First Photograph Published for The San Francisco Examiner

Best of Fremont - Family Rec Center, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

Take a look at the link! I got published in San Francisco too.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7838-SF-Family-Fitness-Examiner~y2009m6d20-Kids-bowl-free-every-day-and-families-can-bowl-for-less-than-24-for-the-whole-summer

3.9 seconds

While driving around Milpitas, I was in a frantic search to look for one of the side of the road folks that have been hanging around over the last couple of years. The Milpitas Post sent me on assignment to photograph them so that they could use it for a story, and I realized that I was about to hear a story too.
In the lessons I’ve learned from photography and working with people is quite extensive. I would never photograph someone from afar, and I would never photograph someone without first saying hello to them, and starting some kind of conversation, especially if I am about to ask for their portrait. My views about street photography are slightly different but in cases like this I wanted to get to know the subject as human first.
Meet a resident of Milpitas known as Big “O” or at least that is what she goes by around her friends. She’s been in Milpitas for sometime but has struggled over the last few years to have even the simplest needs. I introduced myself and she introduced herself and immediately we both started talking. We commented both on the beauty and yet the windiness was so in the way.
Soon after we began to talk about the struggles, and the issues Big O was facing. She quickly brings up that she’s been on the home list but that it takes 3-5 years to even hear from the city. Big O also mentions that she’s been featured in another local paper over some of the same issues of homelessness. She’s not been able to sustain herself, and that’s her biggest concern. She receives SSI but that’s been cut back and she can’t even make enough to pay rent in a shared living situation. Her only comfort is that if she panhandles for awhile near the McCarthy ranch intersection the people of Milpitas are generous enough to help her out when they’re stopped at a red light. Did you know the average time at a red light is 3.9 seconds? She stands in the middle of McCarthy Ranch and hopes that in those 3.9 seconds someone will stop and give her some financial help. I stood right next to her and watched people driving by. One guy stopped right in the middle of a yellow light and almost got rear ended to help her out. At one stop there were three cars in a row that honked at her and she quickly jumped around the cars. Sometimes the 3.9 seconds came and went and no one rolled down a window to help her out.
I asked her several question and most importantly I asked what the city and residents can do to help until she does find permanent housing. She said that the local shelters mostly only take men, and if she does she take them, the men outnumber the woman. The showers in the shelters are dangerous and unsanitary. Big O tells me that the shelters are only open for 3 months during the winter. She could use help with personal hygiene products, undergarments, and size 6 shoes. The average cost of a motel in Milpitas is $56 a night so she stands there hoping to earn that money before a bully comes a long and steals the money or bumps her off of the corner.
She looks at me straight in the eye and says “I need help”, and “I don’t want to be doing this.” She excuses herself and goes over and stands again with her sign up, and her face turns a shade of red, and she says that she’s so embarrassed. Something inside me wanted to give her a break and hold up the sign for her. I was almost curious to find out what that would even feel like. But I didn’t. I figured it would be too awkward of an experience for the both of us, and I also wondered if I would get arrested. Big O said that the cops in Milpitas were really nice to her, and that they help her out a lot. They come around and make sure that there isn’t anything shady going on and find out if their ok or need a doctor, etc. She’s hoping to only have to ask for money on the sides of the road for a little longer and hopefully one day she could find a little studio of her own someday.
I learned so much from her in just a few passings. I was honored that she let me share a bit of her earth with her and document her work day for a few 3.9 seconds.

Jesus of Montreal

This has to be one of the most interesting films I've seen in a very long time. It takes place in a weird fashion era but the story line is universal. The brief netflix synopsis states this:

In response to dwindling attendance at the annual Passion Play put on by a Montreal church, some actors are hired to stage a more radical interpretation of Christ's teachings. The new version is an instant success, but also incurs the wrath of church hierarchy. This film won 12 Genies (Canadian Academy Awards), including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. It also won the Jury Prize in Cannes in 1989. Denys Arcand directs.

