It’s been a month now since we have been back in Toronto from our epic New Zealand road trip with children in tow. Camping and travelling in the camper van with a 6-month old and 8 year old we were told my many how brave we were. It didn’t feel brave to me – it felt nourishing, adventurous, a gift for our family to travel so closely together through such a beautiful country.
I love how travelling strips life down to the bare essentials of getting needs met and feeling inspired. After making sure we have food and shelter for our journey we fill in the rest with what gorgeous places are we going to visit.
We spent much more time moving on this trip than I had originally thought, because when you travel with a 6-month old baby you need to multiply all travel time by 2.5. A one-hour journey becomes 2.5 hours. Three hours becomes 7.5 as our absolute max for daily travel. So it took us a l-o-n-g time to get anywhere and we spent a lot of time in the car/camper van. We found our travel rhythm though and settled into it.
I was in the back with the baby supporting her in her napping and listening to Eckhart Tolle’s conversations with Oprah while she slept. Seeing the trees whipping by and catching glimpses of the ocean through the leaves was apt for the conversation about stillness and presence and feeling the essence of life in all things. Loved the discussion about allowing for space inside yourself for creativity; that inspired thoughts come from space and stillness and our awareness of thinking. Mmmm.
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“Stand still and let the forest find you. It knows where you are.”
– Elizabeth Lesser
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I love photography as an art form because it interprets and expresses real moments in the container of time with a palette of light and emotion. I see the photograph as an expression of presence. I’m interested in capturing energy and emotion when I make photographs as a way of honouring the deepest, most true part of people.
Upon returning, I was eager to get back to some creative projects and have a few on the go that you will hear more about soon. The first is a short film that I made with dancer Caroline Niklas Gordon about her piece called “On Getting Through”. We collaborated in examining the repetition and rhythms of daily routines and movements that form a practice of living that underlies our movement through time. Working with Caroline is always a big YES for me. We understand each other and amplify each other’s art with few words. Yummy. I was thrilled to find music that FITS perfectly and reached out to Snowblink to use one of their songs for the piece. So excited to share it with the world. Collaborating with other artists is one of my favourite things to do. There is a magic that happens when artists work together that connects me to the important threads of life that hold us together.
You can see the film and Caroline’s live dance performance on April 27 at Gallery 1313. Marianne Apostolides will also be doing a reading and Jamee Valin will be dancing as well. Tickets are available in advance by emailing carodance(Replace this parenthesis with the \'at\' sign)live.com
Words + Motion
April 27, 8pm
Gallery 1313
1313 Queen St. West
Tickets $15 at the door or by reservation: carodance(Replace this parenthesis with the \'at\' sign)live.com
Hope to see you there!
