change the truth update (and shop til you drop)

Folks who are interested in going to Uganda with me in December are gathering at my home this coming Sunday night. It’s time to start the process all over again, and I am very excited about that! Please contact me if you would like to attend this information-gathering meeting.

If you missed the opportunity to see Lynne’s film at the CTT Friendraiser/Fundraiser in June, you’ll be happy to hear that it is being shown again at events on August 8th in Kansas City and September 8th in New York City! Again, please contact me if you are interested in getting more information about either presentation.

Now for the shopping part of this post:

Many of you weren’t able to attend the June 12th event and therefore were not able to see our new t-shirts, caps, posters, tote bags and note cards, and unless you are a frequent visitor to the CTT website store, you don’t know of the existence of these snappy new items! Let me know if you’d like to order anything; CTT takes checks and credit cards now, so you can just email me if you’d like to purchase something.

cap/$20

10 note cards/$20

t-shirt/$20

tote bag $10

poster #1/$15

poster #2/$15

There are still a few of the children's drawings and paintings available for purchase:

unframed drawing/$25

unframed drawing/$25

framed drawing/$50

framed drawing/$50

framed painting/$100

framed painting/$100

Please email me, your new personal shopper! gbfeinstein@aol.com

jews in uganda

More than 250 Africans converted to Judaism in Uganda last week.

The conversions were supervised by Gershom Sizomu, Africa's first native-born black rabbi, and other Conservative rabbis from the United States.
 A ceremony in the Abayudaya village of Nabogoye included converts from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Some 800 Abayudayans formally converted to Judaism in 2002. ‘The relationship between God and the Jews in the Torah resonates for many spiritual seekers,’ Sizomu said. ‘It is important that Africans and others know that they can choose Judaism as a spiritual path and that we are open to them.’

- www.jta.org

In the 1880s, British missionaries converted the powerful Bagandan warrior Semei Kakungulu to Christianity. Because Kakungulu was a Protestant, British colonists commissioned him to bring the fertile African lands near the Nile’s source at Lake Victoria under their influence. Kakungulu won the lands, but became disenchanted with the British when they limited his domain to a 20 mile square plot near today’s small city of Mbale, 160 miles from the Ugandan capital of Kampala. He broke with them in 1913 when he joined the Malachites, a movement that the British called a cult because it combined Christianity with Judaism and Christian Science, and began to rewrite the Christian bible as a Malachite tome. Kakungulu became more and more a follower of Jewish tradition and less a familiar Protestant. In 1919 he circumcised his sons and himself and declared his community Jewish.

Soon the British could communicate with him no longer and forced him from Mbale. Kakungulu fled to the foothills of Mount Elgon to a village called Gangama where he started a separatist sect known as Kibina Kya Bayudaya Absesiga Katonda (the Community of Jews who Trust in the Lord). After the warrior’s death, his followers split into two groups – one that retained a belief in Jesus and another, the Abayudaya, that became devout Jews. These Abayudaya isolated themselves from the Christians for fear of reprisal, passing Jewish traditions from generation to generation, maintaining their community through a succession of anti-Semitic regimes such as that of Idi Amin, whose soldiers outlawed the Jews’ rituals and destroyed their synagogues. With poor communications equipment and very little personal mobility, the Abayudaya did not establish connections with any outside Jewish communities; they maintained their traditions in total isolation. In the ‘60s and ‘70s the initial members of the Abayadaya community began to grow elderly and implored the rising generation to extend themselves to Jews outside of Uganda. The community reached out to Israel in the ‘60s and ‘70s and even had the first secretary of the Israeli embassy in Uganda visit them.

In 1992, Matthew Meyer, a Brown University student studying in Kenya, heard of the Abayudaya and traveled to Mbale to spend the Sabbath with them. He returned to the United States with photographs, cassettes of the community choir singing Hebrew prayers to African melodies and letters from Abayudaya community members in both English and Hebrew. Since then, other English-speaking travelers have visited the Abayudaya, bearing gifts such as a new Torah and money from the Brown University Hillel to build a synagogue.

