searching for structure

tiny tiles color my world...thank you Marc Chagall

through the looking glass @ the Cass

Hubby and I went to Chicago

and this is what we saw 14 stories above Wabash...

that's big John H with the double antenna

  I like the stairs and columns and flower beds

sprinkled blue below

reflections of modern architecture 

imitating art deco

lines, lines, lines

repeating and retreating

from my peeping

 yes, that's snow/sleet/wtf, this is April!

 Ah, sunshines upon us in the morrow

 as we begin our morning walk 

toward Trump's shiny tower

and beyond

much more to see in my kinda' town

to be continued for your viewing pleasure

ps:  the scenes improve and so do my shots.

Easter peace friends.  Namaste.

~L

merry Christmas friends

Sweet Relief collects over $13,000 for Matthew Leone

you can read the story about Madina Lake's bassist here

the donation widget is over there>>>>>
and there are fundraisers in place also,
if you want more info/links, write to me.
thanks and peace,
~L

Congratulations Blackhawks and Chicago!!

2010 STANLEY CUP WINNERS

chicago chronicles, part 2: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I mentioned the long car rides into the Chicago skyline.  Our family auto was large and long and luxurious.  Seat belts were perfectly rolled up and tucked away.  Electronic windows and door locks and power steering graced our ride.  The soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever blasted from the 8 track tape player and taught me every word to every song the Bee Gees and Diana Ross sang in the 1970's.  Staying alive and stepping out.

Each Sunday we stepped into Hockey jerseys and headed to the city. Our destination: the Chicago Stadium and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game.  Dad had 5 season seats for the five members of our tribe.  Part of our routine and tradition of Sunday games was the dinner preceding.  Greek Town!  Roditi's or the Islands.  Either establishment welcomed my dad and his entourage.  Dad seemed to know everyone...host, server, guy cutting off the gyros meat from the lamb on the big spit.  My early journey into restaurant etiquette and fellowship.

I was a picky eater as a kid, so Greek food did not interest me.  That's OK, I had chicken.  Every Sunday in Greek-land I ate the same food:  appetizer of crispy bread and pats of butter, baked Greek chicken with rice, and a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cold metal dish.  I didn't eat the flaming Saganaki cheese, but I definitely wanted the waiter to light that fire at our table.  OPA! Boy did I have stories to tell at school the next morning.

For years I thought valet parking was how all visitors to the city were treated.  Our car was usually pre-heated by the man in the knit cap and gloves, and pulled up to the curb just as we  walked outside.  Bitter Chicago winds were no match for well-tipped valets.  Dad's regularity kept all parties in anticipatory trust.  And his children knew that a night in the city with father was never boring.

On the drive between dinner and hockey is when I realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  Maybe twenty minutes, sometimes felt like five.  Lots to spy out my car window.  Lots to learn about life outside suburbia.  Differences marked memories and similarities invoked imagination.  I was passing through someone else's life without invitation.  My visitor badge was not pinned on my lapel for quick identification.  My anonymity represented my naivety and I felt invisible behind the glass.

The Chicago Stadium is no longer.  In the 1970's and 80's it housed the Blackhawks games, almost two every week during the season.  Standing proudly on Madison Street, west of the blocks of sky scrapers and business and shopping and tourists, The Stadium, as everyone called it, was in the middle of nowhere.  In other words, I heard my parents say it wasn't in a very nice area. Reminder to lock the car doors and walk closely to the adults is ingrained on my childhood brain.  I never knew what I was being protected from.  I only knew what I observed through that glass.

Neighborhoods.  Schools with playgrounds.  Churches. Grocery shops and bars with neon signs.  Chain link fences and chain basketball nets.  Boarded up buildings with broken furniture on their stoops.  Row houses with front gates and little lawns and children playing.  Police station proudly wearing its number on the stone front,  above the giant double wood doors, in front of the regal staircase, like the one on Hill Street Blues.  Everything appears larger than life, more important, different.

Usually the drive was near dusk.  In the thick of winter we drove through darkness.  The games started at 7:30.  Dad brought us early to watch our team practice, or just following, so we could hunt for pucks shot under the red seats.  As we approached our destination we also approached fandom.  And my view changed.  Gone were the lonely streets and lives of citizens. We merged into a mild chaos of hockey fanatics.  