I recommend this movie to everyone!

From Boy's Town to Girl Child Network...

I haven’t writing in a very long time. I am rather ashamed to admit it. There are often times when I am driving or right before I fall asleep I remember something that changed my view of thinking and opened up my limited perception. There are times when I am just doing things around the house and I start to think, and words, more so word phrases come to mind. Most of the time they are original and not the cheesy melodramatic overused phrases that describe the scrumptiousness over microwaveable food. Isn’t everything microwaveable now? That’s still a new idea worthy of advertisement? We bought my mom a microwave for Mother’s Day almost thirty years ago.

Ok. I am so getting side tracked here. . . Focus.

A friend of mine asked me to join her for a group meeting in Oakland last night. It was kind of last minute since her two other guest both came down with a flu type bug, and no it wasn’t swine flu. So it truly was my lucky day. However, I should have recalled lessons learned in journalism school to always have, a pen, paper, camera, and or some form of recording device with me at all times. I wasn’t sure if I should have gone home to gather it all, or if I should go with what I had on. My pastor always tells the congregation be ready to give an account as living epistles in and out of season.

My friend is no ordinary friend. She’s an old fashion wrangler in our new millennium. She takes the stubborn ones, the lost ones, the challenged ones, the well to do ones, and steers us all together in a mixing pot. Which one am I you may ask? Take a guess! And then simply asks us all questions. Simply shares ideas. Simply let’s the natural unfold. In my life she has swung wide, doors that were heavier than anything Brunelleschi could have ever dreamt up.

One of the directors for The Global Fund for Women (http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/cms/) invited us to her home in Oakland, to hear Betty share her story. On the way to Oakland we talk about more of what we are going to see and hear. I knew about Betty Makoni and her work from one of the first times I talked to my friend. The events that transpired in one of her first journey’s to Africa were so graphically detailed that they stay in my brain too, and I now too share in the journey of Africa with her. I know her Africa stories too and tell them often to my girlfriends over beers at Trials.

Betty Makoni (http://www.gcn.org.zw/) is a woman from Zimbabwe who suffered physical abuse, lost her mother to domestic violence, and was looking for an escape. Through a series of events in her life she started a program called Girl Child Network. On the front page of the website she is quoted saying the following,

“The stories we listened to made us bleed inside, the genital wounds we later had to help nurse evoked us, the long distances we travelled every day and night to educate girls on their rights made us strong, the songs of joy and sorrow the girls sang made us more passionate, everything to do with girlhood and the fact that we were there for the girls pushed us to do even more and more from the heart, soul, mind and all. The fact that we finally claimed the girls` spaces where the girls now live and develop free of violence makes it imperative that we share the great tidings.”

 It started off as a girls club, a safe haven where girls could come and just be themselves. It soon turned into a rescue mission and girls were fleeing homes where they had been raped, molested, and beaten. She said in her speech.                

“girls who were so badly raped that semen was coming out of them for days after they had arrived.”

Those words echo in the chambers of my heart, as I try to swallow the lump in my throat this morning. One of the directors for The Global Fund for Women invited Betty to come to the bay area and spend her 10^th year as Director for GCN anniversary with us. She describes the first grant proposal that she wrote and how she suffered the equipment to even write it. She had a typewriter on the floor and she didn’t have the ‘E’ key. She finally ended up sending the proposal for the grant in writing. In the last 10 years she has suffered greatly on a personal level, and as a group. But she has also survived. Can I get an Amen? An African praise dance to that? She has always kept going. She has over 60,000 girls that have survived rape, molestation, or some form of abuse in their lives. How about another African praise dance for survival of girls in Zimbabwe?

Can you imagine? 60,000 girls in Zimbabwe alone. She mentioned how she has worn so many hats, and have earned so many certificates in knowledge. That she was a nurse to these girls. That she was an architect, as she designed the village. She was a financier, as she sent out proposals, and budgeted the accounts. She was a cook. She was a counselor. She is an empower. She has empowered the girls of Zimbabwe to not only feel safe but to think like a princess. To treat one another like a princess.