- www.mindspring.com

"faces of breast cancer" project

It’s time for me to start working on the 2009 exhibition/calendar for the Shawnee Mission Hospital Breast Center. I have done this project for the past several years. Each summer I receive a list of names: twelve breast cancer survivors. My job is to photograph and feature these men and women in an ongoing project about courage and inspiration.

My name was at the top of the list this time around. Sort of startled me. Then I remembered - oh yeah, I’m a survivor now.

In years past, I’ve tried to come up with some sort of theme, if you will. This time, I am giving the following “assignment” to each of the twelve, well… eleven other subjects.

It goes like this:

“Please consider a gesture, an object (which will be used in the portrait) or a single word (which will be incorporated into the portrait) that either helped get you through your ordeal or that symbolizes how you feel having gotten through it.

I will leave it up to your imagination to interpret these guidelines.”

My first shoot is Thursday. I’m looking forward to seeing what the subjects come up with and how our collaborations go. And I need to figure out how I will interpret my own guidelines.

alexandre orion

Yesterday I attended a lecture by New York gallerist Michael Foley at the Nelson-Atkin Museum. He talked about, among other things, some of the contemporary photographers he represents. By making references to photographers from the past, he adeptly wove together old and new visions. He began his introduction of the young artist Alexandre Orion by discussing and showing the work of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. Levitt came to mind for me, as well.

Orion began making art as a teenage graffiti artist on the streets of Sao Paolo. He is a self-taught photographer and has been exploring the theory and practice of the medium since 2001. Now in his late twenties, he has recently been experimenting with a combination of his street art and his fascination with photography. He calls this series “Metabiotica.” Orion stencils his drawings onto walls in Sao Paolo, then waits for passersby to approach, walk past and “interact” with them. He creates photographic images of the unstaged dialogues, most of which evoke, at least for me, not only humor and spontaneity, but also intrigue, mystery and impending doom. I was really taken with Orion's work and want to share a few of the pictures here.

to tattoo or not to tattoo

I had dinner last night with two women friends - dear friends who have been in my corner every step of the way since I was diagnosed with DCIS.

Somewhere between the fresh organic pear/strawberry/goat cheese/spinach salad and the vegetable/saffron risotto, the conversation turned to my breasts. Now, this really isn’t too unusual, given that I have surgeries and scars and seeming asymmetry always on the tip of my tongue these days. After we discussed the current state of my health, we veered into a dialogue about women who have chosen to complete their reconstruction with the application of a nipple and women who have chosen to do nothing about getting a nipple and women who have chosen to get a bright, bold tattoo instead of the standard circular, tan fare that would (if the plastic surgeon had his/her way) become the areola.

They told me they knew of women who had gone for roses, even stars in lieu of the status quo.

My son had actually mentioned this possibility to me when I first told him how reconstruction works. I included the gory details about nipple building, and he jokingly (?) suggested I act like the rebel I really am and get an anchor (with the words “I love Ed”) in place of the more normal, spherical option. I have had a few good laughs relaying this to various people over the last few months. But, according to my two dinner pals, it seems some women really do it!

Would my plastic surgeon drive me to the tattoo parlor on Main Street and oversee the procedure? Or would he agree to let the young, well pierced and well decorated tattoo artist join him and let her put on scrubs to do the deed under the bright lights of the chilly, operating room? Or, maybe, to my surprise, he’ll pull out a book of tattoo samples from the top drawer of his desk and act like it’s no big deal.

Do you think he’d recommend a dragon or a phoenix? Perhaps he’d settle for a more simple but elegant Chinese symbol.

Ooh, maybe I should opt for something in Hebrew.

portrait time

Summer, in my little corner of the world, means commissioned portraits. I am not taking any new clients, but am still happily working with families I’ve photographed over these oh so many years.

I am lucky. I get to work past the cheesy smiles and get right down to the business of portraying something that is, dare I say, more real? My clients don’t mind scraped knees, scowls, contemplation or missing teeth showing in their pictures.

