water changes everything (auction)

Want to hang a nifty little piece of art on your wall, and support an excellent cause at the same time?

I'm offering a selection of my instagram prints, all printed at 4" x 4" on archival quality paper, to benefit:

http://www.charitywater.org/   
a non-profit organization on a mission 
to bring clean and safe drinking water 
to every person on the planet

As an attendee at the Camp Mighty retreat this fall, part of my responsibility is to raise money for this worthy cause, and you can help!

All you have to do is decide which photo strikes your fancy and leave a comment below with
1) the number/name of your favourite print and a bid of $10, and
2) an email address where I can reach you.

NOTE:  PLEASE DON'T DONATE UNTIL I CAN DIRECT YOU TO WHERE YOUR MONEY WILL COUNT TOWARD MY TOTAL. (the link in the next paragraph)

This auction is first come, first serve, so once supplies run out, the auction is over. This means that speed is a virtue so get your little fingers tippy-tapping in the comments.  When the auction is over I will confirm your winning bid via email, get your mailing address and send you your print once you have donated your $10 to charity: water.  You'll have to type "GIMME A PRINT MOSEY_KIM!" in the donation comments on their website so I can confirm your donation (and feel free to make a donation even if you don't want a print!).

As an added BONUS, the first TWO people to comment below with a bid of $25 will get their print in a small black frame as pictured here:
(two framed prints already called for.  but I'm open to making more available if there is demand!)

Ready?  Here are the images.  GO! (and thank you)


1                                                      2                                                    3

4                                                      5                                                    6

7                                                      8

1. coffee cup (quantity: 4)
2. cornwall (quantity: 2)
3. death valley (quantity: 4)
4. fishing boat (quantity: 2)
5. golden gate bridge (quantity: 4)
6. kentile floors, ny (quantity: 2)
7. mt. tam (quantity: 2)
8. sunflowers (quantity: 3)

colour

One of our favourite local events has always been the Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael. We've taken Sweetpea since she was a pre-schooler, and she always enjoys creating her own street art, The festival has been cancelled for the past two years, so we were delighted when enterprising planners managed to schedule an event this year. We braved the sweltering temperatures (which sent one artist to hospital) and took a friend who created her own art along with Sweetpea.

mushrooms à la crème

Food.
Photography.
Food and Photography.  Two of my favorite things.

Add music, collaboration with a like-minded someone who shares your vision and this is what you get.

Enjoy this little treat, a test case of sorts for a new venture with lovely Melissa of Reverie Daydream.



(Both Melissa and I are currently in construction on new sites - more on that soon!)

letting light in

inviting it

embracing it

sending it back out to those who need it more 

Charlotte Bacon, 6 Daniel Barden, 7 Rachel Davino, 29 Olivia Rose Engel, 6 Josephine Gay, 7 

Ana M Marquez-Greene, 6 Dylan Hockley, 6 Dawn Hocksprung, 47 Madeleine F Hsu, 6 

Catherine V Hubbard, 6 Chase Kowalski, 7 Jesse Lewis, 6 James Mattioli, 6 Grace McDonnell, 7 Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Emilie Parker, 6 Jack Pinto, 6 Noah Pozner, 6 Caroline Previdi, 6 Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6 Lauren Rousseau, 30 Mary Sherlach, 56 Victoria Soto, 27 Benjamin Wheeler, 6 Allison N Wyatt, 6

you will not be forgotten

nine

I'm not sure what you all do when you have a sick day, but this is what we do.

We read on the couch before breakfast. 

With hot chocolate, when it doesn't interfere with the patient's recovery. 

Breakfast is plain toast, which the patient would eat everyday if allowed. 

Then we pull out every single toy that hasn't been played with in months (sometimes years), 

spread them across the living room, 

and have an epic hours-long playtime encompassing characters and activities from endless literary and film sources. 

We return to the couch and fuzzy blanket occasionally for a short nap or a cuddle. 

We retire to our room to create handmade party invitations for one's upcoming birthday. 

We pull out old comic books from yours truly's stash from college and ask what the difference between hypothetically and literally is. 

Then we decide to finally recreate our favourite page from Calvin and Hobbes which we've been talking about doing for months and just never get around to.

My personal favourite is the top right corner.

Those photos above? Encompass only a tiny portion of the personality and person my Sweetpea is becoming.

Today she is nine. She is filled with curiousity, sass, crazy dance moves, deep compassion, a blithe avoidance of anything chore related, more math skills than I possessed in the whole of my school career, a desire to share every thought in her head with every person she encounters whether they are listening or not, a stick-with-it-ness that recently found her picking out the tune to Chariots of Fire on the piano without sheet music after only two months of lessons, optimistic assumptions that if she asks me questions about atoms she will get an answer (I pass these on to English hubby), and best of all - a willingness to love and accept love and feel every emotion to her core. 

I am her willing student.