Immediately, I thought of the final scene in Boy’s Town where Spencer Tracy and Mikey Rooney shine on the silver screen.

I thought who’s going to tell Betty’s story? Who will play her in the movie? Maybe Angela Bassett? A movie filled with compassion, trails, and triumphs like none other. Will we ever capture all that has happened in Betty’s life or with the girls of the Girl Child Network?

She wrote a poem last night. Describing her ten years as Director for the Girl Child Network and she states this as the end of her message of solidarity last night. She calls this poem Nineteen ninety nine to Oh Oh Nine!!!!! (The Oh Oh, are sighs and tears)

I have seen them all

Shockers and shakers

Starters and strugglers

Winners and losers

Ninety ninety-nine to Oh oh nine!

 

Girls of power

And girls of the poor with great potential

And girls distanced

I have seen them all in one decade

 

Organization of friends

And organizations of foes

Organizations infiltrated

Oh oh nine!!!

 

Directors who founded organizations

And directors who find organizations

Directors who make sense

And directors who make cents

Directors of passion

And directors of pastime

 

Staff who perform

And staff who perforate

Staff who give excuse

And staff who give excess

 

Boards that stay on board

And board overboard

Boards duly elected

And boards fully ejected

 

Governments of the people

And governments off the people

Governments voted by the people

And governments vetoed by the people

 

Donors who interfere

And donors who are freer

Donors who underestimate

And donors who understand

 

Patriarchal husbands of gender activist

Patriotic husbands of gender activist

Sympathetic behind the scenes supporters

And front line pretenders and hypocrites

Oh oh nine from nineteen ninety nine

 

I have felt it al

Thought it all

Said it all

Oh oh nine from nineteen ninety nine.

I drove home with my friend. We shared our thoughts and views and memories. The joy for the love came back into my belly. I researched more about Global Fund for Women. Found them on Facebook, and joined. After joining, it asked me to publish why I did it! The answer was simple. I do it for my grandmother, my mother, my sister, my sisters, and my friends. I do it for ME. I do it because I am reminded of the beauty of women in Proverbs and how privileged I am to be a woman. The proverbs from the Uncreated One reads...

A good woman is hard to find,

and worth far more than diamonds.

Her husband trusts her without reserve,

and never has reason to regret it.

Never spiteful, she treats him generously

all her life long.

She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,

and enjoys knitting and sewing.

She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places

and brings back exotic surprises.

She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast

for her family and organizing her day.

She looks over a field and buys it,

then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.

First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,

rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.

She senses the worth of her work,

is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.

She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,

diligent in homemaking.

She's quick to assist anyone in need,

reaches out to help the poor.

She doesn't worry about her family when it snows;

their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.

She makes her own clothing,

and dresses in colorful linens and silks.

Her husband is greatly respected

when he deliberates with the city fathers.

She designs gowns and sells them,

brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.

Her clothes are well-made and elegant,

and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.

When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,

and she always says it kindly.

She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,

and keeps them all busy and productive.

Her children respect and bless her;

her husband joins in with words of praise:

"Many women have done wonderful things,

but you've outclassed them all!"

Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.

The woman to be admired and praised

is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.

Give her everything she deserves!

Festoon her life with praises!

The Wall

The Wall, originally uploaded by BKHagar.

I love photographing walls. Everything from cement, brick, wood, cloth. I've never had the chance to photograph a wall of bead though. So fun. So colorful. I think if I lived in the quarter I would never take the beads off of my fence. Beads and fences what a lovely combo.