Walking in the same direction.  Wearing the same colors and emblems.  Shouting and waving tickets and holding signs.  "Need 2"  "Have 2"  "Parking $10" Red and white jerseys painted the once dull scape.  Parking lots filled up with queued vehicles.  Lot owners bundled in flannel and down and Indian head regalia, accessorized with waist aprons full of cash.  Flashlights bounced at the intersection where uniformed police directed our traffic.  Sometimes the cop held a whistle in his mouth, just like the ones on TV.  My eyes danced and my heart skipped.  My senses stimulated into overdrive.  This is it!  We're here! The rush and thrill and buzz emanated through the car and into my mind.  My first taste and touch and tour...of my kinda' town.

 

~to be continued soon... GO HAWKS!!!

NIEMI...my hero

Since I'm having a hard time motivating myself to clean, plant, cook, or grocery shop, I'm dabbling in blog land. Going through my dashboard reader I peruse the variety of magz, blogs, and photo ops I've bookmarked for my reading pleasure. 

The chosen article this morning is an ode to my hero, Antti Niemi, Chicago Blackhawks goalie extraordinaire.  Stanley Cup game 2 recap @ RosenBlog. Add this author to your reader if you like sports, he won't disappoint.

2 more to WIN the CUP

Keeping with my current Chicago theme (the Blackhawks beat the Flyers tonight), and before I finish my second installment (read this for part one), I pulled this out of my rough draft pile to share some thoughts I recorded after my Chicago photo walk in March.

this city is incredible.
people talk and gesture to themselves while walking.
the stairs to the river walk smell like piss.
Lincoln Park residents were the only pedestrians who made eye contact with me and my greeting.
pigeons are slow to walk, low to fly, and colorful up close.
Chagall rocks.
I love the L.
thrift stores floweth over with used goodness.
buildings are marked with a name on their exterior which has nothing to do with their interior contents (the chicago cultural center lives in the former chicago public library).
many outdoor clocks.
six street intersections can be puzzling to the newly initiated.
your sales taxes are double mine.
drivers like their horns.
a river runs through it.
there's only one michigan ave bridge :)
the big body of water is on the east side instead of the west.
I heard a lady call the bean a shiny silver ball.
crazy photographers aren't given a second look.
statues and domes and gargoyles, oh my.

and my awesome family and friends let me visit...sometimes.
future chicago resident,
L

chicago chronicles, part 1: A river runs through it...backwards

In honor and elation of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team playing in the Stanley Cup finals, I have written a two part post, essay, ode to, obsessive rant...about a city I love and why.  The Hawks skate Saturday night at home in game #1.  The caliber of hockey during May has been outstandingly exciting, so if you've not really liked to watch because it seemed boring or like slow motion (because it can sometimes), then NOW is the time to experience how furious and fast and ferocious men can be with pounds of sweaty padding taped onto their already buff bods while balancing on two blades, slamming against bodies and boards, sprinting and slashing and scrumming on ice, all the while strategically planning the puck's next route into the net.  Genius!

Chicago seemed so far away.  The big buildings and bright lights.  The long car ride on the busy highways.  The unexplored territory heard so much about on the TV, radio, in song lyrics.  Didn't Frank Sinatra sing that song?

Suburbs of Chicago.  That's where we lived.  Wheeling first, then Palatine.  You may or may not have heard of them.  Famous for nothing.  My husband grew up in...wait for it...Arlington Heights!  Yep, the one with the horse race track.  Now that's special, if you gamble or own horses or live nearby.  So we are suburbabies (I just made that up).  Where our parents landed.

As the big city grew and caught up to our forests and farmlands, as the highways and byways widened and exited into our lanes and boulevards, the mess meshed and we emerged as one.  One big happy family called Chicagoland or Chicago Area or northwest suburbs of Chicago.  My kinda' town, she is.  No matter what you call her, she's a gem of the Midwest.  Really.  Trust me on this.  The city is unique and cultural and secretive and warm. 