I am also lucky because I have known most of these kiddos since they were barely able to sit up. Some since just a few days after they made themselves known in the world.

It’s a tough job, as they say, but someone’s gotta do it.

learning about the holocaust

Bronia and me

Last night we took our friend Bronia to a presentation at a local school. It was given by a high school senior and her English teacher, both of whom had been part of an intense group tour of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic to study the Holocaust. We watched a video about the trip, heard remarks from both the student and teacher and then sat through a Q & A. It is always inspiring to witness the enlightenment of a new generation when it comes to something like this horrific part of our history. It was obvious that this young woman, along with the other twelve students on the trip, had been changed by what she learned. It was obvious that she and her new friends will work hard to teach others about the importance of tolerance, compassion and respect.

When the presentation ended and people were starting to get out of their seats, Bronia rose - and in her low, strong, Polish accented voice, said, “I was there.” Everyone turned to her, and she thrust her arm out so all could see the tattooed number. The room grew quiet, and then she started to tell a little bit of her story. It was the perfect way for the young girl who had just talked about her trip, as well as those who had come to hear her, to (literally) see history in the flesh.

Going anywhere with Bronia is an adventure, a surprise and always turns into a lesson of some sort.

We went for ice cream afterwards. She said she hadn’t done that in a long time.

a couple more streetcar pictures

walker evans subway portraits

My inspiration for making the street car pictures? Walker Evans, in Depression-era New York.

“With the subway portraits Evans turned away from the lucid, carefully composed images of architectural details, commercial signs and poor farmers that had characterized his work. On and off over the next three years (1939- 1942), he returned to the New York subways to photograph, using a miniature camera hidden inside his coat to record the people seated opposite him.

Evans makes no particular political argument through his subway pictures. Instead he presents a cross section of people, unposed and anonymous, forming what he called a lineup of faces. To achieve this, he gave up most of the creative controls that photography offers, limiting himself to deciding the precise moment at which to squeeze the shutter release hidden in his sleeve.

The resulting images have a naked directness, a quality accentuated by their casual framing. People appear off center, pushed to the edge of the photographs; many pictures are tilted slightly. The furtive nature of the photographs adds to their sense of authenticity, as does the fact that the people in them are so obviously and absolutely unposed. Evans catches his subjects in typical subway behavior, deep in daydreams, or asleep or gazing off into space. A few stare back at him, suggesting that even without a visible camera he was intently, even aggressively, observing his subjects. Most of the passengers are white and represent a range of social classes.

In choosing which riders to photograph, Evans was attracted not only to people with striking facial expressions but also to those dressed in unusual clothing. One image shows a young woman in a hat and collar made out of fake leopard skin sitting next to a friend wearing a hat trimmed with a less flashy fur. In another picture, a sad-faced man with a pencil-thin mustache and wire-rimmed glasses wears his bowler at a rakish tilt. Elsewhere, the newspapers people are reading and the advertising signs in the background add layers of commentary to the images.

The subway portraits express Evans's deep faith in the power of vision to reveal both the physical appearance and emotional texture of the world. In a text he wrote to accompany these photographs, Evans articulated this faith in looking.

‘Stare,’ he commanded. ‘It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.’”

New York Times article, 1991
Charles Hagen

portland people

I made some new pictures today, my last full day in Portland.

again

Here I am again with only the light of my computer. I am posting more of the images that were previously scattered on the cutting room floor. And I am thinking about the class I took in Uganda one and half years ago.

There has been a flurry of emails recently between the good people who were my fellow participants in the workshop that first took me to Uganda. The workshop was offered by the Maine Photographic Workshops; our teacher was Thatcher Cook. It turns out that while most of us thought we were in Uganda to simply expand our portfolios and to learn about working with NGOs, many of us have gone on to do work that is continuing to benefit the people we met and photographed in east Africa. Some are working in other parts of the world. Here are a few examples:

Tim has continued to help the family he documented in the very small, impoverished and AIDS devastated village of Buyingi. He is helping some of the children from that family buy books and attend secondary school, and he provided assistance when their home was destroyed by floodwaters late last year.