Obamanos

Take a look at these new t-shirts and Obamanos!

http://rlv.zcache.com/president_obama_shirt-p235423610446879207oszz_325.jpg

Baby

Baby, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

I took this photo some time before 2002. I went to visit a great HS friend of mine Carrie Spencer. This is Sadie her daughter. She had bath time and was loving it after a long protest to take a bath. Her mom had a jacuzzi tub in her bathroom and let her bathe in a huge swimming pool like tub. Her eyes are electric blue and eventhough I wanted a black and white picture I wanted to keep her blue eyes blue and pink lips pink. This will forever remain of my faves. Sadie is gorgeous.

peacock eyes

peacock eyes, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

Gillian. I remember her often. She was in my intro to black and white class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She was such a super talented photographer. I imagined myself one day asking her for a job in a big office somewhere in NYC. She had a way of seeing people and relationships far greater than my 19 year old eyes could see yet. And that day she began to tell me her story and her struggles and her achievments. And yes, she was the first artist I had ever met in San Francisco. I miss my friendship with her. I wonder how she is doing and if she is still taking such wonderful photographs.

In this photo: we were assigned to photograph our dreams. She was my model. I had a dream the week before that I was walking down a hallway and there was a woman standing in a door frame and everytime she blinked her long eyelases would reveal that her eyelids were peacock tatooed. Just like this image. She had eyes on her eyelids and lashes like plumes.

Since that dream, I've forever wanted to tatoo my eyelids like a peacocks eye.

what do you think?

I've also thought about putting them on my shoulder blades too.

went back to college for a night

helped my friend write a rough draft for her sociology class.

the topic was how it's inappropriate for public school students to be forced to wear a uniform.

In a culture where personal freedom and individuality is heralded as both advantageous and virtuous, establishing school uniforms is a welcomed form of adolescent discipline that not only promotes school unity and spirit, but also helps to close the gap of economic disparity among social classes. This is the common mantra that is propagated in our modern society, and has been considered an infallible truth. Those in our society and collegiate educational system have taught us that they pioneering advantageous and virtuous were never patterned into any formalism. The personal freedom of the great ones we have learned from, were found outside of the dotted patterned line of any fashion. The establishment of school uniforms however welcomed only a quick band-aid to the grand cavenous welt of sociological problems. To examine weak assumptions such as the magical cure of beige/grey uniforms to fix our economic disparity, is as strong as the promise of Dorothy clicking her red heels to go back to Kansas.

Clothing has been a part of our lives since the day Adam and Eve sewed their first fig leaf. Somewhere in our genetic make up there was a knowledge to cover up for protection while we toiled the land and managed creation. There was a need to protect our epidermis for the day’s events. However what that protection was made up from has been an ongoing discussion. Fast forward to the new millennia and we now have a plethora of clothing options. We now have not only natural and synthetic fibers, but an array of colors to choose from. We now not only use clothing as a skin protectant, but we now have options, more options that we know what to do with. We also identify our spiritual and cultural heritage in a cornucopia of ensembles. What was considered cultural or gender appropriate has hula hooped and double back flipped through out society both modern and ancient.

This by no means implies that our age, race, creed, religion, identity or orientation should unify itself by one fabric, pattern, or material. We as humans can by no means be clustered into any uniform, since our global society is not a bowl of milk and wheaties.  Since the great lady liberty opened up her arms and gave us the grand invitation: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" there wasn’t an addendum that said ‘but you have to come in a white Ralph Lauren polo and khakis.’ No, that part of our US history has shown us a sun bleached branding to our eyes that all are welcomed to freely live and learn within our borders. Why should we then begin to question our lady liberties first welcome? Are we so bold to refute the original host?

Among the several hundred Native American groups that settled across North America,there existed, and still exists, many different ways of life and world views. Each group had distinctive social and political systems, clothing styles, shelters, foods, art forms, musical styles, languages, educational practices, and spiritual and philosophical beliefs. Nevertheless, Native American cultures share certain traits that are common to many indigenous peoples around the world, including strong ties to the land on which they live.

