April 13, 2022

 

The other night I was awarded third place in the 2022 Ocean City Arts Center’s Annual Juried Art Show for my photo, “Introspection”. I am thankful beyond words, and even days later, I am still moved to have received such an honor.

This isn’t the first time I have been juried into a show, or have placed in one. But each time it happens, it still feels the same as it did the first time. My excitement and appreciation have never felt less. I have never taken anything for granted, and I have always appreciated it when the art world has found artistic value in my work. Every time I am given an honor, I think of, and give appreciation to all of those who have supported me along the way.

One of those people is Jill Cucci. She is the one who started it all for me.

Since I can remember, I have always liked taking photographs, but I had never considered myself a “photographer” or an “artist”. Taking pictures was just for fun.  Although I sometimes thought that I created decent shots, I had never considered showing until I met Jill.

I met Jill though Quaker Meeting and began visiting the galleries and juried shows where she and other artists whom I knew displayed their works. Getting to know her, and seeing so much inspiring art had me beginning to wonder, “Was I good enough to give this a try?” “Could I do this?”  For a very long time, I kept these questions to myself.  

Jill, a rare creative who does encaustic abstracts and other forms of art, once owned her own gallery, The Barn. It actually was an old barn, and was located just steps from her house on a treed lot in Seaville. There, she created works of her own, taught classes to anyone and everyone who had an interest, and held art shows allowing all mediums. Jill loved art, but I think, she loved helping others even more.

I don’t remember exactly why I was at The Barn talking with Jill on a late summer day in 2015 – I think I was probably helping her with her chickens. I remember looking at all of her work hung on the walls, and the cups of brushes and paints on the tables that she used for her classes. There was an energy in that barn that I had never felt anywhere else, and out of nowhere, it pushed me to ask, “I am I good enough? Could I...?”

I heard “Yes! Yes, you are good enough, and yes, yes you can!”

“Go over the CVS and get some photos printed! Go to Michael's and buy a few cheap frames, and I’ll put them into the show I am having in September! Yes, you can do this!”

Jill made it so simple. So easy. There was no question or hesitation in her voice - only excitement. The energy I had felt in The Barn was beginning to flow into me.

The next day, I went to the CVS and made a few one dollar prints with the store’s photo scanner and then, a few days later, I drove up to Vineland to the Michael's store and bought two frames that were on sale. Being such a novice, I never gave any thought to mats. I don’t even think I knew what they were at the time.

By that weekend I had put everything together and two of my photographs were hung in The Barn.

Since then, I have been in a number of juried shows, as well as local galleries. I have placed in shows over the years and have made sales. More importantly though, by showing and competing, I’ve learned more about photography and art than I ever would have learned otherwise. I’ve also greatly improved my framing (and matting!) abilities, and I now have my photographs professionally printed. Through it all, I’ve grown and as a person. I’ve learned to be vulnerable and to accept failure as well as success, to stay true to my own intuition and not be any one other than myself. I’ve met some wonderful people. Some of those, like Renee Leopardi, Dan Myers, and Judy Maddox Saylor Allison have pushed, helped, and inspired me along the way.

But it all started with Jill. Every time I look at one of my pieces in a show, I can’t help but to think of her and thank her for telling me “I could”. I will never forget that she believed in me before I was ready to believe in myself!

I hope that everyone who has ever wondered if they “could” is as lucky as I was, and meets a Jill along the way.

 

February 6 , 2022

Way too often, I find myself struggling to be perfect, especially with my creative side, which is mostly writing and photography. This struggle causes me much self-criticism, frustration, and leaves me with too many unfinished pieces that I consider “not good enough”. There is some truth to the fact that not everything I create is going to turn out good enough – the unfocused shot, or the poem that goes nowhere. Yet…

A little more than a year ago, I read an article about the phrase “done is better than perfect” in which the author argued that we need to accept our flaws in order to accomplish anything of value.That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do our best and strive to get better at our craft, but that we need to step back and accept our present limitations as part of our creative and personal growth.

With this in mind, I challenged myself to write a haiku each day for the year 2021. I knew that I would not be able to produce a ‘perfect’ haiku every day and that I would need to accept the “not as good” ones just as I would the “good” ones.  For me, it would not be easy.  The shame of less than perfect has always been a self-set hurdle that I rarely clear – I knew that I would struggle to push it away, or to summon up the strength to leap over it.