...walking among the sky scrapers, which claim the tallest of the world at one time or another, watching the walkers and noticing news, visiting Sue at the Field Museum and touching everything scientific and industrious, catching a ball game at the friendly confines or Sox park (I refuse to rename any of it:  what you talkin' 'bout Willis?).

Fireworks and music and parks and gardens. Museums and galleries and mom and pop greasy spoons. Street vendors and tour guides and homeless citizens begging for attention.  Daley and Ditka. Peyton and Picasso.  Buckingham fountain and the Flamingo business district.  Blues on the Mall and Taste of Chicago.  The Bears and Blackhawks and bus routes and boat tours.  Ferris Beuhler and ferris wheel at the pier.  North Avenue beach volleyball, Lincoln Park zoo.   Namesake University, O'Hare's airport,  remnants of the fire.   I-90, I-94, I-80, the Kennedy, the Borman, the Eisenhower, the Skyway, the Loop, the circle and the "L."

Regardless of my address, this city is where I LIVE.  My family, my friends, my schoolmates, my memories live there.  Elementary school field trips, family outings with Annie and the Nutcracker, visits to friends living with doormen and valet parking,  hosting relatives from out of our town, Water tower shopping and Michigan Avenue wishing, fancy restaurants serving escargot and baked Alaska, Frango mint sundaes at Marshall Fields on State.

Chicago is my constant.  My rock steady.  I count on the colors and comfort of the usual suspects.  I visit for verification, for reminder of my reality.  She sorts me into my slot and nudges me nearer to now.  Change doesn't wait for me to catch up.  Names and numbers and nuances must be relearned.  Even mine.  She's keeping me aware and awake as I age.  Teams and tourist traps guide my growth.  The elevated train drives me to reconnections and new views.  I believe in this metropolis and she believes in me.  We're friends.  Old friends.

I may have mentioned my infatuation with Chicago sports teams once or twice.  Chicagoans are fanatic for sure.  Affiliation with a team may be in your blood or inherited from your best friend.  Lifelong.  Games and stats and predictions fill bars and coffee shops and water cooler conversations.   Lovable losers and the billy goat.  Jim McMahon and the Superbowl Shuffle.  Jordan's air and Harry's specs.  WGN and WFLD.  Jerseys and ball caps and banners decorate children's walls and parents' party rooms.  Flags fly on game days and our own private civil war rages April through October.

I've attended each men's pro events.   With or in place of friends, tickets purchased or gifts received, sporadically or seasonally, icicle eyebrows or sweaty seats, win or lose...each experience remembered and savored and enjoyed like no other since.  Despite my lack of organized athleticism, I learned to respect the rules of Chi-town fandom.  Even today, living in Michigan and paying several sums of money to Michigan State University to educate our daughter, even despite my enthusiasm for the young Red Wing who skated into our community's heart, besides the fact that I graduated from a college in Indiana, my love for Chicago sports reigns supreme.  Wherever I travel I spy Chicago team logos.  Chicago fans relocate but never jump ship.  Next time you watch a Chicago team play an away game, notice how many supporters are in those unfamiliar seats and listen for the chants and cheers made famous only in Chi-town...my kinda' town.

...to be continued soon.
PEACE,
~L 

just one thing

Recently a friend asked me what I was afraid of, why I'm not opening my heart and "using my gifts" on my blog, like I used to do...Challenge!  

Well he's not too far from right:  I have held back a bit. Since my words to important people in my life, people of my life, people I live for, set off a firestorm of anxiety. Some people are hurt.  Some are helped and some helped me.  Some wonder and watch.  Some question my processes.  Human beings I love, know more me.

I responded with face to face conversations, more truth, and putting my best work back into 'draft' mode.  Why?  To settle what I stirred.  To see what soup I created out of spontaneous epiphany.  To wait for the dust to settle.  To step back and peer through the window.  To talk to my husband instead of write about talking.  To assess my artistic senses with God's lead.  To watch my world through opened eyes.  

Perspective gained.  Respect delivered and received.  Confidence soaring on mended wings and meaning.  I've found and discovered something new each day since I wrote this piece.  Each moment lived with my blessings and family and friends, lived and loved and longed for more.

Here is more of me...just one thing.

