snake into a series of arches, Huang Yong Ping echoes the architecture of a Gothic cathedral, simultaneously reworking this Western style with Eastern materials and subtly transforming the cruciform symbol of Christian salvation into the tangled figure of Edenic temptation. More importantly, this Tower of Babel-like sculpture depends upon the natural material of bamboo reaffirming its link to Eastern construction. Huang Yong Ping subverts well-worn cultural symbols to create seemingly disparate juxtapositions that unfold into nuanced takes on history, national identity, and artistic practice.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I Can Hardly Believe My Eyes

It's taken a few days to sink in. It's one of those things that I'm not sure how it happened so I haven't fully embraced it yet. I made a vision board a few weeks ago and on the board I pasted a picture of the new Canon 5D Mark II. It was more of a wish than anything else but I figured if I'm coaching other people to be outrageous, then I should do the same. Right?!

Well, all I know is that I'm sitting here holding the Canon 5D Mark II in my hands. It. Is. AMAZING!! It's the result of some hard work on both mine and Matt's part and an itchy trigger finger on the order button that belonged to Garrett. The combination of the three resulted in the manifestation of a camera. WOW.

Someone once said it's the photographer not the camera who makes the pictures and I agreed at the time. Now, I'm rethinking just a bit. This could be a case where it's more about the camera and not so much about the photographer. Well, maybe just a little. wink wink.

Here are the first shots fired with our new baby. Now, we just have to agree on a new strap. Nothing too girly but with a little pizazz. Oh, and time to make a new vision board!

Utterly Awesome

I can't believe I didn't write about this before the event! FMN Design donated a 20 page album design to Utterly Engaged for their launch party on July 2nd.

I'm so excited to be contributing to this new e-zine. If you haven't checked it out you should definitely take a look. They've done a great job creating something that's not only interesting to read but beautiful to look at. Very modern, clean and fresh!

I haven't heard who won the album design but I can't wait to find out! You can check the premier issue of the magazine out HERE!

Mother of a Campgoer

I just returned from dropping Mason off for his first day of Summer Camp. It's only a 5 day, 9-3 kind of thing but it feels huge! Standing there watching him walk down the hill to place his back pack that's almost as big as he is by the tree, I felt proud and sad and nervous all at the same time.

It's funny. He was there with his friend Zoe and they reminded me of little fish being acclimated into a tank. Checking it out, participating just a little, finding the hand of the friendliest counselor there to hold and not let go of, for anything. Then, after a bit, running around and smiling and being part of the group.

I wanted to run down that hill and introduce myself to each counselor. They look all of 14 years old for goodness sake! Tell them my name, show them Mason, tell them to take special care of him. Ask them for their names, phone numbers, social security numbers and addresses! But, I was supposed to be as brave as I'm asking Mason to be. Telling him to just go and have a good time with a big group of people he's never met. To remember to not lose his goggles, the name of the new school he's going to, that there's a change of clothes if he needs them, all with his name marked inside, to eat all of his lunch and not drown in the pool! He's just supposed to go and do that...and I'm supposed to let him go.

My goodness this job of parenting is becoming more difficult the older they get. I thought spit-up and projectile poops were bad. Now we have Miles going through the "Terrible Two's" but I can pick him up, throw him over my shoulder and hold him until he calms down. He's always with me, at my side. It's not that way with Mason anymore.

So, I'll take a deep breath, like I told Mason to do, and enjoy the day knowing that he's having fun and meeting new friends and growing up.

Ties That Don't Suck

I've been finding the topic of "branding" interesting as of late. It seems to be coming up more and more. I think that in this new age of technology, everyone having a website and or a blog, you need to find a way to set yourself apart. A way that makes people take notice of who you are and of your business.

I love it when I see a business deliver when it comes to their brand. Everything feeling cohesive and I especially love it if they pay attention to the details. It's not just the business card that says who you are, or your product. If you happen to have an actual product that you have to ship to a client, everything, and I mean everything that shows up on their doorstep is a reflection of you and your business.

We've been invited to a wedding this summer and the theme is Steam Punk. I wish I could say that I had been hip enough to know what this was when they invited us, but, and I hang my head just a bit here, I didn't. I did however immediately start searching the internet to become educated. Turns out it's a style I like and have liked for some time, I just didn't know it had a name! It's the blend of 19th century , often Victorian and the era where steam power was widely used with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy and or technological inventions that are fictitious or real technological developments like the computer, occurring at an earlier date.

O.K. did you follow me there? Well, Steampunk isn't the reason I'm writing this post. I'm writing because I recently bought a tie for Mason off of Etsy for this Steampunk themed wedding. The company is Cyberoptix and although I think the website could use a little touch of love, their ties are awesome. When the package arrived yesterday, I couldn't wait to get into it.

From the bag that it was shipped in, the 7 stamps they placed in the corner, the rope tied, gold tissue paper package, to the postcard that was included, they had it nailed. One of the things I love most about their packaging is that it was simple. There's nothing fancy about it and that's part of the point. It didn't cost a ton of money and didn't need to. I just love how it all works together. It's thoughtful in its simplicity which speaks volumes.

I think it's a great reminder that you don't always have to spend a lot of money to be successful in communicating your brand. You just have to be thoughtful about it and execute. I threw in a few photo's of Mason at the end sporting the tie. I just can't get over what a little man he's becoming. My heart just swoons. Now I need to order one for Miles!