It’s not that I wasn’t giving myself the chance for a great haiku - I had an entire day to perfect an idea, but as many creatives know, some days the inspiration just don’t come. Yet, perfect or not, good or bad, the point was to finish the day’s haiku.  I could always go back at another time and work on it again if I wanted to.

And that is what I did. I came up with 362 haiku in 365 days. I missed three days with no other excuse than on those days, there was nothing left for me to give - I had hit a wall, or more to the point, experienced creative exhaustion. I am not disappointed though - I still finished the year, even that was not perfect!

I learned a lot in the course of this personal challenge - mostly I learned about creativity and about myself.

-          - Inspiration can’t be forced. One can’t make a fire without a spark. I learned to have patience with myself and to trust that inspiration will come when its ready to present itself and I am ready to accept it. This waiting is an important part of the journey.

-          - No matter how flawed, every creation is special, just because it exists. Creating something where there once was nothing is a celebration in itself. Nothing is insignificant!

-          - Finished doesn’t always mean finished! Although I may have finished the haiku, I can always go back and rework it.  What is important is that I gave that day’s inspiration a root, and like a seedling, it now has the chance to grow.

-          - I felt a sense of accomplishment and confidence at the end of the day, and at the end of the year. It helped me to know that I could do this! To be honest, it wasn’t easy. Every day was as much of an opportunity to give up as it was to continue on.

-          -  Accepting imperfection in what I create, is also an act of accepting imperfection in myself.  Although I am flawed, I still have worth.

Like most things though, learning is just the start. Putting what I have learned in practice, and keeping it in practice, is the hard work. That is the real journey.

The following are a few of the haiku I wrote during my challenge. I have left them unedited – maybe imperfect, but still worthy, and deserving this space just the way they are.

 

new year’s day

sorting the pieces

of a new puzzle     

 

waking up

to the thought of you

moon light on the wall  

 

saturday morning

coffee and cold pizza

a poem’s last lines    

 

quarter moon

the stray cat comes a few

steps closer     

 

chewing cud

not all goats

do yoga   

 

the fallen tree

I am sitting where

I used to climb   

 

someone older

my reflection in a

storefront window 

 

December 2, 2021

Every fall our farm is a stopover for migrating birds, which includes different species of hawks. Surrounded by shedding trees, there are countless perches and plenty of places to blend in for these sharp-eyed predators to patiently wait for prey – field mice, rabbits, small song birds, and of course, our chickens.

The assault starts with the arrival of Sharp Shinned hawks that go after the opportunistic house sparrows that nest in the “hay barn”, and help themselves to the chicken’s feed in and around the coop. It is not uncommon to see 10-20 sparrows perched on the coop, a few at a time darting down to the ground for some scratch or crumbles. Caught up in their daily routine of theft and rest, they lose their awareness of what is waiting along the perimeter of their chosen space.

Sharp Shinneds are so very fast! It only takes a few seconds for one to launch from its hidden perch, accelerate, and fly a few hundred feet, coming in with the force of its own speed, grab an unwary sparrow, and be gone. Sharp Shinneds are unbelievably efficient. It uses no unnecessary movement, no wasted energy. What must be thousands of subtle movements appear as only one swift action, happening in a blink of an eye!

Luckily for our chickens, the Sharp Shinned is a bit too small to be much of a threat. I am sure though, that if hungry enough, a sharp shin might try going after one. Usually though, the chickens lose their fear of them. Sometimes a chicken will come out of hiding and defend their coop if the hawk comes bulleting in.

Even so, when we begin seeing the Sharp Shinned hawks, we stop letting the girls free range and keep them in their coop. Experience has taught us that the Sharp Shinned is just one of our farm’s visitors during the hawk migration, and that we need to be wary of any shadows and silhouettes that appear across the farm’s landscape. Soon, we will be under the watchful eyes of Red Tails, Red Shouldereds, Coopers, and possibly others. All it takes is a small mistake or an unguarded instant to lose one of the girls to one of these stealthy, talented hunters.

One of our chickens confronts a Sharp Shined hawk in the coop

 

 

A Coopers hawk surveying the field

 

A Red Shouldered hawk patiently waiting