Midweek Update: Bloomingdale's Tote Contest

The tote bag above is a design for the Bloomingdale's contest...the winning bag will be selected based on both on votes and design quality, and will be sold in their stores! You can vote for my "Go Green!" tote here (you'll see my bag appear as the largest thumbnail on the far right).

Thanks so much for your votes, and I'll be sharing the "story behind this picture" on Friday. Yes, those are my dog's paws and boys' feet, so you know it will be a good one!

Story Behind the Picture: Sing a Little Song

This was just a little creation that came from bits and pieces of other photographs - a collage in its truest form. I made it because I'd like to think that birds take a moment to enjoy each other's company, that their lives aren't solely about scurrying after worms and avoiding the cat sitting in the garden below.

My husband finds this piece very funny, as I'm always begging him to stop singing (if you've heard him, you would know why). I wonder if any birds out there have less-than-perfect voices, and if their mates ever ask them to stop? In any case, these two seemed quite happy with one another, and I'm grateful for their inspiration.

Story Behind the Picture: Capture the Moon

I had a dream about a moon and a solitary tree. Yet, finding a solitary tree in the city of Philadelphia (and the surrounding suburbs) proved to be a wee bit of a challenge. There are plenty of trees to be had of course, but none that sit quietly unobscured without neighboring buildings. Or power lines. Or "No Parking" signs.

I finally found this tree in Valley Forge Park. I wandered for quite a while, hunting for the perfect tree from which to hang my moon. The acres of grass were heavy with water, and I was grateful for having thought to wear my Wellies. I loved searching for, and finally finding, this one perfect tree. All that was left to add was a dusky sky, a few stars, and a sleeping moon caught unaware.

So then, for whom would you capture the moon?

Story Behind the Picture: Alice

I never loved Cinderella, Snow White, or any of the other passive, please-rescue-me-types who whistled while they scrubbed floors or wiled the years away waiting for someone else to pull them out of the tower. My hero was always the girl who had the nerve to dive down the rabbit hole, crash the tea party, and stand up to the army of cards dispatched by the Queen of Hearts. She ran fast, ate what she liked, and was never cowed by anyone she encountered during her adventures. Her curiosity inspired me, her bravery impressed me, her black Mary Jane shoes delighted me.

And they still do.

Story Behind the Picture: Time to Go

Things I've learned in life:
~ hold on to only the important things
~ have friends who own fabulous shoes, preferably in your size

The suitcase belonged to my great-aunt. It might not seem a likely thing for me to keep around for all these years, but it's the one she carried on the train from Philadelphia to Phoenix as she raced to elope with her fiancee before he left for World War II. Readers here might remember another story about this night, so this piece really could be a bit of a prequel.

My dear friend J, who has stellar taste in footwear, helped me find just the right shoes for this photograph. She also let me take over her foyer with my equipment while our children behaved like crazy people in her home. The story this piece tells isn't just about my aunt. It's for all of us who've ventured out that first time alone. The possibilities, the nerves, the challenge of taking along only what you can carry.

I promise I don't have a shoe fetish - I'm working on a commissioned series, and the only guidance was "shoes." I decided each should be a little sonnet about life - our lives - something to which every woman can relate. What was your first solo adventure? I'd love for you to share it with me.

Midweek Update: Interview and Giveaway

Many thanks to the lovely Felicia of "Another Bright Idea" who so kindly interviewed me this week! Please pay a visit to her blog and enter for a chance to win my "Love Park" art glass pendant...you can give it away to a lucky gal, or keep it for yourself (shhh...I'll never tell).
Check back here tomorrow for the next "story behind the picture!

Story Behind the Picture: Run Like a Girl

It was the first day of my junior year in high school. The physics lab broiled in the heat of the early September sun. I looked around at my classmates (mostly seniors), and realized there was only one other person wearing a skirt in the room beside myself.

Mr. C began his “Welcome to AP Physics” speech with all the enthusiasm of someone whose spare time was filled with accelerometers, calculators, and equations. As I shifted my weight on the uncomfortable yellow lab stool, I head him pause. He looked directly at me, and then to the one other person wearing a skirt in the room, and uttered the following:

“You might as well prepare yourselves: girls traditionally do not do well in this class.”

What I wanted to do was get up off the uncomfortable yellow lab stool, take my newly sharped pencil, and stab it in his neck. What I did do was sit perfectly still, my hands clasped in angelic fashion atop my text book, and gaze back at him with my most winning smile (which, I’m certain, was tinged with discernible malice). The validation to the pulse pounding in my ears and adrenaline flowing in my veins was my lab partner’s barely audible comment of “oh, no he just didn’t...” I’m not sure if he was horrified by Mr. C’s statement, or if he was just concerned I might go on a sharpened-pencil-stabbing spree right there in the lab.

He needn’t have worried. I had no intention of murdering Mr. C. It was far more enjoyable to watch his face each time he handed me my test results. For one year I enjoyed the delicious satisfaction of earning one of the highest grades. Of the entire class. Including the boys.

Fast-forward ten years to the soccer fields where my husband and I coached our team of middle-school girls. “Time for push-ups!” he called, “and just so you know, there are no GIRLY push-ups allowed!”

Imagine, if you will, the sound of 15 girls (and one of their coaches) gasping at the sound of the word “girly” being used as a euphemism for “weak.”

I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next. As he apologized to the girls (many of whom were giving him looks that echoed my own pencil-in-the-jugular expression) for his poor choice of words, I realized sexist comments should always be harnessed for the opportunity-providing-pieces-of-nonsense that they are. Never ignore them. Never pretend they don’t exist, only to seep into the cracks of your psyche when you least expect them. Instead, hear them: hear them for the insanity that they are. Turn it around on them. Relish the look on their faces when you answer every test question correctly. Enjoy the feeling as you complete 30 “girly” push-ups...you know, the kind where your legs are perfectly straight and your knees never touch the ground? Those are the only kind of girly push-ups I know how to do.