Thanksgiving in Seattle

Pike's Market

It has been awhile since my last post. The task of writing seems daunting if I let too much time elapse. We had been anticipating our trip to Seattle over Thanksgiving for some time. Thursday morning we headed of on an unknown journey from Nampa to Seattle. We had lunch at a diner in the middle of nowhere and arrived in the rain & dark at about 6pm. We stayed with a friend on Queen Anne's Hill very close to SPU and downtown Seattle. The weather was a balmy 50 with lots of moisture and greenery, something that is lacking this time of year in Idaho :-)
Downtown Seattle had many fun things to see, we walked along the bay, saw the sculpture park, ate salmon chowder at Pike's Market, and went to the Seattle Art Museum. We also had some great Mango curry at a Thai restaurant in the China town district that was amazing!

Fresh fish at Pike's Market

The main attraction, of course, was to hear Over the Rhine play at the Triple Door (a very swanky dinner theater that was small and intimate). They are one of my favorite bands; a married couple who write their own lyrics, and hail from Ohio, the great midwest. The evening was everything I hoped it would be! The concert was like enjoying great time with friends from home as most of us sang along with Karen and Linford. They played many of their old as well as a few new songs, and even played "Don't wait for Tom" upon my request! Gracias a mi esposo por este regalo tan amable!

Karen Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine

Bruneau Sand Dunes

Well, we finally made it on an outdoor adventure this fall! I am usually craving to get out into the great wide open by this time of the semester. November is a great time to go south of Nampa to the Sand Dunes. It is insanely hot in the summer, so fall and spring are the best time to visit. Brian was a wild man and camped Sat. night along the Snake river, then Sunday afternoon some of our Sat. night group friends, Nic, Alejandra and I drove down to the Dunes to meet up with Brian. We all had a picnic lunch and climbed the big sand dune. It was quite a workout to make it to the top, but well worth it! The view is amazing from the top. The sun was low in the sky and cast great long shadows along the sand. I took a roll of film on my Diana camera.












On the drive back we stopped by some wilderness area and shot at some cans with Brian's 9mm handgun. Very new experience for me. I had never shot a gun in my entire life! It is apparently a common practice in Idaho, and since there is tons of wilderness land with no one for miles, pretty safe.
I cleaned all day Saturday, made Lentil soup and made handmade books late into the night. We are having an Open house for our Art Department and an art sale this Friday. Perhaps I'll sell a few books. This is the last full week before Thanksgiving! We are counting down the days until our trip to Seattle and to see Over the Rhine, woohooo!!! Thanks for reading! Love you all!

Mi Cumpleaños!

Brian & I (and our new glasses)

I had a great 32 birthday celebration! Thanks to my husband, friends and students.... I felt very loved :-) Some of my favorite things were eating empanadas at 'Tangos' a restaurant in Boise, my niece and dad singing happy birthday to me on the phone, eating cake, U2 ringtones and playing crazy games at our friends house on Saturday night. Muchas Gracias! My friend Sandra from Guatemala also called me, so it was fun to talk with her.
We didn't get to go to the Sand Dunes yet, but we went to the Ski Swap and Brian got hooked up with some skis, boots and poles for $58. Can't beat that! Come on snow!
Until next time, keeping on walking!

Alejandra & I making tissue paper flowers!

Dia de los muertos

Saturday was Dia de los muertos, or All Saints Day. A friend of ours Alejandra, is in a group that dances traditional Mexican folklorico dances, and we went to see them perfom Saturday night. It was very cool, good music, fun, lots of colorful dresses and great food! We had tamales, horchata and pan dulce.
November is here! The leaves are still beautiful colors here. My birthday is this friday and I'm hoping we will make it to Bruneau Sand dunes next weekend. I'll post pictures if we go! Have a great week.