 And I want it so bad, it's the first thing I see when I wake~my morning jacket

 

You may or may not have noticed a change in me. I've made a discovery about myself.   I've unwrapped a few layers and found perspective.  My new view.  My eye for the shot and my feel for the words. Talent.  Art. I am artistic. Two hobbies restarted in the past 6 months for the purpose of sorting and compartmentalizing priorities, goals, and next steps...Poof!  These ARE your priorities, goals and next steps. Really?  Who says?  How do you know?  Do you have proof?

They fit me.  I fit into them.  Yes, like a glove.  The feelings of satisfaction and purpose and knowing...priceless and unexpected and warranted.  You may understand this passion for self discovery.  You may understand how you look in your mirror and congratulate yourself.  You may know feeling accomplished because you completed, finished, succeeded, attempted, adhered.  You may have felt satisfaction and pride.  You may know how I feel now.

I am the lighting for my shot.  I am the thesis for my essay.  My fingers unconsciously moving across the keyboard produce comprehension.  My eyes hunt and search for composition among the mundane.  Naturally talented, gifted, surprised.

And I have proof.  This is not random thought trying to fit into specific challenge.  This is not a whim suggested by behavior of another.  I did not choose these creative expressions.  They chose me.  God chose me.  I accept my gifts and promise to handle them with care.  Thank you.

So now what?  Where to go, where to take my writing and shooting?  How do I use them for the greater good?  Funny how the expression, "starving artist" keeps popping into my mind.  Making money from my recently found completeness may be difficult or unnecessary.  Maybe my talents are not meant for production.  Maybe I should be shooting and writing to spread the word, the news, to educate, initiate, expedite.  This is not all about me.  It's bigger than me.

I am filling with spirit and my soul is awakening. I've worked at nothing purposely.  My work, my creative work, is my purpose.  My meaning.  ME.  I feel defined for the first time ever.  Not labeled with the role I must play or the line I should walk.  I feel discovered and highlighted and glowing.  The cracks of my years are aligning into a supportive foundation.  Goodbye fog, hello structure.  My structure.  This crashing force, energized by fresh purpose, keeps me breathing.  Breathing easier now.  Breathing the breath of my future.

My entire life has been a search party for this very day.  My day of unconditional love and honest acceptance.  My day to prove to family and friends, past and present, that I can do it.  Not just say I can.  Mean I can.  BE I can.  This unconditionality does not originate from the love of a human being as I believed it always would.  Should.  No, this brand spankin' new confidence, joy and longing, grows from within myself.  My soul and mind have enmeshed into a shining colorful aura and has settled peacefully into the chambers of my heart, the recesses of my skin, and rides gently the rapids of every breath I take.

I don't want this feeling to end.  Rough, raw, and rare with a sprinkle of humility.

People who know me and my search history, may think my methods have been haphazardly conducted.   I had to follow the threads, no matter where they went, as long as I felt loved along the way.  Acceptance by proxy.  Patterns formed and habits stuck.  Four decades makes marks and leaves scars and develops self reputation.  Self labels are applied and the consequences are invisibly damaging.  Beliefs form out of fragments of behavior, theirs and mine.  Settling comes with the territory of balance.  Expression dims as necessary and whole pieces break off the core.  My core.  My wishes and dreams.  My wants and needs.  My self, my being, my id and ego.  Cracking up and cracking open.  Investigations initiated and specialists referred.  We can rebuild her.  

Writing sporadically I soothed demons.  Shooting infrequently, I shared love.  Sparks not strong enough to create fire yet.  Keep rubbing those sticks together...you'll get it eventually.  Don't give up.  Keep trying.  You can do it.  Do what?

I don't want to list the ventures, a-ha moments, or sure things that strung me together over the years.  Sacrifices were made for my eventual success and martyrs wait patiently for their reward.  Here it is.  This is it.  I have found what I've been looking for.  I am ready to continue to self-nurture my strengths.  For the first time.  For the last time.  For now.  No more looking.  No more wonder.  This is my talent, my being, my core.  Nice to meet you.

game 6

she's babbling again!