Note from Sweetpea:  She gave her permission to share these photos as long as you know that's not what she really looks like and that it was a tribute to her current favourite character.
 

daring to create

Through my friend and phenomenally talented photog friend Leslie, I've been lucky to meet some other talented folks in the last year or two...  One of those people is Mati Rose, whose co-created online painting course I muddled my way through, whose paintings I admire, and who wrote a great book on the magic of finding your own path to painting (which, in a nice bit of synchronicity, was beautifully photographed by the aforementioned Leslie).  It's called "Daring Adventures in Paint".

If you like beautiful things, already paint or are working up the nerve to try it or get back to it after a long hiatus (that would be me), or are just in need of creative inspiration, I highly recommend it.  Here's a little video to give you a taste, edited by yours truly...

speechless

As any longtime reader of this blog can attest, I have not been using my words effectively for quite some time now.  The reasons for that are the subject of a different self-analytical post.  Sometime.

But it occurred to me this morning, as I was uploading a long overdue video, that my involvement as the co-director/producer of Listen to Your Mother San Francisco came at a good time, when I needed to place my personal focus on listening.

And I did listen.  For four months, I listened to amazing human beings tell their stories of motherhood through auditions, rehearsals, and finally the show itself on May 10.  I listened and analyzed and furrowed my brow but I didn't let the words truly soak in until a few days after the show when I watched some of the video of our event before sending it off to the editor who will post the stories on YouTube this summer.  As I watched, I finally allowed myself to hear the stories, not as a director or a producer, but as a mother, a friend, an audience member.  And my heart cracked open and I laughed and empathized and wept like someone does who really opens their heart and spirit to the stories that bind us together - whether or not we are mothers.

It's taken me almost a full month to process the Listen To Your Mother experience.   I went through the gamut of emotions - exhilaration, but also depression not only because it was over but because of the fear that I didn't do it justice, that I failed the people involved.  With a little distance, I can be gentler with myself and am filled with gratitude.

For Kirsten, who walked this journey with me, and whose proclamation of "Onward!" I still whisper to myself when I'm stuck in a procrastination rut.
For national director and inspiration Ann Imig, Stacey and Elise our mentors in Spokane, my English hubby who shot beautiful photos of the event, my sister who flew in to be with me just for this event and steadied my nerves.

For the cast's willingness to share their heartfelt stories, and for the audience who LISTENED.

Thank you.

My LTYM SF Show Recap
Kirsten's Thank You post

(this video is my personal thank you)

big sky country

(Partial re-post from a guest spot at Mortal Muses.)

When I moved to California from Toronto 16 years ago and met English hubby, we bonded over road trips in his old Bronco to the desert, the mountains and the Pacific Northwest forests and coasts. I was bowled over by the landscapes and fell in love with wide open spaces.  The drives to get to those places were always accompanied by mix-tapes on the car stereo - a soundtrack to the views passing by - most road trips included Big Sky Country by Chris Whitley.

It was Death Valley that stunned me into silence, however. When we first arrived after an almost half-day drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, it was already twilight and the stars were coming out. We set up camp and I think I barely spoke a word for the rest of the evening. I couldn't believe how silent it was and yet how the stars vibrated and sang.  It still defies description for me. We returned many times, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends and the magic never faded.

We recently made the trip again after many years, this time with Sweetpea. We silently hoped she would feel the same magic as we had, but braced ourselves for the fact that she might be bored and wonder why we'd dragged her all the way there.  My husband sometimes talks about how I go "feral" in the wilderness - going silent as the silence and space take over and letting my spirit become awestruck.  And although our trip was brief this time, we saw the same thing happen for Sweetpea.

At twilight we stopped by the side of the road and she took off like a bird into the dusk, stopping to collect rocks and sticks and build sculptures with no need of any interaction from us.

We woke up at dawn the next day at our favourite spot in Panamint Valley and stepped out to catch the sunrise. 

Sweetpea snuggles under my fleece for extra warmth.

re-staging a photo English hubby took of me in the same spot years before....

It was bone-chillingly cold so we didn't linger, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that there would be hot drinks and breakfast back at the motel and braved it as long as we could.

We were wary of trying to duplicate our past experiences and there were a few minor disappointments, mostly to do with our limited time and the need to make the trip fun for an eight year old. 

But those landscapes?  They don't change.  Still magic.

scrambled

The final scene in the film "Big Night" still resonates with me, years after seeing it.  The main characters, brothers, after a night prepping the most important meal of their lives in their small restaurant, quietly sit down in their empty kitchen at dawn while one of the brothers deftly prepares scrambled eggs.  They eat.

I remember little else from the film other than knowing that I enjoyed it.  English hubby and I occasionally make scrambled eggs for dinner when we're tired or the fridge is empty.  A glass of wine, simple food, and the stresses of the day fade.

Life is fast and furious right now, and I find myself desiring the simplicity of eggs on toast when little else feels simple.  It satisfies my moseying nature. 

just because...

...it's sometimes so fun to be the one with the camera (aimed at one's co-director) when one is escaping out the back window of a conference room during Listen To Your Mother auditions in search of coffee.

(For more fun details on our audition experience, visit the LTYM San Francisco blog)