Picturing Faith Photography Exhibition

John Collier Jr., Grandfather Romero, NM, 1930s, FSA photograph

Last night I gave an 8 minute speech in the largest auditorium that I have ever had to stand up in. I hardly remember actually speaking, it was very surreal! After all the research and planning, it ended up being fun and exciting to learn about this part in American History and Photography. I guess I should tell you a little about it! We have a photography exhibit at our school right now called "Picturing Faith". The photos are some of the more religious in nature images that the FSA photographers took during the Depression. There are several by Dorthea Lange, including the Migrant Mother, Walker Evans, and John Collier. Colleen McDannell who wrote the book titled "Picturing Faith", organized the show and gave a lecture last night on our campus. There were 3 of us from NNU that spoke as well from our areas of study, mine was photo of course and I talked about the cameras used at the time, and that color film was just out on the market. Kodak had just introdued Kodachrome, 35mm slide film. Most of the images in the Library of Congress are black and white. There are 160,000 photographs at the Library of Congress that were taken as a part of the FSA project.
It was a great experience, but I'm glad the lecture is over, and I can get back to teaching and sleeping :-) Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy the photos. These are all availabe online and are public domain.

Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1938, FSA photograph

Class Demo

We did Vandyke brown prints in Photo 2 last week. This was a negative I took from the double decker bus that Paula and I were on in Dublin, Ireland. This is St. Patrick's cathedral I believe. I shot this with a Holga camera. I should title this "Homage to Foy".

Saturday Market

Buenas tardes! Looks like this blog is becoming a monthly blog. Well, it is the weekend, as my weeks are spent frantically getting ready for class, being in class, grading, figuring out how many ml are in a quart and vice versa. I am really enjoying this semester though. My students are great and I'm glad I spend most of my day with them!
This morning we woke to rain outside, what a great sound!! Rain is rare here, so we love it when it rains. Fall has arrived here in Idaho, and the leaves are turning yellow. I had my morning coffee and meditated on Ps 145:14 "The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down." I then made my usual trek to the downtown Nampa Farmers Market. It's a nice walk on a Sat. morning, the rain had stopped and I got a coffee at the first booth. I picked up some small zucchini squash, some peaches from the Romanian guy, George, who always gives me more than what I pay for. Then got some honey so send to our friend Carol Anne who loves honey in her hot tea!
That's my excitement for the weekend. I'll have to remember my adventures in China until the next road trip! I didn't think I'd get to see the Great Wall, but when I found myself standing on it I could hardly believe it!!

Art Retreat-Sawtooth Mountains

Our Art dept. just went on our 2nd annual Art Retreat. This year we went to the Sawtooth Mountains near Stanely, Idaho. It is gorgeous! I planned the retreat and we stayed at Camp Perkins near Alturas lake. We also made a Cyanotype mural using a twin sized sheet. We exposed the sensitized sheet to the UV rays of the sun with objects on them, and developed it in Redfish Lake. It was an excellent weekend, now I am ready for a vacation :-)

Se fue the weekend

Well, after a short weekend, it is back to school prep. I am planning the Art Retreat for school, we are going to the Sawtooth Mountains! I'll post pics of that next week. This image is currently my desktop background. They are prayer tablets that people paid for and wrote their prayers on and then hung on little hooks. This was at the Big Goose Pagoda, the Da Yin Ta. Maybe we should start a prayer wall at church and then everyone can pray for them, and we can leave them with Jesus instead of picking them back up again like we so often do. Thanks for reading, post a comment!

At the Market

This lady was trying to sell me an awesome old Great China Wall medium format camera, but wouldn't come down on the price. I finally bought some handmade books instead and made friends with her. Ironically many in the market around China speak pretty good English because of the influx of tourists in recent years. I felt a special connection with this woman, she was desperate to sell something, and was very persistent with me, yet kind, and let me take her photograph.This image was shot with a Diana + camera and printed in the darkroom.

Chinese temple

This was a very small, intimate temple in comparison to many others. The smoke of the incense and flickering light of the candle give one the feeling of actually being there and experiencing the sacred quietness that surrounds it. This image was shot with a Diana + camera and processed in a traditional darkroom.

attempt at blogging

Hey, thanks for reading. Since so many of my friends and family live far away from Idaho, I thought I might try blogging so that we can keep in touch better. I am also working on a new body of work and need feedback, and will be teaching a photojournalism class in the spring, so I need to practice my own writing skills.
I am enjoying working at home on class lectures, as today is labor day...though I am still laboring :-)
Some exciting news, Brian and I are planning a trip to Seattle over Thanksgiving Break to see Over the Rhine! YEAH!
Blessings and love to you all!