Please give me permission to take you to another point in our land’s history. Let’s remove ourselves from Ellis Island and Lady Liberty and travel to a time of Columbus and Vespucci. As our European forefathers encountered the original inhabitants of our continent, I could only imagine what trepidations they experienced. In their time, Europe was conquering the world. Their general uniform required trousers, cotton lace shirts, courdorys and thick itchy wools. There was no one in Europe wearing leathers, beads, feathers, and the particular north American animal skins. Each continents form of appropriate dress must have been quite a shock to both parties upon the first decades of exploration through out our North American continent. And it wasn’t soon there after that the Europeans tried to change the questionable attire of the Native Americans that almost lead to the lost of entire Native American tribes.

When European explorers and settlers began to arrive in the Americas in the 15th century, Native Americans found themselves faced with a new set of challenges. Some Native Americans learned to coexist with Europeans, setting up trade networks and adopting European technologies. Many more faced generations of upheaval and disruption as Europeans, and later Americans and Canadians, took Native American  lands and tried to destroy their ways of life. During the 20th century, however, Native             American populations and cultures experienced a resurgence. Today, Native Americans are working to reassert more control over their governments, economies, and cultures.

(when I looked up it was a quarter to 2am at Denny’s. The brain pretty much turned off then)

I Wuv Woo

I Wuv Woo, originally uploaded by kretyen.

had to share this photo with you. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

call and response

call and response, originally uploaded by NymphoBrainiac.

A must see film. A great introduction on one of the biggest issues our global community is facing today. Watch it. Head out this weekend and see it. You will not come home the same.

Saturday Morning in New Orleans

Saturday Morning in New Orleans, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

Do you see me living here at 35? 40? as a grandmother?

I could find happiness and many years of tropical gardening in this lil front yard. It needs a few rocking chairs, an old watering can, sunflowers, morning glories, gardenias, oh hmmmm lots more.

French Quarter at night

French Quarter at night, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

This photo is one of those ones that I would have never been able to have constructed, re-construct, or even dream about. This photo was a photo that I knew if I didn't take it, I would have regrets for the rest of my life.

I started to walk back to my Hotel Duaphine from Bourbon Street. It had already been a lovely evening filled with great jazz music, and a great dinner at Sammy's when I noticed this black bird.

The black bird caughy my eye because it was sound asleep. So asleep that it's neck was nestled into it's chest and had puffed out it's feathers. The bird looked so similar to the chickens I use to have as a kid. They would just fall asleep wherever they felt like closing their eyes, and that's exactly what this lil black bird was doing.

But then I saw a pair of legs next to him and someone relaxing on a stair. This isn't an uncomon look late at night in the quarter. Often times you'll find people sitting on the step and resting from the partying or having a smoke.

After looking at the bird, noticing the shoes, noticing the unbutton buttoned up shirt, the beard and a man gazing at the sky? Wait. He's ...no way? Asleep? Yep sound asleep. Out cold. So I snapped another photo. This time not only of the bird but of his lil friend too the boy (man) in blue.

There the two of them slept, nestled in the arms of the quarter, as a bright halogen filled moon shined down on them ever so brightly. In the middle of the night, in the midst of all the chaos they found time to rest from their days mapped out adventures and opic perspectives.

which leads me to share one of my fave jazz songs with you.
"bye bye blackbird"
I always request this song at pres hall, no one does it like them.

Pack up all my care and woe,
Here I go,
Singing low,
Bye bye blackbird,
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is he,
Bye bye
Blackbird!

No one here can love or understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me,
Make my bed and light the light,
I'll be home late tonight,
Blackbird bye bye.

Pack up all my care and woe,
Here I go,
Singing low,
Bye (bye) bye (bye) blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is he,
Bye (bye) bye (bye) blackbird.


No one here can love or understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me,
(Oh oh oh oh)
Make my bed, light that light,
I'll be home late tonight,
Blackbird...

Make my bed and light the light,
I'll be home late tonight,
bye bye!