My new favorites are Coldplay and Virginia Woolf.  Last week I re-listened to a Coldplay disc in which I have no idea the name, partially because all the writing is Chinese.  Jeff goes to China a few times every year, for business, and he gets great deals on music and bootlegged first run movies.  Once we started watching 'The Producers' and realized we had company.  On or in the movie, we heard the audience.  Yea, the cinema audience where the movie was running for all to pay their hard earned Chinese money on popcorn and juju candy, and apparently, to produce home movies of other people's work.  Poor quality, annoying movie audience, five American bucks down the drain.  In retrospect, the barely there cardboard cover with a nearly there photo and exclusively foreign writing, should have clued one of our intelligent brains in before we hit play.  Live and learn.

So, back to my new faves...Coldplay just happened to be in the cd pile and I just happened to be rearranging and procrastinating nearby.  Put it in the trip pile.  Oh yeah, I took an unexpected road trip through a few mid western states last week.  Dad went into the hospital in Milwaukee so I volunteered my day to sit with him, bro and sis did their time, and to hang out and help out with my aforementioned siblings' families.  Well, really I don't have to be asked twice to play with my nieces and nephews.  Had a blast, shot lots of pics, got outdoors, raked up the automobile miles, saw stuff from my youth, remembered why spring is a popular season.  All is well now with Dad.  He's home and so am I.  States traveled:  MI>IN>IL>WI>IL>IN>MI.

Other music travels with me, in my car, one cd player, no itunes, no ear buds, just me and the cd.  I rock out, big time.  If you pass me on the highway expect to see every part of my visible body moving.  Arms flailing, head boppin', hands drummin', feet tapping (cruise control is my friend) and mouth mouthing.  One way to stay awake.  The best music is familiar.  If I know the words and my body knows the beat, I'm on cruise control too.  The other listening option is a baseball game on AM radio.  Driving home last week I listened to 2 Chicago ball games at the same time.  Good thing my steering wheel is equipped with radio station controls.  Oh, by the way, both teams won and I am happy for both.  Yes, I can root for the Cubs and the White Sox at the same time, regardless of what most of chicago thinks.  I bat to the pitch of a different...what?  you get the point.

Speaking of Chicago and sports and my incongruent alliances...HOCKEY!  Blackhawks are my childhood memories and Red Wings are my adult admiration.  More for a later post.  Be ready.

Almost forgot Virginia.  The story begins a few weeks ago at a thrift store I pop into occasionally.  I always peruse book selections at resale shops, antique outlets, and garage sales.  I mean, for 50 cents or a buck you can find great words in a somewhat shabby chic binding, with intentions to share with your friend later, or add to your collection of favorite authors like the one I have strewn throughout every room in our house.  I digress...so I picked up the biography of Virginia Woolf by her nephew Quentin Bell.  I have not read the iconic Ms Woolf and am very interested to know why my friend G likens my work to hers.  Thus, I have been searching for Woolf at all cheaper book seller establishments.  It's all about the hunt, don't ya know?  OK, so V Woolf did not write this book.  Close enough.  50 cents, remember?  I got my fifty cents worth on page one and haven't looked back!  I love this man's writing style, the careful research he has amassed from the plethora of extended family authors, and the story reads like an historical novel.  Some biographies or auto-bios are starchy and plain.  Not this one.  Ms Woolf's life is fascinating.  Her modus operandi is incredible.  Her family is entertaining and artistic.  Her journey is full and colorful and true.  Bell writes with the utmost respect for his ancestors and weaves his Aunt's tale precisely.  Excerpts from Virginia's work, as early as her sibling childhood newspaper and personal familial letters, allow me a peek into her thought patterns and a glimpse of her writing genius.  My brother-in-law owns Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" so I will begin there.  Intrigued and inspired to say the least.