Diane “adopted” a young man from Kampala, who she continues to help support now that he is establishing his own organization to help get kids off the street. She is returning to Uganda this week to do more work with the group of child dancers she documented when we were in Kampala and to see what she can do to further assist her adopted “grandson” with his own altruistic efforts.

Thatcher is off somewhere in Asia making work for a book; he received a Fulbright to do so. Eileen left recently for Malawi, where she will spend nine weeks documenting health care there.

Brian never says no when I ask him to help me with design work for Change the Truth; several in the group have made contributions.

Little did any of us know where that workshop was going to take us. It was a very special group of people, and we grew close over the course of two weeks. As we each continue to work on our own projects and develop our passion for helping, we stay in touch, compare notes and offer encouragement to one another. I think that workshop changed a lot of lives. Sure, we all came home with new bodies of work, but it was so much more than that. Tim included this quote from one Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771 - 1845) in a recent missive: "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little."

At any rate, here are some more "new" old images.

revisiting and reconsidering

As my show comes down at the Leopold Gallery in Kansas City, I find myself here in a darkened room in Portland (it’s very late, and there aren’t any lights in this room yet, so, yes, it’s pitch black dark except for the glow of my computer screen) going through my master files of work from Uganda, 2007. I rediscovered this image. It’s one I’d worked on before, but unsuccessfully. Now I think it’s okay. So, I’m sharing. This image was made in the town of Gulu in northern Uganda.

view from above

I have always lived on the ground level.

Now we are on the 7th floor. I am looking down on people, trees, cars, awnings, umbrellas and dogs; I am looking across into my neighbor’s apartments or the reflections on their windows; I am looking up at the building that towers over me.

From my patio, I see: mountains, trains, bridges, a park, a tiny slice of the river, cranes, the streetcar and lots of people going about their daily routines. There is a great breeze up here.

Tonight it rained, and we didn’t mind a bit. We even sat on the patio to watch the storm develop and stayed for a while once the raindrops started to fall.










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things we have noticed on our first two days “living” in Portland

Very friendly people
When the sun is out, as it has been since we arrived, very happy people
When the sun is out, gorgeous views of the mountains
Costco has the same stuff as in Kansas City
More brewpubs than you can imagine
Not many blondes (Max, who lives in LA, noticed this)
Use of public transportation is the rule more than the exception
People are very fit
Lots of farmer’s markets and locally grown organic food
Zip cars all over town
Bicyclists rule
Dogs rule even more
Pottery Barn has the same stuff as in Kansas City
Green, very green… the landscape AND the attitudes
Lots of hybrid cars; most of them sporting Obama bumper stickers
Piercings and tattoos on very many of the very friendly people
Old hippies don’t die; they move to Portland
Powells Bookstore and Whole Foods each take up an entire city block
Colorful street people
Old record stores do live on
Wine, wine, and more wine - and that would be from nearby vineyards
The river rhymes with dammit
If you know the alphabet, you won’t get lost in our neighborhood
Bubblers!

i’d rather have a root canal

You may have trouble believing this, but I have a fear of flying. It started shortly after I became a mom for the first time, and I’ve since learned that the same was true for many of my friends. I think I came by it naturally, though. I flew one time with my grandmother when I was a teenager, and when I got off the plane there were fingernail indentations in my arm that remained in place for several hours.

To keep from being paralyzed by this malady, I have tried various combinations of the following: hypnosis, behavior modification classes, deep breathing, drugs, alcohol, prayer and meditation. Those who have had the questionable good fortune to fly with me over the years know that when the weather gets bad and the pilot comes on the loudspeaker to warn passengers about the big “t” I hunker down in my seat and quietly begin repeating certain key phrases that I hope will help guide us safely through the storm. Of course, there have been those occasions when a sudden, loud exclamation, one that startles travelers several rows in front of and behind me and which probably should not be repeated in the company of young children, does seem to help get me through the terror.

I have often traveled by car or train instead of putting myself (and others) through the anguish.

Fully one third of air travelers’ knuckles turn white once they lift off. Fear of flying ranks right up there with fear of public speaking, fear of spiders and fear of crossing bridges.

My brother-in-law was a pilot, and, of course, he loved to fly. Unfortunately, he ran into bad weather on his descent into Kelso, Washington one morning fourteen years ago and was not able to keep the plane from going down in an old growth forest, where both he and his passenger died. A few months before that, though, convinced that he could shake me of my fear, he took me up in small plane and handed the wheel over to me, carefully explaining as we soared above Seattle each strange noise and each unexpected lunge and shudder. It was kind of exhilarating, and it kind of scared the bejeezus out of me. I admired his skills and his enthusiasm for flight, though, and to this day I think of him when I am flying and how he would want me to be brave when the air gets choppy.

Our flight today was one that involved steering around lots of thunderstorms. This meant frequent announcements to the flight attendants to take their seats, which is always the cue for me to go immediately into firm-grip-on-the-armrest mode. Needless to say, I gratefully acknowledged the goddess of aeronautics as I finally staggered off the 737. With several new gray hairs, a still slightly queasy stomach, and a good-natured husband who now has a few marks of his own on his arm, Portland, here we are.

here and there

I know, I know, you are totally confused. Yes, you are still at the right place. I think I have settled on a blog design I like. I have even added a new element: some cool blogs to visit. (Lower left corner of the menu bar.)

This is a catch-all post. Various and sundry. Potpourri. Hit or miss. Take it or leave it.

Today began with the very exciting news that my nephew’s wife is pregnant. This means come December, I will be a great aunt. (I am still trying to process that little tidbit.)

News from Kajjansi is that the children are busy making more of the banana fiber dolls to send to me in a few weeks. If you were at the Friendraiser/Fundraiser, you know that the eight we had sold out in an instant. I’ll let you know when the new ones arrive.

My book, Convergence, still has a shelf life after all this time! I realized this recently when I was prowling around Powell’s bookstore in Portland and spotted a copy of it in the photo section. Then, yesterday, Photo Eye in Santa Fe ordered a few more copies, as they had sold out. Now, if I can just find that inventory of books in my basement! (Oh, right, I forgot, that would be the pile of boxes just about my height that has taken up permanent residency in one large corner lot of the garage.)

Good news from PBS. Apparently someone there who is working on a documentary wants to use some of my photographs in the piece. I am now in the process of learning about photo usage and rights and payment and all that sort of thing.

And last, but not least, the Nelson-Atkins Museum has purchased “Boy with Ball, Kajjansi, 2007” for its photography collection. As you may recall from a previous post, the curators paid me a studio visit a few weeks ago. Guess when they got together to discuss, this was the end result; I am extremely grateful and happy about the news!

My next post will be from the Rose City, also known at Stumptown, also known as the place of our recently purchased "second home."

2008 mission trip

I am all about cycles. For example, I love the way seasons trigger certain memories and serve as reminders to start something all over again.

Fall has always been my favorite season. As soon as Labor Day is over, my whole body starts gearing up for cooler weather. As a kid, early September always meant getting to experience “new book smell,” my birthday party, freshly laundered skirts and sweaters for school, sharpened pencils, the Jewish New Year and becoming a year older. Fall was always a chance to start fresh with new teachers, maybe even new friends, new classes, new clothes, new notebooks, new haircut and new commitments to what I would try to do right in the coming year. I could have been blindfolded and known it was autumn. I would have known, of course, because of the smells in the air, the crunch under my feet from acorns and pine cones and leaves, the cool edges of the evenings and the vague feeling somewhere inside me that had to do with getting older.

Summer had its own set of repetitions and rhythms. They dealt more with relaxing, reviewing. Lately for me, though, summer has come to signal the time to start getting ready for my trip to Uganda.

It is hard to believe that just as we tie up all the loose ends from our first big friendraiser/fundraiser, I need to start thinking about plane and hotel reservations for December. I have been busy discussing the thrust of the Team Two Mission Trip with the good folks at the orphanage, and several readers of this blog have expressed an interest in coming along. Now is the time to start planning the logistics of the journey.