I'll keep you updated...on Woolf, hockey (game tonight), and my travels.  Photos are in process of being batched, uploaded, and shared soon.  Spring is overloading my computer memory!
peace always,
~L

'I see YOU'

my friend @ Mainland Streel has a 30 day challenge of blog prompts...

here's one of my offerings for day 11

a photo of myself, taken recently

(you may have seen this one already)

Chicago
my kinda town
city life
man's making
God's coast
God's people
with and without homes
or names
or numbers on plastic cards
people I talk to
smile with

one man sings to me
makes me laugh
outside the art house
under the lions
on route 66
just up the street
the famous street
named after my favorite
Michigan
my home
he has none

up the street
down the avenue
under the L tracks
above the clouds
inside the window
around the corner
bakery

hidden gems
city sanctuary
shiny sparks
dull dust on the thrift store shelves
black and white framed precisely
 sun stoked brick
bursting freckles
swift steps stalking the shot
one posed, one not
Linclon Park
Paulina
saturday swoon
walked way past noon
 
my home here
and there
and wherever I roam
city or country
I am the mouse
muse
meant for

 music and beauty and sweet smells and sounds
visions of grace and greed and grime
arousing suspicions
reflecting red white and blue
for you
with or without a job
flying high and expecting higher
on the seventh day
scraping the clear sky
 waving at the little people
 below
 with or without homes
the silence of history surrounds
Sunday

alas, the artists speak
in the bulls eye of business
Chagall, Calder, Picasso
mosaic of millions
great orange bird bending
face the music
on public property

see the sights
touch the steel

assess each angle

wonder what he was thinking
feeling and saying
about the people passing
 staring
 loving and learning
 ignoring and inspiring
 taking for granted
 and granting permission
providing purpose
 of puzzle pieces fitting
 where they weren't allowed before
 of childrens' eyes affected
 by their internal light
 never lost
 always found and flourishing
 art

 raindrops and river
rushing to meet the train station
 last minute focus
 last looks
someone else's photography
inside someone's former library
on the famously named street
where I met the man
with no home

full circle
three days
one person
hundreds of views
thousands of thoughts
memories amassed
purpose
point
direction
intention
meaning
of life
in
God's city

tears of a clown

I wrote this piece a few weeks ago, after my weekend city shoot in Chicago.  "Four Seasons" is an outdoor mosaic created by artist Marc Chagall.  His work stands proudly on a plaza among the historic business district of the south Loop.  When you next visit Chicago, please find this oasis among the steel and brick and business.

I cried while looking at the Chagall.  They just started, filled my wide open eyes.  Sitting alone in the middle of giants, beauty beyond any expectation.  I wept and felt relief. The pigeons kept me company and the sound was unbearably quiet.  Or maybe I tuned out everything that wasn't on those tiles.  The colors spoke to me, all randomly ordered.  The scenes and suns pulled me closer.  After walking the perimeter twice, I knew where to find Marc Chagall's six signatures.  I shot all six. Shot every wall, every angle, every sun in every scene.  A Sunday morning oasis where I recognized hope.  Walking away felt uneasy.  Looking back through damp eyes, I promised my return.

My mind and heart don't line up on the same plane as they did last week.  Chicago changed everything.  I changed.  I chose and I changed.  Walking alone but with my camera, my other eye, and meeting whatever I wanted to shoot.  Choices belonged to me alone.  Each one wrapped in me.  Wrapped with my freedom, security, knowing.  Passion fires burning for three days.  Passion for pursuit.  Pursuing my future one minute at a time.  One shot plus one more plus the next one.  All lining up for me, because of me, in spite of me.  When I look into my new mirror I see through the viewfinder.  The camera fits me.  I am the camera.  

And how do I move from this intersection of reality?  Remains to be seen is creeping closer.   Feels like the first time and feels like forever.  Life is never boring and I like it.  Building my puzzle is challenging, especially when I find new pieces so often.  Is God trying to tell me that I am running out of time?  You and I both know the answer to that one.  Life is now.

Since I posted my chi-town pics, 4 more people have clicked my blog follow button and many compliments have been sent my way.  Never have I been validated like this.  I'm an amateur.  My talent is raw.  I'm flattered and overwhelmed.  I feel like I'm in a dream sequence where all that was status quo is suddenly dropped upside down and shattered into millions of pieces.

I'm not a strong-willed personality.  I need people to prop me.  That's how I'm built.  At 43 years old with two giant passions overtaking my daily sensibilities, I need to share and see my fire spark more.  I need to-know-me-is-to-love-me.  The gloves off and the cards laid on the table.  The benefit of the doubt.  The trust.  My blog has been good for me, and I  keep shooting, and transforming.  With each click of the keyboard and each snap of the shutter, I move away from the fork in my road and away from empty.  I'm filling up.  finally.