*** If you or anyone you know is truly interested in getting more details about the upcoming trip, please email me with contact info. I plan on calling a meeting sometime in July so that we can all get together and discuss possible plans. I know I have mentioned the possibility of a medical mission. That is still on the table. We will definitely repeat our play/art therapy week, as that was so successful last year. Chances are the trip will take place over the course of three weeks, the first being the week before Christmas. Those who are interested in accompanying me could stay for a week or ten days during that time frame and then move on to other travels or return to the US. I plan on staying all three weeks.

When I was a young girl, summer always meant a new reading list. I loved filling in the lines with each new book I read, using my neatest handwriting. Lost in those books, I could go anywhere I wanted.

Who knew summer would ever trigger in me the longing to return to an off-the-beaten-path, dirt-poor orphanage in Kajjansi, Uganda? (Along with the knowledge that I really and truly get to go back!)

best friends forever

Those of you who have children know that one of the perks of being a parent is “bringing into your family” the friends of your kids.

I am always moved and inspired by loyal, long-term friendships. Our daughter, Abbie, and her best friend Sarah have been as loyal as they come. For just over twenty years now, they have been pretty much like sisters. Well, maybe not quite – I can’t recall any bickering, sniveling, teasing or fighting between these two.

For a long while during primary school they called themselves “Sarabs.” They did everything together. For some time they even dressed alike. Carpooling was a blast because they both love to sing, and anytime I drove them somewhere, they was no need to turn on the radio. These girls were always there for each other as they made their way through thirteen years at the same school. They did their homework together, they took dance classes together, they wrote and directed “plays” together. There were countless lemonade stands, swim meets and sleepovers. As they got older, there were softball games, art classes, concerts, vacations and dates to share. Even though they attended different colleges and now live in different cities, they are still BFF. Having Abbie home for a visit last week meant having Sarah back, too. Eddie and I have always considered her our other daughter.

It’s been such fun and such a privilege watching these two grow up and stay so close over all these years. Everyone should have at least one long lasting relationship like this one in his or her life.

new look

Yes, you are in the right place. Sometimes change is good.

Speaking of change, I have emerged from my surgery haze and am very happy to report that all went well. I am also happy to report that my encounter with DCIS is about to become history. "You'll be able to look back on all this one of these days, Gloria" my friends and family have said at one time or another during the past six months. Now I am starting to look back on it. Believe me when I say this is a better vantage point.

I am so ready to enter the next phase of my life: post breast cancer.

This email from a breast cancer survivor, one who went through pretty much the same drill I did, is a keeper:

"Dear Gloria,

Good luck with your surgery. I know you will do well. One more step toward putting this all behind you. I know that during all those surgeries and injections that I had, I felt like everybody had access to my boobs. There was me, and there was the boob. The last surgery (the second reconstruction) was in September of last year, and now I am back at the point where I feel like my body and the boob are one organism again and I have some privacy. People are talking to me without looking at my chest. A small thing, but somehow I think about this part of the process. And it sure is cooler without that prosthesis stuck to my chest."

Well said, I say.

Of course, I have been responsible for a lot of this "access" to my breasts because I have written about them on this blog. Plus, I was not opposed to wearing clothing that didn't hide the fact that I had a mastectomy followed by reconstruction. I even insisted that close friends "touch" the hard thing that was lodged in my chest. I use the word "touch" with a heavy dose of nostalgia. I can't feel a thing. One of those little secrets you kind of have to find out about on your own. There was no discussion in the doctor's office about how I would eventually be able to bump hard into a doorway and not even realize my right breast had veered into anything!

At any rate, time to move on. Eddie and I are heading out to Portland at week's end to close on a very lovely, very tiny condo. We made this purchase during the breast cancer phase of my life. Eddie had been ready for a couple of years to buy a second home. I dragged my feet. One morning shortly after my mastectomy, I announced to him that I was on board.

Health scares tend to make me want to live life at its fullest, right now, while I can.

So... changes and new looks and new perspectives and new chapters. All good.